"PVP" and "Cyrodiil" Gets you Banned on Twitch

Gaeliannas

Agenericname wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Obviously. But the question is, why does the forum have a different age rating than the game and why. I've once quoted King Camoran and because he had something to say about Prince Naemon that wasn't fit for the forum, it got removed - the explanation, the forum has a different age rating. Why is that necessary?

They can somewhat control who has access to their game, but less so who has access to their forums. They can control who posts, but not necessarily who reads.

They can absolutely control who gets to read what, based on access levels. I am guessing there is a forum here just for their Stream Team members that none of us have access to, nor can we see. Probably quite a few others as well, like one only the mods have access to for discussing things.

Varana

To be clear, I definitely don't want this forum to descend into the vile cesspit that is Reddit (except for the, surprise, very heavily moderated ones). Self-policing does not work. And I'd rather have a moderation that errs on the side of heavy-handedness when that means that the forums stay a place for civilised and mostly polite discussions.

I'm not sure why the game has an M rating, tbh. There's very little in it to warrant that. If it's for graphical violence, then that's hard to transport to text. There's barely any sexual content to speak of. So the risk of discussing ingame content that would break the forum rules is ... basically nil.

newtinmpls

BlossomDead wrote: »

We shall be known as the PVπ players from now on.

I don't know how to get that to display, so I will have to say PvPie

starkerealm

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

One poster on the forums excessively abusing the reporting system.

Maybe it's not them, but it's ridiculous that I think it's in the moment I give up on the forums.

We can't even mildy disagree or it's reported. I really had hopes, but it feels like discussion really doesn't exist except with fake smiles.

I apologize, but this is my feelings that environment on the forums isn't healthy for discussion.

P.S

What happened is harassment and I believe they will continue to do so with other players under pretense of baiting

Can confirm.

I'm not 100% sure it's a single individual, or simply a segment of the community, but there are serious issues with people using the reporting system to bully other posters. It's actually worse than it sounds, because they will intentionally harass and torment the individual, waiting for an opportunity to report their victim to moderation.

EDIT: Part of the problem is that when a post does get reported (at least historically), the moderator who picks up the ticket doesn't examine the larger context of the post. This is understandable, following up with an in depth investigation of every ticket wouldn't be feasible, but it has resulted in some really bad moderation calls in the past.

FeedbackOnly

starkerealm wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

One poster on the forums excessively abusing the reporting system.

Maybe it's not them, but it's ridiculous that I think it's in the moment I give up on the forums.

We can't even mildy disagree or it's reported. I really had hopes, but it feels like discussion really doesn't exist except with fake smiles.

I apologize, but this is my feelings that environment on the forums isn't healthy for discussion.

P.S

What happened is harassment and I believe they will continue to do so with other players under pretense of baiting

Can confirm.

I'm not 100% sure it's a single individual, or simply a segment of the community, but there are serious issues with people using the reporting system to bully other posters. It's actually worse than it sounds, because they will intentionally harass and torment the individual, waiting for an opportunity to report their victim to moderation.

EDIT: Part of the problem is that when a post does get reported (at least historically), the moderator who picks up the ticket doesn't examine the larger context of the post. This is understandable, following up with an in depth investigation of every ticket wouldn't be feasible, but it has resulted in some really bad moderation calls in the past.

They get to play victim while the rest of have to stay silent.

Elsonso

starkerealm wrote: »

Can confirm.

I'm not 100% sure it's a single individual, or simply a segment of the community, but there are serious issues with people using the reporting system to bully other posters. It's actually worse than it sounds, because they will intentionally harass and torment the individual, waiting for an opportunity to report their victim to moderation.

How can we know this happens? It would seem to me that someone doing this would actually attract moderator attention towards them, yielding the tactic ineffective. At best, I would expect the moderators to ignore them, at worst, ban them. Or.. maybe that should be the other way around.

vsrs_au

Gaeliannas wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

You're conflating the moderation team with the community team. Kevin, Gina, etc relay our feedback to developers, communicate with us, etc. The moderation team's primary focus is just to moderate the forums. The majority of what we see them do is simply editing posts. It's not supposed to be infrequent, it's the primary focus of their public facing work. They are customer support.

The fact ZOS employ's people specifically to moderate their forums says a lot about how they feel about customer service. And to be clear, moderation is not customer service, it is the exact opposite in fact, it is customer suppression. The forums are a community, so why isn't the community team here engaging the community on more than sporadic intervals and only when they have something to say? Maybe if the community team actually engaged and interacted with the community, as opposed to simply talking at us, or attempting to put out some fire someone at ZOS created, the community would have a lot less angst and the need for moderation would be considerably lowered or completely disappear?

To be quite honest, I don't even see the point of these forums, because they are pretty much nothing more than a place to come and shout into the wind.

I respectfully disagree with your statement that moderation is not customer service. As someone else pointed out earlier in the thread I think, everyone should be able to feel welcome in the forums. A very lightly-moderated forum would encourage some of the more vociferous and aggressive posters to dominate the forum, and discourage a lot of people from using the forum.

I would, however, prefer that the moderation was toned down a bit, because quite frankly I feel hesitant to express my opinions sometimes, and it's due more to the moderators than the aforementioned posters.

starkerealm

Elsonso wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Can confirm.

I'm not 100% sure it's a single individual, or simply a segment of the community, but there are serious issues with people using the reporting system to bully other posters. It's actually worse than it sounds, because they will intentionally harass and torment the individual, waiting for an opportunity to report their victim to moderation.

How can we know this happens? It would seem to me that someone doing this would actually attract moderator attention towards them, yielding the tactic ineffective. At best, I would expect the moderators to ignore them, at worst, ban them. Or.. maybe that should be the other way around.

You'd think, but no.

I saw it happen when I was suddenly getting notified by the moderators on a semi-regular basis, and also in seeing the quiet edits to my own posts.

One particular example, and the reason I know this is happening, was when I went from receiving around half a dozen moderator edits a year over profanity filter bypasses (I usually just star out the word and let the reader figure it out), to every post I make with self-censored profanity being edited within the hour. Yeah, someone is reporting every post I make, on the hope that they can get moderator action to stick.

I half expect this post to get dinged for discussing moderator activities, even though this is explicitly a thread discussing missteps in moderation overreach.

Also, I've got about 31k posts on these forums, so you could say I have a bit of familiarity with how the forum ticks. There are people in the community who are bullying via the report button. I've seen it, and I've been on the receiving end.

SilverBride

Reporting a valid infraction is not bullying.

(edited to simplify)

blktauna

See you missed the part where the posts were not against the rules in any way.

Elsonso

starkerealm wrote: »

One particular example, and the reason I know this is happening, was when I went from receiving around half a dozen moderator edits a year over profanity filter bypasses (I usually just star out the word and let the reader figure it out), to every post I make with self-censored profanity being edited within the hour. Yeah, someone is reporting every post I make, on the hope that they can get moderator action to stick.

Now you have me wondering how many of my own comments have been moderated due to people just reporting them for anything they thought would stick. I have been edited for some rather strange things, though.

spartaxoxo

blktauna wrote: »

See you missed the part where the posts were not against the rules in any way.

The response mentions profanity bypasses edited out quickly, and used that surmise that someone must be following them and reporting them. Profanity filter bypasses are actually against the rules, so that's why it keeps being edited. That's a very low tier offense, but is against the rules.


As far as someone following him around waiting for him to slip up, part of me has doubts because the moderation has really ramped up lately. I'm seeing stuff being edited and moved a lot more frequently. On the other hand, that's definitely not something I would put past someone. I would call it harassment if someone is report every post they make even innocent ones personally. That's something they could ask a mod team about.

Ilsabet

spartaxoxo wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

See you missed the part where the posts were not against the rules in any way.

The response mentions profanity bypasses edited out quickly, and used that surmise that someone must be following them and reporting them. Profanity filter bypasses are actually against the rules, so that's why it keeps being edited. That's a very low tier offense, but is against the rules.


As far as someone following him around waiting for him to slip up, part of me has doubts because the moderation has really ramped up lately. I'm seeing stuff being edited and moved a lot more frequently. On the other hand, that's definitely not something I would put past someone. I would call it harassment if someone is report every post they make even innocent ones personally. That's something they could ask a mod team about.

So-called "profanity bypass" transgressions seem to be something the mod team is particularly targeting these days, and I actually wouldn't be surprised if there are mods spending their time scanning for naughty words to edit out rather than this being the work of a report-happy poster. My fun mod story is having the word "crappy" snipped out of a post, with the ever-popular "profanity bypass" edit reason, except that there was nothing to bypass because that word is not censored. All the edit did was make an entirely innocuous post look like I'd been dropping s-bombs or something. And when I followed up to see what the deal was, it turned out that the word (which has been used thousands of times on the forum without incident) wasn't even supposed to be actionable.

So while I have no reason to believe that someone reported my post for being possibly offensive to first-graders, it was obviously seen by a mod as something to take the time to deal with, and I'm guessing that's because of current moderation policies and/or overzealous (and I would say misguided) application of same.

Elsonso

spartaxoxo wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

See you missed the part where the posts were not against the rules in any way.

The response mentions profanity bypasses edited out quickly, and used that surmise that someone must be following them and reporting them. Profanity filter bypasses are actually against the rules, so that's why it keeps being edited. That's a very low tier offense, but is against the rules.

A lot of people self-censor profanity by replacing certain letters with asterisks. It is a fairly common practice on the Internet, but I get that ZOS wants to go further than that. I self-censor by replacing the whole word with three asterisks ("***"), but I only do that here, and I do it with words I would not normally censor, like ***, ***, and of course, ***. Just in case.

When I think of "censor bypass", I think of people who deliberately misspell words, not block out letters, so that the censor tool passes uncensored profanity.

I certainly hope that no one ever gets formally warned, suspended, or banned for self-censoring.

starkerealm

SilverBride wrote: »

Reporting a valid infraction is not bullying. The solution to being reported is to not post things that are against the forum rules.

Reporting a post for a genuine infraction is not bullying. However, reporting every post, on the hope that something would stick can certainly be bullying.

In fact, right now, in my inbox, I have an interaction with, "[Deleted User]," who, at the time was still a mod (I don't remember who, and wouldn't name them even if I did. Someone dug through my old posts, looking for an instance of profanity, and reported me for hate speech.

They reported for hate speech over a conversation about stacking bleed damage for PvP (which, kinda dates the original post they were reporting.)

Reporting a genuine infraction is not bullying.

Digging through someone's post history for something they said two years ago, and then intentionally misrepresenting what you find, out of context, can absolutely be bullying.

This is not about someone being salty about facing the consequences of breaking the rules. This is about people, in this community, abusing the reporting system to silence those they disagree with, or want to harass.

spartaxoxo

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

See you missed the part where the posts were not against the rules in any way.

The response mentions profanity bypasses edited out quickly, and used that surmise that someone must be following them and reporting them. Profanity filter bypasses are actually against the rules, so that's why it keeps being edited. That's a very low tier offense, but is against the rules.

A lot of people self-censor profanity by replacing certain letters with asterisks. It is a fairly common practice on the Internet, but I get that ZOS wants to go further than that. I self-censor by replacing the whole word with three asterisks ("***"), but I only do that here, and I do it with words I would not normally censor, like ***, ***, and of course, ***. Just in case.

When I think of "censor bypass", I think of people who deliberately misspell words, not block out letters, so that the censor tool passes uncensored profanity.

I certainly hope that no one ever gets formally warned, suspended, or banned for self-censoring.

Yeah. I think editing *** and -bleeps- is an example of overzealous moderating, but it's been their stance for as long I can remember. It's one I wish would change. I also hope that nobody gets formal moderation over it, but I don't really care as much if they edit it out, as long as there is not an adverse reaction on accounts. Because that's really too much.

Ilsabet wrote: »

So while I have no reason to believe that someone reported my post for being possibly offensive to first-graders, it was obviously seen by a mod as something to take the time to deal with, and I'm guessing that's because of current moderation policies and/or overzealous (and I would say misguided) application of same.

It's probably also the case that since the forums have slowed down, the mods have more time to go through low importance reports or read a larger percentage of the posts in threads themselves to find violations. And as a result, stuff that wasn't important enough for their attention before now has the time. I know when I modded that times where there was barely any posts meant that I caught stuff more consistently. Not because of change in behavior but because it was no longer a need to prioritize what I read as much since it was feasible to read them all.

SilverBride

Elsonso wrote: »

When I think of "censor bypass", I think of people who deliberately misspell words, not block out letters, so that the censor tool passes uncensored profanity.

I agree. I don't see using asterisks or a row of symbols as bypassing a filter or even meaning any particular inappropriate words. I just see it as a way to add emphasis to the poster's view.

spartaxoxo

starkerealm wrote: »

Reporting a post for a genuine infraction is not bullying. However, reporting every post, on the hope that something would stick can certainly be bullying.

In fact, right now, in my inbox, I have an interaction with, "[Deleted User]," who, at the time was still a mod (I don't remember who, and wouldn't name them even if I did. Someone dug through my old posts, looking for an instance of profanity, and reported me for hate speech.

They reported for hate speech over a conversation about stacking bleed damage for PvP (which, kinda dates the original post they were reporting.)

Unless that post was necro'ed, I would imagine getting a report 2 years later would be a sign of someone abusing the report system. I can't tell if you were actually guilty of the infraction just because the topic was bleeds in PVP, but even if you were 2 year old post being reported is a red flag regardless of guilt.

It could also be a mod digging through post history because the user was flagged a lot to make sure a problem user hadn't slipped through the cracks. If it was the latter, they should be mindful of dates and not sending action notices on stuff over a year old.

The other example of swear filter bypassing isn't very compelling because that's going on a lot rn in general, but this one is much more compelling. Unless that post had recently moved to the front page, it does seem to me that someone might be combing through your account trying to get you banned. Which is obviously not appropriate behavior. Hopefully they can investigate what happened there.

SilverBride

starkerealm wrote: »

Reporting a genuine infraction is not bullying.

Digging through someone's post history for something they said two years ago, and then intentionally misrepresenting what you find, out of context, can absolutely be bullying.

If a 2 year old post is reported that would be a red flag and it certainly shouldn't be actionable after that long. If they continue to report old posts by the same player, then I agree that would be bullying and should be addressed. But reporting a recent valid infraction isn't.

starkerealm wrote: »

This is not about someone being salty about facing the consequences of breaking the rules. This is about people, in this community, abusing the reporting system to silence those they disagree with, or want to harass.

Or it could be that the reporter is being repeatedly baited by the same poster (which does happen) and rather than getting into a back and forth that could escalate and put their account in jeopardy too, they are reporting the offenses so the mods can handle it.

spartaxoxo

I have personally witnessed players try repeatedly to make snide comments and sometimes even whole posts against another user, to try to bully them out of a thread. And then later see them complain in other threads how unfair the mods were for actioning them, and that the user abused the reports. I don't think anyone ever should be allowed to bully someone out of a thread for having an unpopular opinion. So I think a good general rule of thumb is that legitimate reports are never harassment.

But I think an exception should be made if a user is getting a bunch of reports on years old threads, regardless of their legitimacy. With the exception of threads that were necro'ed by someone unrelated to the person who made the report.

Edit
Personally I think mods should outright refuse to formally action anything that is over a year old. Unofficial actions that wouldn't hurt a user account is one thing, but no official actions should be taken on an infraction that old. Just to prevent that type of abuse.

Jaraal

starkerealm wrote: »

This is not about someone being salty about facing the consequences of breaking the rules. This is about people, in this community, abusing the reporting system to silence those they disagree with, or want to harass.

The problem is that the rules are so vague. Flaming, baiting, bashing, trolling, conspiracy theories, and the like are so subjective that some things that usually pass may be actionable, depending of who is viewing, how they view it, how their day is going, etc. There's just no consistency, and that's what keeps many posters from expressing their views... regardless of how innocuous they may seem to most readers.

starkerealm

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Unless that post was necro'ed...

The thread was not necroed. It's a reasonable thought process, but it didn't apply in this case.

starkerealm

SilverBride wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Reporting a genuine infraction is not bullying.

Digging through someone's post history for something they said two years ago, and then intentionally misrepresenting what you find, out of context, can absolutely be bullying.

If a 2 year old post is reported that would be a red flag and it certainly shouldn't be actionable after that long. If they continue to report old posts by the same player, then I agree that would be bullying and should be addressed. But reporting a recent valid infraction isn't.

starkerealm wrote: »

This is not about someone being salty about facing the consequences of breaking the rules. This is about people, in this community, abusing the reporting system to silence those they disagree with, or want to harass.

Or it could be that the reporter is being repeatedly baited by the same poster (which does happen) and rather than getting into a back and forth that could escalate and put their account in jeopardy too, they are reporting the offenses so the mods can handle it.

I can readily admit that I am not always the most... "diplomatic" of individuals. I have been legitimately warned in the past, for actual infractions, where the tone of a thread had gotten a bit antagonistic. I'm not a perfect person, and I can readily admit that.

At the same time, I did notice a change, with the reporting tools being used as a method of harassment. Not, just, in the sense of, "someone being baited into saying something they shouldn't have and then getting actioned," but in the sense of someone wandering in and carpet bombing posts with reports.

In at least one case where I was warned, I remember responding to the moderator saying (basically), "Yeah, I see I was over the line there, but what I didn't realize was that the other user was baiting me; and I should have reported instead of responding." Only to later see the other user's posts had been nuked.

Now, I'll also readily admit, I can't prove any of this. I have my experiences, and the ability to say that based on those experiences, there was a change in how the reporting tools were being used by other members of the community. I cannot say that this was at the direction of a single individual, or if it was untargeted harassment. I also cannot say that this harassment was exceptionally effective, and based on some moderation behavior I saw, it seems like whoever as responsible was casting a far wider (reporting) net than we actually saw evidence of. But, obviously, that's just a gut suspicion, not proof.

It is also possible that someone with "an overly legalistic view" of the world, was scouring the boards looking for any potential violation of the rules, and was trying to enforce those rules via the reporting tools due to an obsessive compulsion. In which case it wouldn't have been bullying per se, but still disruptive.

MasterSpatula

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

They get to play victim while the rest of have to stay silent.

Those words, incidentally, can get you a forum vacation while the person who was actually engaging in abusive behavior on the forum and then reported everyone who told him his behavior was abusive skates.

Don't bother asking me how I know.

starkerealm

Jaraal wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

This is not about someone being salty about facing the consequences of breaking the rules. This is about people, in this community, abusing the reporting system to silence those they disagree with, or want to harass.

The problem is that the rules are so vague. Flaming, baiting, bashing, trolling, conspiracy theories, and the like are so subjective that some things that usually pass may be actionable, depending of who is viewing, how they view it, how their day is going, etc. There's just no consistency, and that's what keeps many posters from expressing their views... regardless of how innocuous they may seem to most readers.

You're hitting a hilarious detail, in the instance I mentioned above. It wasn't until I reread the message from [Deleted User] today, that I noticed... technically a profanity filter bypass can be lumped in under, "hate speech."

Specifically, they said this (emphasis added):

[Deleted User] wrote:

2.6 Users will not transmit or facilitate distribution of content that is harmful, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar, sexually explicit, defamatory, infringing, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights, or in a reasonable person's view, objectionable. Hate speech is not tolerated at any time.

While they claimed they were citing the community rules, that's the from the ZOS terms of service, and the community rules are a little different. Those read:

Hate Speech: We take the use of hate speech very seriously in the official ESO community, and have a zero tolerance policy. Our definition of hate speech is prejudice or hateful comments, slurs, or statements that promote violence or intolerance toward others because of the following:

• Race
• Creed
• Color
• National Origin
• Gender
• Age
• Disability
• Sexual Orientation
• Lifestyle
• Any other personally identifying factors

It's really weird because most of the time when I say self-censor a bit of profanity, the moderators just replace the sequence of asterisks with, "[Snip]." (If you want to see how I actually swear, you can dig up my posts on Reddit, the mods there don't care about the occasional profanity.)

So, we have a situation where someone selectively extracted, "vulgarity is an example of hate speech," when most of the moderation team is just like, "oh, someone tried to use the only flavoring particle in English, got to edit that out." Even on my end, when it happened, I was confused.

starkerealm

MasterSpatula wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

They get to play victim while the rest of have to stay silent.

Those words, incidentally, can get you a forum vacation while the person who was actually engaging in abusive behavior on the forum and then reported everyone who told him his behavior was abusive skates.

Don't bother asking me how I know.

I don't need to ask, I think I saw it happen.

And, yeah, can confirm. @FeedbackOnly, if someone was going after you, they'd report that post for "bait," and you'd get slapped.

SilverBride

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Those words, incidentally, can get you a forum vacation while the person who was actually engaging in abusive behavior on the forum and then reported everyone who told him his behavior was abusive skates.

What stood out to me was "everyone who told him his behavior was abusive". That would fall under flaming because we are to discuss the topic and not other posters. If they thought this poster was being abusive they should have reported their posts and let the mods handle it rather than getting themselves in hot water.

Also no one but the reporter and the mods knows who reported what. The poster being baited isn't always the one who reported it, or the only one.

Elsonso

SilverBride wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Those words, incidentally, can get you a forum vacation while the person who was actually engaging in abusive behavior on the forum and then reported everyone who told him his behavior was abusive skates.

What stood out to me was "everyone who told him his behavior was abusive". That would fall under flaming because we are to discuss the topic and not other posters. If they thought this poster was being abusive they should have reported their posts and let the mods handle it rather than getting themselves in hot water.

The "report them, don't tell them" has always bugged me. I am a firm believer that people should be allowed to self-correct, before the moderators come along and potentially ruin their day.

SilverBride

Elsonso wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What stood out to me was "everyone who told him his behavior was abusive". That would fall under flaming because we are to discuss the topic and not other posters. If they thought this poster was being abusive they should have reported their posts and let the mods handle it rather than getting themselves in hot water.

The "report them, don't tell them" has always bugged me. I am a firm believer that people should be allowed to self-correct, before the moderators come along and potentially ruin their day.

That is why I think an educational message to the poster explaining just exactly why the post was seen as an infraction rather than disciplinary action would benefit everyone. But I am not going to confront someone who flamed me and risk my own account.

Jaraal

starkerealm wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

This is not about someone being salty about facing the consequences of breaking the rules. This is about people, in this community, abusing the reporting system to silence those they disagree with, or want to harass.

The problem is that the rules are so vague. Flaming, baiting, bashing, trolling, conspiracy theories, and the like are so subjective that some things that usually pass may be actionable, depending of who is viewing, how they view it, how their day is going, etc. There's just no consistency, and that's what keeps many posters from expressing their views... regardless of how innocuous they may seem to most readers.

You're hitting a hilarious detail, in the instance I mentioned above. It wasn't until I reread the message from [Deleted User] today, that I noticed... technically a profanity filter bypass can be lumped in under, "hate speech."

Specifically, they said this (emphasis added):

[Deleted User] wrote:

2.6 Users will not transmit or facilitate distribution of content that is harmful, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar, sexually explicit, defamatory, infringing, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights, or in a reasonable person's view, objectionable. Hate speech is not tolerated at any time.

While they claimed they were citing the community rules, that's the from the ZOS terms of service, and the community rules are a little different. Those read:

Hate Speech: We take the use of hate speech very seriously in the official ESO community, and have a zero tolerance policy. Our definition of hate speech is prejudice or hateful comments, slurs, or statements that promote violence or intolerance toward others because of the following:

• Race
• Creed
• Color
• National Origin
• Gender
• Age
• Disability
• Sexual Orientation
• Lifestyle
• Any other personally identifying factors

It's really weird because most of the time when I say self-censor a bit of profanity, the moderators just replace the sequence of asterisks with, "[Snip]." (If you want to see how I actually swear, you can dig up my posts on Reddit, the mods there don't care about the occasional profanity.)

So, we have a situation where someone selectively extracted, "vulgarity is an example of hate speech," when most of the moderation team is just like, "oh, someone tried to use the only flavoring particle in English, got to edit that out." Even on my end, when it happened, I was confused.

It's entirely possible that "Hate speech is not tolerated at any time" is it's own statement, and not a continuation of the sentence that precedes it. It may have been more clear if it were it's own separate paragraph.

Also, it occurred to me that when a person deliberately uses a series of asterisks rather than typing the actual censored word, that individual is leaving the interpretation of it wide open in the moderator's eyes. Where you may have been self-censoring a bodily function or risque act, someone else could be reading the asterisks as a racial or orientation slur, which would indeed fall into the hate speech category. Perhaps it's best to let the filter do it's job, so that the moderator viewing can see the intent clearly, rather than subjectively.