Curtailing bad behavior

12/05/2012 05:14 PMPosted by Hothlo

What is Blizzard doing to curtail bad behavior in their playerbase?

Harassment is a serious issue, and we've dedicated significant resources toward dealing with it. In fact, we have a large support team, and we've (comparatively) recently implemented faster tools to deal with harassment.

If you're experiencing harassment in-game, there are a few steps to take.

• Don't respond, or get involved in an argument. Stooping to using language that violates our policies simply opens yourself up to suspension, and doesn't accomplish anything. Seriously, don't do it.
• Use right-click Report on their name next to any lines of text that contain offensive language--the appropriate category should be Language.
• Use /ignore to close the lines of communication.
• If your harasser by-passes the /ignore feature and contacts you on an alternate character, immediately place that character on ignore, then open a support ticket to report Ongoing Harassment, and include that phrase, as well as the offending player's name, realm, the exact phrase that they used to harass you and that they by-passed the /ignore feature to do so. Please be detailed, our Support team works hard, but they aren't wizards. Mostly.

On the forums, just mouse-over the offending post, then click the 'downvote' hand, then select the 'Report' option.

You won't receive notification when another player receives any kind of disciplinary action due to our privacy policies, but rest assured that we like to make sure that everyone is on the same page regarding what constitutes acceptable conduct in-game.

12/05/2012 05:47 PMPosted by Pangur

Also, as harsh as this is going to sound, some people need to buck up and get some thick skin. Yes, there is racism. Yes, there is sexism. That doesn't make it okay, but those jokes have been around since cavemen and will probably be around until we discover an alien species to hate more than ourselves... and the sexism will probably stay even then. Point being, it's there. Either deal with it, learn to laugh at the harmlessness of most of it, or just start using your /ignore list.

I must strongly disagree with this sentiment. Just letting it slide simply allows the in-game environment to become more toxic. We've provided the tools to allow each realm population to help shape its environment. It's important to use them, and use them consistently.

12/05/2012 06:07 PMPosted by Delanei

Sometimes the word harrassment is too strong though.

Perhaps. In this case it's just a convenient way to refer to a specific mode of behavior. Vrakthris from the Customer Support forum was kind enough to provide me with a couple of links containing useful guidelines:

Harassment overview: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/200469

Reporting: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/200773

12/05/2012 06:27 PMPosted by Varun

Banning players for bad game design doesn't sound very friendly.

Keep in mind that some of these categories offer more leeway for discretion than others do. Whether something constitutes zone or area disruption is often a judgment call, and we tend to treat those situations carefully.

As to bad design? That's an inaccurate turn of phrase to use in this situation. Simply because someone takes something possible in-game to a dire extreme doesn't suggest that the design itself is somehow at fault. Constraints on player behavior can only be so restrictive before they become smothering.