Legion Beta Key Giveaway - Week 5: Warcraft GO

New Silence Penalty Coming to World of Warcraft
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
World of Warcraft offers many opportunities to engage with other players in a variety of ways and to help support positive experiences in these engagements we wanted to inform you of a new silence penalty we will be implementing with the pre-expansion patch for Legion. Depending on the type of report, players who are found to be abusive in chat or engage in inappropriate chat behaviors may be silenced from engaging in certain ways within the game.

The Silence Penalty
Following the Legion pre-expansion, any player who is reported multiple times under the Spam or Abusive Chat categories will, after investigation, receive an account-wide silence penalty. While this penalty is active, the silenced player will find that their ability to chat with others is greatly limited.

Silenced Players Are Unable to:
  • Talk in Instance Chat (Raid, Party, and Battlegrounds)
  • Talk in global channels that are auto joined (such as General or Trade)
  • Create Calendar Invites/Events
  • Send in-game mail
  • Send Party Invitations
  • Send War Game Invitations
  • Send Invitations to Duel
  • Update a Premade Group Listing
  • Create a New List for a Premade Group

Silenced Players Are Able to:
  • Whisper to friends (both WoW friends and Battle.net Friends)
  • Reply to Whispers from Non-friends
  • Party/Raid Chat (with Invited Players)
  • Create Parties and Raids
  • Talk in Global Channels that have a moderator
  • Share Quests
  • Sign up for a pre-made group

The first time a player is silenced, their chat will be restricted for 24 hours. This duration will double for each silence penalty received after the first, and there is no maximum. This means that players who receive multiple silence penalties may find themselves unable to chat for a very, very long time.

Silenced players will be receiving a notification when attempting to send a message to a channel in which they have been restricted.

By using the in-game report tool to identify players who may be engaging in inappropriate interactions within the various channels, you’ll be helping create the type of community we all want to take part in.
This article was originally published in forum thread: New Silence Penalty Coming to World of Warcraft started by chaud View original post
Comments 672 Comments
  1. Eleccybubb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    Will the debuff applied to these players be called Tyrande's Silence?
    HA!

    /10 char
  1. xskarma's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paula Deen View Post
    Are you high? I just did. A troll can have a group mass report something they cannot appeal due to the rising ticket timers.
    You could reasonably think that a person who's silenced will not make any further reports come in and that with the scum being filtered out that the number of reports will slowly go DOWN not up.

    It will take a few days/weeks of more dilligence to stay on top of the reports, but eventually as you filter out the people that were causing most of the reports you should be able to spend the same amount of time or less and get through the reports that are made.
  1. mmoc64a56cce3c's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paula Deen View Post
    Got a response from a GM on what abusive is:

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Things that break our code of conduct and are reported.

    Like cursing.
    Spamming.
    Harassment.

    This isn't just an automated system, our Game Masters will review under the same rules they always have.
    So basically anything that was reportable/suspendable before is now Silenceable.
    Cursing... Isn't that what the mature language filter is for? Very vague reason. I assume it means slurs and insults.
  1. jibberbox85's Avatar
    Also something to keep in mind. What would stop a guild leader from going to his/her guild, and asking his guild to report some X guild member who he/she doesn't like (Vendetta). (Also, keep in mind that this guild leader is very popular in his/her guild and loved by his/her guild mates)

    Now, this is just an example, and not saying this would always happen, but it's still a legit concern when considering this method.
  1. Reapocalypse's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paula Deen View Post
    Also, I feel like I should ask, what exactly is the definition of abusive chat? No Support Article even mentions the word in that instance and the specific blog post about it today doesn't either.

    What is abusive chat?

    Is it me calling someone a racist name?
    Is it me telling someone they are playing there class wrong?
    Is it me making a joke in LFG?
    It it me making a joke in Trade?
    Is it all of the above?

    What is Abusive Chat?
    Thats another major problem with it, if it would say "spam" and "insults" then it would be much clearer, but "abusive"? Hurting someones feelings? Its just such a broad wording that any GM could do what they want to do and justify it with these rules, someone said he does not like this Specc? Well, i love it and him saying this hurts my feelings, for this he should be punished.
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    Will the debuff applied to these players be called Tyrande's Silence?
    ...if not, it damned well SHOULD be! XD
  1. Drungan's Avatar
    First off .. i like this a lot ...... but there need some kind of *ruleset* esp. for trade what is spam ? someone trying to sell x items every 2 mins ? .. every 5 or 10 ?
  1. schwarzkopf's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paula Deen View Post
    So basically anything that was reportable/suspendable before is now Silenceable.
    As long as they take into account regional differences for 'cursing' ... then there shouldn't be a problem.
  1. Zephirdd's Avatar
    dont trade chat have an innate anti-spam already for that?
  1. TheDeeGee's Avatar
    As long as this can't be abused i'm happy with this feature.
  1. Soulwind's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by jibberbox85 View Post
    Also something to keep in mind. What would stop a guild leader from going to his guild, and asking his guild to report some X guild member who he/she doesn't like (Vendetta). (Also, keep in mind that this guild leader is very popular in his/her guild and loved by his/her guild mates)

    Now, this is just an example, and not saying this would always happen, but it's still a legit concern when considering this method.
    What stops them from doing that now?

    If most players don't have a problem with the current report tool, they won't have a problem when the few false reports that do get through end up in a 24h silence instead of a 72h ban.
  1. smokii's Avatar
    this is actually pretty damn awesome.

    unfortunately, a bit late for me, as i've not played in a year. but yay for community control over douchebags
  1. mmoc64a56cce3c's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by jibberbox85 View Post
    Also something to keep in mind. What would stop a guild leader from going to his guild, and asking his guild to report some X guild member who he/she doesn't like (Vendetta). (Also, keep in mind that this guild leader is very popular in his/her guild and loved by his/her guild mates)

    Now, this is just an example, and not saying this would always happen, but it's still a legit concern when considering this method.
    It is intended to be reviewed by a human before being passed. Whether the method you described would work will depend on if the ban is instant upon receiving X number of reports, or if the reports simply bump it to the top of the human reviewer's priority list.

    If there is no automated ban in place at all then this method would be entirely ineffectual.
  1. mmoc925aeb179c's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sin Cara View Post
    Psychological studies show that a potentially lengthy penalty is more effective than a ban.
    Banning them from the game is more effective for the community.
  1. ravenmoon's Avatar
    Silence !!!

    They didn't need a whole caffufle, my priest could have done that.

    Sounds like a punishment from mum.
  1. Sforza's Avatar
    A larger and account-wide ignore list would have done the trick. This is the equivalent to wow safe spaces and will get people silenced over anything out of other people's whims.
    Good thing is it will come around and bite blizzard's ass in terms of subscription drop.
  1. DeltrusDisc's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    Will the debuff applied to these players be called Tyrande's Silence?
    hahahaha that's sad but clever. XD

    Also, Blizzard is SOPAing all over us! BUT MUH FREEDUMBS OF SPEECHES
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zephirdd View Post
    1. yes
    2. depends on the tone you are using with the person
    3/4. Depends on the nature of the joke.

    it all comes down to "just don't be an ass". Saying "you all fucking suck" is bad. "kill yourself faggot" is bad. "wow learn to play u shitty hunter" is bad. "Look into some guides, you're playing bad" is fine. Racist jokes might be debatable and a grey area, but you can simply not do that. "Anal [Shadow Infusion]" is IMO fine, but might be debatable; it would probably be fine. Unlike "Why don't you [Feign Death] but do it for real" which would be bad(inciting suicide). "Buy character boost for 100USD" would be really bad too.

    There's very very little grey area for "abuse". Don't be an ass and you'll be fine, really.
    Exactly. It's pretty clear from all the concerns in this thread, that a lot of people don't quite understand what's acceptable or not... Telling a stranger in a group that he's "Shit and a moron!!!" because he's really playing badly, does not equal constructive criticism and feedback. Telling a stranger "What you are doing isn't optimal/correct, if you do it this way you'll get better results!" however, is. And if the stranger gets salty and reports you over that, you won't be in danger.
  1. Tonkaden's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Hjalmtyr View Post
    Cursing... Isn't that what the mature language filter is for? Very vague reason. I assume it means slurs and insults.
    Just because there is a language filter doesn't mean you can toss out any and every 4 letter word in chat. Damn, hell, ass are normally acceptable. Anything other than that and you are crossing the line. Thats been the way in most games.
  1. Maudib's Avatar
    Ni Hao! Ni Hao!

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