The mods are probably some overzealous teenagers that are paid in gold(game currency, not real gold). I've rarely ever seen a person with a mod tag, although I have to admit I barely look for them. Is this a 7 day chat ban, or full ban? If its just a chat ban, then who cares. If its a full ban and you're a premium player, I would be pissed. I only believe full bans should be placed on TKers and such, any chat related issues can easily be solved with a chat ban.
I also sympathize with you, as 7 days is a little much, and it was clearly a joke. Mods these days are getting just as bad as homeowner associations.
I don't know their age, but I know the moderators are highly inconsistent. They have low standards.
One evening, I saved about four random hours of chat and sent it to them showinng dozens of bad and inconstent moderator behavior, to make the point.
They responded with thanks for the chat and that they'd take action as appropriate. Of course none of the mods who did badly were removed.
There was no offense here at all.
First, it was clearly a joke. Now, a joke could be politically offensive, but this wasn't - the worst it did was, to make a joke about banning a speaker, to use the rule against anti-gay comments in chat by citing Mike Huckabee who proudly has anti-gay policies. That's the same amount of offense as saying 'Mike Huckabee is a Republican' or 'Mike Huckabee is against the stimulus', just citing that he'd speak about anti-gay policies in a speech.
Now, the enforcement in chat has always been that there's a certain amount of political chat, and the moderators haven't jumped to bans. They've not reacted to a good amount while it's reasonably civil; if someone starts to get insulting, they give a warning to stop the political chat, with no bans unless people continue. There was no warning here. And not one person was offended - only several people enjoying the humor.
Even if it HAD been a politically offensive comment and IF they had decided to sanction it without any mod warning or offense for the first time to handle it that way, the penalty for that offense is normally one day - not seven, which is for the different offense, which not even they tried to defend had happened, 'impersonating an administrator'.
As for the chat ban, why care? Well, there's the problem above. There's the problem that I'd had a previous excessive ban end literally five minutes before this one. But there's also the problem that you can't speak in matches, which hurts the enjoyment and the gameplay; you can't even hit t to announce targets, you can't ping the map. You can't talk to your clan as clan wars are being planned, you can't respond to a friend's chat box.
I had a game where I was playing an arty, and a player decided to announce he suspected I was AFK when he didn't see me move around the map. I couldn't answer. Then when he saw me move, he changed it to that I was a bot. Couldn't answer, reinforcing his baseless suspicions. Can't ask for people to attack a target, can't warn people of an enemy. Until you play without any chat, you might not appreciate, it makes the game a lot less fun.
FYI, why I had a ban before: I deserved it technically, but the length was too long.
We've all seen people who 'mouth off' in the game, inviting to be teamkilled - with racist comments, cussing insults at teammates, etc. There's a player who had a big mouth and was already on my ignore list for it. I don't remember the details, but he later claimed he'd teamkilled my tank. Then I saw him in a recent match, and he was in his 704, staying behind my tank ramming me and trying to not let me back up after I shot an enemy. I returned the behavior by going behind him. Then he began to turn around to face my tank; it was likely he'd shoot my tank, but I didn't do anything, and he shot and destroyed my tank. I said in chat he's a teamkiller, and reported him.
He had not even turned blue for it, much less reached the point for a sanction, which would be a one day ban. Wargaming has said they will not take any other action for teamkilling, no matter how blatant, no matter if a replay shows it was intentional - they treat it the same whether an accident or intentional. So he'd get no punishment.
Right after that he was in another match - I took him off ignore to monitor, and he was mouthing off insults, and my tank had been destroyed by the enemy but he was saying he'd destroy it a third time. I decided that was enough of him not getting any punishemnt, and said to the enemy 'I wouldn't normally do this, but a teamkiller is in b9'. Against the rules; if I got a ban, so be it. Nothing happened to him from that, the enemy didn't shoot him.
Only thing is, later that day, I got a three day ban. Now that seems a bit much, given that I'd done nothing while he was teamkilling, until repeated provocations; not justifying it but mitigating it; and that he was not getting any punishment for teamkillng, and if he HAD, past blue, to sanction, it was only a one day punishment; while the message to the enemy, which didn't result in harm, after repeated provocation and teamkilling, got a three day ban.
As always, a ticket pointing out that discrepancy got the monkeys to say it was correct.
That was the case of three days' ban ending 5 minutes before the new 7 day ban for a harmless joke.
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