Social Ban

Alabull

Hello, I not entirely sure but I believe I've been "social banned" as described on the forums. If it's true, it seems it was used as a tool to spite me. A social ban is not fair or reasonable. Thank you, I hope it will be removed.

Taleof2Cities

It can only be removed with an Online Support ticket, @Alabull ... so submit a ticket when you have some downtime.

Alabull

Ticket submitted, @Taleof2Cities
So is a social ban temporary? Or permanent?

Alabull

@ZOS_KageW Hello, how long does a social ban last?

x48rph

If you want help. It's best to post your ticket number and usually if they have time one of the mods on here are kind enough to check into it. No one can really answere your question as if I'm not mistaken, such things are on a case by case basis. Keep in mind it's the weekend and ZOS is working from home because of Covid so could take longer to answer you. Unfortunately , there's not really anything you can do about it till then.

Alabull

I was unbanned so that's great. I wasn't made aware of a ban in the first place and not provided any reason or length of time, anything to consider. I don't know what to make of why this happened, but I'm glad to be removed of it. Thanks if someone checked my case.

Raisin

Saw your other thread. Social bans/mutes are usually temporary, although some seem to be indefinite in a way where a staff member has to give it the a-ok to be removed.
I'm guessing the reason they use social bans instead of completely banning from the platform is to
a: leave room for mistakes, as the system clearly has its flaws (recently way more)
b: keep monitoring the player to further look into their suspected botting
c: give players the right to keep playing certain content despite their abuse of the other systems
d: maybe they hope that someone running a lot of bot accounts won't notice immediately?
All speculation of course. Keep in mind that it functions as less of a 'ban', and more of a flagging mechanism for suspected bots/spammers that cuts them off from the channels they would be using to do whatever they do.
As to why it happened, it usually happens to Guild Leaders, especially ones using mailing addons or other addons to mass-manage their guild and members. Recently however, something in the system must have changed, as the number of people flagged has increased drastically. It seems a bit unpredictable right now.

I have to say though, I'm not sure you really had a social ban. People have been waiting 2 weeks and longer to get responses on their tickets, including those regarding social bans. It strikes me as very unlikely that you got any action from support that quickly, especially given that this thread had no staff interaction, no ticket number, etc. Honestly cannot imagine you got social banned and unbanned in that timeframe. Still good that whatever issue you had resolved itself so quickly!

Iarao

Alabull wrote: »

Hello, I not entirely sure but I believe I've been "social banned" as described on the forums. If it's true, it seems it was used as a tool to spite me. A social ban is not fair or reasonable. Thank you, I hope it will be removed.

yes, zos engages in bullying via things like many members of a guild sending in report player. i suspect no one ever bothers to check out anything.

Iarao

Iarao wrote: »

Alabull wrote: »

Hello, I not entirely sure but I believe I've been "social banned" as described on the forums. If it's true, it seems it was used as a tool to spite me. A social ban is not fair or reasonable. Thank you, I hope it will be removed.

yes, zos engages in bullying via things like many members of a guild sending in report player. i suspect no one ever bothers to check out anything.

i know for a fact this is true with regard to names.

Elsonso

Raisin wrote: »

I have to say though, I'm not sure you really had a social ban. People have been waiting 2 weeks and longer to get responses on their tickets, including those regarding social bans. It strikes me as very unlikely that you got any action from support that quickly, especially given that this thread had no staff interaction, no ticket number, etc. Honestly cannot imagine you got social banned and unbanned in that timeframe. Still good that whatever issue you had resolved itself so quickly!

When we first noticed "social bans", they were rumored to last only 72 hours. It was sometimes stated, true or not, that it was not worth opening a ticket because ZOS response time to tickets exceeded that length of time. (Those were the good CS days, although we did not know it at the time ) Of course, ZOS has not come out, to my knowledge, and defined what a "social ban" is, how it gets assigned to someone, or how long they are intended to last. All fodder for speculation.

It is only recently that these "social bans" have apparently required that someone at ZOS get involved and press a button to end them.

It is entirely possible that these now automatically unbanned after time, or maybe as an auto-response to the ticket. After all, they are currently swamped in CS, to the point where response time is no longer a couple of days. Having a CS person tied up, even for a few minutes, pushing that button does nothing but slow down the overall response to tickets.

Raisin

Elsonso wrote: »

Raisin wrote: »

I have to say though, I'm not sure you really had a social ban. People have been waiting 2 weeks and longer to get responses on their tickets, including those regarding social bans. It strikes me as very unlikely that you got any action from support that quickly, especially given that this thread had no staff interaction, no ticket number, etc. Honestly cannot imagine you got social banned and unbanned in that timeframe. Still good that whatever issue you had resolved itself so quickly!

When we first noticed "social bans", they were rumored to last only 72 hours. It was sometimes stated, true or not, that it was not worth opening a ticket because ZOS response time to tickets exceeded that length of time. (Those were the good CS days, although we did not know it at the time ) Of course, ZOS has not come out, to my knowledge, and defined what a "social ban" is, how it gets assigned to someone, or how long they are intended to last. All fodder for speculation.

It is only recently that these "social bans" have apparently required that someone at ZOS get involved and press a button to end them.

It is entirely possible that these now automatically unbanned after time, or maybe as an auto-response to the ticket. After all, they are currently swamped in CS, to the point where response time is no longer a couple of days. Having a CS person tied up, even for a few minutes, pushing that button does nothing but slow down the overall response to tickets.

Of course it's possible, it just doesn't fit the pattern we see with other people. In OP's case it took just 3 hours after their ticket, and seemingly a few hours more overall. I'm happy for OP either way, but it seems wayyyy too short for the duration of a social ban, or CS to acknowledge a ticket. I don't have that faith in ZOS

ZOS_Bill

With the OP's issue now being resolved with the social ban on their account, we are going to close this discussion going forward.