There needs to be an appeals process for unjust bot bans

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

2 hours ago, Ryim_Drykeon said:

I agree with the OP.

While behaving mature should be standard, that applies both ways. Let DE grow up a little and use a little common sense in their chat moderations. Be that ChatBots or Moderators (though to be fair, most of the Mods are fair, and just doing their job under DE's guidelines).

And no, I've never been chat banned. I've just seen a lot banned for incredibly petty crap in chat. It's one of the reasons I just don't use chat. DE has made it too toxic to be there with the way they moderate it. I'd rather have the morons. At least them I can place on Ignore.

"DE has made it too toxic to be there.."  by doing what? Keeping the toxic talk out of chat?  Come on, dude...

[crocodarrel]

37 minutes ago, Neo_182 said:

And again, respectfully you do not get the whole picture.
My friend is a volunteer and not employed by Digital Extremes.
Regardless of that, they are still allowed to speak their minds and post whatever they'd like on their blogs.

That does not mean i or others agree with it.

When they are logged in warframe and are moderating however, that's another story.
If you believe they have broken the rules in any way, shape or form then by all means take a few screenshots of their behavior and forward it to support.


 

I think where we're not seeing eye-to-eye is in what you mean by entitled. At face value, I can agree that everyone is always entitled to their opinion. But that does not mean that sharing it does not have professional consequences.

The point I was trying to get at it is that people assume a tacit endorsement, and this can affect the bottom line of a business. The fact that the moderator position is unpaid does not in away way shelter a person from the consequences of their public statements.

So, in a sense, I could agree, this moderator is "entitled" to their opinion. That does not mean they are not hurting DE by sharing it, and it certainly doesn't mean DE cannot terminate their association based on those statements. The perception of representation is not limited to public relations staff either. No one from the programmers, to the cooks, and especially not executives, is able to express themselves freely without being perceived as also representing the company, and as such, there may be consequences.

That is why I could technically agree with what you're saying, but in a practical sense, it is a meaningless thing to say.

[LupisV0lk]

Moral of the story, Grown adults can't conduct themselves as one. This is why we have moderators.

[peterc3]

15 minutes ago, WindigoTG said:

Look up Bill C-16 as an example.

This is irrelevant to chat policies in DE's game.

[BombermanGOLDEN]

Yes, if there's going to still be a bot in place, the punishments need to be severely relaxed, especially for first-time stuff. (why not just remove the "offending" message in question instead? Isn't that something the bot makers forgot to even think of?)

[MagPrime]

I really wish DE would put this to bed and make it clear whether or not their moderation policies are motivated by Canadian laws.

 

[Ventura_Highway]

20 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

This is irrelevant to chat policies in DE's game.

Actually yeah I'm not seeing how this is related to the game's chat filter.

"The law amends the Canadian Human Rights Act by adding "gender identity or expression" as a prohibited ground of discrimination.That makes it illegal to deny services, employment, accommodation and similar benefits to individuals based on their gender identity or gender expression within a federal regulated industry. "

"The law amends the Criminal Code by adding "gender identity or expression" to the definition of "identifiable group" in section 318^. Section 318 makes it a criminal offence to advocate or promote genocide against members of an identifiable group, which now includes gender identity or gender expression."

Taken off Wikipedia, admittedly. If anything it would be more likely to deal with the second line, the Amendment to Criminal Code, but I don't think the use of a slur the filter would block instantly implicates genocide, does it? Further, is it really DE's responsibility and not the offender's? How do you punish an offender who may not have identifying information tied to their account? That's assuming they even live in Canada.

This is why I wanted an example of seeing some other Canadian gaming company reacting to the law, so I could gauge their reaction.

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/h-6/page-1.html#h-5

There's a list of discriminatory practices the bill falls under and I think, are supposed to be punishable on this page, and nothing in that section seems to mention anything remotely similar to the scenario a chat room in a game would represent.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Ventura_Highway

[LupisV0lk]

6 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

I really wish DE would put this to bed and make it clear whether or not their moderation policies are motivated by Canadian laws.

 

It's have been better if people could, oh i don't know....not be raging unsavoury individuals.

Edited May 28, 2018 by LupisV0lk

[Sitchrea]

The game's rated M for mature. Kids aren't supposed to play the game, and if they do it's not DE's fault. Who is DE protecting with such strict chat moderation?

[MagPrime]

8 minutes ago, LupisV0lk said:

It's have been better if people could, oh i don't know....not be raging unsavoury individuals.

Well, obviously but that doesn't really have any bearing on DE being upfront and clear as to their legal obligations and what will trigger a ban, and how long it will last.

[WindigoTG]

Just now, Ventura_Highway said:

Do you have any examples of other companies adjusting to this?

If we're talking specifically canadian companies and canadian law, then no, I don't know much about canadian companies and how do they run their buisnesses.

 

However, if speaking generally, throughout the years I've indeed seen seen companies adjusting to therequirements of their homecountry's laws. As well as ergistering their buiseness offshore entirely, splecifically to avoid the home laws. Even if I can't exactly name any particular examples of the top of my head.

 

Though, I can think of an example of government getting involved into a company's policys.

About a month ago Mark Zukerberg were thoroughly questioned by the US Senate regarding Facebook's state of affairs in some areas.

So it's not to hard to imagine a possibility of DE getting into hearings with Canadian Senat in regards of usage of the game as a platform for offence and discrimination.

 

Just now, peterc3 said:

This is irrelevant to chat policies in DE's game.

No company can make a product, violating the company's home country's laws.

And when a product is given as a service, the company is responcible for the end usage of the product as well.

[LupisV0lk]

Just now, MagPrime said:

Well, obviously but that doesn't really have any bearing on DE being upfront and clear as to their legal obligations and what will trigger a ban, and how long it will last.

It's well known a standard chat ban lasts a day to a week. Just ask support, it's not that freaking hard.

[peterc3]

1 minute ago, WindigoTG said:

If we're talking specifically canadian companies and canadian law, then no, I don't know much about canadian companies and how do they run their buisnesses.

 

However, if speaking generally, throughout the years I've indeed seen seen companies adjusting to therequirements of their homecountry's laws. As well as ergistering their buiseness offshore entirely, splecifically to avoid the home laws. Even if I can't exactly name any particular examples of the top of my head.

 

Though, I can think of an example of government getting involved into a company's policys.

About a month ago Mark Zukerberg were thoroughly questioned by the US Senate regarding Facebook's state of affairs in some areas.

So it's not to hard to imagine a possibility of DE getting into hearings with Canadian Senat in regards of usage of the game as a platform for offence and discrimination.

 

No company can make a product, violating the company's home country's laws.

And when a product is given as a service, the company is responcible for the end usage of the product as well.

This has literally nothing to do with C-16. C-16 essentially makes one's gender identity a protected class. You can't discriminate or deny employment based on it.

How does it apply to DE and their game?

[BansheePrime]

10 minutes ago, LupisV0lk said:

It's well known a standard chat ban lasts a day to a week. Just ask support, it's not that freaking hard.

Considering that support takes weeks to respond for basic stuff since it’s criminally understaffed that’s a terrible solution. There is absolutely no reason for players who get chat banned to not be given a message as to why they were banned and for how long when the ban is given.

[TomatoMarrow]

I feel like this topic is growing past the scope of the original thread, and I'm probably gonna step back a bit, but I do want to address a few things.

In response to both notlamprey and W33zer, I believe you'll find that I've avoided directly equating slurs to violence in previous posts.  I did write that slurs perpetuate stereotypes that lead to violence, and that they carry the weight of implicit violence against the individual.  We could argue semantics until our hands fall off, but my intent with these statements was to draw attention to the link between slurs and violence, a link that has been proven beyond reasonable doubt by hard data and personal anecdote.

That said (and returning to the original topic of revising the chat suspension policy), I wholeheartedly agree with notlamprey that it would be wise of DE at this juncture to release a statement of principles.  If region chat, fan sites, and the Warframe YouTube community are any indication, this issue is raising a lot of fuss, and is generating some bad feelings amongst the player base, which could easily translate to bad optics for DE.  It seems to me like a statement of principles would clarify why DE is making the choices it's making and what those choices are based on.  To folks opposed to the chat suspensions: would a statement from DE clarifying their principles be helpful to you?

Personally, I'm kinda surprised that DE doesn't have a statement of principles already.  I'm also surprised that, according to some of you, getting banned from chat doesn't come with a message about why the ban was issued--that seems like it should be standard procedure.  The closest thing to a statement of principles I can find in the ToS is a bit prohibiting User Content (including stuff posted to in-game chats) that is "unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive, harassing, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory, fraudulent or otherwise objectionable" (and while I have my opinions, once again, we could argue semantics until our hands fall off, so I'm not terribly interested in doing so).

 

On 2018-05-26 at 12:48 PM, W3zeer said:

Well, I don't think I said anywhere that there shouldn't be any form of consequence for chat abuse. And I also don't think I wrote anywhere, that I have no sympathy for victims of (verbal) violence, to make that point absolutly clear: Violence against innocent ppl, verbal or physical, is unacceptable.

Great, we're in agreement that you didn't say those things.

On 2018-05-26 at 12:48 PM, W3zeer said:

What I'm against is expanding the meaning of the word violence to include things you just disagree with or decide you don't want to hear. Sadly the boundaries are moved that way by lots of special snowflakes who want to get offended by everything.

I think both you and I know that no one wants to get offended by things.  If 'wanting to get offended by things' means 'seeking out things to get offended by', I'd say quite the opposite thing happened here: region chat used to be tolerable, but then this meme flared up, and now there's a slur getting thrown around in my Warframe.  I do disagree with slurs, and I don't want to hear them, on the basis that they go hand-in-hand with systemic hate-based violence.  I hope you can say the same.

On 2018-05-26 at 12:48 PM, W3zeer said:

Do I hope I get treated the way I treat others? Certainly. Do I expect it? Neither on the Internet nor IRL. Should misbehaviour be without consequences? Nope, and it is not. The reaction of the target is the consequence. Comparing mean comments on the internet to real verbal, psychological abuse is a far stretch. You're not in a close relationship and dependency here. You can easily report ppl and they disappear. As I said, ignoring solves the problem. Is it really that bad to ignore those who offend you? You make it sound like there's a huge part of the playerbase running rampant. In my 3000+ hours I have not once met a person who attacked me.

Wait, you don't expect to be treated with courtesy and respect?  (I'm assuming that's what you mean when you say "the way I treat others")  Why not?  You're deserving of such, by virtue of being a person.  I certainly hope you feel that I've treated you with common courtesy; you've made it pretty clear that civility is a goal of yours, and I'm right with you on that.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "the reaction of the target is the consequence".  Say more on that?

The meme isn't targeted at any one person, so it is easy to ignore it by switching over to clan or alliance chat (which, of course, prevents folks who don't want to see slurs from using region chat).  However, because of the way we live nowadays, I don't actually think there's much of a useful distinction between our social environments on the internet and in real life.  As dedicated players of this game, we've integrated technology into our lives to a significant degree.  Keeping my environment (in- or out-of-game) free of slurs or other displays of bigotry is important to me as a human being who treats others with respect. 

As for questions of volume, we're alike in that neither of us has received personal attacks.  That said, I haven't been able to use region chat without seeing slurs for at least two weeks, and if I feel like if I spoke up in region chat as I'm speaking up now, those personal attacks would start coming in as soon as people could type out responses.  If I can figure out how to take screenshots without Steam, I'm willing to test that hypothesis.

[LupisV0lk]

1 minute ago, BansheePrime said:

Considering that support takes weeks to respond for basic stuff since it’s criminally understaffed that’s a terrible solution. There is absolutely no reason for players who get chat banned to not be given a message as to why they were banned and for how long when the ban is given.

That's something that ought to be added, heck Wargaming's World of tanks/ships/planes has it, pretty sure Gaijin Entertainment's War Thunder has it. I do find it odd hoe this game doesn't have it.

[peterc3]

36 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

I really wish DE would put this to bed and make it clear whether or not their moderation policies are motivated by Canadian laws.

 

How did this get started? Did anyone from DE mention laws?

[LupisV0lk]

3 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

How did this get started? Did anyone from DE mention laws?

Tin foil hatters.

[Ventura_Highway]

3 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

This has literally nothing to do with C-16. C-16 essentially makes one's gender identity a protected class. You can't discriminate or deny employment based on it.

How does it apply to DE and their game?

I think I found it.

- 14 (1) It is a discriminatory practice,

(a) in the provision of goods, services, facilities or accommodation customarily available to the general public,

(b) in the provision of commercial premises or residential accommodation, or

(c) in matters related to employment,

to harass an individual on a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Canadian Human Rights Act -

and before

- 4 A discriminatory practice, as described in sections 5 to 14.1, may be the subject of a complaint under Part III and anyone found to be engaging or to have engaged in a discriminatory practice may be made subject to an order as provided in section 53. -

I can kinda see how this applies to the chat filter but that section about "engaging or to have engaged" gives me the impression that it doesn't apply to the chat filter because it targets entities who have specifically engaged in discriminatory practices, and not entities who may have been a vehicle but not an accomplice for discriminatory practices. It's worth nothing I'm not a lawyer. These passages give me headaches.

 

23 minutes ago, WindigoTG said:

Though, I can think of an example of government getting involved into a company's policys.

About a month ago Mark Zukerberg were thoroughly questioned by the US Senate regarding Facebook's state of affairs in some areas.

So it's not to hard to imagine a possibility of DE getting into hearings with Canadian Senat in regards of usage of the game as a platform for offence and discrimination.

From what I've read of the Cambridge Analytica incident, Facebook's part in that was that they provided a platform for Cambridge Analytica to obtain information. From what I understand, the issue there is not that they allowed them to obtain information at all, that happens plenty of times on Facebook, but Facebook's design allowed C.A. to obtain information on a large number of users without their consent due to the way their website handled things. They're not so much accomplices here as they are service providers whose neglect allowed this transgression to happen in the first place. At least as far as I can tell. I'll look into it further in the morning.

[MagPrime]

1 hour ago, LupisV0lk said:

It's well known a standard chat ban lasts a day to a week. Just ask support, it's not that freaking hard.

Any reason in particular you're being aggressive, or is it just how you always are?

51 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

How did this get started? Did anyone from DE mention laws?

A thread from a few months ago, someone posted about some strict Canadian language laws that were suggested to be the main reason behind the more absurd ban words.

Gimme a sec to stalk @Pent_ and get the link.

EDIT: Found it.

Now, because it's the forums and one person has already shown a predilictin to unwarranted aggression;  my post is about clarifying the motivation behind the current strict moderation policies.  At the very least, it'll inform the community and help them understand where they stand and why.

Edited May 28, 2018 by MagPrime

[WindigoTG]

Just now, peterc3 said:

This has literally nothing to do with C-16. C-16 essentially makes one's gender identity a protected class. You can't discriminate or deny employment based on it.

How does it apply to DE and their game?

C-16 is an example of the lengths of absurdity canadian legislation can go - putting ideology into the laws and instituting compelled speech. It's not about the bill itself, it's about the legal field they are playing on.

I don't think they want to play with fire, when everything can be added to discriminatory list.

And when discrimination, or what can be seen as one, especialy for those looking from outside, is happening on their platform, they either have to deal with it themself, or risk being seen as ones endorsing it.

[Gandergear]

1 hour ago, BombermanGOLDEN said:

Yes, if there's going to still be a bot in place, the punishments need to be severely relaxed, especially for first-time stuff. (why not just remove the "offending" message in question instead? Isn't that something the bot makers forgot to even think of?)

There's only 1 perfect profanity-bot i've ever seen in a video game

BEWARE: 'bad' words are typed in the video inside the spoiler, if for some reason you can't comprehend what context is, don't watch it! Also more horrible is someone typing on a PS1 controller, now THATS offensive.

Spoiler

 

 

[(PSN)EV0LUTi0N403]

10 hours ago, NovusNova said:

If you feel that you have been unfairly moderated, either in-game or on the forums, then you can appeal through support.

Support: http://support.warframe.com/

that doesn't even work, they tell you they dont get involved in auto bans and you have to just wait it out..here's what they said 

"Any kick or ban from a chat channel is only temporary. Since these are only temporary actions, please note that we do not get directly involved in resolving them through support and we can only ask for your patience until the suspension is automatically lifted from your account."

also i was banned as someone wrote in region chat " crossword: 3 letter word for cigarette?"

i wrote the term which im sure some of you can guess, it wasn't derogatory or said towards someone, its a legit slang term for a cigarette and got banned, but i also found out this guy was in my clan, and in the clan chat he said he was "going to get someone from region chat banned"

so i obviously wrote in to them, made my case, gave them screenshots, and they told me that they dont get involved in auto bans but that they take this sort of action seriously...

well i just got unbanned today and i see him in chat so i dont think he was banned or anything either for intentionally trying to get other people banned. what a joke of a system. 

Edited May 28, 2018 by (PS4)EV0LUTi0N403

[Gandergear]

8 minutes ago, (PS4)EV0LUTi0N403 said:

that doesn't even work, they tell you they dont get involved in auto bans and you have to just wait it out..

also i was banned as someone wrote in region chat " crossword: 3 letter word for cigarette?"

I once told clan members specifically not to say X in region chat, 30s later in the clan discord i see "I got banned from chat D:"

Edited May 28, 2018 by Gandergear

[(PSN)EV0LUTi0N403]

yeah, so the obvs thing to do is appeal it but they dont even do anything about it, i mean clearly saying it towards someone in such a way

and then crying wolf i could so how they would say no sorry we cant lift this, but im fairly new to warframe, maybe 3 months or so

i didn't know that people would intentionally trying to get people to say things to get them banned and in your case just telling people to avoid saying a word by accident 

 

whats the point of having support if they wont even do anything in these sort of cases.