I was tired and posted recruitment message in the wrong chat, someone reported me and I got a 30 day chat ban, a warning should be in place when I believe that 30 day ban is a bit too hard punishment because of a mistake? Don’t ask for my ban to be removed, but would like to see a warning system that at least gave you a chance to correct your mistake, I hope this will change later. I got no warning, nor did I find out what the ban was meant for, just a link to a page with the game’s chat rules, then I think that SG should contact and ask what happened, i know this is a lot of work for SG, but have seen that some players have teamed up and reported players even tho they have done nothing wrong, and as the system is built now, you do not have a chance to explain or correct your misstake, have been playing for soon 2 years and never got a ban before…
Bummer. I was chat banned once for recruiting also, for a week. A handful of us started a new alliance so I recruited all day to get the alliance filled. Next day I logged in and saw I was banned. Recruiting is hard enough without having to worry about being banned for it.
Same as me, im the only one recruiting for the alliance im in, and its though when its soon more alliances then players…
My English is not the first language.
I have a ban on chat, I wrote to Sg and I found out that they are not fallible and they are always right.
They gave me the logs for which I got the ban
- placing ads
-exchange of views
The sentence is normal, without attacking 2 people, without ridicule, no discretion, etc. normal conversation.
I spent a lot of money playing, I have many friends and I can not write, many people have 2 accounts to play and write, I will not write anymore because they threatened to block my account.
I have not bought any offer since then. If someone tells me that he will block my account, I do not see the point of spending money, because my approach may destroy all my dedication and my money
I keep seeing people complaining about being chat banned for minor infractions. I’ve seen people have their account banned for repeated chat “violations”. Is a minor spamming of chat really ban worthy?? I think that the developers need to clearly state in the banner of each chat room what is and isn’t acceptable. If recruiting is no longer allowed in a room where it’s been the norm for 2+ years, then put it in the banner announcement. If you want to change a behavior, communication is key. Banning someone for chat violations, outside of abusive or profane behavior, seems excessive and unnecessary.
I also think that the developers should investigate those who repeatedly report people for minor infractions instead using the block feature. The report feature has become the tool of bullies for personal vendettas rather than being used as intended. Without proper vetting of the complaints and communication to the players, you are enabling the bullies to use this feature for their twisted pleasure. Using the report feature repeatedly should also be ban worthy.
As a community, we need to do better. Block someone if they annoy you. Unless someone is being abusive or profane, the report feature should not be your first option. Good people have quit this game because they have been targeted and repeatedly reported. Developers, please regulate the report feature for the benefit of the community and remove it from the hands of the bullies.
Totally agree with you, @Datootfary. It also irritates me to no end that people get chat banned for cursing yet Player names contain curse words and banned words. Just look at one of the top players from Grimforest’s name. Clever, but chat banned in original form.
The reporting just because you don’t like someone, too, is a serious problem.
Honestly, I think the reporting system, the way the community uses it, and the way SG staff responds to reports combine badly. Here’s how I see it:
- People hit report based on their mood/feelings/attitude/personal policy, and some of them will hit report any time somebody annoys them for any reason. My guess is that most players use report in a sane and reasonable way if they use it at all, but <1% of the players who are highly active reporters contribute 40~90% of the reports.
- SG staff seems to pretty much give anybody a short ban when a small-ish number of reports are made about a player. Reports that are obviously bogus could well be discarded…but if one or two are at least half-valid, there will be a ban
Net result … anybody who is anywhere vaguely close to the edge of recruiting / spamming policies, or anybody who just ■■■■■■ off the wrong report-happy people in chat gets banned, and we seem to see this happen way more often than we see players who cause true problems in chat getting banned, 'tho that might just not be visable.
I totally agree,
I was banned for 30 days a few days ago.
I never cursed or use vulgar language. I always say hi and talk to most of the chatters.
Ask around, they know me.
Ok, i posted some ads regularly, but almost everyone does that.
But when there are people who make a sport from it to report people, that’s not a nice thing to do.
Just block the people, and you won’t see them in chat.
I filled in a request at SG to investigate the matter because i had the feeling that someone is deliberatly reporting just for the fun of it. But the response was something like “someone reported you and we investigated it and came to the conclusing that iposted ads which floods global chat and that’s not allowed.” Case closed. (Did they really investigate?)
And then again, “floods” is a bit exaggerated.
Thx for posting this @Datootfary and maybe SG will consider to make it so that those ridiculous chat bans can’t occur anymore.
Because after that 30 days ban, i’m gonna walk on eggs when i start recruiting again in AR.
Kind Regards
The initial post was not regarding individual bans (which SG does not discuss).
I am monitoriting this thread; please keep to topic as I would really like to see the positive suggestions I know the community can provide on this important topic.
If it descends into individual cases, I will have to close the thread.
Yes let’s talk about the problem and suggestions to correct it. I want this to be a constructive discussion.
Hi, rook. I think no one is trying to have anything be personal here, but just giving examples of their experiences. I don’t have any personal problems using chat, but I have some friends who have. One of which said they were banned permanently because it was their second infraction… The first infraction, according to SG, took place over a year before that player started playing the game.
Between that player’s experience and traggeter’s, it seems the investigation process might need to be looked into.
Many of the people I know that have been banned from chat are very helpful and friendly people. I love being able to talk to them, even though we’re not in the same alliance. So it affects the whole community, not just those being banned.
I think something similar to what Facebook has in place would work well. There are a set list of options for why you are reporting (e.g. Profanity, racism, flaming, etc). Then SG would know what to look for when investigating. If none of that appears and it turns out to be spamming, then perhaps SG could block the player in question on the reporting person’s behalf.
Sorry about that @Rook,
Won’t happen again. Did’t know we where not allowed to post individual cases. Please remove it at your own leisure.
Kind Regards
Forum Rules #14 states:
I know not everyone has had a chance to read the rules, but it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with them: 
https://forum.smallgiantgames.com/t/forum-rules-please-read/
If you ban people for posting ads in a recruit chat room, you should ban ppl for carrying on irrelevant conversations in those rooms as well. I don’t post ads or chat in those rooms but on occasion I read them and it is mostly irrelevant conversations that can flood that room which then leads to more ad spamming.
I seems unlikely but it would nice to have a list of alliances in various power ranges where you could click on the range of power/titan level you want and read static ads that could be updated as needed.
@Rook, @Kerridoc, can we have a (minor) exception to that rule, or more leniency than usual for this thread–just to allow a few examples that illustrate what people are asking for or concerned about, as a way to support general discussion of the overall issues and positive suggestions on how to improve it?
People who “hang out” in AR just to chat are a huge problem. It’s a room for recruiting. There are several other rooms for chatting. If you aren’t recruiting you shouldn’t be in AR. It’s not a social room, it’s the only place thousands of alliances have to recruit members. Recruiting shouldn’t be viewed as an interruption of someone’s personal conversation. Take it elsewhere. Also the “role playing” in general chat and elsewhere has no business in any game chat room.
I agree, General chat is more suitable for that.
Talking about money, If a player who invested a lot of money and get banned from the game.
Do they get a refund for the money they spended?
I believe the answer to that question is in the Terms of Service:
http://info.smallgiantgames.com/terms-of-service/
Back to topic…
Patient Zero or Victim Jane Doe
Why do you have to?
It is classic textbook authorship to file off the serial number.
“User B was 30 day banned for a minor infraction!”
Who wants to clean up after a party?
As a chat moderator on Book of Heroes, in my experience the situation with User B comes from a long moderation history on the account. Staff want to bend over backwards to NOT ban you.
It is easier to have false positives with a lenient ban policy than to try and tune the algorithm to only catch abusers. But this often leans to users taking the leniency for granted and slowly building up a huge history of infractions until the infractions show they need to chill out and hand the recruiting position over to someone with less infractions on their history.
We can not have nice things
This is also why most modern MMOs make name changes so difficult. Consistent names is on of the main ways to combat public perception that an innocent was wronged wronged when in reality an account with 256 infractions just changed their name to Tiny Tim and has “absolutely no idea why their account is hammered with a 12 month ban for accidentally posting two adverts too close together.”
Because. Humans.
No one response positively to a ban and most trolls have a large gang of friends, sometimes trolls, sometimes not trolls, sometimes a mix of both, who are not afraid to make their displeasure known.
This is especially common with alliance adverts because people hate being the guild recruiter but many trolls enjoy combining their hobby with “work” for their alliance.
This is especially common with popular personalities because people love to listen to a cool person, but the cool person often is more concerned with the chat conversation than the rules. And are often rewarded by their audience for skirting the edge of the rules.
Additionally every user who views the current Kerfuffle does not have access to 2 years of moderation history for the account so believes the person.
Bans are never the first thought in Staff’s head. Okay I lie. Bans are always the very first thought when a jerk starts picking on one of my friends and fellow moderators. But our fifth or sixth thoughts are “do they have enough rope to hang themselves in their moderation history, or do they get a slap on the wrist THIS time”.
But for actually honest to goodness newbies, my first thought is “Sigh. Time to explain the rules for the gazillionth time”.
Everyone wants people to feel free to chat and ask questions and get help and give help and be a vibrant chat community. It is why bored trolls are such a bane. Bored chat moderator baiting trolls are just the worst.
Hidden warnings hidden moderation history
One of the first things a newbie chat mod runs into is the friend who wants a screen shot of their chat moderation history.
It is nature to be curious about how things work.
But trolls, and bored users, will often set up a game involving their moderation history. So most modern MMOs do not display moderation actions in public channels, do not allow users to view their own moderation history and kick any moderator who flagrantly abuses their status to send moderation history screen shots to other users.