Invalid characters - Blue Tracker

#0 - Aug. 19, 2009, 8:57 p.m.

I remember there was a time a while back where names with invalid characters (such as Ã£Ã–ÃªÃ¯Ãº, etc.) were not allowed. I reported such a name recently only to find that the policy on this has changed - invalid characters are now allowed.

I have a real problem with this. The majority of people who have invalid character in their names I don't mind - if someone wants to run around as ScÃ£bbers, I don't care. But more and more recently I am seeing people using character names with invalid characters as a way to get around the reporting system.

Tonight, for example, my fiance was invited to a chat channel with a name I won't repeat here - only to say that the channel name was comprised of a racial slur against African Americans and a word for male genitalia. When you're invited to a chat channel, the name of the person who invited you is not shift-clickable for easy reporting. The character's name contained an invalid character, and so he was unable to send in a report.

Please, either make it so that you can't make names with invalid characters, or make it so that every time someone contacts you, whether it's a whisper, public channel, private channel invite, group invite, or guild invite, make it so that we can shift-click the person's name to report them!

Orlyia

#2 - Aug. 19, 2009, 9:11 a.m.

Q u o t e:
I remember there was a time a while back where names with invalid characters (such as Ã£Ã–ÃªÃ¯Ãº, etc.) were not allowed. I reported such a name recently only to find that the policy on this has changed - invalid characters are now allowed.

I have a real problem with this. The majority of people who have invalid character in their names I don't mind - if someone wants to run around as ScÃ£bbers, I don't care. But more and more recently I am seeing people using character names with invalid characters as a way to get around the reporting system.

Tonight, for example, my fiance was invited to a chat channel with a name I won't repeat here - only to say that the channel name was comprised of a racial slur against African Americans and a word for male genitalia. When you're invited to a chat channel, the name of the person who invited you is not shift-clickable for easy reporting. The character's name contained an invalid character, and so he was unable to send in a report.

Please, either make it so that you can't make names with invalid characters, or make it so that every time someone contacts you, whether it's a whisper, public channel, private channel invite, group invite, or guild invite, make it so that we can shift-click the person's name to report them!

Those can be quite challenging, Atanea - but are no longer (at least at present) against our naming policy.

That has actually changed more than once :)

If you ever need to report a name like this - say the second A in your name was a High ASCII character (what these are) you could report it as "At_nea with a funny A in the space".

That is usually more than enough for us to find them :)

I personally recommend folks avoid those characters simply due to the fact communication is a HUGE part of an MMO and they do make it far more difficult for others to message, mail or even invite them to a group, but they are legal at present.

Orlyia

#6 - Aug. 19, 2009, 9:20 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Thanks for the fast response. Currently there's a guy with the name "Fat<n-word>" with a "Ã" where the i in n-word should be spamming everyone in Elwynn Forest on Moon Guard with these channel invites.

And hey, Jasmine. I understand it may be helpful for you, but when people can abuse the system to make everyone else's time in WoW suck, I say it's something that either needs a fix (like allowing you to always shift-click a players name) or needs to be removed from the game entirely. Just my two cents.

That is a perfect way to describe the name in a petition, Atanea. If you report them very close to the infraction, makes it even easier for a Game Master to find the offense.