The Overwatch forums are a place for constructive discussion and debate for almost any Overwatch-related subject. Anyone who would like to participate agrees to respect our Code of Conduct, which asks that users be respectful and courteous of fellow participants. However, over the past few days, we’ve seen an influx of users abusing the forums’ Flag feature. The misuse of this feature has caused several topics, many of which were constructive, to be paused or locked.

The Flag feature reports a post, triggering a review from one of our Community Moderators for violations of our Code of Conduct. It should not be used to express disagreement. At this time, we are taking steps to remedy this issue, including the distribution of suspensions to users we believe are simply negatively flagging topics. In the future, we will be handing out this kind of suspension during our initial review phase. Furthermore, we will be decreasing the number of flags users can issue per day, as this will encourage users to utilize the feature as a true reporting system instead of a means to show disagreement.

As a friendly reminder, please familiarize yourself with the Code of Conduct and Forum Guidelines.

Forum users should feel comfortable sharing feedback or opinions without being reported by other members of the community, and the flagging feature is a tool that helps us combat destructive behavior. When it’s used to casually silence users who might disagree with you, it keeps us from combating truly problematic behavior.

We believe that every voice matters, and we’d like Overwatch to be a welcoming and enjoyable community. Thank you for helping us build that community, and thank you for your patience as we build and refine these new systems.