| #1WotC_TrevorAug 22, 2011 18:42:35 | On suspensions
- A common misconception seems to be that if you receive a suspension that ends on a specific date, then your access should be rightfully restored at 12:01am on that date. This has never been the case. If you receive a suspension that ends on a specific date, it means that it will be lifted by 11:59pm on that date. Requests for reactivation that come in on the date in question will not be acknowledged.
- Every time you receive a suspension, you should receive a mail notifying you why you were suspended and what date you can expect your account to be reactivated. If you find yourself suspended and don’t think you’ve received an email, you should head to our customer service site at www.wizards.com/customerservice and, after logging in there, click on “My Stuff”. It’s likely that you will see the suspension email here, and that something has gone wrong somewhere along the way with the email delivery (this is often the case with over-zealous spam filters – many times, the content we remove is content that spam filters look for.) If you don’t find a suspension email there, you should email us so we can correct either the notification or the suspension for you. After clicking “Ask a Question”, select “Wizards.com Website” -> “Account Issues” to receive the fastest response.
- At times, suspensions do not end when they should – this is an issue with our software we are working on correcting. In the meantime, if the date that your suspension has ended has passed and you are still suspended, you should write us, using either the above method or by responding to the initial notification email.
- We encourage the community to try not to worry about suspensions that relate to other people. This often boils down to speculation with partial facts at best, and manipulation by others to a wrong conclusion at worst. We will not talk with you about suspensions or other conduct actions that we've taken on someone else's account, or the lack thereof.
- Suspensions, except in extreme cases, are 100% systematic. Many factors are taken into consideration, including the nature of the violation itself and past violations.
On conduct violations
- We retain all rights to uphold our user agreements in all ways. The way these agreements are enforced are rarely modified because of any one person’s opinion; the conduct system is designed for the whole of the community, not its individual members. This means that your personal views, opinions, location, and experiences do not have an impact on the conduct system. To use a common example, an activity may be legal in your area, but this does not make it appropriate for our community.
- Over the past few years, we have made a concerted effort to provide you with more information about your violating content, to help you better understand how you may adjust your posting to avoid future violations. A problem that has arisen relating to this is that there has been a growing focus on the granular details, and this is an active detriment to all involved. If you make a post about drug use that we deem inappropriate, we will often let you know that it was removed due to the fact that it dealt with illegal activity. This is something we view as more helpful that simply saying the post was disruptive or inappropriate. This part of our communication needs strong improvement to meet the desires of the community, and is something that we are actively pursuing. While we will never be able to provide granular details of the process or the violation, and likely never be able to provide as much information as you would like, we can do (and will work toward doing) better.
- There are a few tips you can keep in mind to avoid breaking the code of conduct. The first is to recognize that some topics may appear in our products that are unacceptable for our community. If a topic would not be acceptable discussion while relating to one of our products, it won’t be acceptable discussion unrelated to our products either.
- Name calling, goading other people to respond negatively, the use of vulgar speech, and deliberate attempts to violate our user agreements are all also disallowed.
- If you are looking for a ‘hard line’ on what type of content is allowed, you should view it as a strict “PG” level. While the actual bar is higher than this in many areas, there is no easy way to communicate what is or isn’t allowed above that level. Sticking to a PG level should be safe in most cases. If you take the time to actually look up PG, I do want to point out that even though it states that PG films may have brief nudity, swearing, or violence (which in our case translates to verbally attacking other forum posters or groups), none of this is actually allowed through the code of conduct. Subject’s that are sexual, graphic, or illicit in nature are always more likely to violate our user agreements.
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