* Very * alarming interventions over guild names in recent weeks

SeaGtGruff · July 20

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Vraedlich wrote: »

Have these guilds used chat or discord to attempt to mass report players for homophobia or anything? Some kind of homophobic or revenge attack is literally the only way the guild being LGBTQ could have anything to do with this.
Or.... some in-group drama.

Because Pacrooti's Hirelings is definitely a violation, and the Catzputin name contains the word Putin which runs the risk of being mistaken for controversially political/also potentially violating terms.

Let's not jump to wild conclusions of "bigots" being responsible for your name change when you have presumably read the terms and conditions and ought to be aware of the violation. They are strict with names, always have been.

Sometimes it's a couple of days, sometimes it's ten years but player and guild names get changed all the time.

It is ridiculous to ask for protection against your own violation of terms.

You may think it's "definitely a violation," but ZOS representatives have already stated that it's fine, and ZOS is the final arbiter of what constitutes a violation and what does not.

robpr · July 20

These name changes are wildly specific, usually when Zos does a forced name change it consist of random words.

These look like deliberate support ticket for name change request by owner or officer.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 20

whitecrow wrote: »

I'm struggling to see what being "LGBTQ" has to do with any of this. Situation is odd but could have happened to any guild.

People sometimes go out of their way to troll/complain about guilds that advertise as being LGBTQ friendly or focused. I've been in a few, they often get people in zone chat who get upset and sensitive about the idea of an LGBTQ guild and try to start drama or arguments.

I think that's the only connection, so otherwise support should treat it like any report. There has been a restriction for character names that they can't be too like pre-existing primary NPC names, but I'm not sure if that applies to guilds. But that could be why a staffmember would move forward with the report, even if it was a sort of trolling report (which is impossible to prove).

It doesn't sound like support treated the guild unfairly or has to fix anything as far as LGBTQ guilds, just that there might be extra reports for those guilds and people might get savvy about fake reasons to report name changes.

It would be good generally if they gave people a few days to change their guild/character name, unless it was particularly offensive enough to be changed immediately.

MreeBiPolar · July 20

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

thejadefalcon wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

xencthlu wrote: »

This is horrible. It looks on the face of it plain bigoted bullying. It might not be relevant, but I've noticed that CS seems to have difficulties with LGBTQ+ issues overall. I reported someone in zone chat for calling a Pacrooti's Hirelings recruiter mentally ill for being gay, and I was told by CS this didn't violate any policies. It gave me pause at the time, but I left it alone. Now, with this, I wonder if there's a larger cultural problem in the CS department.

I saw someone maybe like 6 or so months ago with a character clearly designed around being a mockery/caricature of a trans person, including in name. I reported their character name, and CS responded that TOS had not been violated.

Customer support is consistently terrible at handling hate speech. I know you like to claim it, @ZOS_Kevin, and you can say all you like that reports aren't handled by AI, but I'm sorry, very few people believe you.

I have while not definitive proof, but very strong evidence that these reports aren't handled by AI. They are handled by automated scripts which are completely incapable of even AI level checks. If you ask for a clarification, you will get just a standard "we have investigated and everything is correct" template.

I don't know how ZOS actually handles their CS - whether it's in-house or out-sourced. For other customer support services I've had interaction with, other than the initial confirmation/ticket number, they are not automated scripts but a set of standard templates.

The issue with some of those services specifically was that the tier 1 CS reps were under intense pressure from their supervisors to clear tickets as fast as possible, which often resulted in only a cursory scan of the most rece nt communication and not reading back through early responses to see what had already been covered..

It's exactly this sort of thing that creates the impression that the whole system is either entirely automated scripts or (now they exist) AI chat bots. I'm not sure there's an easy fix as long as CFOs continue to view CS as purely a cost centre.

I mean specifically responses to notices of infractions -- whether you dispute them or ask for clarification (because some of those don't really specify what is wrong, only referring to extremely vague "for this/that/something else"), you get the same templated answer I mentioned above. And if you reply to THAT answer asking for clarification, you get exactly the same template, word for word, again.

Gegensmith · July 20

To robpr:

Only the guild manager/leader can make a name-change request. The history of my support tickets prove that no such request was made. I didn't make one (why would I be kicking up a fuss if I had) and my account does not appear to have been hacked (I could see no evidence at my end, and I spent several hours looking, and ZoS also believe the account is secure).

I don't believe that officers are allowed to make this request, but it ought to be obvious to you that, had they done so, ZoS would have told me about that in the several support-ticket exchanges the first time it happened.

I can't remember if I've posted this here on this thread before, but "Ready Room" already exists (it's redspecter23's guild) and I belong to his guild on EU (it's also on NA). I don't belong to Echoes, but I believe it already exists. The support ticket for the first change also included the name of another guild I belong to (this time on NA), pasted together with "Ready Room", (though the latter was the only part to actually appear in game).

ZoS_Kevin has reassured us that AI is not involved in processing these things. It does seem, though, to be something like a code-string being grabbed from the wrong place somehow -- because, you are right, it's not entirely random words nor a random name generator at work.

However, the duplication of name becoming shared by two different guilds on the same server isn't really the point.

More generally:
It is possible that the second name-change was a mistake pure and simple and arose from no report whatsoever. Some other guild was reported for an inappropriate name and ours was changed by mistake, perhaps.

I guess it is also possible that the first name-change was also a mistake that was not precipitated by a reporting of our guild either. That would be a little more upsetting in one sense, because CS would have been, let's say, not entirely honest.

However, to be honest myself, I would prefer to discover that this is what's happened. It would mean that my concerns about a series of targeted attacks were proven to be unfounded.

If there was in fact a report, consider this: how plausible does it seem to you that a player saw our decade-long name, Pacrooti's Hirelings, and decided that this was unacceptable because it made use of an ESO name (Pacrooti) and decided to report it for that reason?

Open the guild finder and you will find at least ten other guilds that have a similar format with one or two scrolls. So, I conclude, that this is a highly implausible scenario. Could the guild's name have caused offense in some other sense and the player misreported the category of objection to the name? Again, highly unlikely.

Therefore, someone used the "inappropriate name" reporting mechanism inappropriately. Of course, I don't know what motivated them, if such a report did in fact happen. But, as I said, it's happened on the same day that I advertised our guild in zone-chat.

I will note in passing that: it is not the case that we frequently advertise in zone-chat. Prior to around the launch of Solstice, we had not advertised in years. Literally years. I joined I think around five years ago and I have never seen an advert for our guild in all that time (I am speaking of the NA server). Not once. Having become more involved with the guild in recent months, I learned that no one has advertised in years. I took up this task around the time of Solstice release. I observed zone cooldowns and recruited in intense bursts around that weekend. Maybe the weekend after (I forget). Just like many other guilds do. I am the only one to have advertised. Now we are approaching just over the month since then, some of the newbies that joined are reaching our offline-for-30-days mark, so I began to recruit again (because we're maintaining a 500 membership of players all active in last 30 days). That recruiting took place over a couple of hours on two days in the last week. On the first day, we had our first forced name change. The second time I began recruiting, just under a week later, we received our second one.

We have never been reported for spamming zone-chat. Why? Because we don't and never have.

ZoS have told us that a report was made for an "inappropriate name". It strains credulity to argue that this was a report made in good faith.

We are not asking for "special treatment" (a rhetorical trope that has been used elsewhere as a means to deny equal rights to LBGTQ+ people, I note in passing). We ARE asking for the possibility that the reporting mechanism is being used in an abusive manner and to investigate this. ZoS have agreed to look more closely at it and I'm very glad to hear it. My experience of fielding openly phobic responses and hate speech in zone-chat, whispers, and applications, which have sometimes been explicitly illegal (as I noted in an earlier message, in my country at least), has always prompted an appropriate response from ZoS to date. If other players have not experienced this level of quality of service, I would recommend that this is chased up.

If two reports were in fact made, that's a pattern. That a report was also filed against another LGBTQ+-friendly guild within a week of the first of these, that, too, may belong to a pattern. That other guilds who do not advertise themselves in this way may have been subjected to bad-faith reports is also a problem. The suggestion that names that do not cause immediate harm or offense ought not to be changed without prior discussion with the GM seems to me a reasonable way to address the problem as a whole for everyone.

ZoS needs the ability to change names that ARE harmful without this, of course. But prior discussion seems to me to be a reasonable expectation for the rest of us, LGBTQ+-friendly or otherwise (otherwise?).

Syldras · July 20

NeuroticPixels wrote: »

I’m just waiting for a troll to see this thread, make a new guild with the name Pacrooti’s Hirelings, and then customer service tell the original owners of the name that they can’t change it back because it’s already in use. 😬

Honestly, if this reporting is the work of trolls, bullies or bigots, they're probably really content with the result right now and already prepare the next attacks. Extensive and emotional-reading reactions, no matter how justified they are, show a bully that an attack worked out. They seek for exactly this. The usual advice you get is to try to solve the problem discreetly and without showing much agitation, because that's uninteresting for bullies.

Anyway, I'm not telling anyone how to react, that's everyone's own decision. It's just my thoughts as someone who had friends who were confronted with school and workplace bullying and knows the advice you get from professionals for that situation.

Good luck, OP! May the issue be resolved soon, and hopefully there won't be new attacks in the future.

Raanbury · July 20

xencthlu wrote: »

This is horrible. It looks on the face of it plain bigoted bullying. It might not be relevant, but I've noticed that CS seems to have difficulties with LGBTQ+ issues overall. I reported someone in zone chat for calling a Pacrooti's Hirelings recruiter mentally ill for being gay, and I was told by CS this didn't violate any policies. It gave me pause at the time, but I left it alone. Now, with this, I wonder if there's a larger cultural problem in the CS department.

That's actually very concerning.

spartaxoxo · July 20

Gegensmith wrote: »

I will note in passing that: it is not the case that we frequently advertise in zone-chat. Prior to around the launch of Solstice, we had not advertised in years. Literally years. I joined I think around five years ago and I have never seen an advert for our guild in all that time (I am speaking of the NA server). Not once. Having become more involved with the guild in recent months, I learned that no one has advertised in years. I took up this task around the time of Solstice release. I observed zone cooldowns and recruited in intense bursts around that weekend. Maybe the weekend after (I forget). Just like many other guilds do. I am the only one to have advertised. Now we are approaching just over the month since then, some of the newbies that joined are reaching our offline-for-30-days mark, so I began to recruit again (because we're maintaining a 500 membership of players all active in last 30 days). That recruiting took place over a couple of hours on two days in the last week. On the first day, we had our first forced name change. The second time I began recruiting, just under a week later, we received our second one.

We have never been reported for spamming zone-chat. Why? Because we don't and never have.

What do you mean by this? Like how frequent was this being advertised in the same zone? How long was this cooldown?

Is it possible the advertisements annoyed someone and they reported for everything they think would stick?

IDK why this was even brought up. I don't play on PC. But, this makes me think you may want to revisit your recruitment strategy. Because that's another reason people may report your guild for its name directly after advertising. It could be some of the reports were because of targeting LGBT guilds and some of them were from people who were annoyed and enough reports were received that the agent decided to act on it without checking too much.

The rules around using names that refer to characters of this game aren't exactly the clearest. It's clear they decided your name didn't violate that rule. So, I'm still glad that this 2nd agent's decision was reversed. Especially since I don't doubt that at least some of those reports come from a bigoted place. But character name is something a person could legitimately report for when something that they actually want to report doesn't work. People will do that.

So, even if you recruitment strategy technically falls under the spectrum of not being spam, you may want to revise how frequently appears if you're doing it under the spam cooldown. I didn't even know there was one tbh.

Reasonchill · July 20

spartaxoxo wrote: »

So, even if you recruitment strategy technically falls under the spectrum of not being spam, you may want to revise how frequently appears if you're doing it under the spam cooldown. I didn't even know there was one tbh.

I'm pretty sure Gegensmith meant "zone cooldowns", "zone populations". When to advertise when a lot of people see it, and in which zones. Gathering some statistical information to get the most efficient reach, and recruiting in bursts during those windows of efficiency, as opposed to recruiting regularly throughout the week.
That's how and why it is possible to see that reports were done right after recruiting - in bursts - as Gegensmith has said many times. Wouldn't have made sense otherwise.

Reasonchill · July 20

Syldras wrote: »

Anyway, I'm not telling anyone how to react, that's everyone's own decision. It's just my thoughts as someone who had friends who were confronted with school and workplace bullying and knows the advice you get from professionals for that situation.

Nice advice (unironically). But this is not the same situation. There's a problem at hand - whatever the exact details are - and OP's thread is instrumental in solving it. "Some trolls being content" is not the worst thing here, at all, it's not the problem of the situation. And, in the same line of thought, I don't think this is extensive or emotional-reading whatsoever.
And a certain amount of "unintentional trolling" appearing in this thread should be a good illustration of how things work and how they don't.
"Villainy" does not exist - incompetence does.

LadyGP · July 20

LINCARD1000 wrote: »

As a senior officer in a PC-NA guild that had also its name force-changed a few years back (but were able to recover it eventually after lots of mucking around with CS) - you have my sympathies, OP.

Glad senior ZOS staff were able to weigh in positively, but with something this significant, I hope it's high-lighted to management there that there needs to be more than just a cursory "react now, cover our [posteriors] later" type reaction from CS staff.

I don't know the inner workings (obviously) but I've seen enough posts on the forums, responses from Kevin/Giana (positive comments and good coms) to where it feels to me that there is a big disconnect between Customer service and then everyone else.

From the outside looking in it seems like CS is in a silo doing their own thing... and then they do too many of "their things" and then leadership/community people, etc have to come in and be like bro... you can't just do that like that.

Seems like the processes need to be refined significantly and get CS out of the silo/echo chamber they are in.

(Again, this is just my outside looking in perspective and CS and community could literally be in cubicles side by side)

Reasonchill · July 20

LadyGP wrote: »

Seems like the processes need to be refined significantly and get CS out of the silo/echo chamber they are in.

(replying to the whole comment, not just this part)
I got the exact same impression.

Syldras · July 20

Reasonchill wrote: »

Nice advice (unironically). But this is not the same situation. There's a problem at hand - whatever the exact details are - and OP's thread is instrumental in solving it. "Some trolls being content" is not the worst thing here, at all, it's not the problem of the situation. And, in the same line of thought, I don't think this is extensive or emotional-reading whatsoever.

I'm fully aware that bigotry is a problem that exists in ESO's playerbase. I too have already sent in reports for homophobic and transphobic "jokes" I saw in game chat - most often I got a positive reaction, but I also got a message claiming no TOS violation could be detected once. That was, admittedly, a slightly unclear case, open to interpretation (though from context I personally would have interpreted it negatively - but I'm aware that not everyone interprets things the same way) - the mod probably gave the user the benefit of a doubt. Was I happy with the result? Of course not, but I assume someone who makes such "jokes" in chat openly, would probably do that repeatedly, and at some point it's clear enough so that person will get moderated.

Generally I prefer to adress a problem by making short, unemotional, factual statements. That's sufficient to bring a problem across. Again: I'm not telling anyone how and what they are supposed to write - that's none of my business and everyone's personal decision. The only thing I wanted to mention, with the intention of giving helpful advice, is that text blocks of 1000+ words including repeated mentionings of having fallen victim (again: even if it's describing the truth) look like a rather emotional reaction to me, and that's exactly what attackers (trolls, bigots, bullies, etc) are feeding off and might even escalate the situation more if OP is unlucky. But maybe there's cultural differences at play, I don't know (I'm not from the US, not even from an English-speaking country, and I'm no native English speaker either, but English is my 3rd language). That's all I wanted to say, so I leave it at this.

Again, good luck to OP! I mean it.

Reasonchill · July 20

Syldras wrote: »

all I wanted to say, so I leave it at this.

I'll just mention that I had taken into account all you've said here (not that I believe it all to be factually correct, mind) when writing my first message. Still disagree (edit: as in: I still think that you don't see the situation for what it is, making the advice irrelevant rather than fully incorrect. edit 2: and not seeing the comments for what they are, and... yeah, anyway).
But yes, let's leave it at this.

virtus753 · July 20

Raanbury wrote: »

xencthlu wrote: »

This is horrible. It looks on the face of it plain bigoted bullying. It might not be relevant, but I've noticed that CS seems to have difficulties with LGBTQ+ issues overall. I reported someone in zone chat for calling a Pacrooti's Hirelings recruiter mentally ill for being gay, and I was told by CS this didn't violate any policies. It gave me pause at the time, but I left it alone. Now, with this, I wonder if there's a larger cultural problem in the CS department.

That's actually very concerning.

It's hardly specific to LGBT+ issues, though. In my experience, "not a violation" is the usual response until you appeal.

I went through 4 months of back-and-forth with Support over whether the c-word used as an insult violates the ToS/CoC. (They said it did, finally.) Two months with them over a character name that blatantly ridiculed handicapped players.

A friend of mine said Support declared that someone calling her a b-word was "not a violation." She hates the word and would never consent to being called it, which she explained in her report. Still "not a violation."

It's also not a violation to tell someone to "Alt F4" when they ask for help in chat. "Not a violation" to threaten someone in DMs or verbally abuse zone chat for months on end.

When I asked that a post referring to a player's body part (out of the blue, simply for puerile humor) be moderated, I was the one accused of abuse by support. I still haven't had a follow-up on that, and it's been months.

There is a systemic issue, but it's not limited to a particular group. Lots of demographics are covered here.

Reasonchill · July 20

virtus753 wrote: »

[...]
There is a systemic issue, but it's not limited to a particular group. Lots of demographics are covered here.

Correct. We are talking about likelihood and the scope of the negative effect.

I'll take this moment to remind us all that this is literally the point Gegensmith made initially.

dbrand001 · July 21

This guild has been around for as long as I can remember. It seems silly that a long standing 10 year old guild would even all the sudden be subjected to a name change. I think if a guild has been established for so many years without incident that this complaint should have been looked at and immediately dismissed. People attacking 10 year old guilds and yet we still have the Gaming Council and their many counterparts sending spam invites to you every time you use a wayshrine where one of them are.

Destai · July 21

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, just wanted to follow up here. Thank you for escalating this. We’ve had a chat with customer service to revert the change to the guild name. We are also investigating why this change happened to begin with.

Like some others have expressed, it seems like CS and other content moderation teams are operating in silos. And a lot of the standards or beliefs that your team may have about things may not be the same as theirs. Events like this really paint CS in a negative light because it seems like they're not exercising any discretion on reports.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We just wanted to highlight that we believe the change error occurred because of an incorrect change from a customer service agent. We do want to reiterate that AI was not used as a part of this process and was facilitated by customer service staff. We are looking to figure out exactly where the error occurred so that we can refine the process to avoid the issue in the future.

More detail is warranted when it comes to the role of AI in these situations. You've said a few times that AI itself doesn't perform disciplinary actions, but there's no clarity on what its role actually is. In the recent past, it sounds like some new tech was rolled out and there were training issues on using it.

Whether it's AI or not, there's still some technology giving CS things to action, right? I would think some technology is flagging messages, names, and other transactional data. If you don't want to explain this every time it comes up, which is way too often, then go into detail on how they review this stuff. Just using an example:

"CS using XYZ monitoring platform that flags messages using a predefined but configurable dictionary of words and phrases deemed offensive or unacceptable. They also review reports and then review chat logs/names and compare against internal dictionaries that are informed by the ToS."

That's the level of detail you need to go into. I get it's frustrating to keep repeating yourself, but clearly the explanations thus far haven't calmed the concerns. Try something different.

It'd be nice to get that detail, or even just start answering basic questions like this.

Tallon_IV · July 21

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, just wanted to follow up here. Thank you for escalating this. We’ve had a chat with customer service to revert the change to the guild name. We are also investigating why this change happened to begin with.

We just wanted to highlight that we believe the change error occurred because of an incorrect change from a customer service agent. We do want to reiterate that AI was not used as a part of this process and was facilitated by customer service staff. We are looking to figure out exactly where the error occurred so that we can refine the process to avoid the issue in the future.

Thanks for your patience as we continue to investigate.

Whoever actually owns "Catzputin" (if it's even a real guild) shouldn't have their guild name changed either. It's literally just a pun of the name Rasputin and has nothing to do with a certain leader.

Honestly the moderation of in-game content is terrible. People having their character and guild names changed for no reason and simply being told "idgaf what your intent was" is ridiculous.

Koshka · July 21

Vraedlich wrote: »

Have these guilds used chat or discord to attempt to mass report players for homophobia or anything? Some kind of homophobic or revenge attack is literally the only way the guild being LGBTQ could have anything to do with this.
Or.... some in-group drama.

Because Pacrooti's Hirelings is definitely a violation, and the Catzputin name contains the word Putin which runs the risk of being mistaken for controversially political/also potentially violating terms.

Let's not jump to wild conclusions of "bigots" being responsible for your name change when you have presumably read the terms and conditions and ought to be aware of the violation. They are strict with names, always have been.

Sometimes it's a couple of days, sometimes it's ten years but player and guild names get changed all the time.

It is ridiculous to ask for protection against your own violation of terms.

How is Pacrooti's Hirelings a violation? There's plenty of guilds referring to TES deities and daedric princes, the pvp alliances, Dunmer houses and such. It was always accepted as normal. Like, yes, you can't name your char "Pacrooti the crate peddler", but why would it be against the rules to simply refer to him?
Also, the Catzputin thing is not even related to that guild, but even if it was, it's just a reference to Rasputin, not Putin. 🤷‍♀️

Imperial_Archmage · July 21

It’s deeply disappointing, though entirely unsurprising, to see so many dismissive comments. It’s clear that so many people saw “LGTB” and immediately decided “woke snowflakes” are blowing things out of proportion. I suppose it’s too much to ask for empathy online but willful ignorance of the reality and the lived in experiences of minorities that have been targeted and ostracized repeatedly should not be so readily dismissed. To those saying “I fail to see what the LGBT has to do with it” what you’re really “failing” to see is the reason why such guilds have to exist in the first place and because online gaming is rife with bigotry and intolerance. It is not a stretch by any means to assume that malicious actors actively targeted an LGBT guild with false reporting and that some sort of automated system on ZOS end initiated the actions against the guild without any kind of human supervision. Literally nothing about that is surprising.

ToddIngram · July 21

LadyGP wrote: »

LINCARD1000 wrote: »

As a senior officer in a PC-NA guild that had also its name force-changed a few years back (but were able to recover it eventually after lots of mucking around with CS) - you have my sympathies, OP.

Glad senior ZOS staff were able to weigh in positively, but with something this significant, I hope it's high-lighted to management there that there needs to be more than just a cursory "react now, cover our [posteriors] later" type reaction from CS staff.

I don't know the inner workings (obviously) but I've seen enough posts on the forums, responses from Kevin/Giana (positive comments and good coms) to where it feels to me that there is a big disconnect between Customer service and then everyone else.

From the outside looking in it seems like CS is in a silo doing their own thing... and then they do too many of "their things" and then leadership/community people, etc have to come in and be like bro... you can't just do that like that.

Seems like the processes need to be refined significantly and get CS out of the silo/echo chamber they are in.

(Again, this is just my outside looking in perspective and CS and community could literally be in cubicles side by side)

It sounds like training AI to do their customer service to me. That's usually what's happening when you get automated templated responses one after another.

whitecrow · July 21

One wonders if the name "Raz Putin" would be acceptable...

Syldras · July 21

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

It’s deeply disappointing, though entirely unsurprising, to see so many dismissive comments. It’s clear that so many people saw “LGTB” and immediately decided “woke snowflakes” are blowing things out of proportion. I suppose it’s too much to ask for empathy online but willful ignorance of the reality and the lived in experiences of minorities that have been targeted and ostracized repeatedly should not be so readily dismissed. To those saying “I fail to see what the LGBT has to do with it” what you’re really “failing” to see is the reason why such guilds have to exist in the first place and because online gaming is rife with bigotry and intolerance. It is not a stretch by any means to assume that malicious actors actively targeted an LGBT guild with false reporting and that some sort of automated system on ZOS end initiated the actions against the guild without any kind of human supervision. Literally nothing about that is surprising.

I find it rather disappointing that one gets accused of being an "anti LGBT bigot" just for having the ideal of approaching things calmly and factually. The truth is that all we know in this case is that someone reported this guild for a possible name violation, and how the support reacted on that, and that the support person seemed to have made a mistake. Everything else is subjective interpretations and assumptions for now, but not facts. I'm not sure whether the whole thing is about cultural differences again, but with my background, I see a huge difference there. Feelings aren't facts, assumptions are nothing more than one possible interpretation of a situation, with the possibility to be wrong.

@ZOS_Kevin (Thank you very much for your help and your ongoing communication with us forum people!) has promised the team will look into it further, so hopefully the issue will be resolved. If the outcome of the investigation is that there are groups of players targeting other player groups willfully with unjustified reports, there will hopefully be considerations about how to solve this problem. I also hope we might, at some point, get a further discussion about some TOS rules where players have voiced concerns that they don't seem clear enough to them, which poses the risk of subjective interpretation, leading to mistakes.

I'm gay, by the way (sad you have to say that nowadays, because I believe that factual arguments should be the only thing that matters, not identity categories).

Soarora · July 21

At the end of the day, does it matter if it was because of bigotry or because of spamming or because of some bored person or any other reason? Nothing can be done about the broader community, the only thing you can do is continue on and foster the community you desire within the guild. What is important is this stops happening at the customer support level because that’s actually something that (1) shouldn’t be happening to begin with and (2) can be resolved. And Kevin said they’re working on it.

ImmortalCX · July 21

Have you ever heard of Checkov's Gun? It is a concept in writing that you don't introduce a gun to the narrative unless the gun is needed at some later point.

That said, why do you keep mentioning LGBTQ++? It has nothing to do with an error or hack that was made with your guild. People could make an incorrect correlation and infer that you are implying that the error was somehow related to your membership charter, which does not seem to be the case.

So I will just assume you have never heard of Checkov's Gun and included the designation out of habit and not realizing that it has nothing to do with the story you are telling.

In the future, please remember Checkov's Gun and when introducing a new concept into your writing, ask if it is necessary to tell the story you are trying to tell.

hiyde · July 21

I'd also keep in mind the old saying about hearing hoofs and thinking horses not zebras.

This guild, and guilds like it, regularly experience bigotry and harassment. When player reports get their guild name changed twice in a few days, it's logical to suspect it has to do with their LGBTQ+ status.

Whether or not we ever find out if the guild name reports were for homophobic reasons, we absolutely DO know that this guild and guilds like it are regularly harassed, because we can all see it in zone chat and here on the forums.

OP has acknowledged that they do not know for sure what the motive was, just as nobody here knows what the motive was *not*.

Syldras · July 21

hiyde wrote: »

it's logical to suspect

It is one possibility out of several different ones. Just because one person belongs to a group that is affected by cases of bigotry (which is sad enough), that doesn't mean everything bad that happens to that individual is related to that.

Let me give a last piece of advice - I know, nobody asked for this, but since some readers, LGBT or not, might find this useful, I want to write it down here:

If a situation is bad enough - and I know it's bad right now in some regions of the world for LGBT people (and many other people too, but that's a different topic) because I read international news and have friends from different countries - I think what a community would need is strength, confidence and resilience. Focussing on being victimized might lead to the exact opposite, by becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: Because with the expectation to be hated and persecuted, people will interpret everything accordingly, real attacks as well as completely unrelated events.

Psychology calls that cognitive distortion. Cognitive distortion includes things like (not saying that all have to apply, but to give you a short idea of the concept) making negative assumptions about people you don't know at all and their intentions, assuming a majority of people is against you or an aspect of your identity, overgeneralization, labelling, emotional reasoning (making your fears cloud your view of reality), jumping to conclusions, etc, you get the picture.

Scientific studies have shown that this way of thinking increases fears and reduces both overall happiness with life as well as resilience. I read that behavioral therapy against anxiety and depression exactly teaches you to counter those negative assumptions and not focus on it too much, because that only leads to self-sabotage. Focussing on suffering only increases suffering. Thinking "out there are people who try to harm me", no matter if it's true or not, will influence your way of thinking and your feelings negatively. Does this benefit the community as a whole or the individuals being part of it? I don't think so.

So I very much advocate for keeping a clear mind and vision and not jumping to conclusions. Voicing concerns and speaking out about bigotry is absolutely justified of course. It's sadly not like there aren't enough absolutely clear situations. But one should be careful when it comes to assumptions in an unclear situation and rather try to resolve the situation calmly and consideredly before making any accusations.

Also leaves a better impression to the outside, by the way: Jumping to conclusions that don't seem understandable to others makes them think you're exaggerating and makes them believe you less. I don't think this helps in facilitating understanding. And like I also wrote in an earlier post, emotional reactions may also attract ill-intended people even more because they come to think you're easy to target. So remaining calm and factual also helps against this.

That put aside, I fully agree with @Soarora 's last post.

spartaxoxo · July 21

hiyde wrote: »

I'd also keep in mind the old saying about hearing hoofs and thinking horses not zebras.

This guild, and guilds like it, regularly experience bigotry and harassment. When player reports get their guild name changed twice in a few days, it's logical to suspect it has to do with their LGBTQ+ status.

Whether or not we ever find out if the guild name reports were for homophobic reasons, we absolutely DO know that this guild and guilds like it are regularly harassed, because we can all see it in zone chat and here on the forums.

OP has acknowledged that they do not know for sure what the motive was, just as nobody here knows what the motive was *not*.

Well said. I can also add that if there were multiple reports received, there can be different motivations behind each one. There can even be unconscious bias. Like if someone is more likely to report a LGBT guild for the same offense than a guild that is not leading to uneven enforcement.

It is the most logical to assume that someone being reported whenever they advertise is being targeted because of the nature of that advertisement absent any other evidence to the contrary. The evidence that we have is that the reports were tied to their advertising. And that support has already ruled out that the name and message were against the rules in some other way. We also know that they have been targeted for bigoted messages and reports previously for LGBT status.

Anyone ruling out bigotry as a report reason is not looking at the evidence. It not only cannot be ruled out but it is the one of the most likely explanations based on current evidence.

A dispassionate analysis of current evidence to come to the most reasonable explanation is not looking to be a victim. It is the most reasonable approach. Explanations for which there is no evidence can be, and should be, dismissed until such time that there is evidence. They are not reasonable assumptions.

The evidence that we have points to bigotry or irritation at frequency being the most likely reasons for the reports. And neither of those excludes the other. In fact, it can be both. This is why I advised OP to consider modifying their frequency while at the same time doing exactly what they have been doing in this thread. Raising awareness to support or the unfair and bigoted treatment that they have been receiving due to LGBT status so that they can be more vigilant against reports that may be coming from discrimination. This way support can eliminate any bad actors who are abusing the report system.

I think OP has handled this exactly as it should be handled for the most part. You are not just crying victim. The evidence is on your side. You are right to make this thread and alert support to this issue. You are absolutely correct that a dispassionate review of the current evidence leads one to conclude that bigotry is a likely reason for the reports. You even looked at other similarly situated guilds to be sure. That's very good way to gather more evidence.

Versalium · July 21

Hm, I wonder how I've missed this. I'm a member of this guild and I haven't noticed a name change when I used guild store. Weird. And the whole situation is diabolical.