This is taken from a room on skype with some clans representatives and some zynga reps. They are aware that the FB bannings are increasing and in order to help, this is their suggestion:

[8/20/10 4:13:38 PM] nate.zynga: So obviously we want you to play the game and banned accounts keep you from doing so. It is not good for us nor is it good for you. So in order to help track these issues, we have a process we will need you guys to follow…

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If you get banned…Submit a CS ticket… “I’ve been banned from facebook!” or something to that extent. You will get a response with a specific escalation URL for FacebookUse that URL to appeal your ban to facebook…If your ban is lifted… Halelua!If not…

Copy the response you get from facebook and reply back to the CS ticket with the response. We will then be able to take that information and escalate it from our end. So… here is why we need to do it this way…

We need you to submit the ticket so that we can have a solid tracking in our system so no one gets dropped in an email shuffle. Use the URL that we provide you to appeal, while there are many URLs out there that can do the samething, this one is specific to our issues.

And we want to know the response that you get because we want to know what is being communicated back to you.

Use the above guideline if you ever find yourself FB banned.

Also, it was hinted at that accounts that are looked at are accounts that are created only for gaming purposes, have no personal data, one or two cartoon avatars at most. So basically fake names, energy mini’s, and so on. Read below:

[8/20/10 5:02:16 PM] nate.zynga: I don’t… Zynga doesn’t condone the creation of fake accounts for the purpose of playing the game… but this I can say…[8/20/10 5:03:42 PM] nate.zynga: If all you have is one cartoon image in your account and no personal info/message posts… it is highly suspect :) .[8/20/10 5:03:56 PM] nate.zynga: And we completely support Facebook’s ToS :) .

We asked Nate if there will be a platform for us to play on that does not require a FB logon (if you are banned):

[8/20/10 5:16:29 PM] nate.zynga: Yes… we are looking at options to improve the game and playing experience… any change… be it swaping energy packs in game or creating an entire platform, requires time to plan, program, test and implement. The larger the change, the longer it is going to take. All I can say is that there are many projects currently in many different phases… and we still have to provide new challenges to keep the game interesting for all level of players :) . Fortunately we have teams of people who are able to work on multiple projects at one time. So while it may seem that we keep launching missions or new cities… that doesn’t mean we don’t have another team working on other issues/improvements.5 hours ago · Report
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‘Dave Whitfield Right now the talks are mainly about FaceBook bannings. Zynga is working with FaceBook to help better understand FaceBook’s criteria for bans and how that can affect the Zynga customer – us.

Zynga has asked Clan leaders to discuss with their members the rising trend of reporting people to get them “out of a war” or as a “payback” if they cannot get them Zynga banned.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to report someone on FaceBook, and if enough people do it, then the ban occurs and you are guilty until proven innocent. In most cases, people are reinstated, however, there are still many who remained banned.

Zynga gave us information from Facebook about these bans which we disputed. Basically FaceBook was telling Zynga that we are given the reason(s) why we were banned, and were only banned after repeated warnings that whatever we were doing was deemed abusive.

We contested this to Zynga and let Zynga know this is a lie. 99% of the time we are given NO WARNING whatsoever and when we are banned, we are given a “automated response” that we either sent too many friend requests, solicited for dating or business purposes, or sent to many emails. We let Zynga know that most of the bans occur during wars or mock wars and that it is usually related to posting our ices and kills. A few of them aren’t, some people who rarely post at all have been banned.

So Zynga set up the method above to help us when we are dealing with FaceBook when banned. Zynga is interested in keeping their customers playing and will try to offer help and escalate the problem while working with FaceBook on our behalf.

As for any other issues, we asked for the ability to play the game without requiring FB logon so that people who are unfairly banned can continue playing.

Zynga hinted that this is being worked on and that in the future, we might have an alternative platform.

As for other game issues, right now that has taken a back seat in the Zynga discussions since right now they are more concerned with the FaceBook bannings./////////////////////////////////////////Many thanks to Laura Merrit for keeping us informed.