My most recent column examined both the irritating nature of the griefer, as well as the powerful tools at your disposal for dealing with them thanks to Xbox Live®. If you didn't check it out, and find yourself dealing occasionally with cheaters, abusive players, or other unsavory gamers, feel free to take a gander at the column
here.
I wondered, though, just how exactly Xbox Live deals with this issue, and more specifically, how the File Complaint system is handled on the back-end of Xbox Live. Luckily, I was able to fire off some questions to Christopher Martenson and Ben Smith, who work on Xbox Live, and more specifically, have a hand in the complaint management system.
They Are All Seen
The common worry of the average gamer is that the complaints they file drop into a virtual bottomless pit, where only a fraction are actually seen and resolved. Fortunately, this is not accurate. Ben Smith assured me, "Each time someone submits a complaint it goes into our complaint management system where we analyze all of the submissions and take actions as appropriate." That settles that. If you file a complaint, it
will be seen and addressed.
Legitimate or Not?
Another concern is how the complaints are verified. Chris Martenson notes that, "If a lot of unique people say you are doing something bad then we believe the majority. If a few people try to stack complaints on someone, we will level that out." So those concerned that a griefer or two they irritated will send in a series of complaints, they can rest easy knowing Xbox Live won't be knocking off your Gamertag. They are a lot more likely to interview the player stacking the complaints.
It's also worth noting that you can only file a complaint against someone you've actually played against, so griefers can't send out notices to their buddies asking them to stack complaints on innocent players.
Regarding Banning
I also wondered just what it takes to get yourself banned from Xbox Live, and while they were naturally cagey on providing exact details, Ben tells us that in addition to demonstrating a consistent trend against Xbox Live's Community Standards, "There are also a set of behaviors we have no tolerance for: Hate speech, for example."
Getting Back In
Those that are banned are usually eager to return to the service, and while I was curious what they do to prevent this, Chris was eager to say, "If I gave that away, it would make those griefers happy so I will keep that little secret to myself." Good call. It's good enough for me to know there is something in place to keep them from getting back in, so we don't need to let that particular cat out of the bag.
Review versus Complaint
A common area of confusion is the difference between the Player Review and the File Complaint options. For the ultimate clarification, I'll let the expert explain. Ben said, "The gamer reputation system is about defining who you would like to be matched with in the future, players that you prefer and those that you wish to avoid. We aggregate this data in the Gamer Rep as a general indicator of how fun a person is to play with. The complaint management system is about lodging complaints against users who you feel are not abiding by the standards of conduct for the community. "
There you have it. Submit a Review to tell the system who you like you to play with, but use File Complaint to bring a griefer's antics to the attention of Xbox Live.
Evolving Tools
Xbox Live is never a finished product as the Spring Cleaning update and Fall Update have dutifully proved by adding feature after feature to the service. Of course, I wanted to know what new tools we might be able to look forward to for dealing with abusive players. Ben said, "We are always looking at ways to improve community management and you will just have to stay tuned to see what's next. Check back this summer and we will let you in on some new things."
Perhaps the most important point I gleaned from Chris and Ben is that Xbox Live was always intended to be managed by the community. The Complaint and Review systems only work if we, the players use them, so it's vitally important that we don't ignore abusive, cheating behavior, but report it promptly. Thanks again to Chris and Ben for taking the time out to answer my questions.
Article by Ryan Treit
