Posting my original response in this thread: Chat ban in the game- More warning, More transparency, More leniency - #63 by The_Mad_Banana
As someone who runs a training alliance, i find that new players end up in GC rather than AR. Heck, I remember being amazed that there WAS a PS or AR! New players so rarely end up in AR that if I tried to find new players who were asking basic questions like “how do I rearrange my team and “what does ‘hero chest’ ‘mean,” I would still be waiting to fill my training alliance. The language on the “invite only” leads new players to say “send me an invite,” so it’s terribly confusing.
If SG had a “new player” chat where training alliances or alliances looking to start new players could post ads, that would help. I like the idea of ads being static for a set time.
But as someone who has moderated three international message boards, I’ve dealt with reports about people that were ridiculous, valid, or somewhere between the two. Personality conflicts, perceived “rules,” language filter infractions, etc. it takes time to investigate. So setting clear rules for people is very important. If players can try to hookup in GC, role play, flirt endlessly, type “help” over and over and over again in messages, the chat room has lost its purpose.
For AR: perhaps making several broad categories like training alliance, minimum cup level, minimum TP level, competitive, casual and having static ads available would be helpful. Maybe designate a category within an alliance as recruiter and only that member can post an ad.
SG could even make a special building or spot on the map or Sharehold where players could click and it would take them to a new area where they could select a Chinese menu of alliance characteristics they were looking for. Likewise, an alliance that was looking would be able to choose features from the same menu. If a player and an alliance’s choices match, the player is shown the alliance (or alliances) static ad and can then send a request to join. It might be nice to add a feature here where a brief chat interaction between player and alliance may take place to avoid a mismatch. This would remove ads altogether from the main chat rooms, cut down on blocking and reporting, and eliminate some chat bans for spamming.
For GC: a rules blurb that appears and requires acknowledgement when entering would be good. People can’t then say “I didn’t know…”. Report feature could include screenshot of reported post. That would be easier to investigate. Some coding could also be done to show number of reports by a particular person over X months and # of times that person has reported the SAME person in that time frame. This could alert SG to potential bullying.
Having several room moderators would be useful as well to actively stop things before they got out of hand. SG could limit the report feature to moderators only. It would drastically cut down on the number of “spite” reports and bullying that gets people chat banned.
While SG cannot deal with outside issues from its app, these issues from chat apps or Facebook (or other social media) where disagreements occur DO have a real effect on IN GAME chat reporting. Cyberbullying is real and SG needs to be aware of that. So having the means to track who is constantly reporting whom should help to flag unwarranted reporting and help eliminate unwarranted chat bans.
My opinion. My two cents.