You cannot simply ignore a problem and hope it goes away.
The chat ban system is too easy to abuse and has entirely too many false positives to be allowed to continue as it is. It needs to be changed, eliminated, or to have an employee throw the chat ban switch.
I understand and accept that moderators are just going to sweep this into a closed thread and silence what I have said by "editing the content". It still must be said and we cannot shut up about it so long as this griefer tool remains in place.
Try to understand. You're asking them to do their jobs. What did you expect?
Sad thing is, that's partially true. It's a crappy system. On many levels. At the very least, incomplete. It's the strongest supporting piece of evidence for arguments against introducing vote-kicks or other vote-mechanisms in game. The problem is, there's no proper appeals system. Mainly (I think) cause all the GMs are in one timezone, trying to deal in eight hours with the tickets sent in across twenty-four. Worse still right after the weekend. So in a strange way, they may even be trying to be egalitarian about the whole thing by ignoring the tickets, as "it's only 24 hours" and they can really only help a quarter to half the people this happens to, within any reasonable timeframe, as there's no one to answer the others that happen while they're asleep. (Any coffee breaks that might be extended as a result of such a policy would just be a happy accident, of course.)
The system really should have someone on at every hour, and record A) what messages of yours have been flagged as spam (shown to the player by some means) and who all flagged these messages (the flagged players needs not see this, but the GM must). There where the flagged player is shown what he's done wrong, there should be an instant appeal button. No text field required. It should be marked as urgent, so pushed to the top of the stack, and they shouldn't take a GM more than a passing glance to determine whether or not there's profanity, highly confrontational language, EC-seller spam or rather than one fleet recruitment message flagged five or ten times by different people, a large number of identical recruitment messages flagged by different people across a fairly short time.
Add a button to Overturn Channel-ban or Reject Appeal, and you're basically done.
I think we can safely assume that any player who's shown a message of his own full of swearing, an overzealous recruiter shown five of his own standard recruitment message timestamped with barely two minutes between the first and the last, or any gold-seller who's more inclined to just create a new character or account anyway, aren't going to bother with the appeal process, so it shouldn't actually swamp the GMs with appeals...
And if by any chance the problem is as institutional as it's sometimes protrayed to be, and it does happen at such alarming frequency that it'd keep GMs or a GM from any other work, we may just need to think about sanctions for abusing the system. I think a minimum of a taste of their own medicine, and an infraction, might be in order.
Lastly, I don't know what was in there... I can't imagine what might have been in four consequetive posts in that last thread that could've warranted this kind of white-walling... But because I can't imagine, cause there's not a single clue, and considering the nature of the thread, it looks extremely bad for Cryptic.
I logged into Tribble today for the test weekend. In the TTS channel I typed:
"any devs on?"
Shortly after someone said I had just missed them. I responded (or try to):
"I wanted to comment about the boff rarity display. guess I'll make a forum post"
But I never saw that message. I pressed up-arrow to send it again but again it didn't display. I was queued for an STF which started, so I forgot about it for awhile.
After I got out of the STF I tried to comment that I'd received no dilithium despite finishing the STF and the optional, only to see the message in the system tab that I had been silenced.
The very worst part is your only recourse is to file a GM ticket which isn't even looked at until the ban is lifted. So since you can't communicate, it's basically a (usually wrong) 24 hour vacation from STO. The GM closes your ticket and moves on.
There are good reasons for the system to exist, as gold spammers are still in STO in this day and age. But the bottom line is it doesn't work well. It won't silence people who are spamming Zone with incessant posts of equipment but it will silence those who are just chatting normally.
Fix the system before you impose it on us, please. Mods if you're going to close it fine, but please make sure Brandon and the GM team sees this thread and commits to having it addressed.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
Well all things are actualy investigated. It is just more often that once the ban is over, there is nothing to be done any how. Plus, spam bans are automatic... they acure if you get more than a few spam reports.
Well all things are actualy investigated. It is just more often that once the ban is over, there is nothing to be done any how. Plus, spam bans are automatic... they acure if you get more than a few spam reports.
It's a fundamentally unfair system. If you're going to make a system that's easy to exploit, you should make it easy to contest the exploits as well.
The ban shouldn't be automatic. If there's game moderators active, then make them do their job and verify that the people being complained against are actually doing something wrong.
It should go like this:
1.) Player says something really really stupid and inappropriate
2.) Other players flag it as spam
3.) Lines flagged as spam are thrown into a temporary log file for the user being accused
4.) Spam log is "scored" based on number of lines, commonality of lines, and number of complaints made
5.) If the score gets high enough, a game moderator is alerted and shown the log file
6.) Game moderator decides whether a temporary ban is appropriate, or merely clears the log.
So my thread gets merged again, but at least this time the thread isn't closed. Let's hope that's not an oversight.
I know the community moderators are conveniently isolated from game operations. But if you're not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Burying these posts is just contributing to inaction.
So my thread gets merged again, but at least this time the thread isn't closed. Let's hope that's not an oversight.
I know the community moderators are conveniently isolated from game operations. But if you're not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Burying these posts is just contributing to inaction.
Please stop being part of the problem.
-Forjo
if the GM/moderators dealt with this issue with the same vigor that they use to merge threads, there would be no issue...
In all simplicity, the best way to deal with this is to NOT make silences count toward a mute...make only "report player to GM" count. People silence others that can't agree of Picard is better than Kirk ffs! How fair is that?
I've only just found this thread, and from what I can tell, Cryptic has given muting powers to the masses.
I'm sorry, but are you freaking insane?! Your willing to allow any random person to mute anybody they like and effectively silence them from the entire game? Who designed this policy, because they are clearly unfit for their job.
There is no need for such a system, and don't pull the goldseller angle on me. You seen ESD lately? No goldsellers, none, not a singular one to be seen. Your implementing a ridiculous system to fix a problem that is non-existant.
Ignore has worked fine for years in any MMO under the sun, past or present. This system is just a massive griefer tool, and nothing more. You watch Dark Knight Rises? Because your pulling a Bane here, your giving the detonator to an ordinary citizen, and this citizen wants to catch as many people in the blast as possible.
Picard's censorship rant is incredibly apt here, as people WILL use this to censor any dissenting opinions on absolutely anything, even something as trivial as boxers vs briefs. Some people won't even need that incentive, they'll just censor people for the fun of it.
Hell, can you imagine what this would to to RPers? There are entire fleets of people who want to wage a nonsensical war against RP in all its forms, and we use Local all the time, you would essentially kill RP in one fell swoop with this flawed, short-sighted and ridiculous system.
I may be just a normal subscriber (your LTS Vet Reward fiasco has proven I'm bottom of the rung in your eyes), but if Cryptic has any common sense left in them, they will remove this system immediately and without hesitation.
As further incentive, let me share with you a quote from Benjamin Franklin that I like to use a lot in such situations. He said "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." This seems an incredibly apt quote, as you are sacrificing the freedom of your subscriber base to talk in local or zone normally without fear of reproach for security against a non-issue.
Krovennan Darksabre: Commanding officer of the U.S.S. Blacksabre-E NX-973484-E
I earned my Vet rewards with commitment, not cash.
To make matters worse, I log in today to check the exchange and every master key that I had listed except for two small stacks are GONE! My balance is higher than it was yesterday but I also know these listings were old and have no way to verify that some didn't expire. I have no new e-mails saying that items sold or expired. I'm afraid I may have lost some keys.
It is incredibly wrong that this could happen to some one after only 3 messages in the TTS (Tribble Test Server) global channel that were innocuous to say the least. I remembered yesterday that I tried to respond to another message -- someone asked if anyone had tried Starbase 234. I responded (or tried to) "is that the one where you have to attack the starbase?". I don't know if that message actually went through. I was probably silenced by then.
The ban is up in 7 hours. I'll be very surprised if my e-mails show up. Somehow I doubt that expired exchange e-mails to a silenced user was ever tested.
This is beyond customer neglect -- it's bordering on customer abuse.
I used to hate the silencing system, until I saw my first Tribble Movie Name Game in Sector chat.
There are systems already in place for that, they are called Ignore and, should the first not be viable, turning off Zone in your channel options. Your saying we should allow griefing to run wild because your tired of dumb people in Zone? How selfish and narrow-minded can you be?
Krovennan Darksabre: Commanding officer of the U.S.S. Blacksabre-E NX-973484-E
I earned my Vet rewards with commitment, not cash.
So the ban is lifted, and yes, I have lost any e-mails regarding my exchange activities. I have to assume if anyone tried to send me e-mail during the ban that it has also been lost.
I also received the generic responses from the ticketing system. They close with:
"Thank you for your patience and understanding with this."
THIS IS INSULTING. IT'S ABUSIVE. AND I WANT IT CHANGED.
After reading all the posts so far I have to say that this is an issue that, needs to be looked at. It's worth remembering that people will find a way to abuse something to cause grief to others, no matter what it is....there are people who are that small minded and petty. If it gets fixed one way, rest assured that the abusers will find yet another way to harass people. This always happens when you have lack of oversight, or lack of enforcement of given policies.
I think though, that the tool is useful, but it really needs to be changed in how the chat muting works, given the reports here of it being abused.
Some excellent suggestions have been made.
Shorter bans, with an escalation system that increases the length of subsequent bans within a certain time period...similar to how the respawn timer works in STFs.
Players should NEVER be banned from fleet chat, nor banned from team chat. Though the ignore function should still work for team chat, as people can be pretty abusive in teams.
Players should never be restricted from receiving mail, just from sending it to players who have put them on ignore. System messages, such as the exchange should never be blocked due to a chat ban...I don't know if this is the case, but someone reported they had exchange returns blocked and subsequently lost (This instance should be looked at and the items returned if it is as it was reported.)
A better system to appeal chat bans...though shorter ones might make this unnecessary.
Raising the threshold of reports needed to instigate the ban/muting function. This would still put the person on one's ignore list, but make it a little more difficult to get someone banned.
The tool has been very useful in keeping the flood of gold sellers at bay. It just needs some tuning to make the current abuse that has been reported a bit more difficult.
Bear in mind that the public chat channels are there for everyone, and some topics should be taken to private channels. I really do think that the policies really need to be rigorously enforced. People do not need to carry on gornfests, tribblefests, political or religious rants, name calling, my country is better or your country sux foolishness, in zone or local chat. If you want to discuss such things, make a dedicated channel, and take it there and invite like minded individuals. People who have legitimate questions or players who need help, should not have to wade through pages of either silliness, or vitriol to find the response.
Some people need to also realize that incendiary or spiteful comments are never helpful, and will undermine their position. If a person gets banned for something that is malicious or spiteful, then perhaps that individual just needs to take a step back anyway and come back later, less bloody minded.
Remember that no system is perfect, and that problems will always arise no matter what you do.
Also, one person's opinion will not close a thread because they say so......unless they are a moderator.:P
Definitely a lot of good ideas here -- whether it be an increasing timespan for the ban that starts at a lower limit (maybe 4 hours?), to not preventing players from mail, tells with friends, or fleet chat.
Yesterday a lifetime subscriber in my fleet got silenced for 24 hours and I strongly suspect it was from a malicious group. He had only said two non-controversial lines in the channel doffjobs for the 90 minutes prior to it. As you can imagine, having a group of players silence someone who has not only done nothing wrong but put in hundreds of dollars into STO he was not a happy camper.
if the GM/moderators dealt with this issue with the same vigor that they use to merge threads, there would be no issue...
You mistake me for someone who has any power over people actually playing the game.
My sphere of limited authority is confined to the forums, same as the other Community Moderators. They don't pay me enough to be an in-game moderator... seeing as how I'm an unpaid volunteer in the first place.
I've never once interacted directly with a GM in-game and I have no clue what they do, how many of them there are, etc.
In all simplicity, the best way to deal with this is to NOT make silences count toward a mute...make only "report player to GM" count. People silence others that can't agree of Picard is better than Kirk ffs! How fair is that?
I agree... reporting people for "spam" is way too subjective for it to be fair, if it's something a computer does automatically with no human input and no opportunity to appeal.
If the intention is simply to allow the Community to self-police and throttle true spamming, then I think the 24 hour mute is too long. 2-4 hours at a time would be more than sufficient, IMO. Still abusable, but not nearly as serious.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Mods if you're going to close it fine, but please make sure Brandon and the GM team sees this thread and commits to having it addressed.
We aren't supposed to close threads except for two reasons:
1. Too many posters in the thread are violating forum rules (or the thread itself violates forum rules).
2. The thread is a Necro and went 30 days or more without a response.
So in that regard, at least, no problem. Honest feedback that says "We hate this Chat-Silencing System" belongs here and I wouldn't expect that a Forum Mod will have to close the thread unless it turns into a Troll/Flame-fest.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
There are systems already in place for that, they are called Ignore and, should the first not be viable, turning off Zone in your channel options. Your saying we should allow griefing to run wild because your tired of dumb people in Zone? How selfish and narrow-minded can you be?
My understanding was that /ignore itself contributed to the silencing effect - at least, that's how it seems to work in CO. I'm quite happy to simply /ignore people... but I'll readily admit that learning that particular side-effect of /ignore didn't keep me from using it.
As for turning off Zone chat, selfishness, and narrow-mindedness, what would you say about people who effectively make Zone chat useless to anyone by constantly spamming Tribble titles, just for shizzles? Zone chat is a resource for all players, and Tribble games effectively block that resource. It's no more excusable than spawn camping, gate-blocking, or other means of resource denial present in this or any other game.
I'm a newbie to STO and incredibly disturbed by these developments.
Although I have yet to encounter chat bans myself, the sheer number of reports here can't be ignored.
The system needs to be changed somehow. This is a pretty crucial issue here.
In the meantime, my 1st suggestion to anyone is to first get yourself in a guild or a good group of friends, regardless of the game.
My 2nd suggestion is never depend on the in-game chat or in-game voice chat. It is far easier and a lot less hassle to just use outside services that you have control over (your own Mumble voice chat for instance). For text, one can very easily use the old standby of IRC chat channels.
Plenty of lightweight standalone portable clients available (no install!) regardless of OS. Even java-based IRC chat clients available to run through your browser (if you wanna do it that way). You can run your own IRC chat channel as either a guest on someone else's server or on your own server. Either way, IRC bots aren't hard to find or set up and even running an IRC server isn't a big deal.
So yeah, those are alternatives until Cryptic takes a look here.
I'm happy to report that my issue has been escalated personally by Branflakes. Hopefully the game has adequate logging that will allow them to determine exactly what happened and whether I am due anything.
Honestly, if they just fix the problem, I'll be fine. This has been something of an ordeal for me and at this point I just want some closure.
I want to thank Brandon for his attention on this, and I'm sorry I had to "raise my voice" in order to get it. At the end of the day, I think I was wrong to suggest that these folks don't care. Some, certainly, absolutely do.
In the mean time, please keep this discussion alive if you believe you have been silenced due to griefing or some other unexplained reason. Brandon has stated that the team is watching this thread and looking into the situation.
Three cheers for BranFlakes! I hope he does pass on a lot of this feedback to reforming these 24 hour mutes that are easily abused, overly strict, with no alternative course of action, and all-encompassing.
My understanding was that /ignore itself contributed to the silencing effect - at least, that's how it seems to work in CO. I'm quite happy to simply /ignore people... but I'll readily admit that learning that particular side-effect of /ignore didn't keep me from using it.
As for turning off Zone chat, selfishness, and narrow-mindedness, what would you say about people who effectively make Zone chat useless to anyone by constantly spamming Tribble titles, just for shizzles? Zone chat is a resource for all players, and Tribble games effectively block that resource. It's no more excusable than spawn camping, gate-blocking, or other means of resource denial present in this or any other game.
Except...
Everyone has the Option to Hit The Ignore Button, when it comes to Chat.
Spawn Camping, Gate-Blocking and such, have no such resource...
(other than to turn off the game)
These are not comparable examples in this instance.
A more comparable example would be the folks that are actually using the Chat Ban System to Grief specific players...
But that works against, your particular reasoning.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
There are some really good suggestions here regarding how to improve the silencing system. Regardless, of what the Devs come away with and choose (or not) to change, I think player's should receive an in-game mail notification for having been silenced and what it means. One should not have to learn of the silencing by merely typing something that no one else can read. :rolleyes:
Over the past six months, I've found myself in situations where I enter Red Alerts or other PUGs. Only to find, upon arrival, that I can't communicate with anyone in the Team or Zone chat channels. I used to file bug reports when this happened. I've done this, of course, knowing I won't get responses from a bug report.
As my lack of ability to chat wasn't always consistent, I'm coming to realize that it's more than likely that I was silenced on many of these occasions. Was it something I said in ESD zone chat earlier that day that drew the evil eye? If so, I've never received a /tell or a mail questioning me about a PoV. Did I support the channel Mods in the Red Alert channel too zealously for someone's liking? Was it an opinionated post read here at the STO forum? I really have no way of knowing.
I agree that the current system is flawed and should be reviewed.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
FYI, there is a known bug with team chat. If you have a team chat tab open and are auto-teamed, often times your chat messages will not show up. Select Team from the channel drop-down again to get it working. I always do a "hello" or whatever it game to make sure my chat works. I also never have zone chat on in my team tab, so if you are trying to zone chat, I wouldn't know unless I happen to see it over your head/ship.
1) The devs don't care about fixing this 'feature' of CO/STO/NW's chat system OR PWE is preventing the fixing/adjusting of this 'feature'.
2) Flagging someone as a spammer AND ignoring them both count towards the 24 hour chat ban. It's some total that the system keeps track of behind the scenes. Once you hit that number, POOF! you can't talk.
3) The GM's NEVER do anything about it on either end (the player reporting even if it's false and the person who got muted).
We've had many threads about this over there, too. And the devs/forum mod NEVER drop by to say anything.
Comments
The chat ban system is too easy to abuse and has entirely too many false positives to be allowed to continue as it is. It needs to be changed, eliminated, or to have an employee throw the chat ban switch.
I understand and accept that moderators are just going to sweep this into a closed thread and silence what I have said by "editing the content". It still must be said and we cannot shut up about it so long as this griefer tool remains in place.
↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → Ⓑ Ⓐ
Sad thing is, that's partially true. It's a crappy system. On many levels. At the very least, incomplete. It's the strongest supporting piece of evidence for arguments against introducing vote-kicks or other vote-mechanisms in game. The problem is, there's no proper appeals system. Mainly (I think) cause all the GMs are in one timezone, trying to deal in eight hours with the tickets sent in across twenty-four. Worse still right after the weekend. So in a strange way, they may even be trying to be egalitarian about the whole thing by ignoring the tickets, as "it's only 24 hours" and they can really only help a quarter to half the people this happens to, within any reasonable timeframe, as there's no one to answer the others that happen while they're asleep. (Any coffee breaks that might be extended as a result of such a policy would just be a happy accident, of course.)
The system really should have someone on at every hour, and record A) what messages of yours have been flagged as spam (shown to the player by some means) and
Add a button to Overturn Channel-ban or Reject Appeal, and you're basically done.
I think we can safely assume that any player who's shown a message of his own full of swearing, an overzealous recruiter shown five of his own standard recruitment message timestamped with barely two minutes between the first and the last, or any gold-seller who's more inclined to just create a new character or account anyway, aren't going to bother with the appeal process, so it shouldn't actually swamp the GMs with appeals...
And if by any chance the problem is as institutional as it's sometimes protrayed to be, and it does happen at such alarming frequency that it'd keep GMs or a GM from any other work, we may just need to think about sanctions for abusing the system. I think a minimum of a taste of their own medicine, and an infraction, might be in order.
Lastly, I don't know what was in there... I can't imagine what might have been in four consequetive posts in that last thread that could've warranted this kind of white-walling... But because I can't imagine, cause there's not a single clue, and considering the nature of the thread, it looks extremely bad for Cryptic.
"any devs on?"
Shortly after someone said I had just missed them. I responded (or try to):
"I wanted to comment about the boff rarity display. guess I'll make a forum post"
But I never saw that message. I pressed up-arrow to send it again but again it didn't display. I was queued for an STF which started, so I forgot about it for awhile.
After I got out of the STF I tried to comment that I'd received no dilithium despite finishing the STF and the optional, only to see the message in the system tab that I had been silenced.
WHY??!?!?
-Forjo
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
I'm very upset right now. I've been victimized in-game and the powers that be DON'T CARE and WON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
THIS IS HORRIBLE customer service.
This post will probably get moved too -- or deleted. But hopefully not before a few people see it.
This is wrong. Paying customers shouldn't be treated this way.
-Forjo
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
The very worst part is your only recourse is to file a GM ticket which isn't even looked at until the ban is lifted. So since you can't communicate, it's basically a (usually wrong) 24 hour vacation from STO. The GM closes your ticket and moves on.
There are good reasons for the system to exist, as gold spammers are still in STO in this day and age. But the bottom line is it doesn't work well. It won't silence people who are spamming Zone with incessant posts of equipment but it will silence those who are just chatting normally.
Fix the system before you impose it on us, please. Mods if you're going to close it fine, but please make sure Brandon and the GM team sees this thread and commits to having it addressed.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
It's a fundamentally unfair system. If you're going to make a system that's easy to exploit, you should make it easy to contest the exploits as well.
This is extremely unfair.
-Forjo
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
It should go like this:
1.) Player says something really really stupid and inappropriate
2.) Other players flag it as spam
3.) Lines flagged as spam are thrown into a temporary log file for the user being accused
4.) Spam log is "scored" based on number of lines, commonality of lines, and number of complaints made
5.) If the score gets high enough, a game moderator is alerted and shown the log file
6.) Game moderator decides whether a temporary ban is appropriate, or merely clears the log.
I know the community moderators are conveniently isolated from game operations. But if you're not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Burying these posts is just contributing to inaction.
Please stop being part of the problem.
-Forjo
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
if the GM/moderators dealt with this issue with the same vigor that they use to merge threads, there would be no issue...
In all simplicity, the best way to deal with this is to NOT make silences count toward a mute...make only "report player to GM" count. People silence others that can't agree of Picard is better than Kirk ffs! How fair is that?
I'm sorry, but are you freaking insane?! Your willing to allow any random person to mute anybody they like and effectively silence them from the entire game? Who designed this policy, because they are clearly unfit for their job.
There is no need for such a system, and don't pull the goldseller angle on me. You seen ESD lately? No goldsellers, none, not a singular one to be seen. Your implementing a ridiculous system to fix a problem that is non-existant.
Ignore has worked fine for years in any MMO under the sun, past or present. This system is just a massive griefer tool, and nothing more. You watch Dark Knight Rises? Because your pulling a Bane here, your giving the detonator to an ordinary citizen, and this citizen wants to catch as many people in the blast as possible.
Picard's censorship rant is incredibly apt here, as people WILL use this to censor any dissenting opinions on absolutely anything, even something as trivial as boxers vs briefs. Some people won't even need that incentive, they'll just censor people for the fun of it.
Hell, can you imagine what this would to to RPers? There are entire fleets of people who want to wage a nonsensical war against RP in all its forms, and we use Local all the time, you would essentially kill RP in one fell swoop with this flawed, short-sighted and ridiculous system.
I may be just a normal subscriber (your LTS Vet Reward fiasco has proven I'm bottom of the rung in your eyes), but if Cryptic has any common sense left in them, they will remove this system immediately and without hesitation.
As further incentive, let me share with you a quote from Benjamin Franklin that I like to use a lot in such situations. He said "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." This seems an incredibly apt quote, as you are sacrificing the freedom of your subscriber base to talk in local or zone normally without fear of reproach for security against a non-issue.
I earned my Vet rewards with commitment, not cash.
It is incredibly wrong that this could happen to some one after only 3 messages in the TTS (Tribble Test Server) global channel that were innocuous to say the least. I remembered yesterday that I tried to respond to another message -- someone asked if anyone had tried Starbase 234. I responded (or tried to) "is that the one where you have to attack the starbase?". I don't know if that message actually went through. I was probably silenced by then.
The ban is up in 7 hours. I'll be very surprised if my e-mails show up. Somehow I doubt that expired exchange e-mails to a silenced user was ever tested.
This is beyond customer neglect -- it's bordering on customer abuse.
-Forjo
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
There are systems already in place for that, they are called Ignore and, should the first not be viable, turning off Zone in your channel options. Your saying we should allow griefing to run wild because your tired of dumb people in Zone? How selfish and narrow-minded can you be?
I earned my Vet rewards with commitment, not cash.
I also received the generic responses from the ticketing system. They close with:
"Thank you for your patience and understanding with this."
THIS IS INSULTING. IT'S ABUSIVE. AND I WANT IT CHANGED.
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
I think though, that the tool is useful, but it really needs to be changed in how the chat muting works, given the reports here of it being abused.
Some excellent suggestions have been made.
The tool has been very useful in keeping the flood of gold sellers at bay. It just needs some tuning to make the current abuse that has been reported a bit more difficult.
Bear in mind that the public chat channels are there for everyone, and some topics should be taken to private channels. I really do think that the policies really need to be rigorously enforced. People do not need to carry on gornfests, tribblefests, political or religious rants, name calling, my country is better or your country sux foolishness, in zone or local chat. If you want to discuss such things, make a dedicated channel, and take it there and invite like minded individuals. People who have legitimate questions or players who need help, should not have to wade through pages of either silliness, or vitriol to find the response.
Some people need to also realize that incendiary or spiteful comments are never helpful, and will undermine their position. If a person gets banned for something that is malicious or spiteful, then perhaps that individual just needs to take a step back anyway and come back later, less bloody minded.
Remember that no system is perfect, and that problems will always arise no matter what you do.
Also, one person's opinion will not close a thread because they say so......unless they are a moderator.:P
___
Yesterday a lifetime subscriber in my fleet got silenced for 24 hours and I strongly suspect it was from a malicious group. He had only said two non-controversial lines in the channel doffjobs for the 90 minutes prior to it. As you can imagine, having a group of players silence someone who has not only done nothing wrong but put in hundreds of dollars into STO he was not a happy camper.
My STOwiki page | Reachable in-game @PhyrexianHero
Fed Armada: Section 31 (level 730, 2700+ members)
KDF Armada: Klingon Intelligence (level 699, 2100+ members)
You mistake me for someone who has any power over people actually playing the game.
My sphere of limited authority is confined to the forums, same as the other Community Moderators. They don't pay me enough to be an in-game moderator... seeing as how I'm an unpaid volunteer in the first place.
I've never once interacted directly with a GM in-game and I have no clue what they do, how many of them there are, etc.
I agree... reporting people for "spam" is way too subjective for it to be fair, if it's something a computer does automatically with no human input and no opportunity to appeal.
If the intention is simply to allow the Community to self-police and throttle true spamming, then I think the 24 hour mute is too long. 2-4 hours at a time would be more than sufficient, IMO. Still abusable, but not nearly as serious.
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We aren't supposed to close threads except for two reasons:
1. Too many posters in the thread are violating forum rules (or the thread itself violates forum rules).
2. The thread is a Necro and went 30 days or more without a response.
So in that regard, at least, no problem. Honest feedback that says "We hate this Chat-Silencing System" belongs here and I wouldn't expect that a Forum Mod will have to close the thread unless it turns into a Troll/Flame-fest.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
As for turning off Zone chat, selfishness, and narrow-mindedness, what would you say about people who effectively make Zone chat useless to anyone by constantly spamming Tribble titles, just for shizzles? Zone chat is a resource for all players, and Tribble games effectively block that resource. It's no more excusable than spawn camping, gate-blocking, or other means of resource denial present in this or any other game.
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
Although I have yet to encounter chat bans myself, the sheer number of reports here can't be ignored.
The system needs to be changed somehow. This is a pretty crucial issue here.
In the meantime, my 1st suggestion to anyone is to first get yourself in a guild or a good group of friends, regardless of the game.
My 2nd suggestion is never depend on the in-game chat or in-game voice chat. It is far easier and a lot less hassle to just use outside services that you have control over (your own Mumble voice chat for instance). For text, one can very easily use the old standby of IRC chat channels.
Plenty of lightweight standalone portable clients available (no install!) regardless of OS. Even java-based IRC chat clients available to run through your browser (if you wanna do it that way). You can run your own IRC chat channel as either a guest on someone else's server or on your own server. Either way, IRC bots aren't hard to find or set up and even running an IRC server isn't a big deal.
So yeah, those are alternatives until Cryptic takes a look here.
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Honestly, if they just fix the problem, I'll be fine. This has been something of an ordeal for me and at this point I just want some closure.
I want to thank Brandon for his attention on this, and I'm sorry I had to "raise my voice" in order to get it. At the end of the day, I think I was wrong to suggest that these folks don't care. Some, certainly, absolutely do.
In the mean time, please keep this discussion alive if you believe you have been silenced due to griefing or some other unexplained reason. Brandon has stated that the team is watching this thread and looking into the situation.
-Forjo
My oldest post (that I can find)
Location: Houston, TX
Former Cryptic User #11424
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Stop the easily abused and unfair auto-silence "feature"!
My STOwiki page | Reachable in-game @PhyrexianHero
Fed Armada: Section 31 (level 730, 2700+ members)
KDF Armada: Klingon Intelligence (level 699, 2100+ members)
Except...
Everyone has the Option to Hit The Ignore Button, when it comes to Chat.
Spawn Camping, Gate-Blocking and such, have no such resource...
(other than to turn off the game)
These are not comparable examples in this instance.
A more comparable example would be the folks that are actually using the Chat Ban System to Grief specific players...
But that works against, your particular reasoning.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Over the past six months, I've found myself in situations where I enter Red Alerts or other PUGs. Only to find, upon arrival, that I can't communicate with anyone in the Team or Zone chat channels. I used to file bug reports when this happened. I've done this, of course, knowing I won't get responses from a bug report.
As my lack of ability to chat wasn't always consistent, I'm coming to realize that it's more than likely that I was silenced on many of these occasions. Was it something I said in ESD zone chat earlier that day that drew the evil eye? If so, I've never received a /tell or a mail questioning me about a PoV. Did I support the channel Mods in the Red Alert channel too zealously for someone's liking? Was it an opinionated post read here at the STO forum? I really have no way of knowing.
I agree that the current system is flawed and should be reviewed.
1) The devs don't care about fixing this 'feature' of CO/STO/NW's chat system OR PWE is preventing the fixing/adjusting of this 'feature'.
2) Flagging someone as a spammer AND ignoring them both count towards the 24 hour chat ban. It's some total that the system keeps track of behind the scenes. Once you hit that number, POOF! you can't talk.
3) The GM's NEVER do anything about it on either end (the player reporting even if it's false and the person who got muted).
We've had many threads about this over there, too. And the devs/forum mod NEVER drop by to say anything.
Working as designed. Plain and simple.
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