The GM team is completely ineffective.

[Jeeqbit]

Then that's something they should tell us, no?

Well again, the context may take some investigation and confirmation (since, your report could be a lie for all they know and they need to check), so I doubt they would just tell you on the spot.

Something as simple as "We've reviewed your report and determined the actions do not violate Terms of Service"

Well you see, that would confirm they took no action on the user. They don't want to confirm or deny if they took action on a user for privacy reasons.

Why does the privacy matter? Laws aside, it presents a big problem if they give you ammo to publically say "this person got successfully reported" in a mocking way, and likewise if the person receiving the punishment knows who or what prompted it then they may go after them and create a feud of some sort. For all these reasons they keep it vague.

It'd give everyone a much, much better understanding of the rules than the guessing game we have to play to this day.

You could, like, read the rules. Then it wouldn't be a guessing game. I've always fully understood them, but a while back they provided examples for people who struggle to interpret them. The examples are in line with the understanding I have always had: that you just need to be kind and considerate and that's really it.

Now, of course, that's not on the GMs, that's on the policies; which are probably a big part of why it feels like the team is completely ineffective.

They are constrained to a degree. When this is the case, they usually direct you to the official forums. Which of course is kind of a dead end because there is a language barrier, but it's the only thing they can do because SE's policy is that "if you want change you can post about it on the official forums".

why I'll probably never touch WoW again is the fact that they entirely gutted their CS team and replaced it with a copy/paste bot

The truth is that in customer service, you are answering the same questions over, and over, and over again. It gets to a point where you are repeating the same thing every single day. You are virtually writing out templates that exist in your head. At this point, you may as well write actual templates and optimize them to come across polite and navigate all the social rules and political correctness rules. So that's what they do! It also saves a lot of time. Of course, I think they can go off-script if they feel it's necessary but I think in most cases they don't need to because they had a script for your exact scenario.

[Boblawblah]

Spam is spam, it doesn't matter the form it comes in. Emote spam, action spam, chat spam, party finder spam, gold selling spam, it all is ultimately the same thing: spam. There doesn't need to be a qualifier, it's all spam.

The problem with saying "spam is spam" is that it doesn't actually say what spam is. Could you define it for us, and be specific? Like, is doing the same emote 3 times in a row every 5 minutes spam? How about saying the same greeting 5 times in 2 minutes? Give us a couple of examples of spam you've reported.

[ThaCa]

I've had GMs take action against bad actors when I came across them in most parts of the game. This is thankfully not a very frequent occurence.

However when it comes to PvP, they take weeks to react. In early seasons of crystalline conflict, we had a blatant win trader and posted proof with combined collective of the regulars who matched with them and all it resulted in was a slap on wrist warning and reset of current rank. It took weeks to resolve and this person with their friends ruined so many matches during that time. It wasn't even slightly suspicious, they literally had their friends queue as same Job and idle through the whole match.

From what I've heard the PvP issues are resolved by separate task force and either they are tiny or swamped in work.

[Kazmarek]

The problem with saying "spam is spam" is that it doesn't actually say what spam is. Could you define it for us, and be specific? Like, is doing the same emote 3 times in a row every 5 minutes spam? How about saying the same greeting 5 times in 2 minutes? Give us a couple of examples of spam you've reported.

Aren't you the same person that deleted their posts in another thread I made about spam? My answer's still the same to you in particular: nothing I say will ever be good enough for you because I don't get the impression you're arguing in good faith.

[LianaThorne]

Aren't you the same person that deleted their posts in another thread I made about spam? My answer's still the same to you in particular: nothing I say will ever be good enough for you because I don't get the impression you're arguing in good faith.

I'd also like to ask for context in regards to the spam. It would be helpful to know simply to have all the facts on the table before making a judgement.

[Kazmarek]

You all know what spam is, you don't need me to dictate it to you. It's too much of the same thing. That can take different forms; whether it be the guy who got banned for casting holy too much in limsa, whether it be the two people using /slap on each other with or without turning off the filter for it, whether it be the gil selling bots advertising the same websites over and over again, whether it be too many of the same exact listings in the party finder, or whether it be the same thing said in any chat channel over and over again. It's all fundamentally the same thing; spam is spam.

[LianaThorne]

・Spamming
Refers to using chat (including Quick Chat in PvP content and emotes) to obstruct the gameplay of others.

Key Points
The key point to consider is whether or not the behavior is obstructing another person's gameplay. While the intention may have not been to cause an obstruction, if the situation interferes with the communication of other players then it can be determined as a prohibited activity. If a report has been filed and the prohibited activity is confirmed, a penalty will be issued.

For example, in large-scale content such as alliance raids or PvP, in order to ensure smooth progress, a player may present a general course of action to the entire group, and the other players may agree to it and act accordingly. In such a case, when the progress of the content does not go as intended there may be a chance the player becomes frustrated and spams the chat with unnecessary lines of text telling other players what to do even if it was already discussed. This deviates from the original intention of the chat and could be considered as a situation that interferes with the communication of other players.

Please note that Square Enix may issue a penalty in its discretion even if a report has not been filed but the act was found being conducted in public areas such as Say and Shout, in towns/cities/field areas, or online video/streaming services.
------------

Copy-pasted out of their ToS.

From how I interpret it, taking their alliance raid example, the comments/actions/whatever in question would have to actively interfere with other players ability to communicate or complete content.
So, the spam would have to be severe enough that people are unable to chat to each other without it getting in the way or wiping the text, is how I'm assuming it would be viewed in a non-combat setting, like when bots sometimes break in Novice Network and spam out a bunch of random text over and over again until someone kicks it?

Again, just my interpretation.

[Kazmarek]

■Nuisance behavior
"Nuisance behavior" is speech or behavior that hurts others or obstructs their gameplay, but which is not classified as harassment. Even if it was not intended, a penalty may be issued if the end result was that another person was hurt, or their gameplay was obstructed. If the behavior was observed being conducted by multiple players, all involved members will be issued a penalty.

・Expressions considered impolite or against common sense
・Expressions that significantly lack consideration for others

Just as in the real world, it is important to be considerate of other players to maintain cordial relationships and positive experiences in the world of Final Fantasy XIV. It is prohibited to make expressions or to act in ways that would be unacceptable in the real world. This includes disturbing the peace and having a lack of consideration for others. If a report has been filed and the prohibited activity is confirmed, a penalty will be issued.

Separately, in Final Fantasy XIV, player communities may have their own specific set of loosely established rules and guidelines, which involve their own manners, morals, and etiquette. These community-specific rules and guidelines are not officially established as a unified set of rules for the entire community, so they may differ from one community to another. What may be acceptable in one community may be objectionable in another.

If there is a situation in which a person repeatedly says or does something that can be judged as intentionally trying to disrupt the peace, such as "intentionally ignoring the community-specific rules and guidelines while being aware of them" or "unwilling to learn of them," a report can be made. If we determine that the behavior falls under our prohibited actions, a penalty will be imposed.

Each data center will also be judged based on the social customs of that data center's region in the real world.

Please note that Square Enix may issue a penalty in its discretion even if a report has not been filed but the act was found being conducted in public areas such as Say and Shout, search comments, Party Finder, or online video/streaming services.
------------

Also copy-pasted out of their ToS. To my interpretation, the examples I gave earlier do "significantly lack consideration for others." So you're right, maybe I'm technically incorrect by calling it "spam" under the SQenix definition of the word, however, the way I read it means that these actions are still against ToS.... Which is why, going back to a point I said earlier, I believe the policy needs to change to actually allow them to say "this is not against the terms of service" when replying to reports, instead of their default canned responses.

[Sove92]

Why are you so evasive in explaining what this "spam" you have been reporting is? You keep dodging the question when it's really easy to answer.

[Valence]

I don't know if it's the team itself or the policies, but it's completely ineffective. Absolutely nothing gets done. I've taken to reporting spam again in recent weeks. It's all over the place, I've submitted reports for the same names (yes, it's always the same character) so many times and nothing is ever done about it.

This came to a boiling point last night when I actually got to speak to- what I assume was- a living, breathing actual human GM. I asked them to tell me, point blank, if what I was constantly reporting was actually against TOS. Their response was telling me they could not provide me with any conclusive answers.

This is, of course, entirely unacceptable. If anybody should be able to provide conclusive answers, it's a GM. This isn't even to mention how- if by some measure of bad luck- you actually manage to get suspended, you won't be told what you got suspended for. You'll be told what part of the TOS you violated, but you won't be given the specific incident, meaning you just have to guess at what happened.

Once again, this is entirely unacceptable. I can only be led to believe that the GM team is either incredibly overworked at best, or completely incompetent at worst. To be honest, I don't care which one it is. I want to see better from the community. I want to see actual courtesy, I want to see the GMs enforcing their own rules. The bottom line is, it needs to be better.

There is a colossal chasm between GMs and the actual TOS. I genuinely believe that the TOS is great, but nobody actually bothers applying it properly at the other end of the line.