SO how come harassment is tolerated in wow?

I apologize for an incoming wall of text, but I hope you guys stick with me on this. It seems like there is very little knowledge about what our Game Masters do out there, and I'd like to rectify that lack of information as best I can.

Many of these points have also been circularly discussed in this thread, so understand that I'm simply quoting some of the first examples of the same questions that may be asked again later.

12/25/2010 2:01 PMPosted by Kaellus

blizz your game masters of zuluhead need to be fired because they dont do thier jobs.

Game Masters do not operate per server, Kaellus. All our Game Masters work across *all* servers, excluding only those that they personally have characters on. We have over 240 active World of Warcraft servers for the North American region alone. If you were to take each and every employee here at Blizzard Entertainment, including our executives, designers, quality assurance folk, HR employees, etc. and add them to our Customer Service department, it would still be inefficient for us to monitor each and every channel of each and every realm 24/7/265 (which are the hours our Game Masters operate).

As such, we rely on player reports to be able to investigate and appropriately action these situations. To put it simply, if a particularly foul player persists on your realm, it is because no one chooses to report them to us. Also keep in mind that we do try to educate players first - to let them know we don't tolerate that type of behavior. If a warning or a short term suspension does not cause them to abstain from this type of behavior, then the next time they are found in violation, they will receive a heftier penalty or an account closure.

You can see more on how our Account Penalty system works here:

Account Penalties
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20221

12/25/2010 2:01 PMPosted by Kaellus

besides the ignore doesnt stop a person from making an alt to keep dropping racial slurs again.

No - but it does give you grounds to report a player for what we refer to as ongoing harassment, which is a much bigger offense and carries a weightier penalty.

If you'd like to know more about what kind of violations receive what type of penalty, there's a good guide to that here:

Harassment Policy
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20226

12/25/2010 2:06 PMPosted by Panzerkin

Now, either GMs were in this guy's back pocket or they just didn't care about all the harrassment and other major rule breakers.

I wouldn't be able to comment on the situation, Panzerkin, even if you provided me the appropriate information to look up exactly what transpired, as any penalties that occurred are a private matter between us and the offender who received them. But the only reason that a situation as severe as handing out real life information would not be handled would be if it were not reported. The odds of a player shouting "REPORTED!" but doing nothing is much higher than you might think.

As for getting his account back after having been hacked - would you not want us to do the same for you? Would you want us to punish you for not securing your account, rather than assist you where we are able to so that you may return to the world of Azeroth? Going through the stress of being compromised and being terrified of your security breach is punishment enough. While penalties on an account are taken into consideration when we provide restorations, we do try to help all players when we are provided the chance. It is up to the player to maintain that right to restoration, and if they lose it, then we may not be able to assist.

12/25/2010 2:07 PMPosted by Azphel

People who are banned won't pay $15 a month to keep being banned.

If you are insinuating that we avoid banning people because we are greedy, that's not how it works. If you want to take this from a business standpoint, we'd much rather keep the 15 people who don't like one inappropriate player's commentary than worry about what a single individual pays to play. There is much more merit in maintaining the business of good players than those who are not. We'd like to educate some of those bad players to be good players, but if that cannot be done, then they will lose their privileges.

12/25/2010 2:35 PMPosted by Kreylan

I've taken steps to make all the right agencies are aware that Blizzard CONDONES the racism, foul language, and general rude/mean comments. I'll be laughing when their ESRB rating is REQUIRED to change as their greedy, fat salaries SHRINK as the player base drops at a staggering rate over the next 2 years.

If so, you have taken steps to spread flagrant untruths about our company. We care about our players and their in-game experience. That is why we have an entire department dedicated to In-Game Support. That is why there is an entire building of Game Master and Billing representatives out in Austin, Texas. That's why we have yet another building in Irvine, California that does the same thing. You guys need that support, and we're here to provide it.

But that does not change the basic bottom line that if you don't tell our Game Masters that there is an issue, we won't know we need to assist with it.

Things are going to change in a big way for this company. They'll delete this thread to hide the issue, and will pull their typical cowardly ban. It'll be my 4th Ban for speaking my mind and EXPOSING the truth.

No, this will be your 4th suspension for your inability to abide by our Forum Code of Conduct. You're welcome to speak your mind, and we encourage constructive criticism. That constructive part is quite critical, and if you are unable to follow the rules we set forth for discussion, then you will not be able to continue enjoying the privilege to post.

Forum Code of Conduct
http://forums.battle.net/forum-coc.html?sid=3000

12/25/2010 3:00 PMPosted by Täu

You could ask the same question for everything that goes on in WoW

Why is religion bashing allowed?

why is making fun of serious diseases like aids,Hiv and autism allowed?

All you listed are violations of our policies - if you check out the Harassment Policy I linked above, you'll find they fit under a category that will render an account penalty.

12/25/2010 3:43 PMPosted by Lilíth

I am saying it should go Warning -> 3 hr suspension -> 24 hr suspension -> 48 suspension -> 72 hr suspension final warning -> Account disabled

As Pahanda stated, this is roughly how our policy operates. Some get there quicker, some slower. Anyone who doesn't learn their lesson will eventually be unable to play.