Have a wonderful Shabbat and kindest regards

Have a wonderful Shabbat and kindest regards,
Liv

Those are the closing words to a 500-word angry rant I submitted to Rec Room support 6 hours ago.

This story begins in the Rec Room Discord server, when I sent a screenshot of my Duolingo streak.

screenshot of discord message containing an attached image of my duolingo streak, which was 99 — Screenshots in this post are taken after I added the star of David to my display name. It will make more sense later.

In the discussion that followed, someone asked what language I was learning.

screenshot of discord message, "what language are you learning though?"

To this, I responded that it was Hebrew.

screenshot of discord message, "Hebrew" — Once again, I didn't have the Star of David in my name at the time

The person then replied, asking why I chose Hebrew.

screenshot of discord message, "Very interesting, I am learning Spanish cause I mean it’s honestly the best language I can learn going into the future, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you learning Hebrew?"

I responded saying that it was because I was a Jew, but I don't have a screenshot of the message. That's because it was instantly deleted by the automatic (piece of shit) moderation bot that they have set up in the server. It's name is Dyno.

It then immediately told me off, reminding me to watch my language.

screenshot of discord message, "Please watch your language. Refer to Rule #1. Be excellent to each other!" — Say "Dyno" 3 times and it appears behind you in the bathroom mirror

I was, at the time, very puzzled.

screenshot of discord message "What? How is that bad language"

screenshot of discord message, "Dyno what did I do"

I eventually figured out that what was triggering it was the word "Jew"

screenshot of discord message "I think the word that’s triggering it is “j e w”"

This prompted some mild joking, before I started taking it seriously.

screenshot of discord message "Je ws don't play rec room I guess"

What really made me annoyed was that they didn't ban all religions or ethnicities. Just Jews.

screenshot of discord messages "Just checking something. “Christian” “Islam”" and "Wtffff"

As with any good text filtering system, I had a bypass in about 4 seconds.

screenshot of discord message "I guess I gotta go with "I am a Jew"", except the E in Jew is replaced with a special character that appears similar to an E, but is not. — For those wanting a copy-paste: ɛ

I then immediately turned my attention to fixing the problem, by way of an angry Zendesk ticket.

screenshot of discord message, "I'm going to file and angry Zendesk ticket"

You're never going to guess what I spent the next 45 minutes writing.

I began with an excellent opening move.

screenshot of start of Zendesk ticket, "Hello there. Prepare for a wall of text."

I then proceeded to write a wall of text, ripping the support team apart over a few different issues I've had with the Discord, culminating with an especially emotional section about the censorship of the word "Jew".

screenshot of Zendesk ticket, "Whoever set up the Discord needs to take a serious look at the way things are handled right now. I will begin with a few minor issues, and will end with a major issue. 23 days ago, I reported an issue with the Coach AI bot and the way it handles usernames. I included a way of reproducing the issue, as well as links to it occurring. I was told that it would be investigated. It has not been fixed. See ticket #386606. Another issue I have is with Dyno. Send 2 links from the same domain and you get an instant 5 minute timeout. I get that it's to prevent hacked account from sending the same link in every channel, but you should probably exempt Tenor from that domain list, because if you send 2 GIFs in a row, you get an instant timeout. Another issue is that there's no reason required for timing someone out. Dyno at least DMs you why you get timed out if you send 2 links in a row, but that courtesy is not extended to human moderator actions. Those are all minor issues. What I really came to Zendesk to say is that there is a serious problem with Dyno's automatic message deletion, but really it's an issue with whoever configures Dyno. Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. My great grandmother and great grandfather were both murdered in the Holocaust. My grandfather fled the Nazis at 4 years old, and that's the only reason I am alive today. I promise that my personal history is relevant here. I was talking with someone in the Discord about my Duolingo streak, when they asked why I was learning Hebrew. I responded that it was because I was a Jew. Whoever configured Dyno is so awful that they decided to have Dyno delete any mention of Jews from the Discord. This isn't about removing talks about religion or ethnicity, either. This is specifically targeted at Jews. I can say "christian" or "islam" or "arab" or "caucasian", but if I were to say the word "Jew", the message is wiped from the Discord like I never said it at all. I then get a message telling me to watch my language. To consider the word "Jew" to be a swear word deserving of immediate removal from the Discord is so disgusting, appalling, and offensive that I decided to reach out to support directly. It felt so violating to have my ethnicity removed from all discussion, even in the most mundane conversations. I find it incredibly antisemitic to have Jewish people wiped clean from the Discord, and I hope you can see just how awful that is. Whoever handles the Discord should take a trip to Poland to see for themselves why it's important for Jewish people to have a voice in this world, and why taking away any mention of their identity is an awful decision. I hope this ticket brings further oversight into staff member decisions on the Discord, because this would not be the first time I've seen staff personally discriminate against different ethnicities."

Over the 45 minutes it took to write, I had gotten more emotional and angry about the situation, especially after remembering that it was, in fact, Holocaust Remembrance Day. After thoroughly ripping them to pieces over the whole thing, I closed it off with a sarcastically cheerful signature.

screenshot of Zendesk ticket, "Have a wonderful Shabbat and kindest regards, Liv"

After 4 hours, they responded. Typically, it takes them days. The problem, though, was with the response itself. If you, dear reader, haven't worked IT or customer service, there is the concept of the canned response. It is a prewritten response that you can drop in and send in 2 clicks. They can be super helpful, and I use them all the time in my job at IT.

Unfortunately for Rec Room, they decided to use a canned response to blow off my concerns.

screenshot of Zendesk ticket, "Hi there, Thank you for the report! We will investigate and take appropriate action as necessary. As a general reminder, please be sure to also report players in-game via your watch in addition to any evidence you may send here. We appreciate your efforts in helping us maintain a safe and welcoming experience for all our players. Cheers, Rec Room Support Team"

For those of you who have never had the misfortune of interacting with Rec Room support, this is the canned response you get when you report a player for something they did in-game. Creating a ticket is how you submit things like video evidence when reporting someone.

A canned response for in-game reports is not, of course, what I was looking for...
So I ripped them to pieces again.

screenshot of Zendesk ticket, "Hi there. You have sent that to my tickets 21 different times. For your convenience, I have listed the ticket numbers below. #394522 #378897 #378843 #375245 #374939 #374921 #374534 #373926 #373249 #372963 #368107 #368119 #368116 #368128 #299856 #299859 #298635 #290054 #290052 #58200 #52746 Unfortunately, that reply just isn't applicable this time. I get that this is the "report another player" category, but your canned response just doesn't cut it here. This has nothing to do with in-game actions, and this ticket really should be forwarded to the appropriate team. I find the complete lack of regard for anything I am saying to be entirely disrespectful, especially regarding the nature of the ticket. To shut me down with your cookie-cutter canned response is inappropriate and blatantly disregards my concerns. It feels like you didn't even bother to read any of it. It is incredibly disheartening to see the game I love stoop down so low. To ask me to report this in the in-game watch just goes to show that whatever support person submitted the canned response didn't even bother to give it a cursory glance before hitting "submit". The repeated actions of Rec Room to not only censor out any mention of Jews, but also to shut down and disregard any complaints brought up about such activity I can only interpret as antisemitic and hateful. I implore you to make sure this ticket gets sent to the right person. Yours truly, Liv"

This time, they responded in 20 minutes. This is certainly the fastest response I have ever gotten from Rec Room support. Finally it was someone who actually paid attention to what I had to say. They addressed each issue in the original ticket individually, and apologized for their actions. What a nice breath of fresh air. I knew that my concerns had finally been seen by the right eyes, even if it took writing an essay on it first.

screenshot of Zendesk ticket, "Hello Liv, Thanks for the elaboration and expressing your concerns about our Discord setup, especially the Dyno bot configurations. We always appreciate this kind of feedback as it helps us improve our community engagements. Going by our initial probe into the matter, it would seem that our bot should be functioning fine with respect to the problem with the Coach AI bot and usernames. However, based on your report, we will raise this with our technical team for closer scrutiny to ensure everything is accounted for. Regarding Dyno's automatic timeout on sending multiple links from the same domain, this is indeed a measure against spam and misuse. We'll take into account your suggestion to exclude some domains from this rule, as it may unintentionally penalize legitimate uses such as sharing GIFs from Tenor. We will also be reviewing the lack of a requirement to explain timeouts. Transparency in moderating actions is important, and we aim to improve communication in this area. Your report about the automatic removal of messages with the word "Jew" is troubling. We assure you it was never our intention to target any ethnic group or defy religious practices, and we sincerely apologize for any grievous misdemeanors this has caused. We will immediately investigate this setting in Dyno to address such issues and ensure our platform is welcoming and respectful to everyone, including our Jewish members. We appreciate the experiences and perspectives of all members of our community, particularly those from historically marginalized groups. We greatly value your input on these issues. Thank you again for reaching out. We'll work to resolve these matters swiftly and improve your experience on our Discord server. Kind regards, Rec Room Support Team"

I dropped the angry tone, and thanked them for their apology. I'm a bit annoyed that they didn't mention the previous person's canned response, but this is as good a reply as I could have asked for.

screenshot of Zendesk ticket, "Hello there, That has to have been the single fastest response I have ever gotten from Rec Room support. I appreciate that my message finally got to the right person, though it certainly was troubling to see someone on your team disregard it initially. Thank you for your sincere apology, and for directly addressing each of my concerns. Best regards, Liv"

This probably won't be the last post I make about Rec Room support, but hopefully it's the last one where I tell them to go to Poland.