The false bans are out of control

Feature Requests and Game feedback
7

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.

8

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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9

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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10

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

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11

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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12

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.

13

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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14

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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15

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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16

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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17

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?

18

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

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19

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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20

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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21

Yeah this is dangerous stuff I can relate to. When it’s a bad idea for me to post tends to be:

  • Super early in the morning
  • Super late at night
  • Drunk
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22

I didn’t take offense at what you were saying. As I stated before, it was your behavior that was going to get you in trouble, not whether I took offense at it. You were complaining that all chat bans were done by bots, that no one ever actually looked at the chat logs, because if they did you would never have been banned. Then you made some egregious comments about “special snowflakes who get their feelings hurt.” Don’t bother trying to argue about the quote marks, because that’s exactly what you said.

I tried to educate you on what the issue was. You didn’t want to hear it, you just wanted to complain and spout conspiracy theories. My prior comment stands. No sympathy here. You earned it.

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23

@Sphyndel If you got a perma ban on chat and your game returns, just play the game buddy. Global chat isn’t necessarily for chatting for long hours. It isn’t even designed for that purpose. People there usually share team codes, trade honors, etc which are a part of the gameplay. And global chat doesn’t display a long string of chats, so any kind of unrelated spam irritates the users of the said chat. Even a bunch of “Good morning” messages can irritate other users. So I suggest you to stick with other socializing channels like reddit, fb, or discord for socializing purposes.

Please know that I am not here to blame you as I don’t even know you. My suggestion to you still stands. Happy gemming.

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24

Alright, thanks for the clarification :slight_smile:

25

No, you never tried to explain anything, all you said is that I sounded like a jerk. I had asked you what I said in that moment and you ignored me, twice. And no, I said “It’s kind of sad how the world is run my snowflakes, in my opinion not EVERYTHING should be about feeling”

What I have learned though is the obviously different communities have different limits of how far you can joke, the GoW community isn’t very far, so I’m just going to try my hardest to not go into global very often anymore.

Although, you did answer me here, so there is always the chance that you simply didn’t see me in chat twice, in that chase, thank you for answering now :slight_smile:

26

@jpraveensn Yeah, I was planning to do that if I get appealed, I’m pretty much only going to be in chat to trade/giveaway honors. I’ve made a lot of friends since I began but I’m just going to PM them from now on for a conversation. Happy gemming to you too :slight_smile:

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