Disabled Facebook Accounts.

[Luxor The Moonprince]

This is a question for the Devs...

Hello.

It's silly season again in Facebook.

At the moment many people are getting there accounts disabled (many permanently) for breaking the facebook Terms and Conditions.

In essence - this means that facebook has identified their accounts as being "gaming accounts" and not genuine facebook "social network" accounts. Nobody knows what criteria they use in determining this - but it is generally assumed that the "fingerprint" of a gamers account will be having many thousands of friends from all all over the world (we all want a 501 army...) and high usage in the facebook apps.

Zynga have been "semi helpful" in their apps. In some instances (for very high level players - starting out again is not an option for these guys) they have been willing to transfer the gaming character into a new facebook account for the disabled gamer - so for instance if I were ever to get banned I would be able to create a new facebook account and transfer "Luxor the Moonprince" to that account.

Obvisually this should not be abused as everyone here in dragon land will want to open up a new account to separate gaming from RL. It is for very established people that have been disabled only.

Can the creators of Castle Age make the same commitment? The data is all in your database ... would a Tech Support mail be looked on favourably?

Here are a couple of groups to get 2 of the latest victims back online.

http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=289426170413

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166053873248

Mayce is a Dragonwars player. Chuck is a Mafia Wars player.

Mayce has pretty much no chance of getting his account back now (it has gone to appeal twice)... Chuck is in the balance.

These players have invested so much into their accounts that it is horrible to even contemplate that they have lost it. Imagine if it were you... and you had spent years getting to level #crazy#...

Thats all Im asking. That the developers of this application be willing to transfer a gaming character into a new facebook account... and only should it ever become necessary.


Thanks in advance.

[Thoughtfulmoron]

Ugh... that's very annoying. That's really all I can say...

I hope the castle age devs do back folks up if this happens.

[Caitir Eavan]

I think this is a great suggestion! While I try to do all I can to stop from being disabled (obviously - as I only have the one account and don't want to lose all the friends on it that I really know) - I feel for those that get in trouble like this.

[lord grindelwand]

jst wondering wht term or condition they hve broken:rolleyes:

[Caitir Eavan]

It happens if you add too many people too quickly, or if you send mass emails to people (with your instant link, for example). They class that as spamming, assuming that there's no real reason for you to want to add hundreds of strangers and that surely you'll want them to buy something etc.

[Falco]

http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=421

[Luxor The Moonprince]

It's just happened to another person I know...

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=152148511266#/group.php?gid=152148511266

Stephen and I are actually friends... he's a very active Dragonwars and Vampirers player... so double the trouble then.

I know the CA forum is not specificly the place to highlight this... but wait until it's one of us...

(and if anyone would be so kind to sign the petition I would regard that as a nice toutch)

[ImmortalVendetta]

Are you sure ya got disabled due to a "Gaming account" or is it because of your abusive game play?

Quote from a group that I belong to;
"Luxor The Moonprince Posts :
Im not looking for gold - couldn't care less about 100K a hit. I earn that every few seconds as it is...
Iv almost got enough stamina to look for another kill. Im going for a bath now - should be ready when Iv finished.
Oh... and you cant count. I think Iv hit you in excess of 150 times now... but to be fair to you it probably dropped off your newsfeed."

Attacking someone 150 times is plain ridiculous not to mention malicious in nature. People who do this should be banned.

[Punkle]

Clever.

First they (FB) come up with the Apps thingy, then they promote the usage & development of apps and then when using apps have become really popular, they punsih the users for using an popular FB feature, *after* the made sure to change the behavior or the apps to use the FB notification system(so users are generating huge amount of "hits" witch pays the bills and at the same time calling it spam).

Sound just like the usage & owners one of the biggest Norwegian Social-network...

[Punkle]

Are you sure ya got disabled due to a "Gaming account" or is it because of your abusive game play?

Quote from a group that I belong to;
"Luxor The Moonprince Posts :
Im not looking for gold - couldn't care less about 100K a hit. I earn that every few seconds as it is...
Iv almost got enough stamina to look for another kill. Im going for a bath now - should be ready when Iv finished.
Oh... and you cant count. I think Iv hit you in excess of 150 times now... but to be fair to you it probably dropped off your newsfeed."

Attacking someone 150 times is plain ridiculous not to mention malicious in nature. People who do this should be banned.

That was a joke, yes:confused:

[ImmortalVendetta]

No joke was intended. Attacking the exact same person 150 times in a row is plain stupid. If you can't see this then, sorry. It is abusive game play when directed at one particular individual. A better point I guess to make is that if your getting on FB of all places to play a game where you attack the same individual 150 times in a row and that is your idea of fun, then you need to shut the computer off and go out into the real world and get some help because you have issues. :p

You do realize how excessive 150 times in a row is right? Oh and by the way, after Lonewolf came on here with his posts that sounded possibly mental, he gets what he gets i suppose. ;)

Oh and one last thing, you guys can chain attack me all ya want cause myself I could give a **** less.:) I mean come on, its a FB game. And games here should be a past time not to be taken so seriously. I play Guild Wars and Diablo 2 for my gaming time. Games on here are a joke by comparison. ;)

[Punkle]

No its not abusive gameplay since the game is built up that way to allow massive amounts of attacks on one person. And since you will get $, BP & XP from attacking someone, it just makes sence to chain attack someone who gives you a good payout of those "loots".

My self, i prefere to attack sevaral targets to get the demi-points from all alignemts and also to not look like im kill-stalking one singel person :P (Thast if there no dragon or keira to play with that day)

[Mursilis]

What Luxor is doing is purely within the rules of CA, so not abusive in any way, shape or form. The game allows this to happen, and oddly enough so is Lonewolf by healing all the time. Nothing wrong with it, and there are way to make it stop that are available to Lonewolf. So enough on that topic here, use the other thread on the subject in the General forum please.

Back on topic, it is disheartening to hear people losing accounts purely for playing the game. But from what I understand duel FB accounts are against the EULA. While I don't play duel accounts myself, no time, I would be curious as to the developers stance on this matter as well.

[Luxor The Moonprince]

OK - lets clear a few things up.

Bringing up Lonewolf in this thread is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the issues raised in this thread. However - if I must comment on the matter - he has been given several chances to walk away and has turned them all down... whose fault is that?

Back on topic. No - Stephen is not running multiple accounts... he is playing more than one game on his existing account. In fairness he doesnt do much else on facebook other than play games and comment in gaming forums... so he has been identified as a "gaming account".

These games - and we all like them? ... are pretty addictive stuff... and when you get to a very high level... it's difficult to walk away.

And in regards to him being banned for "abusive play"... thats complete nonsense. Facebook dont do that - I know. I have had several (about a dozen) written complaints against my game play submitted in the past - every one in DragonWars. Some of the morons have even mailed me to taunt me that "Im about to get banned" and have mailed me the correspondence with FB to that effect!

Needless to say Im still here... Im still not banned... and Im still killing them in DW even tho "I quit" months ago. There is one person that has complained against me and pretty much everyone I know in DW above level 250...

And I have killed him over 1000 times now...

There is nothing worse in my view then threatening someone's account just because you got beat in a game. It is beyond cowardness.

You learn through your mistakes... some people are learning the very hard and painful way...

[Lord Buu]

Just had my account disabled which is rather annoying. Presumably for adding new friends using mass emails. Wasn't even a massive list, maybe 150 or so. Anyway, sent FB an email asking if they could restore the account.

[HouseNdaHouse]

Let me be devil's advocate here: WTF ZOMG... I'll actually have to go outside and play something other than a computer?

Just kidding, I agree... backup would be the right thing to do.

edit: wait? mass email lists for making a 501 army is the cause for the FB bans??? Nice going Castle Age! I'm going to get banned for something I followed in the forums. :/

[Lord Buu]

edit: wait? mass email lists for making a 501 army is the cause for the FB bans??? Nice going Castle Age! I'm going to get banned for something I followed in the forums. :/

Seems to be in my case. I went to add someone manually about 45 mins ago and a message popped up saying I'd been abusing the system recently and promptly disabled my account from that point onwards.

Frustrating when we're "required" by the Apps and/or Facebook to add new friends to be able to add them into our Armies. :rolleyes:

[The Knights who say Nee]

No joke was intended. Attacking the exact same person 150 times in a row is plain stupid. If you can't see this then, sorry. It is abusive game play when directed at one particular individual. A better point I guess to make is that if your getting on FB of all places to play a game where you attack the same individual 150 times in a row and that is your idea of fun, then you need to shut the computer off and go out into the real world and get some help because you have issues. :p

You do realize how excessive 150 times in a row is right? Oh and by the way, after Lonewolf came on here with his posts that sounded possibly mental, he gets what he gets i suppose. ;)

Oh and one last thing, you guys can chain attack me all ya want cause myself I could give a **** less.:) I mean come on, its a FB game. And games here should be a past time not to be taken so seriously. I play Guild Wars and Diablo 2 for my gaming time. Games on here are a joke by comparison. ;)

you wanna grow up mate, 150's no more then a flesh wound, I've been hit 650+ and I'm still standing, its a fighting game for gods sake, go grow some carrots on farmville, gezz for gods sake, my main goal is to smack erm back not cry like a girlie..... hey moonprince dude wanna fight Lol

THO SHALT NOT PASS.....Neeeee

[Luxor The Moonprince]

hey moonprince dude wanna fight Lol

Well... if you are in the mood: http://apps.facebook.com/castle_age/keep.php?user=1031873124

Not sure I recommend it tho...

[Luxor The Moonprince]

Seems to be in my case. I went to add someone manually about 45 mins ago and a message popped up saying I'd been abusing the system recently and promptly disabled my account from that point onwards.

Frustrating when we're "required" by the Apps and/or Facebook to add new friends to be able to add them into our Armies. :rolleyes:

Ah... you have been banned for what is considered "abusive and annoying actions to other users"...

Basicly - the mass add feature you are using (mail ADD ME's) is considered SPAM. You have tipped over whatever threshold they set.

This isnt actually too bad - most times when this happens your account is restored in a week.

If you dont get your account back then we need to set up a petition... or you need to create a new facebook profile (assuming your old one is lost forever) and get your CA character transfered to the new account.

Still no word from the CA Dev's as to weather or not they will allow that or not...

And - for an additional piece of information... Stephen got his account back today - they guy I had outlined earlier. He's going to be keeping a very low profile for a while I reckon!

@Lord Buu. Let us know how you get on with Facebook.

[SDHawk]

1) when I started out I had a rough time getting 501 and at one point I pasted about 250 names from the mass add list into my find friends thingy on FB and got no problems bout it at all

2) Is there any kind of contract that says this game can ONLY be played on FB? Is there no way to make a back door into the game so that one should not have to go through FB to play it? I have wondered about that a lot as, some times the links on FB dont work well and I am stuck not being able to play, through no fault of CA at all, and at those times I would seriously LOVE the capability of chaining FB into oblivion. jus' sayin'...

3) My account has been disabled about twenty times today and I wait for a while and can always get back in. I have been locked out of CA half the day today but when I was able to get back in I had a full refill even though it was nowhere near time for it, and I had to hit the button to re add my army. BTW, thanks devs for the refill! :D

[The Knights who say Nee]

level179:rolleyes: thats alot of clicking THOU SHALT NOT PASS....Neee

[supey]

what if change status every 3 days
and give comments on our wall
is it break the terms and conds also?

[Luxor The Moonprince]

level179:rolleyes: thats alot of clicking THOU SHALT NOT PASS....Neee

LOL - I think it was...

[Luxor The Moonprince]

what if change status every 3 days
and give comments on our wall
is it break the terms and conds also?

As far as I am aware - thats fine.

[HouseNdaHouse]

My battle news is completely blank now. I wonder if they cleared everyone's battle log?

[SDHawk]

yup, they cleared mine

[Falco]

Some of the limits are ridiculously low, though. I was working on a Keira that was taking way too long, so I went to send Facebook messages to try to encourage the bottom 5 people on the list to step up the pace. I got a note from Facebook saying that what I was doing could be considered spam and that I needed to back off and stop doing it. Granted, I copy-pasted the same message for each of them, but it was only five messages! FIVE!!!

[Punkle]

Some of the limits are ridiculously low, though. I was working on a Keira that was taking way too long, so I went to send Facebook messages to try to encourage the bottom 5 people on the list to step up the pace. I got a note from Facebook saying that what I was doing could be considered spam and that I needed to back off and stop doing it. Granted, I copy-pasted the same message for each of them, but it was only five messages! FIVE!!!


Back on topic. No - Stephen is not running multiple accounts... he is playing more than one game on his existing account. In fairness he doesnt do much else on facebook other than play games and comment in gaming forums... so he has been identified as a "gaming account".

These games - and we all like them? ... are pretty addictive stuff... and when you get to a very high level... it's difficult to walk away.

And in regards to him being banned for "abusive play"... thats complete nonsense. Facebook dont do that - I know.

That somewhat what i tried to say ever so clumsy in my First post in this thread..:o

As for my references to an big Norwegian "FB-Clone". Its exactly the same policy with "spam!.. You send a letter to more then one person, it is considered spam.
You want to let members of your group know something and send them a letter, its spam. etc, etc, etc.. At lest (so far) you want get suspended for adding friends..:p

Make me wonder.. "Call to arms"? Wouldn't that be considered Spam? Letting all the appz 'n' games post all the things they want to post, be seen as spam?

Why the heck did then FB-devs make the app & notification system that way then?

Good to hear stephen got his profile back ^^

[Ismene]

What Luxor is doing is purely within the rules of CA, so not abusive in any way, shape or form. The game allows this to happen, and oddly enough so is Lonewolf by healing all the time. Nothing wrong with it.

I disagree. Like many other things in life, just because it's allowed/legal, does not make it non-abusive/right.

More to the point, long chain hitting is sheer foolishness for the long term. Short hit sets allows your crop/opponent to rebuild for later harvesting/attacking. It also avoids the real risk of being "chew toyed" in retaliation &/or reported enough to be banned.

While these are "just games" people to spend time & effort building their characters

Why be a ******* when you don't have to :cool:

[supey]

i dont use call to arms
but sending PM to friends
and i never confirmed as SPAM by FB

because, sending PM is more effective then CTA
CTA will invite many leech

[Caitir Eavan]

They consider sending messages as spam if you send them to people who are not your facebook friends.

Personally, I never had any problems. I have added a lot of people. I've sent messages when I summoned a dragon or Kiera (but only to FB friends)

Also, someone wrote as if it was CA that got them banned. It's not. A lot of applications want you to add people... and until they find a way to do so without going through facebook, you'll have to take the risk. Just take it slowly. And DON'T send any messages to anyone to add you. Just add them like you would add someone you know. You endanger your account more by sending them a message for them to send you the request than by sending the request yourself.
That you get banned is PURELY because of facebook and has nothing to do with CA at all.

[Mursilis]

More to the point, long chain hitting is sheer foolishness for the long term. Short hit sets allows your crop/opponent to rebuild for later harvesting/attacking. It also avoids the real risk of being "chew toyed" in retaliation &/or reported enough to be banned.

Won't happen (the banning part). People have been chaining in this game since it started, no one has been banned for it as chaining isn't abusive. It's an expected part of the game, otherwise there wouldn't be an "eliminated" stat, also there would be a limit to the number of times someone could be attacked and there isn't such a limit. If the developers didn't want chaining to occur, they could easily stop it.

[supey]

They consider sending messages as spam if you send them to people who are not your facebook friends.

Personally, I never had any problems. I have added a lot of people. I've sent messages when I summoned a dragon or Kiera (but only to FB friends)

Also, someone wrote as if it was CA that got them banned. It's not. A lot of applications want you to add people... and until they find a way to do so without going through facebook, you'll have to take the risk. Just take it slowly. And DON'T send any messages to anyone to add you. Just add them like you would add someone you know. You endanger your account more by sending them a message for them to send you the request than by sending the request yourself.
That you get banned is PURELY because of facebook and has nothing to do with CA at all.
i c
thanks for the info

[Lord Buu]

Still waiting for FB to get back to me. Just so people know, all I did was send emails for friend requests. I never send messages to Inboxes.

FB and/or the Applications need to find a better way for people to add new friends without being penalised for it. We're stuck in a Catch 22 situation, you can't add people into your Army unless they're FB friends and then you run the risk of having your account disabled for adding too many new friends when you do as it's considered spam!

Maybe Castle Age could create Groups/Clans within the App so you don't need to be FB friends to increase your Army size. Should be possible as another App has done this (My Heroes Ability). Probably have to moderate Group/Clan creation a bit tighter than MHA does though.

[Doug]

Attacking someone 150 times is plain ridiculous not to mention malicious in nature. People who do this should be banned.

Nice! We should have a petition.

[Lena Gkika]

Still waiting for FB to get back to me. Just so people know, all I did was send emails for friend requests. I never send messages to Inboxes.

FB and/or the Applications need to find a better way for people to add new friends without being penalised for it. We're stuck in a Catch 22 situation, you can't add people into your Army unless they're FB friends and then you run the risk of having your account disabled for adding too many new friends when you do as it's considered spam!

Maybe Castle Age could create Groups/Clans within the App so you don't need to be FB friends to increase your Army size. Should be possible as another App has done this (My Heroes Ability). Probably have to moderate Group/Clan creation a bit tighter than MHA does though.

the reason most applications refuse to create in-game only invitations, and ask you to send them through FB, is that they are ranked from FB according to the number of requests accepted/ignored. If you ignore an app a lot, FB considers it spam. If you accept a lot of the invitations/gifts, they consider the app successful, and the app gets more invitation slots and confirmed active users. This way devs can bargain more and better advertising with their business partners. So i don't see the gifting/invitation scheme changing any time soon, unless FB changes policies once again

[Luxor The Moonprince]

they are ranked from FB according to the number of requests accepted/ignored. If you ignore an app a lot, FB considers it spam. If you accept a lot of the invitations/gifts, they consider the app successful

Oh dear... Mafia Wars must be plummeting down the ranks from the SPAM it send out... all of which I ignore...

Anyway - thanks Lena - interesting information.

[Luxor The Moonprince]

MORE NEWS:

Chuck has unsuccessfully appealed - he wont be getting his account back.

Here's the response from FB. It's worrying reading...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2742428&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=166053873248&aid=-1&id=654808930&oid=166053873248

All us 501's had better pack a suitcase and book a flight sometime. We need to be "Real World" friends!!?

It's insanity.

And if you remove these "game friends" too quickly you have your account disabled...

One day this will be another one of us.

[Luxor The Moonprince]

Still waiting for FB to get back to me. Just so people know, all I did was send emails for friend requests. I never send messages to Inboxes.

FB and/or the Applications need to find a better way for people to add new friends without being penalised for it. We're stuck in a Catch 22 situation, you can't add people into your Army unless they're FB friends and then you run the risk of having your account disabled for adding too many new friends when you do as it's considered spam!

What level in CA are you?

If the worst came to the worst and you didnt get your account back - how bad would that be? Is starting again an option (even tho I know it's a pain)

I am trying to establish if you are a candidate for account transfer...

[Lena Gkika]

Oh dear... Mafia Wars must be plummeting down the ranks from the SPAM it send out... all of which I ignore...


not necessarily true..if you consider that MW has more than a mil users that send out lets say 20 invitations a day, the fact that 1 person ignores them, doesn't mean tham million others do too. This goes for CA, as well as all apps. Its mostly the ratio of accepted vs ignored, than the sheer numbers of them

[Lord Buu]

What level in CA are you?

If the worst came to the worst and you didnt get your account back - how bad would that be? Is starting again an option (even tho I know it's a pain)

I am trying to establish if you are a candidate for account transfer...

I'm only at Level 25 in CA so not a huge loss to start again (although I had bought some Favour Points so had extra Generals and Items).

My biggest loss will be two other applications where I'm a lot higher. Level 147 on Age of Castles and Level 100 on My Heroes Ability (which took me over a year to get to as I'm a main Healer/Buffer for a Group I'm in).

Facebook still haven't got back to me with a reply about my account which is rather frustrating.

[Lord Buu]

I've given up waiting for FB to get back to me so have created another account and started again. If they ever reply to me and do restore my original account then I'll delete the new one.

[Lord Buu]

Well FB appeared to have sent back their standard reply.

"Hi Jason,

Facebook accounts are meant for personal, authentic usage only and should reflect mainly your "real-world contacts." As such, fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This includes accounts that exist solely for the usage of third-party gaming applications, as well as users that maintain multiple accounts to gain an unfair advantage in these applications.

While we realize that certain third-party applications might encourage users to create multiple accounts, send out form messages, or make posts on other users' Walls, we cannot make exceptions to the policies we have in place.

Please be aware that we take the appropriate action on any violations we encounter. If there are any accounts like this on the site currently, it is only because they have not yet been removed.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

Marissa
User Operations
Facebook"

As someone suggested, perhaps we need to hop on planes to visit everyone before we add them as friends...:rolleyes:

[Jarius]

... Facebook accounts are meant for personal, authentic usage only and should reflect mainly your "real-world contacts." As such, fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This includes accounts that exist solely for the usage of third-party gaming applications, as well as users that maintain multiple accounts to gain an unfair advantage in these applications....

I can understand multiple accounts as being wrong. But how is it that they can say our fb account should be mainly rl contacts? And furthermore, if I wanted to make a facebook account (never had one before) just to hang out with my friends on a game like castle age, how exactly is that wrong with the other 450 people I want to add to beef up my army?

I mean, I am utilizing their crap (facebook) which I would NEVER have created if it weren't for the third party game of castle age. If I could get around having to use their crap (facebook) I would happily do so. Unfortunatly I have to use their crap (facebook) until this changes. If I get banned, I will never use their crap (facebook) again.

-Jarius

p.s. ..l.. ..l.. ------> facebook

[Lord Buu]

It's a ridiculous policy. Not all of my RL friends want to play the same Apps as me so I had no choice other than add people I don't know to join Armies. Either that, or stick with a few people in my Army and lose every battle.

[Luxor The Moonprince]

It's a ridiculous policy. Not all of my RL friends want to play the same Apps as me so I had no choice other than add people I don't know to join Armies. Either that, or stick with a few people in my Army and lose every battle.

You have my sympathy.

Whilst it's not really worth "bothering" the devs for a level 25 CA account - the other games you play are lost too - and the inconvenience of having to start another account just to get your friends back is extreme I know.

The standard letter you got from facebook is the same that some of my friends got. None of them ever got their accounts back... My friend Robin most recently... she was level 350 in Dragonwars.... gone forever now. Imagine how long that takes... and how she feels...

Facebook are adopting a more aggressive policy against 3rd party apps and "gamers"... be careful out there...

If anyone has any practicle suggestions Id love to hear them.

:(

[Lord Buu]

I'd be curious to know if the Developers could allow access to the App without having to go through FB. For example, have Castle Age as it's own website but you still use your Email etc to log-in so you can either go through FB or directly to the site. That way, if FB does disable your account you can at least still play without having to restart from scratch.

[Lena Gkika]

Barry Tillotson's account was disabled too..Wrote back to FB but no reply as far as i know so far. He is starting everything from scratch now. Wish there was some way we could do a petition/group about these people that would get FB's attention, although i doubt they plan to change policies

[Lord Buu]

Could always start up a Petition/Group on Facebook I guess. I wonder if the Developers hold any weight with Facebook Admin? Perhaps with them on-board there might be more success.

[Mursilis]

Barry Tillotson's account was disabled too..Wrote back to FB but no reply as far as i know so far. He is starting everything from scratch now. Wish there was some way we could do a petition/group about these people that would get FB's attention, although i doubt they plan to change policies

Was any reason given beyond the standard response above? I'm worried that it's just a matter of time before they get around to the rest of us at this rate...

[sfgiantsfanmike]

Was any reason given beyond the standard response above? I'm worried that it's just a matter of time before they get around to the rest of us at this rate...

Great, Facebook has ME worried now. I've downsized my gaming here on Facebook to three games: Castle Age (my #1 game :)), Street Racing and The Fellowship, though I don't play that often. I had several others I was trying to play but it get's too much with the invites, gifting, ect. Anyway, I have added friends in a few of these other games, maybe a hundred.

I have a total of 1100+ "friends" on Facebook, about 60-70 I consider real friends. The rest are either annyomus gamers or gaming buddies; that is, people who's name I know, gift with and, occasionally, interact with (have a few regular dragon slayers I amongst them). Here I was, about to start ramping up my invites for Street Racing... looks like I'll stay with what I got for now and try to get everyone "Crewed up."

Anyway, to those that have been temporarily banned and especially perma banned: that BITES. I've had to start from scratch on various game way to many times, though usually because I became inactive in a game for whatever reason, and it can be frustrating. I guess maybe I really should fix up that small army thread I started a while back...

[Volkaxx]

It is a slippery slope. I do recall when FB was strictly a college network site and I honestly liked the utility it had then. I really could keep in touch with my frineds and various clubs, student government, etc... Additionally, it was easy to get the word out about campus events and such since the target audience was topic narrowed.

Now there are people who do nothing but game on FB. I would like a larger army too, but I don't want to add (and maybe delete -thanks for telling me that Lena- a ton of people). Additionally, I don't want to spend a fair amount of time in my day hiding applications and blocking applications because some people do nothing but play/post every damn thing on FB(the delete option is looking better and better - double thanks Lena!).

Facebook wsa created for social networking, not gaming. That aspect is just ad hoc from what it originally was meant to be. What is more, there seems to be more "gamers" than social networkers who in their cascade of posts have no respect for what they link/share or the frequency with which they do it.

I am not a big Myspace fan - the music everyone seems to have on their page as you load it is just annoying - but as far as networking goes it seems to be more along that track than facebook anymore.

I am not saying I agree with banning accounts, and I can clearly see how they made their beds and now are reluctant to sleep in them. I am just saying it looks like apps and games are a real threat to hijacking FB totally.

[Luxor The Moonprince]

OK - Iv been involved in a few petitions - and have seem quite a few friends get banned (permanently or temporarily) from facebook.

Here's a list of what I have so far.

Ways to get yourself banned from FB:

* Run multi accounts. ALTS in other words. I dont know how facebook determines what is an ALT and what is not (for example - in a typical family several people will share the same computer [and router]... so how are ALT's determined?)

* Add too many friends too quickly. It's unknown what the trigger is for adding too many friends at once is... but as a rule of thumb there is no way Id attempt to add more than 10 friends a day now.

* Breach the 5000 friends limit. Facebook has a tendency to ban people with more than 5000 friends - this is the figure that they pick as being "reasonable" for you to know or have met at the maximum. Breach it... and you are banned.

* Remove too many friends too quickly. This is what my friend Robin did. She removed an application she no longer played... and consequently removed a hundred or so people that were associated with that application (tyding up her friends list)... This hit a FB limit and identified her account as a gaming account... BAN TIME...

* Have too many rejected friend requests. If you use one of the mass add threads... and you spam the friends list's (you are running a risk ANYWAY by doing that...) ... however if a certain percentage of your friend requests are rejected (I wish I knew what that was...) ... (perhaps because you are using an old list and these people already have 501) ... then this is another way facebook will identify your account as being a gaming account... or spamming a social group at the least.

As I remember more - I will post them up.


Facebook... sort your act out please!

[Luxor The Moonprince]

Barry Tillotson's account was disabled too..Wrote back to FB but no reply as far as i know so far. He is starting everything from scratch now. Wish there was some way we could do a petition/group about these people that would get FB's attention, although i doubt they plan to change policies

I noticed that Barry has just started playing Vampires DS...

Im not blaming DS... Im blaming facebook.

If I were to make a guess at the reason for his suspension I would say that he most likely got banned for adding too many friends too quickly (mass add lists) or had too many friend rejections (for example - I tried Vampires DS - decided it wasnt for me - removed the app and reject all FR's from it now...) from whatever lists are on their forums.

Seems like a reasonable explanation to me.

If Barry appeals the decision they they will get back to him within a few days. It's typically an automated response... but at least he will know what he did wrong.

If facebook dont get back to him... it usually means (in 99% of cases...) that his suspension is temporary - and he will have his account back within 10 days.

@Lena - let us know of any new developments.

Adam

[Lena Gkika]

I noticed that Barry has just started playing Vampires DS...

Im not blaming DS... Im blaming facebook.

If I were to make a guess at the reason for his suspension I would say that he most likely got banned for adding too many friends too quickly (mass add lists) or had too many friend rejections (for example - I tried Vampires DS - decided it wasnt for me - removed the app and reject all FR's from it now...) from whatever lists are on their forums.

Seems like a reasonable explanation to me.

If Barry appeals the decision they they will get back to him within a few days. It's typically an automated response... but at least he will know what he did wrong.

If facebook dont get back to him... it usually means (in 99% of cases...) that his suspension is temporary - and he will have his account back within 10 days.

@Lena - let us know of any new developments.

Adam

don't know if it was because of the new app..he said something about editing an event he created and FB probably considered the editing spamming cause people get notifications when events change..and judging from the OCD Barry has to make things as perfect as they can be, i guess he over edited. Still don't find it a good enough reason..he wasn't warned, just got an email about it in his mail account. He uses a new one temporarily, hoping FB might re-enable the old one, but up until a couple days ago they had given no answer..haven't talked to him since then so hopefully it will get fixed soon

[Suzie]

Just reading this post and now I'm wondering if Facebook is actively hunting down people who plays games? I'm sure many people are playing a number of games and they are all highly addictive. It's rather disheartening to spend so much time and effort and money playing only to get banned.

[Bruja]

Ways to get yourself banned from FB:

* Remove too many friends too quickly. This is what my friend Robin did. She removed an application she no longer played... and consequently removed a hundred or so people that were associated with that application (tyding up her friends list)... This hit a FB limit and identified her account as a gaming account... BAN TIME...

First off FYI this is the first time that I have posted in the forums. Is this really true that if you remove an app then it removes all of your friends that play that app? If so it makes me nervous because all of my friends except for maybe 3 are RL friends and I would really hate to lose them as my FB friends just because I don't like a game anymore.

As far as I can tell, almost every gaming app on FB requires one to have more neighbors, army, whatever to get access to certain portions of the game. Thus, it is ridiculous to ban people from doing precisely that. Seems to me that FB is just getting greedy because they really want their "virtual currency" from all these games and at the same time they want to try to remain a social networking site!

So I say :p & :mad: to FB!

[Ambient]

First off FYI this is the first time that I have posted in the forums. Is this really true that if you remove an app then it removes all of your friends that play that app? If so it makes me nervous because all of my friends except for maybe 3 are RL friends and I would really hate to lose them as my FB friends just because I don't like a game anymore.

As far as I can tell, almost every gaming app on FB requires one to have more neighbors, army, whatever to get access to certain portions of the game. Thus, it is ridiculous to ban people from doing precisely that. Seems to me that FB is just getting greedy because they really want their "virtual currency" from all these games and at the same time they want to try to remain a social networking site!

So I say :p & :mad: to FB!

Removing an app does not remove any friends...

If you've added many "strangers" to get a 501 army for Castle Age, and then you stop playing it, most people will manually remove these players because they no longer need them.

[Thoughtfulmoron]

I keep thinking I'm gonna see my account vanish, but nothing has happened yet... I added 500 people in less than a week, about a month or so ago. I'm up to nearly 1,000 facebook friends. Nothing has happened yet... don't mean it won't though.

For me, the games on facebook are the only draw to facebook. I don't use twitter, or do blogging, or any of that kind of stuff. I never had a myspace account either. I like forums, but typically only do one forum at a time, and will be an active poster on whatever forum I'm on.

Facebook, before I played game, served only one purpose for me... To tell a mass amount of people(family) if something major was happening, when I was travelling through various countries. Often times it was either expensive to call folks, or they were in very different timezones, so one post on facebook at a computer cafe made it much easier.

However, that doesn't happen to me very often, lol. If facebook doesn't want us playing games on it, I'm fine with that... but instead of banning folks they should just cut the applications. As it is I feel like they are baiting me.

Its a game... ooh look its fun to play... *plays game*... *tries to log into facebook* "Your account has been disabled because you played the game" Me: O.o

When/if that happens, I will be more than slightly annoyed. Oh well, it'll maybe motivate me to paint more warhammer figurines, or something.

[Thrud]

my advise- I try to keep my friend-list clean cause im know better than to mess with FB
i got a friend who's account was disabled for that reason...
so i delete most of the army members after i get them on the game
(they stay in your army a/w) and add only around 10-20 ppl max every few days, and than delete them, waiting a few more days, and only than i add more...
It takes more time, but im using FB for more than just games and i dont want it to be disable for a stupid reason..

[Ripthorn]

I was just banned for good with my account. I had Mafia Wars player in the 600's, a Vampire Wars in the mid 200's and my Castle Age character in the mid 200's. I generally cleaned out my friends list after adding new members.

2 appeals..no go!

I had all my close friends on my list too. I restarted with a new account..but good god, i would give my left arm to get my old characters back!!!

[scully]

so i delete most of the army members after i get them on the game
(they stay in your army a/w) and add only around 10-20 ppl max every few days, and than delete them, waiting a few more days, and only than i add more...

They do stay in your army? That just strikes me as odd. But how does that work? I've been interested in trying this... but I haven't had the courage..



As for the 'back door' possibility, there is a way... Farmville is one example I know of with Farmville.com

[Luneatha]

They do stay in your army? That just strikes me as odd. But how does that work? I've been interested in trying this... but I haven't had the courage..



As for the 'back door' possibility, there is a way... Farmville is one example I know of with Farmville.com
Yes they do. Many people who doesn't like game spam adds people to the games, and when the person is already listed as part of their army, they delete them from facebook friends. I do this too, as there are many people who spams my feed everytime they gain a level, etc.

[thewitcher]

THATS SO STUPID being banned for so stupid reasons...i use FB like social and gaming website too, like 99% ppl

[thegigglingman]

I don't like this at all. It's a little troubling that you can't even remove the "game friends" without flagging your own account for deletion.

Ah, I see. It's all about certain factors, a couple of which the help page describes as Speed, Time and Quantity. So (I'm guessing) if you add 200 people in ten seconds, that's a flag. If you accept and remove friends over and over again in short order, that's a flag. If you have 20000 friends, that's a flag.

It seems to advocate slowly using functions of the website to avoid flags and warning, like *slow* requests and *slow* removals. Space between functions, kind of like how you don't send out the mass add again after you get warned for abusing the friend request system.

[Bigbo77]

Just wondering if the people who got banned bought favor points with real money? If they did it could just be an under-handed ploy to get those people to start over and spend more money.

[Lena Gkika]

Just wondering if the people who got banned bought favor points with real money? If they did it could just be an under-handed ploy to get those people to start over and spend more money.

highly improbable mr Maulder ;) FB changed its policy recently, and adding too many people at once or posting links often is guaranteed to get you banned. People have been reporting players that massively sent requests every day, cause they considered they spam their requests page, especially in case where they did not even put a personal message so that the user would know why to add them.

[Punkle]

Other reasons you could get "banned"(Suspended) on FB:
http://www.castleageforums.com/cforum/showthread.php?t=11217

[Julie]

Facebook wsa created for social networking, not gaming. That aspect is just ad hoc from what it originally was meant to be. What is more, there seems to be more "gamers" than social networkers who in their cascade of posts have no respect for what they link/share or the frequency with which they do it.


I originally came to FB with a Fan page for my business and set up an account of my own to be the 'first fan'. Had about 30 friends in a week or so and found it incredibly boring to read "Puppy's getting fixed today... off to the vet" "Had juice and toast... off to work." "Gonna get hammered tonight... don't call me LOL." GACK That's nearly as bad as the incessant game spam!

THEN... some of my friends turned me on to CA, Street Racing, MW & Farmville. From May until the dragons came out in CA I only had about 10-12 friends playing any given game... which drastically limits your advancement in all of them! Joined the DSU group in CA and added over the last couple of months about 220 'game' friends. I interact with a couple dozen of them socially and through game play because of facebook.

Games + New Friends = "Social Networking" The games on FB play an integral part of expanding your social group. Which I believe is FB intent.

[Animayhem]

Through one of the games on FB, I met two people in my area that play D&D. Now without the social games I might of not met them. So I grew my personal social group though the addition of strangers. FB is going a road that could hurt the site in the long run.

[candy8020]

So what happens to those pages like helphaiti, cnn, anderson cooper, angelina jolie that have like 50,000 fans they get banned? what if they happened to play any of these games during thier spare time. sure some of them could gone to some red carpet event or charity event and been told to add to thier facebook page and get 5,000 new fans in a single day and get banned. kinda lame. im deaf and a advocate for many organizations for the deaf. ill have more than 5000 fans by year's end and if i get banned, they will surely make a splash publically to voice thier disproval. so i think this rule is lame. but then some people abuse it for solely for the game.
Zynga have been "semi helpful" in their apps. In some instances (for very high level players - starting out again is not an option for these guys) they have been willing to transfer the gaming character into a new facebook account for the disabled gamer - so for instance if I were ever to get banned

[footballkid]

hi my name is Zachary Conner and im 14. I had my account deleted. I dont know if it was hacked or what but ive tried everything to get it back. Ive played for a year and almost level 200. I am master of my guild and now they are left without a master and are having chaos in there with no one to make the decisions. But i lost it all when my account was deleted. I made a new one but i do not want to start at level one again. It is retarded to have to start over at level 1 when you played for a year and are level 200. Ive reported the problem at the contact us link but with no luck. I really need help. How would you feel if you played for a year and got addicted and had a guild to look after then one day you lose it for no reason at all. Let me tell you i didnt like very much. I really dont like how my problem is being ignored. I have played long hours and worked hard on castle age to get where i am. I surely do not want to start over. But the devs are ignoring my problem while all this time my members are leaving my guild to join other guilds. I have spent quite a bit of money in castle age some of it was my last penny to my name and how do they repay me? By ignoring my problem and not helping a kid like me who just wants to play castle age. I am asking that SOMEBODY please help me to get my account transferred to my other FB acount. THANKS