In-game Moderation lacks Discipline

#0 - June 26, 2010, 12:10 a.m.

Blizzard, what happened to your strong arm? I think players are noticing how soft you are now, they totally disrespect you and are unafraid of your consequences. They know exactly what they can get away with now, because they have practiced it for so long. All I see when casually reading trade chat is racism, severe swearing, kids disrespecting adults, adults turning into trolls, harassment, insults, religion bashing, total disregard, total disrespect for YOU. I think the problem here isn't the individual players, it's you letting them get away with it. If you don't become more strict with reports then you are setting a bad example by not dishing out discipline. I mean, you can't seriously tell me that you are strict enough, I play this game everyday and I know what trade chat looks like. Not a game for kids, especially smart ones that know how to turn the profanity filter off. This is a game where no one sees our faces, you at least need a zero tolerance policy. I just want to see you in charge again, you have to let them know you're in charge. Tell your boss to grab in-game moderation by the horns.

And don't worry about being too harsh banning for little stuff, they'll come back. They'll come back on a new account if they like the game so much, and they will have learned their lesson.

Malkorix

#28 - June 26, 2010, 1:53 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Yeah that's another thing, it's not actually a report like it says it is. Misguiding. It's more of a "block spam" feature than a report, no one takes note of the "report." Am I wrong?

Actually, it does issue a report; but this report is only effective for reporting 'true' spam and advertising. It is not an effective method of reporting profanity or other inappropriate language though.

What the majority of the posters in this thread have stated is true though. Our staff are not 'patrolling' in-game channels, and despite how appealing that sounds, it would be neither effective nor practical for them to do so. That's part of the reason that we depend on player reports, and why your reports are important. When you witness vulgar, racist, or otherwise inappropriate language in-game, please report it via an in-game petition including the name and realm of the responsible player. We want to provide a top notch environment for our players, and there's no room for that kind of conduct in World of Warcraft.

For more information regarding how we deal with disciplinary actions, you can review our article here:

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20221

You also mentioned 'trolls'. While 'trolling' is indeed a violation of our forum code of conduct, there are no in-game policies which prevent trolling, though this assumes that some other form of inappropriate conduct isn't also present. Your best method of dealing with a player who appears to be 'trolling' is to use the /ignore feature, and encourage others to do the same.

I hope that has helped set your mind at ease a bit, since this is an extremely important issue to us, and one that we take quite seriously.

Malkorix

#32 - June 26, 2010, 2:25 a.m.

Q u o t e:
And the channels were monitored at the beginning and we did see a GM on occasions and that made a huge difference, since nobody ever knew if one was around or not.

I don't recall a time that our Game Masters ever actively patrolled channels in a consistent manner Makettle. Could you be thinking of a beta or alpha period?