The false bans are out of control

Feature Requests and Game feedback
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I’ve been banned 4 times in my GoW experience, 3 of which were false and every one of then happened within the same 3 months of each other because the people falsely ban people and get away with it and it’s getting out of control.

The first time I was banned was for singing twinkle twinkle little star, which for those who didn’t know, twink in censored in global, but only in America for some reason, so I said about a dozen censored words in the chat and someone reported me and I got banned. This is how I realized that the report system was run by bots and not looked at manually by humans. singing twinkle twinkle little star was clearly an innocent thing and if looked at by a human i would not have been banned for.

The second ban I got just 9 hours after the first one, it was for using an alt to continue to start trouble. At the time I didn’t have any alts whatsoever, so I got banned because some idiot thought I had an alt and reported it as if it was me, and I was furious because my ban was now 10 days long instead of 2 and I hadn’t done anything wrong. I later made a ban appeal and about a week later Kafka emailed me and did appeal my ban because there was no evidence to prove that I did anything wrong she said in the email, which just proves that none of this would have happened if the report system was manually looked at in the first place or at least had competent bots to run it.

My 3rd ban was a genuine ban and I did learn my lesson, I’m not trying to hide that, I did deserve a ban that time, so I won’t go into detail.

However, my 4th ban really ticked me off the edge and is why I’m writing this forums post to begin with, I was just sitting on the main kingdom screen in a party chat (I’m on ps4) and all of a sudden I get disconnected from chat. This happened quite often so I just tried to reconnect and it said that I was banned for being… hmm… “homophobic?!” I have not said anything like this in the sort. The thing is though, the only time I had been in chat all day was to trade honors, twice. I’ve really been watching my mouth after my 3rd actually genuine ban and tried my hardest not to be a ‘bad person’ even in the eyes of even the most sensitive people and here I am just getting randomly banned for no reason. I closed the application thinking it was a glitch and I was still banned, this irritated me.

After all this I can indefinitely say that the report system is run by bots who don’t don’t any fact checking and that I can just report anyone and get them banned for no reason. The bots that run reports need to be overlooked and fixed so problems like this don’t happen again, or even just make the reports be looked at manually because humans are by far the best at determining if something is malicious or innocent or just plain false.

Has anyone else had problems with false bans like this? Do you agree with me that they need to fix this false ban problem? please @Saltypatra and @Kafka push this forward to the developers so I and everyone else doesn’t get falsely banned again. This is really starting to irritate me and I’ve been in global since 2016 when I started and it’s always been one of my favorite parts of the game and I really don’t want to be pushed away from it.

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Mistakens happen.

But you are making a case that it REALLY seems like it wasn’t a mistake to ban you.

Why keep the suspense? I’m sure there are some juicy details about that… The thing is, even in the first two occasions I think you deserved the ban to learn a lesson. You can’t keeping spouting censored words and expect any bot to not start counting the number of “infractions” and issue a ban. The second ban for using an alt to keep doing it? Well deserved as well.

Of all the flaws the devs and community managers in this game can have, subjective or not, using a system of bots to oversee the chats IN NOT among such. It’s just the first layer of security to detect the people mostly prone to break the rules and raise some red flags and alarms. The automatic bans are great, I hope they also keep a register of all infractions that will pile up more severe punishments.

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In the first one, yes, I get were you are coming from, But I had no idea that twinkle was banned because it is not s word that I’ve really ever heard anyone say, I think they should make come words not censored if it is paired next to other letters like “twink” with “le” to the right of it would be okay to say because twinkle is a harmless word and shouldn’t be censored. Heck, even saying one of their own troops, cockatrice is censored, and for good reason, it has “cock” in it. but paired with “atrice” it should make it uncensored.

In the second one, you only quoted the part of the paragraph that made it sound bad. directly after that I explained into more detail what I meant, I haven’t had an alt at all at that time, so this was clearly a false report. Why do I deserve to be banned for using an alt when I don’t even have an alt in the first place?

And in the 3rd one, why would I explain why I got banned in the 3rd one if it doesn’t contribute to what I have to say and the points I’m trying to make? I said what I had too “I learned my lesson and I was banned for a genuine reason” that is all I had to say to make my point. Yes, the automatic bans can be helpful, but they have caused more harm than good because they ban the wrong people 50% of the time, or in my case, 75%. I do like them, but they need to be reworked so that people such as myself aren’t constantly being falsely banned.

The point I even made was that I wasn’t doing anything for the 4th ban as well, I hadn’t been in chat all day and at the time I was just sitting on the main kingdom menu. Did I deserve that ban too? I don’t think so, why was I banned falsely?

Then the fact that Kafka herself said that there wasn’t even enough proof to say that those were legitimate bans in the first place just proves my point that I was falsely banned. So if you read the whole paragraph instead of just half of the first sentence then you would see that I explained that I was in fact falsely banned.

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You understand this is entirely in the realm of: “I have to belief you are telling the truth.” right?

We can’t even gauge if you weren’t singing that song to not annoy someone… But fine, let’s consider only the fourth case which seems to be the real deal.

If the bots/system keeps a register of infractions to determine when you must be banned, it’s possible to “game” it so people can harass others by falsely reporting them. Why they would do that is something for everyone to guess.

Maybe you were in a discussion, civil or barely civil within the rules and you upset someone. Then, said someone called his friends to mass report you and get you banned. I honestly can see it happening with all the cancel culture we have nowadays even inside these forums…

This thread can work for the sake of a discussion to how to improve the vigilance in the chat, but to appeal to your ban I believe only Kafka and Support can work that out.

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Yeah, I made a ban appeal on “submit a ticket” website and Kafka is going to get back to me in about a week or so. The ban that I have currently says 0 seconds, so I think this is a perma-ban. If that is the case then i should be able to get it appealed, because Kafka has been understanding in the past.

And yes, I was telling the truth, I only had this 1 account since 2016, then I saw it was on mobile so I made a PC/Mobile alt about 2 weeks after the second ban was appealed, but even then, this wasn’t a ps4 alt.

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From what I can see, it is a perma-ban, Sphyndel. I’m pretty sure you were reported by another one of those trolls in global. I’ve had a few friends who had the same problem, they were banned for absolutely random reasons, as soon as they even said “Hi” they got another ban within the next hour.
But from the looks of it, you could just as easily get another appeal within the next few days. Good Luck :slight_smile:

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Something worrisome on your fourth ban is how you were accused of being homophobic when you weren’t (according to your version).

I would like to know from @Kafka or @Saltypatra if such reports of hate speech are, or if they could be, only made so they are reviewed by people. Maybe if they have a special coding to show at least part of the log historic of the messages before and after the reported sentence. Something like:
[Log History of Global Chat Channel X. Time A:B:C. On Y/Z/W]
Message -5
Message -4
Message -3
Message -2
Message -1
Message 0 (The one reported)
Message 1
Message 2
Message 3
Message 4
Message 5
[End of the Log History of Global Chat Channel X Time A:B:C on Y/Z/W]
[Player Reporting] = ________________

At least for the serious stuff like hate speech.

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Yeah exactly, or at least tell you specifically what you said to get banned or at least something to help you learn what you did wrong. Mr. extreme and SNOOP LOPEZ (other ps4 players) got perma-banned after their 21 day ban, my last ban was 21 days long (The one were I did actually deserve it) and now this ban says 0 seconds, so I’m 99% certain that it is a perma-ban. If so then I hope Kafka will actually look into it because we’ve had an email exchange in the past where she straight up told me that my first 2 bans had no proof that I did what I was reported for. The support team is actually pretty caring so hopefully I can get this all sorted out. Let’s just say that even if I do get appealed, I’m not going into chat very often anymore lol

Yeah, that’s a good idea, it wouldn’t give the team so much work that it is overwhelming, but would dramatically decrease the amount of false bans

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Just wanted to offer a suggestion:

If you’re ever accused of saying or doing something homophobic, claiming you have a gay friend is almost surely not the defense you want to use. It’s up there with saying “I can’t be racist, I have black friends” or anything along those lines. Not only is it realllly cringe to hear as someone who is lgbt but it just doesn’t absolve you of anything either. There are plenty of gay people who internalize homophobia for all sorts of reasons. There’s tons of people of all colors who say and do racist things, intentional or otherwise. Having friends, family, or even a partner who is ‘x’ is not some automatic immunity against being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

In the case of your fourth ban, the relevant and defensible information is that you only spoke minimally in chat to trade honor. I have no idea how ban appeals are resolved in this game but I’d imagine that’s something Kakfa or whoever can verify via chat logs. If you were just being griefed at that point I hope they overturn it for ya!

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Tip #1: avoid global chat
Tip #2: when tempted to visit global chat, see #1.

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Tip #3: if you do go in global chat, don’t repeatedly type words that are filtered or try to bypass the filter by spelling them differently :wink:

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Please be aware that it can take us time to get to our player reports, as they come after things like account recoveries and purchase issues in terms of priority.

It is likely that you were banned for something that happened over the last week or two, and not over the last 24 hours. Please keep this in mind.

We don’t ban lightly, and we always review the conversation surrounding the reported phrases or words.

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I do like this response, but these two statements do seem to contradict one another, and it would be awesome get some more engagement on that:

I don’t have too much experience with this or too much skin in the game, aside from occasionally wanting to check in to global chat and not have a terrible time (I usually just get a little bored), but it would be nice to know that it’s a fair and functional system.

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We discussed this in global earlier today, where you made the exact same complaints. As I told you then, it is blatantly obvious that you have learned nothing from your bans, because your behavior at that time was almost certain to get you banned again. No sympathy here.

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Funny you mentioned this, because I typed the same in my guild chat a couple of weeks ago and it got censored. I got a few of my guild mates to try too, and same thing. I had no idea this was rude, and would feel extremely aggrieved if I got banned for this.

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Here’s what I think happened. It’s just an opinion.

First off, if all or even a double-digit percentage of bans were frivolous we’d hear more about them. Instead we usually see one post per month and the OP usually weaves a tale with lots of places that feel embellished. If they manage to push the staff to reveal more details it’s 99% embarrassing for OP.

Your story is not sending all of those vibes, but your attitude is matching the 50% probability flag: you’re really upset about a minor thing that most people don’t seem to stumble into, and you’re convinced that there is a larger conspiracy targeting many players based on one thing that has happened to you.

The first ban I find marginally understandable because even if it was a joke it’s spammy AF and I’d be happy to see someone banned for typing an entire song into global.

The second ban you had confirmed as a mistake by staff so doesn’t count.

The third ban you admitted you strongly deserved, and you know it paints you so badly you decided not to elucidate. I’m a cynic and that makes me believe you did something so petty and stupid you think if you detailed it in this thread nobody would take you seriously.

Before we move to the fourth, here’s my hypothesis: this ban was so popular with support it made a name for you as a troublemaker and they noted your account as having multiple bans and one very negative outburst. This is a bad position to be in for you. Once you have a reputation as a troublemaker it’s easier to get into trouble. Nice people have a little bit of social credit. It’s not fair, but it’s how human nature works and part of socializing is learning these rules.

The fourth ban, tied to Salty’s choice to mention temporal separation between offense and ban, leads me to believe you said something homophobic some time within the recent past, someone reported it, and support just got around to that particular report. I find this especially likely because your third ban is so mysteriously bad you can’t tell us what you did, even though you claim you grew past it. Personally I think you’re still in the “denial” phase.

As corroborating evidence: people in this thread I trust are detailing that you’re also loudly complaining and arguing about this in global. This makes me believe even more you’re not super clear on the connection between “I do things that upset people in global” and “I get banned”.

Were I in your shoes, I’d disappear from global for a while. People have short memories. I’d use that time to reflect on what I said to people and decide if it was really worth it. It’s usually not.

To answer your initial question: no, it’s not the general consensus that any proportion of bans are unjust. We do know sometimes mistakes are made, but we don’t see many of them because they often don’t involve people who make a page-long post making accusations of widespread injustice when it happens.

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And I even asked you, what did I sound like to you? I was merely explaining what happening and trying to get people’s opinions about the matter, you were the only one there how took offense to this. What, to you personally, did it sound like I was trying to say?

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An over 31 drunken party chat channel where the Net Nannies are sleeping? Awesome idea.

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Your first point is pretty fair, my reasoning for saying that was because if it happened to me then it COULD happen to other people and I don’t want that to happen

To the comment on my third ban, the reason I didn’t explain what it was for was because it didn’t contribute to the story in any matter. I only told what was necessary for the story to continue, but if you really are curious about my third ban; I had met a good friend in global and we had like a 3 hour conversation that got progressively for crude, at one point we were talking about how she would date Hercules if he was made from 100% pure ass, me and her both got banned. follow up information though, she was banned for 2 days while I was banned for 21, I don’t know if this was because more people reported me than her, or if it was because it was technically my third ban. Even if it was my third ban the first 2 were said to have gotten rid of, which is another point that aggravates me; Why if a ban is appealed does it not get taken away from the game that you’ve been banned causing THIS to happen? I admit I was in the wrong and I deserved the ban, I didn’t appeal it and to be honest, I wasn’t angry at it, I was more confused the my ban was 19 days longer.

And yeah, that’s what I think I’m going to be doing, the next time i type something in global is probably going to be next year. The thing is though about that last part, I’ve actively talked in global since Dec 2016, I once took an 8 month break from the game entirely and over a dozen people remembered me still lol

To the last part, yeah i get it, I think the main reason I made this forums post in the first place was because it was 1am at the time, I was tired, and this was my 3rd ban that I felt to be false, I was just irritated, you know? :confused:

But i appreciate that you actually gave me constructive feedback, thanks :slight_smile:

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To be clear, how many people report you is completely irrelevant and many bans are made because the chatrooms are monitored throughout the day by staff.

Every chat ban is manually made by a staff member, the only auto chat bans we have are for spam, particularly spamming swear words.

When someone is reported, everything that was said around that time is read so other people who are part of the conversation who broke chat rules but weren’t reported are regularly banned.

Reports are also regularly rejected, you don’t get banned because you were reported, you get banned because you broke the chat rules.

I think I’ve reversed one chat ban in the past year as I didn’t agree with it, so incorrectly placed bans are incredibly rare when you take into account the amount of chat moderation we do every single day.

I’ll reply to your ban appeal next week to explain exactly why you were banned. Ban appeal tickets are answered last so as not to get in the way of us helping players with genuine issues.

To confirm, a ban expiration time of 0s is a permanent chat ban.
Previous ban history is taken into consideration when deciding lengths of bans.

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