Temporary Ban

This is a Guild Wars rule question, and I figure at least a few people here should know enough about how the rules work to answer it. I was just temporary banned, after an incident involving me repeatedly telling people to use the trade channel. I swore occasionally and occasionally mocked people's spelling, but that was about it. I figured swearing was fine, as there is an optional censor, and I figured occasional jokes about people's spelling would also be fine, yet I was still temporarily banned. I'm curious if anyone could tell me why they think this happened, as I really don't know what I did that violated the rules. Obviously I won't be doing this again, but for curiosity's sake I'd like to know what I did wrong.

Sounds like a matter of diplomacy. Perhaps without the swearing/mocking...

Just a thought.

your best bet is a polite email to any return address asking for specifics on it (or customer support be sure to include copies of all previous correspondence)

There are also players that were previous alpha testers or contributors to guildwars -they may have abilities to ban players as well, and may temporarily ban you if you tick them off.

Yeah I considered asking them but I have a thing of never sending emails to support places. I've had way too many experiences where I just get an automated response, or no response at all, and it just takes way too much time and effort. If it was that important I'd go through it all but I figure, I'll get my account back in an hour or two, and some people here might know anyways, so why bother?

EDIT:

Enigmatics, that's something I didn't know about, and that may well be it. I wasn't aware that contributors were given ban powers.

From the EULA:

free4all, that's a standard EULA clause... but that doesn't really help elucidate what I specifically did to deserve a tempban. I hate EULAs for that reason, they're always too vague to know what they're talking about but they're discreet enough to hold up in a legal sense.

That's what sux about the temp-ban method: There is no explanation. You try and login and are told you are temp-banned and you are not really told how long the ban will last...just says " a couple of hours". It would at least be nice of when they banned you, they picked among 7-8 different choices as to the reason: Name, Profanity, Exploiting, etc. And if the temp-ban msg would give you this reason along with a timer to how long you have remaining on your ban.

If you're banned, you generally know why.

[Deposits 5000 gold into the account of the reporter]

Digital Limit that's not really true. Every game I've ever been banned in, and there have been several, I've not known specifically what rule I've broken. I have a habit of actually reading rules, unlike most people. I also tend to understand them, as I have a moderate understanding of law. Yet usually I get banned when I know that I didn't actually break any rules. I usually attribute it to the game's moderators not caring if I specifically broke a rule and just thinking that what I did deserved a ban, but I always try to find out what I did and I usually get my account back. In this case, as it's a temporary ban, it doesn't matter as much, but I still want to know what I did specifically.

NO

only official employees can do that as they have to have access to all of your account information to do it.

it alsi introduces accountability for review where an employee can be repremanded if going overboard

Tactical, I'm curious as to why you said that.

As for the contributors issue, Loviatar's right about accountability. I doubt they'd give that power to contributors. However, as said before, I don't know anything about that.

I salute you! Well done! What a pitty and a shame that it got you banned. I hope at least they do the same to those morons spamming the public channel with their WTS crap. Hell ... I got public chat muted at all times (except when I'm LFP and have to choice) because it annoys the crap out of me.

they may have mistaken you for a bot if you were doing it for every WTS WTB in public chat. I was doing that for a while and almost go tbanned myself. the only thing that saved me was a whisper check for a different replay and I joined a private instance with him to discuss the problem. He I guess was a ArenaNet person and was making sure I was not a bot. But a real person doing it. He asked me not too anymore even though they were in the wrong. I complied.

ingram.

Yeah well I doubt they could have mistaken me for a bot, I frequently carried on conversations with other people there. Some of them told me to stop, that I was wasting my time and that I was just as annoying as the people trying to trade. Others congratulated me. I responded to all of them in various ways, depending on what they said to me and how they said it. But, I was never contacted by any ANet employees about the issue, or even anyone that really discussed it with me.

I think what really needs to happen, and I might post this in the suggestions board, is that they need to have something in Pre-Searing that tells people there is a trade channel. Like, one of those hints that pops up in the upper left hand corner about how to play. It could just give a little guidance about it. During the course of this incident, no less than five people asked what the trade channel was. I informed them politely, they thanked me, and I'm sure that from now on they'll be using the trade channel. Yet for each person that did this, there were at least five who I swear were trading on All just to spite me. But still, a helpful hint in Pre-Searing should at least make some difference. I really think this problem needs to be dealt with. Almost everyone turns a blind eye to it because they figure it's not a big enough deal for them to worry about it, but it's gone so far that people told me a couple times to stop talking because I was impeding the standard trading process and that everyone everywhere did it so I should just go away. When it reaches that point, it's my opinion that something really needs to be done about it. They made the trade channel for a reason, and that reason is a very good one. It should be upheld.

I think anytime somebody types "WTB" or "WTS" at the beginning of their chat they should be thrown into the trade channel, kind of like what happens when you use some of those characters which I happen to sometimes like to use at teh beginning of my chat and therefore have to put a space in front of.

Right...

And for the record - You getting temp-banned for reminding people to stick to the rules = Wow... losing faith in anet by the minute.

Yeah I suggested something about auto-directing WTB and WTS to trade channel but the response was that people would just sell other ways, which is true. I got my account back, which is good, but I'm still unhappy about the whole incident and I feel like it's unresolved. I want to know what I did, and why the hell they banned me instead of the idiots that were trade spamming. I doubt I'll ever find out, but I still would really like to know.

Hmm... I've met someone from the old shiverpeak guild, and I've seen him give people temporary bans, or time outs, as he calls it. Every time he says something to that person, and he/she automatically logs out.

I miss the old developer White cloak guys... but someone told me they removed it cause someone said it looked like a KKK costume too much... Oh well.. it was easy to see who they were at least. Now I think they have a special icon over their head to show as Arenanet staff... I've been keeping my eye out for one to do a Screen Shot. But I havent see em since betas.

BTW Evan. I like that. WTB WTS = $ script... yea that would solve alot wouldn't it? Just make it if they use those it automatically goes to trade window. Someone should suggest that official like...

Normal chat in big cities has become stuffed, because of all the people advertising their godly 12-17 swords and minor inspiration magic runes.

While vague, it does give the reason you were banned. Because A-Net wanted you banned. Fair? No. But the reality is, that this is A-Net's property, their server(s), and they decide what they want to keep on it. There really shouldn't be all of this debate, IMO. You were banned, perhaps by mistake, perhaps because you broke a rule that you agreed to. "A-Net reserves the right to enforce any or all of these rules" means that they never have to give you an explaination.

I'm sorry that you were banned. It sounds like a poor reason, unless you're leaving something out of your account of the situation (calling someone a specific name that specifically breaks the rules for example, either racial or questioning their sexual orientation). You sound like you were pretty heated to be cursing, etc. Obviously, you will say you didn't, but that is immaterial. At the end of the day, you got a vacation from GW. Deserved or not. Of course in future, you might just ignore the morons who try to sell/buy in the wrong channel.

well if you swear quite a bit and are offensive you probably willl get banned

causes for banning are *loose*

http://www.guildwars.com/legal/user-agreement.html
swearing can get you banned

owned....... Sholtar you said it yourself you cursed in the chat.that=ban... it doesnt even have to be arenanet employee to see it someone can S/S it and send it to guild wars customer service and they ban that way too........moral of the story get teamspeak and dont talk to anyone at all.....just turn off all chats but guild and team and youll be fine.

Yes, because the horde of a billion other curse-spamming chatters get banned all the time, right?

Right?

Oh wait, they don't. Unless he was literally cursing three times or more in each line. (I've seen much worse go un-punished)

doesnt change the fact that you swear at your own risk

Great, he got banned for a reason. Still doesn't address the reason people don't use the chat channel. I believe your suggesstion of showing people the trade channel in pre- searing will be good (heck, add in the other chats, a few emotes, give it a stage, call it a play and reward 500 exp).

However, this is not always the reason people don't use the chat channel. People use the other channel for this reason: they want potential buyers to see it.

This behavior is usually motivated by two thoughts. The first thought is fairly obvious, "Maybe theres a guy just walking thru that has chat turned off and is looking for this very weapon, and I could stand to make a lot of money." Unfortunatly, this is the motivation for e-mail and other spamming by corporations and advertisers around the world, and as you can see there hasn't been much success fixing any of that.

The second motivation may have solutions. I will use Lions Arch to illustrate the second problem. You are Joe Shmo, and you hava a godly 12-17 sword with absolutly nothing on it that you know that everyone wants. So, you advertise on the trade channel in dist 12 LA. Nobody is there, so you move to a more populated place. You again advertise on that channel, but this time your in dist 1, a very populated place where most people are buying and selling. As soon as the message hits the screen, its gone again, washed away by the millions of other people selling their items. You try to time it perfect so your most important message is in the limelight long enough to catch peoples attention. You must have failed again because nobody wants your godly piece if equiptment that would undoubtably lead the potential buyer to salvation. How do you get people to see it? The All channel. Yes, the All channel will whiz by as fast as it did before, but if someone notices, even for an instant, they can cut off the trade channel and look back just a short ways for your name to msg you. This is the second motivation.

There have been many ideas aimed at fixing other problems with trade that would potentialy fix this one. My favorite was an auction house, and yes it would increase prices, but that benefits as many as it hurts, and you solve the chat problem which benefits everyone. The only real downside is if there are shifts downward in price for all but the best of items. This would potentialy reduce the amount of trade that goes on at all, which may not be what we want.

You're missing the point, you instulted several people for what was possibly ignorance, who were breaking the rules yes, but you cant fix rules by breaking more. You deserve what you got, just deal with it and dont do it again. As some already said to you, you're JUST as annoying as the people not in trade channel.

Ignoreing doesnt work, you still hear their public chat :\

WTS WTS WTS WTB WTB WTB LFG LFG LFG (
Type it out, damnit...And the word is newbie, not N00b :\

Can I make a costum filter ? certain words just annnoy the hell out of me.

Dude,
I've been adminning on CS Source servers for about five years, and I'll bet you possibly downplayed your role in this incident. The other thing is, if you read all the rules, vague or not, they clearly state swearing. I'f i'd been adminning this game, i would have banned you too. If you can't stand the discussion just bog off to a mission or quest and ignore it?

I don't know you from a bar of charr soap and you sound reasoned and intelligent. I think that although you should be advised of a ban reason, you could figure out how come you got banned yourself.. It's called behaviour modification

Roland Des Chain