FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
COMPLAINT AND WARNING SYSTEMS
Some chat systems include complaint mechanisms designed to discourage online rudeness. Some online games give players a Report button they can push whenever they receive an offensive message. The offending message is, if it consists of text, automatically forwarded to someone in authority (usually online customer service staff), who can then investigate and take appropriate action: warn the offender to mend his ways, kick him offline, or even ban his account.
The America Online Instant Messenger includes a fully automated system that allows users to warn each other, either anonymously or openly, when one participant behaves badly. A user can be warned once per message that he sends; the more warnings he receives, the less frequently the system permits him to send messages. If he receives enough complaints, he may be unable to send any further messages for several hours. The record of the complaints is deleted over time, so a user's bad behavior is not held against him permanently. If he has behaved himself for a while, he can resume sending messages.
Some chat mechanisms allow a player to hide messages from other individuals whose behavior they find offensive, a practice called ignoring. The player simply selects the name of a person he wants to ignore, and he no longer receives chat messages from that person, no matter what the person writes. You can permit this to take place silently (the other player doesn't know she's being ignored) or automatically send a message telling her that she has been ignored—the online equivalent of deliberately turning your back on someone. This mechanism is both effective—the users have full control over whom they hear from and whom they don't—and inexpensive because it doesn't require staff intervention. You should also include the ability to turn chat off entirely if players simply don't want to hear from anyone else.
