Why Was I Banned?

I think I know the answer to the question.
"Your parents failed at raising you."

This is pretty amusing.

I understand the nature of the site, but are there legitimate appeals that do get their bans/suspensions reversed?

This blog is genius.

billt721 wrote:

I love the people who claim they didn't do anything wrong only to have it pointed out to them that they "earned" 95325 achievements on some single day. I'm somewhat surprised that nobody attempts to continue on with the 'I'm innocent' act. Are these kinds of threads usually locked after the XBL people make their post?

I get the impression that they aren't immediately banned when they do these things. There were a few posts where the kid got cut off while they were playing a game and seemed to assume they got banned from someone complaining during that match. When in fact is was the cheating they did at some point earlier.

IMAGE(http://whywasibanned.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Untitled.png)

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I see a common theme amongst the banned--Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Call of Duty . . .

What this says to me is not that there is anything wrong with COD. Rather that because COD attracts a particular type of gamer there's a good reason I don't play COD.

Sweet sweet justice.

After reading several pages of the site, I feel intensely sorry for the XBLA mods.

[Addendum: Not least because they're stuck with "PET" in their usernames.]

misplacedbravado wrote:

After reading several pages of the site, I feel intensely sorry for the XBLA mods.

Yeah, that really has to be the worst job ever.

Dear Microsoft,

If you can do this job from home, I will do it. I will do it for minimum wage. I was a BF2 and CSS admin for free, this seems like a step up.

I promise you that I will work my hardest in my spare time (minimum 10 hours a week) to deal with these cretins.

I was born for this job. Please give me a chance.

Love,

Inspector Fowler

InspectorFowler wrote:

I promise you that I will work my hardest in my spare time (minimum 10 hours a week) to deal with these cretins.

I was born for this job. Please give me a chance.

No kidding, eh. My favourite parts are some of the final jabs the admins get in—XBLPET Juliet strikes again:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/tAl5q.png)

Gravey wrote:
InspectorFowler wrote:

I promise you that I will work my hardest in my spare time (minimum 10 hours a week) to deal with these cretins.

I was born for this job. Please give me a chance.

No kidding, eh. My favourite parts are some of the final jabs the admins get in—XBLPET Juliet strikes again:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/tAl5q.png)

Now this one, I seriously laughed at. I think that XBLPET Juliet just got tired of this, and struck back.

crocs611 wrote:
Gravey wrote:
InspectorFowler wrote:

I promise you that I will work my hardest in my spare time (minimum 10 hours a week) to deal with these cretins.

I was born for this job. Please give me a chance.

No kidding, eh. My favourite parts are some of the final jabs the admins get in—XBLPET Juliet strikes again:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/tAl5q.png)

Now this one, I seriously laughed at. I think that XBLPET Juliet just got tired of this, and struck back. :P

Quoted to get rid of those quote tags for ya' (they'll be gone soon enough, hang in there!)

Sorry, I'm such a forum noob! I fiddled with it for 5 minutes before you fix'd it. Thanks!

crocs611 wrote:

Sorry, I'm such a forum noob! I fiddled with it for 5 minutes before you fix'd it. Thanks!

It's not your fault, It's just that it won't work until you make a hundred posts or are a member for a certain amount of time. It does this for all new members in order to stop spambots.

Psych wrote:
Running Man wrote:

Here's a sad one. The mom of an autistic kid went to the local tv station because her kid got banned "because he's too good a player." I'll reserve judging her parenting skills. Later Microsoft presents the evidence, and yeah...he inadvertently cheated.

I wouldn't say he inadvertently cheated. He gave is ID to another gamer to get him stuff.

To Microsoft's credit, they even offered the kid a free month and new ID, even after he was proven wrong.

article wrote:

...Stephen Toulouse, Director of Police and Enforcement at Microsoft...

What? They seriously have a department with that name?

I'll bet in about 10 years they'll be executing search warrants and busting down doors conducting raids on XBL cheaters. Actually, that would probably make a very entertaining reality show on TLC.

InspectorFowler wrote:

Dear Microsoft,

If you can do this job from home, I will do it. I will do it for minimum wage. I was a BF2 and CSS admin for free, this seems like a step up.

I promise you that I will work my hardest in my spare time (minimum 10 hours a week) to deal with these cretins.

I was born for this job. Please give me a chance.

Love,

Inspector Fowler

Ab-so-frickin-lutely. You could be a force for good in the in the trenches of xbox live. If i didn't need money so badly I'd do it for free.

Vega wrote:
article wrote:

...Stephen Toulouse, Director of Police and Enforcement at Microsoft...

What? They seriously have a department with that name?

Maybe that's what PET stands for in all the MS names: Police and Enforcement Team.
Or maybe it's just Policy Enforcement Team.

It is Policy and Enforcement. See his wikipedia page.

Vega wrote:

I'll bet in about 10 years they'll be executing search warrants and busting down doors conducting raids on XBL cheaters. Actually, that would probably make a very entertaining reality show on TLC.

It could spin-off of that Cheaters show that's already out there. Just stick an "xbox" in front of it, with a carrot or something.

This, and Fat, Ugly, Slutty are wonderful and hilarious (as was the butthurt "suck it up!" morons posting at Kotaku when the latter got featured), but I do have one gripe with XBL/Harmonix.

Montenegro is a country. I understand your fear about a certain part of that country's name being used in unfortunate ways, however, Montenegro Shark Panic is the best band name I've ever conceived and I demand to be allowed to use it in RB.

DSGamer wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I see a common theme amongst the banned--Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Call of Duty . . .

What this says to me is not that there is anything wrong with COD. Rather that because COD attracts a particular type of gamer there's a good reason I don't play COD.

Although the developers didn't exactly discourage a certain brand of gamer from playing their games.

Prederick wrote:

This, and Fat, Ugly, Slutty are wonderful and hilarious (as was the butthurt "suck it up!" morons posting at Kotaku when the latter got featured), but I do have one gripe with XBL/Harmonix.

Montenegro is a country. I understand your fear about a certain part of that country's name being used in unfortunate ways, however, Montenegro Shark Panic is the best band name I've ever conceived and I demand to be allowed to use it in RB.

Oh man, you too? One day everyone will know Niger Squid Hysteria.

I have a friend who named her Rock Band character "e e cummings" and was both amused and disappointed when the game informed her that this choice of name was "not classy" and would not be allowed online.

Sometimes the filters do catch stuff that is pretty mundane. I think it was here that I complained that I couldn't name my Assault Rifle class in Black Ops "Assault". That's in house to Activision, but you can find that stuff elsewhere too.

Now that's the job that I pity - trying to imagine every spelling, misspelling, and alternate version of every offensive word you can think of.

It'd be better to crowdsource that kind of database from people like GWJ - good intentioned people with just a touch of the dark side

Seriously, if you could do the policy enforcement job from home part time, I'd be all over that.

Wakim wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

Kids do the darnedest things!
IMAGE(http://images.joshuamills.net/gwj/postable5/myson-resized.png)

Oh SNAP! That's how they found out!

Just kidding, just kidding. Seriously, that has to be mortifying for a parent, and I could totaly see it happening. Child tells parent they were banned and need a new account. Parent asks what they did. Child says nothing. Parent believes child.

Sue Microsoft for offering a platform for child pornography! Just waiting for that to happen

Man. This site is why I don't own an xbox, and why my wife would never agree to buying one even if I wanted one. I've seen these people at Gamestop, and they always seem to be hanging out in the Xbox section.

I know there are cretins on any online service, but XBLA seems to be some kind of honey-trap for them.

I commend the mods for not being either suicidal or raging alcoholics.

MyBrainHz wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

Agreed. The shock value got me, but I feel bad for that parent.

I can't say that I do...

Eeep. I bet my kids learned some unsavory words from me, thanks to the TF2 crew

On the other hand, they got to learn the words to Desperado.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I know there are cretins on any online service, but XBLA seems to be some kind of honey-trap for them.

I think it's a combination of things:

1 - Voice chat is easier on 360 than on PS3
2 - On PC, an admin can permanently ban a user from a server - but on 360 you can only express a distaste for another player. Even if you mute him, he might still show up to grief you.
3 - If you look at the Why Was I Banned site, one post mentions that a guy got over 60 name changes for free - so although this site does show enforcement, it's pretty rare because the peer-to-peer nature of it makes it difficult to enforce an actual code of conduct.
4 - The cost of entry for a 360 is less than a high end gaming PC, so the audience will skew a little bit younger.

I mentioned I used to be a CSS admin - it's not like there weren't kids on PC doing the same crap - plus hacking too! But at least there when I banned them it banned their IP address and Steam account, so they never came back.

With fewer friends to play online with IRL than I used to have (they are all having kids now, dangit), I think I will probably drift back towards PC gaming a bit - if you can't run in a pack on XBL it's a lot less fun.

Edit - and a quick Google search reveals that they do a lot of hiring at Microsoft, so I guess if I was willing to move I could do this. Still wish I could do it from home in my jammy pants.

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