Maintenance for the week of October 13:
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – October 15, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – October 15, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 16:00 UTC (12:00PM EDT)
· [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – October 15, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)

Banned for 3 days over a typo

  • spartaxoxo
    spartaxoxo
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    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.

    Nobody is using it for fireplace wood in an MMO. Be so real.

    People do call out flag in PvP because that is a legitimate objective. And those calls out are generally made under immense pressure. So typos are easy. But anyone trying to pass off that it's firewood should get an extra day for wasting everyone's time. I'm joking on that last part.
    Edited by spartaxoxo on July 10, 2025 5:53PM
  • Tandor
    Tandor
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Elsonso 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.

    ZOS has already said that these things are reviewed by humans. Unless there is specific evidence that disputes that, like an insider at ZOS saying that they don't do that, then this was likely reviewed by a human. Those of us sitting out here in the cheap seats aren't really in a position to dispute that without better evidence than I have seen.

    I agree.

    I've always considered such threads as clearly only telling us one side of the story. That was never more evident than the recent case where Kevin explained the full circumstances and having initially given the player the benefit of the doubt based on our sympathy for the case being made and then found the player immediately breached the ToS again.
  • Elsonso
    Elsonso
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    @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.

    With FALGS and REPIAR GATE the typo is obvious. The typo in question is a word commonly used as a slur. It is impossible to tell whether it is a typo or deliberate, given that either is plausible in Cyrodiil.
    XBox EU/NA:@ElsonsoJannus
    PC NA/EU: @Elsonso
    PSN NA/EU: @ElsonsoJannus
    Total in-game hours: 11321
    X/Twitter: ElsonsoJannus
  • Maximus_Mordred
    Maximus_Mordred
    ✭✭✭
    virtus753 wrote: »
    @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.

    It absolutely is consistent. What you typed is hate speech to very many people. FALGS and REPIAR GATE are not. They do not have the same impact, regardless of your intent. ZOS has every right to enforce the outcome, and you agreed to that as part of agreeing to ToS/CoC.

    I’d take dying in PvP in a video game over printing what many will see as hate speech any day. (And I’ve got my 5 stars.) People matter more than a game.

    @ZOS_Kevin Please understand the harm hate speech — even as a typo — can do and how the printing of it is being defended here. This is no longer innocuous.

    Yet statistically both "FALGS" and my case are both highly likely outcomes of a typo in this circumstance - both just a character away from the intended word. By operating on an outcome-based punishment for something as simple and obviously unintentional as this, ZOS is literally playing Russian Roulette with peoples' accounts. Exact words and their meanings are irrelevant to fingers moving on a keyboard, so whether someone in my situation will get banned becomes a roll of the dice - that's the opposite of consistent.

    Also, I absolutely do not appreciate you branding me and many other commenters in this thread of "no longer being innocuous" and defending hate speech, and would appreciate if you would edit out this part of your comment as soon as possible. Your entire comment reads to me as an attempt at virtue signalling rather than actually engaging with the circumstances of what happened.
  • Maximus_Mordred
    Maximus_Mordred
    ✭✭✭
    Elsonso wrote: »
    @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.

    With FALGS and REPIAR GATE the typo is obvious. The typo in question is a word commonly used as a slur. It is impossible to tell whether it is a typo or deliberate, given that either is plausible in Cyrodiil.

    Why would I, midway through trying to coordinate a defence of BLK/Chal and encouraging people to defend the inner keep flags, suddenly devolve into throwing homophobic slurs, then stop again after a successful defence? Make it make sense.
  • Dojohoda
    Dojohoda
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭
    I see a LOT of typos in Cyrodiil. When we see something to report, it's often typed in a hurry. We who play in Cyrodiil understands this.
    Fan of playing magblade since 2015. (PC NA)
    Might be joking in comments.
    -->(((Cyrodiil)))<--
  • ZOS_Kevin
    ZOS_Kevin
    Community Manager
    @Maximus_Mordred thank you for the ticket. We are going to close this thread for now while I escalate this for investigation. Ultimately, using a term identified as possible hate speech is something we take seriously. Additionally, we also understand typos happen, especially with the term “flags”. So we want to be clear here before closing the thread. Hate speech has no place in ESO. Bringing intentional harm to folks in the community is something we do not tolerate.

    Typos and mistakes do happen, so customer service will look into this again on my request and see if we can get this resolved. They hold the final call, so debating this in the forum will not aid or factor into the final call here.
    Community Manager for ZeniMax Online Studio and Elder Scrolls OnlineDev Tracker | Service Alerts | ESO Twitter
    Staff Post
This discussion has been closed.