The Blizzard Player Code Of Conduct For Dummies. Part 2: Chat

Yesterday we talked about what you can and cannot do in relation to the naming of your characters.  The next article in this series about the Player Code of Conduct will talk about chat.

It is important to note that with respect to the Code, there is no differentialization between text chat and in-game voice chat.  (Obviously Blizzard can’t do anything about what goes on in your Ventrilo or Teamspeak server.)   The same rules apply to both, even though some of the rules only have limited application to voice.

1. You can’t swear. Yep, that’s what it says.  It doesn’t matter that there’s a filter.  The filter is there to protect children from people who ignore the rules, but it’s up to you the player to make sure it doesn’t come out of your mouth to start with.  Furthermore Blizzard is the judge of what’s profanity and what is not.  It doesn’t matter what your opinion is.  Misspelling swear words to get around the filter is also forbidden and will get you in the same trouble you’d get in if you’d spoken the actual word.
2. You cannot carry out any action in a chat venue that will be disruptive.  What’s disruptive?  Things like scrolling the chat screen so fast that you can’t read it.  So all those little ASCII pictures of guns and buses and such are illegal.
3. The gold farmer clause.  You’re not allowed to sell things in chat that are outside the Warcraft universe.  But this applies to Runescape accounts and other things as well.
4. Sending repeated unsolicited messages to a single user.  Yep, so if somebody tells you to leave them alone, you’d best do it.  The rule also refers to excessive repeating in public chat channels.
5. You can’t communicate personal information about somebody else.  Period.  If you know somebody’s home address, phone number, or other information and you post it in-game (or on the forums) you’re going to get in trouble unless it’s your information and you’re communicating it privately to a single user.
6. Harass, threaten, stalk, embarrass or cause distress, unwanted attention or discomfort to any user of the Game.  That one was so simple I just decided to cut/paste it.
7. You can’t participate in any kind of a scheme that screws anybody out of gold, weapons, gear, or other in-game items.
8. You can’t communicate with players cross-faction.  So those cute little codes that people use to say “LOL” in Hordespeak?  They’re illegal.
9. You can’t impersonate a real life person that you are not.  Blizzard makes mention of GM’s, but it includes anybody else as well.

You may look at some of this and go “WOW!  I didn’t know that was in the Code of Conduct”, but remember what I said the other say.  90% of all the “enforcement” in the game is complaint driven.  If nobody catches you, or nobody cares… there is a very good chance you could escape completely unscathed.  That doesn’t mean you should do it.  It just explains why a lot of people never get nailed.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about what the Code of Conduct has to say about your in-game actions.  Bring your heart pills.  You may need ‘em.