[Rejected] Private subforum for reporting racism ect.

[Dorun]

In the GM/Dev disrespect topic (http://www.truewow.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=12548) Kindzadza posted this:

I am encouraging everyone to report any racial mark or similar verbal abuses seen on world. You keep mentioning "those" players and yet there are very few if none reports.

The reason "those" players don't get reported is for the same reasons bullying goes unreported at schools. If someone speaks against the bullies, the bullies' friends will come and pile on. People like that will do their utmost to make you a laughing stock once they have a grudge to hold against you - we see this frequently with people posting negatively about players like Fjord, Doggee, Uncletomm, or even entire guilds like Cherokee and Happy Guild. To clarify, I'm not suggesting that all of these players/guilds have necessarily stood up to bullying but that things they've said/done (which are, admittedly, sometimes silly) have been held onto so tightly and mentioned so frequently that they become a laughing stock even with players who've never had any contact with them - if you've never met a player but all you hear are bad things and you hear them very frequently, a lot of people are going to think badly of that player.

To remedy this, I suggest having a private forum in which players can report cases of chat misconduct. In this forum, the only people who would be able to see a particular thread would be GMs and the person who started the thread. Screenshots would need to be supplied for evidence and GMs could evaluate the situation. If GMs feel it necessary for other players to contribute to a specific thread, a separate, public thread could be made with only the chat portion of the screenshots visible and players would be able to post anonymously within it with only GMs able to see the names of the individual posters.

[perka]

You can make a report in form of a forum post, ticket or simple as private message to GM group on forums.
First method is public and anyone can see the report (and has the fastest reaction from our staff), other two can be seen only by staff.

[Rehan]

I think he meant a more user-friendly way of reporting this. The PM system is kind of rubbish on the forums, you have to go to a user's profile then click the Send a private message then find the minuscule "The team" button all the way at the bottom of the forums to find a list of all the staff members (or have them figure out how to filter ranks in the "Find a member" button in the PM menu), then add as many staff members as possible to send the PM to, then eventually have them all respond to the same issue even if another staff member already PM-ed the victim back (since there is no way to tell them all if the issue was solved unless the staff member that solved it figures out that the victim sent the PM to all staff members and tells them himself, or if the victim PMs the staff members again to tell them that it was solved)

It's just too complicated and inefficient. I think this is a good idea.

[Kindzadza]

Well it sounds good, but I am not sure whether that is possible to do. I will research tommorow unless someone knows already.

[Nyeriah]

Rather send me the pms and I'll pass them to the rest of the Staff if I don't deal with it myself.

You don't need to PM the entire Staff, just PM someone that you know that is active and will be able to take care of it and pass it ahead, i.e me, kindz, perka, iniyam, dymond, so forth.

Having a section just for this in special is redundant and the way it's proposed in special doesn't seem actually possible.

[Rehan]

It's cool that you give us that information in here Nyeriah but maybe someone who wants to report racist behavior won't read that, and not knowing what to do he will make a thread on Player Reports instead of PMing you.

[Dorun]

It's cool that you give us that information in here Nyeriah but maybe someone who wants to report racist behavior won't read that, and not knowing what to do he will make a thread on Player Reports instead of PMing you.

Agreed. If GMs are willing to take private messages about such things, could this be added to the in-game announcer? It would be nice to see options (private and public) for reporting tagged onto the end of the racism/excessive foul language message.

[Nyeriah]

It's cool that you give us that information in here Nyeriah but maybe someone who wants to report racist behavior won't read that, and not knowing what to do he will make a thread on Player Reports instead of PMing you.

Agreed. If GMs are willing to take private messages about such things, could this be added to the in-game announcer? It would be nice to see options (private and public) for reporting tagged onto the end of the racism/excessive foul language message.

Well, it's a bit of a default approach, isn't it? People were always free to PM us directly if they felt it was necessary. Alas, even tickets are a way of "private messaging" us. Eventually, they're still the best way to report things.

[Dorun]

It's cool that you give us that information in here Nyeriah but maybe someone who wants to report racist behavior won't read that, and not knowing what to do he will make a thread on Player Reports instead of PMing you.

Agreed. If GMs are willing to take private messages about such things, could this be added to the in-game announcer? It would be nice to see options (private and public) for reporting tagged onto the end of the racism/excessive foul language message.

Well, it's a bit of a default approach, isn't it? People were always free to PM us directly if they felt it was necessary. Alas, even tickets are a way of "private messaging" us. Eventually, they're still the best way to report things.

With tickets you can't add a screenshot. Also, with regard to PMs on here, I wouldn't have thought to PM a GM with an issue unless I spotted a matter of extreme importance. For something like chat misconduct, I'd feel like I was just being bothersome #britishproblems
I don't know if other people think the same way but it's always good to let people know the options. Some people might just sit and wait, hoping for a GM to notice the rule-breaking but with a "please report via" or likewise, they might be prompted to take a more active role in solving the problem.

[Nyeriah]

Technically, if you open a ticket one of us will come talk to you and then if requested you'll be able to provide the screenshots if necessary. At times when there's noise at world we may get tickets from people asking us to intervene or if they feel offended in any way and we'll be eventually be forced to take action and talk to the individuals, if we haven't done such by then.

I stand by the point that opening tickets and sending private messages are still the best way to report such things /if/ you feel there's the need of privacy, which at most is understandable.

[Rehan]

Well, it's a bit of a default approach, isn't it? People were always free to PM us directly if they felt it was necessary. Alas, even tickets are a way of "private messaging" us. Eventually, they're still the best way to report things.

If a player comes to the forums and sees that there is a Report Player section why would he EVER think about PMing a staff member about racist behavior?

[Nyeriah]

Well, it's a bit of a default approach, isn't it? People were always free to PM us directly if they felt it was necessary. Alas, even tickets are a way of "private messaging" us. Eventually, they're still the best way to report things.

If a player comes to the forums and sees that there is a Report Player section why would he EVER think about PMing a staff member about racist behavior?

Well, it could've been written everywhere as long as there's a "Report Player" section people will just end up using it or not as they please, same way there's a General Support section and a Technical Support section but none actually bothers to tear apart what goes where.

Just saying, they have options to choose, but which path they'll take it's up to them. Eventually, it all leads to the same place, anyway.

[Rehan]

I don't think that just because some people don't post in the correct section all the time we should completely dismiss this suggestion.

[perka]

Being scared to make public report or simply take a little extra time to make it private means you really don't want to make any report in first place. Adding more sections or tools in addition to the available ways won't solve anything. In the end it will still be very few who bother reporting privately.

[Dorun]

Being scared to make public report or simply take a little extra time to make it private means you really don't want to make any report in first place. Adding more sections or tools in addition to the available ways won't solve anything. In the end it will still be very few who bother reporting privately.

Sorry but that's an awful thing to say. Cyber bullying is very real and plenty of victims of bullying (real life or online) are afraid to say anything about it. It often makes people feel powerless.
As you've seen in this thread, both Rehan and I were unaware that GMs could be contacted privately on issues such as this. It's quite likely other players don't know as well. Even if a subforum isn't or can't be created, raising awareness of the means of reporting such things is worth doing.