If you didn't type it with a K or a ;, or if you had done this multiple times, or if other context of the conversation indicates your intent was malicious, then I personally wouldn't believe you saying it was a typo.

If you didn't do any of that, then I'd say it probably was a typo and you should appeal the decision.

@ZOS_Kevin Ticket reference is 250708-003445.

Maximus_Mordred wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Ticket reference is 250708-003445.

Good Luck

Pretty much have to use another form of "chat" now instead of in game chat. The ban bots ban us even for whispers or we are alone in a dungeon and type something "offensive". Just stop chatting in game. The bots are offensive to me.

Desiato wrote: »

ZOS, please stop this madness. You're not protecting anyone. Please save the suspensions and bans for actual cases of harassment and ongoing abusive behaviour.

Even if someone loses their cool and says something stupid in the moment, issue a non-binding warning and completely let it go unless a trend emerges.

Let zone chat have its stupid drunken chats on friday nights and let people ignore those they don't want to listen to.

This is completely ridiculous. Let us be regular people.

IMO this type of thing should be dealt with by issuing social mutes for x number of days depending on the number of offenses.

@alternatelder I don't know what you're referring to, this hasn't happened to me before.

Maximus_Mordred wrote: »

@alternatelder I don't know what you're referring to, this hasn't happened to me before.

I think he just meant that he's seen the same explanation before. Not that it was you that said it.

Maximus_Mordred wrote: »

Seriously ZOS? I was at BLK/chal trying to coordinate inner defence in cyro when I mistyped "FLAGS" in /yell (guess what it said), and now I'm getting a 3 day ban from a mindless bot chat filter and being accused of hate speech and harassment? I'm not even from the US, that word just means cigarettes here. Nice to know that after playing this game for 10 years, buying expansions and ESO+ that I'm treated just like a level 10 troll account. Thanks for absolutely nothing ZOS.

It's been over a day now since I submitted my reply and appeal, no sign of response, no sign of human involvement, just a generic "waiting on agent" label and an appeal ticket I sent that was within hours closed as a duplicate since I replied to the original "hate speech" claim. So you ARE checking them, you're just not listening or taking any action? And by the time any human reads it, the 3 days will have long gone, there goes 3 days of ESO+ for nothing.

Is this how you treat your customers? Ban first (by bot), then not even answer questions later? Meanwhile I've seen players in cyrodiil literally write that people should be doubly circumsised as a guild name and claiming keeps with it and calling each other literal human trash in /zone and nothing happens. Fix your support ZOS, this is insanity.

Welcome to the wonderful world of AI enforcement, where there is no way to dispute the issue except through the same system of AI automated canned responses and will never, ever revert it's ban even if it's in error.

This details the degree of respect ZOS maintains for it's customer base.

Tandor wrote: »

It can easily be a simple mistake, but sometimes people have to accept responsibility for their mistakes and accept what I agree should only be a social mute rather than a full game ban - assuming it's a first offence on an otherwise clean account.

The problem otherwise is that there's never any shortage of players (note: I'm not including the OP) who will take advantage of the "honest mistake" defence and repeatedly use a forbidden expression until such time as they're caught.

The main problem is the AI system ZOS is using is unreliable and the bans ARE NOT being reviewed by a live customer service agent as ZOS repeatedly said they would be. The problem is the AI ban system ZOS forces us to accept to play the game. They could fix this issue or actually do what they said they would do and have a live CS agent review bans, but they're not doing that.

Elsonso wrote: »

I am going to go against the prevailing sentiment here and suggest that the OP takes the suspension and is more careful next time. This one does not feel right to me.

Except in this case, the offensive word, which in my view should NEVER be used maliciously, also happens to be an actual english word with a completely innocuous definition. It's a handful of wood for the fireplace.

The main problem is bans should be reviewed by an actual person, not some faulty AI. I mean, look what Grok has done in the last week. That's how faulty AI is at this point.

Are ZOS *EVER* going to invest in training on international English? Not for the first time: much of the rest of the world does not speak American.

Tandor wrote: »

It can easily be a simple mistake, but sometimes people have to accept responsibility for their mistakes and accept what I agree should only be a social mute rather than a full game ban - assuming it's a first offence on an otherwise clean account.

The problem otherwise is that there's never any shortage of players (note: I'm not including the OP) who will take advantage of the "honest mistake" defence and repeatedly use a forbidden expression until such time as they're caught.

Especially in Cyrodiil, you often have to type stuff very fast and typos are very common. I know I've done my fair share of typos there. Punishing players for typos when they're trying to communicate is a bad idea. It's one of the many many reasons for why using AI to bad players is idiotic. Sure there's always the occasional one who does this kind of things intentionally, but that was manual reports are for.

Having a too stern enforcement just discourages players from communicating. Especially on the EU servers where most of us have English as a 2nd or 3rd language.

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I am going to go against the prevailing sentiment here and suggest that the OP takes the suspension and is more careful next time. This one does not feel right to me.

Except in this case, the offensive word, which in my view should NEVER be used maliciously, also happens to be an actual english word with a completely innocuous definition. It's a handful of wood for the fireplace.

The main problem is bans should be reviewed by an actual person, not some faulty AI. I mean, look what Grok has done in the last week. That's how faulty AI is at this point.

When a word is hate speech, innocuous uses of it (and even similar sounding words) tend to be removed from vocabulary to help stop continued harm from it. It’s unfortunate that we lose words like this, but in many cases it’s necessary.

It’s why you’ll much more rarely see a word starting with n that is a synonym for stingy (even though it’s not linguistically related to the hate speech) or a word starting with c that means a gap in armor. Part of owning the harm of hate speech means making the effort to avoid things that have that established use of harming others, even if that means giving up innocuous words or meanings. That’s the price we pay for not perpetuating even the appearance of hate speech, and while the philologist in me is sad at losing words, the human understands this is how we stop hurting others.

Using a word that is hate speech to many and then arguing it was the innocuous meaning as a defense provides a path to using hate speech without consequence. Better to use a synonym for that pile of wood in a situation where the audience extends to members of a worldwide public — of whom hundreds of millions know this word only as hate speech — and to a company that explicitly forbids language like the OP ended up typing.

Now I understand flag is a technical term in PvP here that’s hard to replace in this context. If this case was a typo, and thus a pure mistake, I’d agree with the poster above — take a short social ban and in the future remember to check what you’ve put in your chat box before hitting send. Mistakes may not be malicious, but neither are they are they free of consequences just by nature of being accidental. We often pay for mistakes. It’s part of how we learn. To acknowledge it is a mistake, the consequence is typically less than if it were malicious. But that doesn’t mean we always should be free of consequences completely, especially when it won’t necessarily have been apparent to others seeing this speech that it might have been a mistake. We do have to take responsibility for our mistakes, especially when they can hurt people.

@Elsonso I was in the middle of a zerg fight with the gate open, there's no time to check the exact letter-for-letter contents of messages because if you do, you're dead, and then you can't say anything. Also it was /yell, which is localised to a given radius, not zone.

Yes it was unfortunate what I ended up writing, but a typo is still a typo. Should people be punished for accidentally writing "FALGS" or "REPIAR GATE"? I don't see how one should result in punishment, but not the other, just because the exact combination of those characters happen to be offensive in another English speaking country half a world away. That's not consistent enforcement.