How Jagex Customer Support failed me

[mott555]

I've been playing RuneScape for 4 - 5 years now, I'm combat level 97, I have a quest cape (can't wear anymore because of Rocking Out), and I've never had a black mark/offense. Until now. Actually it happened about a month ago, but I play so little anymore that I didn't find out until today.

 

 

 

Anyway, here's the incident. It was the day Quick Chat was released, and several odd things were available in their items list, including "Mobile phone," "9mm revolver," and "Pretty girl." I was hanging out in Edgeville exploring Quick Chat with all of the usual people who hang out there, and I found that "Spadeful of coke" was an item in Quick Chat. Now, where I live coke means only two things--Coca-Cola and cocaine. Since a spadeful of soft drink doesn't make sense to me, I made a comment (aloud, in public chat) wondering why they'd have a shovelful of drugs as an item. I then speculated it was an easter egg or a joke and moved on to other things.

 

 

 

Being bored with RuneScape and busy in real life, I put the game down for about three weeks. I logged back in today to catch up on quests and saw I had messages from Jagex. I discovered that I had been reported for breaking rule 1 (offensive language) and had a black mark put against my account, and by looking at the evidence, it showed me my comment about a shovelful of drugs. I appealed the offense, explaining that we were trying to figure out some items available in Quick Chat, and when I clicked submit I got an immediate response. No waiting time. The response said something along the lines of "We have conclusive evidence that you were in fact in complete control of your account when the offense was committed." Now in my appeal I never made the claim that someone else controlled my account. The response indicates that Jagex didn't even read my appeal. Even more disturbing was that the response was immediate. Being a computer programmer in real life, I can recognize automated responses.

 

 

 

Naturally, I made my way to the rants forums and posted a quick rant against canned, automated appeal responses. Within five minutes it was locked by a Forum Moderator stating that it was "not a valid topic of discussion." Over the next hour I watched as another dozen or so rants about the exact same subject popped up, and they were all quickly locked. Some even hidden. One guy even received a forum ban for his thread.

 

 

 

I find it disturbing that I was reported for something relatively innocent and received a black mark for it. I find it more disturbing that the appeal system is totally worthless, that you can send anything you want and the system just automatically accepts/rejects (RS forums are full of posts about people who successfully appealed using only jibberish or swear words). It sounds like the system has some kind of percentage, for example automatically accept 15% of appeals and reject the rest (made-up numbers).

 

 

 

But even more disturbing is the fact that we were being silenced for pointing out the injustice of the appeal system.

 

 

 

I hope I can safely post this on these forums, as apparently this is a common occurrence. Jagex Customer Service seems to have some serious problems, and when we point those out we get silenced. We need to be able to point out flaws in their system and not be swept under the rug and punished when we find these things out.

 

 

 

Apparently the safest thing to do in RuneScape is never speak. Because anything you say--no matter how innocent or trivial--can always be construed as offensive by someone. And if that happens to you your appeal doesn't matter, because a human won't read it and a machine will use a random-number generator to decide whether or not to remove your offense.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, never speaking will probably get me reported for macroing.

[failbait]

Lol'd at the "Shovel full of drugs" comment, and yeah I've been muted a few times, and I don't even bother with an explaination trying to defend myself anymore, I also get instant DENIED responses from Jagex. Worst of all, I've seen screenshots from a couple friends of them flaming Jagex in their appeals.. and they managed to get their mute lifted. :thumbdown:

[ice age mage]

I support your rant, also people reporting for these kind of things fail at life.

[BloodArgon]

If it sounds bad it probably is.

 

 

 

Jagex appeal system sucks [wagon], but don't do stupid things and you won't get black marks.

[cat666]

I got a black mark for saying Runescape is more addictive than drugs.

 

 

 

It's just the word drugs which they seem to hate.

 

 

 

Spadeful of coke is something to do with a furnace though, you used to have to add coke (coal) to a fire to keep it blazing.

[BloodArgon]

Spadeful of coke is something to do with a furnace though, you used to have to add coke (coal) to a fire to keep it blazing.

 

 

 

Its the blast furnace. You shovel coke into the heater box. Its a type of rock.

 

 

 

From Wikipedia

 

Coke is a solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Coke from coal is gray, hard, and porous.

[mememe513]

It's not even worth doing a appeal unless it's a mute or ban. If you get a blackmark, and the computer accepts your apology, you don't get anything.

[Wallettheif]

Actually, people don't report for this, I think think there's a bot that reports anything that could offend, autoing, scamming, etc. It's like a security camera. I know because my friend said "What the terd? I thought you were muted o.O" when I sent him a QC message. He later got a 1 blackmark and a 3 day ban (wtf?) for what he said to me. (this was in a PM) and I know for a FACT that I didn't report him. So, when he got unbanned, he pmed me when I was on my alt and asked me why I reported him. I said that I didn't, and he said that he'll turn building mode on in his POH, say [cabbage] by avoiding the filter, and wait until he gets a bm. I tried to tell him not to, but he did it anyways. About a week later, he got 1 bm FOR WHAT HE SAID IN HIS POH. He tried to appeal it and got a message with the usual crap about him controlling the account INSTANTLY.

[mott555]

I think think there's a bot that reports anything that could offend, autoing, scamming, etc.

 

 

 

Wow, that's actually quite scary. I'm gonna register a f2p junk account really quick and check it out.

 

 

 

I've always been a RuneScape faithful, continuing to play even after pure essence, the G.E., removal of free trade/pking/duel arena and stuff, but this appeal system and possible auto-report might make me start second-guessing my choice to stay. If there is an auto-report system that will generate abuse reports based on things that are said, that could be a big problem. In essence it would function very similarly to the censor system, and we all know how messed up the censor is at times. Remember when the word "fletching" was censored? I'd hate for that to happen again (but with the auto-report system instead) and then get muted for telling some newb that I have a fletching cape.

[mott555]

The scariest thing about an auto-report system is that if it exists, they never told us. We really should be warned before such major updates to the chat system are implemented.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

"Spadeful of drugs". That's not the same as a shovelful of coke, despite your slang teachings to the contrary.

 

 

 

The scariest thing about an auto-report system is that if it exists, they never told us. We really should be warned before such major updates to the chat system are implemented.

 

Why's that? Shouldn't you be a good player in the first place? Or have you not noticed the cameras all around you at every time in the day?

 

 

 

[i already know the allusion to 1984, I've read it, and it applies here. But you should still follow the rules.]

[konzserwas]

Because that's not fair? if i'm talking to my irl friend in pm I probobly won't be thinking about the rules.I'll be talking freely. And getting banned for that? #-o

[Bloodkay]

Because that's not fair? if i'm talking to my irl friend in pm I probobly won't be thinking about the rules.I'll be talking freely. And getting banned for that? #-o

 

 

 

But how could Jagex know that they're your IRL friend? You should always keep the rules in mind, even when talking with a IRL friend. Think of it as etiquette training :P Just don't say anything remotely offensive to anyone, as you never know who's watching.

[failbait]

I always thought private chat was exactly as the name suggests, "Private".

 

Guess I thought wrong ... ?

[amoeba_009]

I always thought private chat was exactly as the name suggests, "Private".

 

Guess I thought wrong ... ?

 

 

 

Indeed. Its their world its their game, i wouldent care if they continued their banning practices but only if there was an appeal there was a human on the other end processing it. That alone makes all the difference.

[mott555]

Just don't say anything remotely offensive to anyone, as you never know who's watching.

 

 

 

Well that's the hard part. How am I supposed to know what other people consider offensive? I follow my own rules of speaking, avoiding language that I consider offensive and language I know other people will normally consider offensive (and for five years that's worked great, no blackmarks until a month ago), but the problem is that nearly anything can be viewed as offensive by someone. I don't view my comment as offensive, and I know most of the people who hang out in Edgeville don't either, since I practically live there and I talk quite a bit to them (and many of them make comments that are much easier to define as "offensive" than what I said).

 

 

 

But I can't control other people's thoughts or ideas (unfortunately =P) nor can I read their thoughts, so I can't know if I said something offensive. I guarantee someone out there will even find this post offensive, simply on the basis that I don't find myself offensive.

 

 

 

I think "offensive" language is actually the wrong term. In my opinion, offensive language can include more than just dirty words. It extends to ideas. Many people find conversations "offensive" even if each and every word is totally acceptable, simply because of the idea expressed. For an example that's easy to relate to, if I said "Removing PKing was a dumb move," that could easily be considered offensive by someone who loves the new wilderness. Since that could fall under the category of "offensive language," (after all, I did offend them) could I be potentially reported for that? On the other hand, if I said "Removing PKing was a good thing," I'd probably have former PK'ers threatening to kill me in my sleep. Obviously that statement can be considered offensive.

 

 

 

My point is that "offensive" language is far too broad and gray of a term. It may be difficult to define the boundaries of what's considered "offensive." I think the "offensive language" option should be replaced with "foul language." The category of "foul" or "dirty" language is much easier to define and understand than "offensive" language. And it removes the possibility of punishment for saying something that isn't dirty but may be controversial. And it would allow me room to mistakenly believe a "spadeful of coke" is a "shovelful of drugs."

[Bloodkay]

Sad, but true Mott. It's really a no-win situation. I pity anyone who falls victim to such nonsense.

 

 

 

Jagex states on their Rules board that "offensive" language is :

 

2. What do you mean by offensive or inappropriate language?

 

This includes (but is not limited to): discussion of recreational drugs, sexually explicit language, solicitation, racism or other prejudice, threatening, blackmail and swearing. It's simply a matter of common sense - try not to say anything that someone might find offensive.

 

 

 

They pretty much contradict themselves by asking not to say anything that someone might find offensive, as you've stated, pretty much anything can be considered offensive to someone.

 

Even the word "noob", which, ironically, Jagex does not recognize as an offensive word because:

 

5. I was called a 'noob'. Is this offensive? Should I report this player?

 

Calling other players a 'noob' is quite common in most online games.

 

It's not something to worry about as it means 'new player'. Every player has to be a 'noob' at some point.

 

The best thing to do is to ignore it.

 

 

 

I guess they miss the difference on "noob" and "newb or newbie"

[mott555]

Well, I guess I did make a comment about recreational drugs, but I can turn around and blame Jagex for putting an item in QuickChat that was open to such interpretation. If the appeal system wasn't automated, they (hopefully) would have understood that I misunderstood the meaning of an item in QuickChat.

 

 

 

Interestingly enough, "spadeful of coke" is no longer available in QuickChat.

[Yomyth105]

wat customer support? Did jagex even have one? ....jk. but seriously jagex customer support is terrible.

[Eagle_Tas]

This is not widelly known, but in a news post before the RWT changes, Jagex mentioned an automated system to detect macroers. Although they claimed that the reports from the computer was checked up by customer support staff, it is safe to assume many innocent players fell victim to this system.

 

 

 

If they have a system to detect macros, they probably also have systems to monitor all chats in-game, PM, Clan chat and public. This is probably filtered by blacklisted words and if you are unlucky, it is black marks for you.

 

 

 

The flaws with such a system are obvious.

[MicroLegionnaire]

Another casualty of Jagex's customer support. I feel for you mate, I really do.

 

 

 

You did kinda get off easy though, given how itchy Jagex fingers are near the mute button when drugs are mentioned. My friend got perm muted because she said "I have weed."