Thread: New BETA Lodestone Character Search Feature and Privacy

At the moment, the profiles of each character is viewable through lodestone, as they were in 1.0. That basically hasn't changed. It's like you said... With incidents like these, it would be great to make your profile only accessible to friends or completely private, like all social media applications like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc have implemented already.

Unfortunately, you can't completely stop these events from happening. If you add the person in question to the blacklist, (s)he can easily create a new character to harass with. The only hope you have is that SE will ban the account the person in question is playing with. At the moment, the supervision within the game was very limited, but that should be "solved" when they reinstate the "Special Task Force".

Even though this is a nasty situation to be in, but i hope that this will also serve as a reminder that people should not post everything online. Keep your personal things as private as possible. You never know what type of person you are talking too. Especially because we live in the age where social media has been integrated into anything.

Personally, i hope that this is "only an incident" and that people will be left alone when the harasser/stalker has been dealt with accordingly.

Originally Posted by Deli

there are so many ppl, if someone wants to search me up, i think that's my honor tho. Besides there are lots 3rd party website providing exactly same thing. They can list any player's info, and you have to register to prevent it show to public... so...
I personally like stalkers. I don't think showing my lv, gears, or achievement is that matter, but that's just again imo.

There is a big difference between people who are interested in your profile and blog and people who stalk/harass you. I would be thrilled as well if people read my profile to see which classes/jobs i've leveled, what i have achieved so far and like the stories i write. But, i wouldn't like it if random would keep bugging me in-game for items i can craft, if they send vulgar tells or write them on my blog.

It's their intention that makes the difference.

Even i look at players profiles and blogs to see what they have achieved/written so far. Because, maybe i can help a linkshell member level his/her class, supply them with low level gear (Level 1~10), or write a friendly/funny/constructive comment on their blog.

So, on one side, i agree with you that i don't mind that people can see my profile or read my logs. But on the other side, i want to protect both me and my friends from any forms of (verbal) harassment.

am I wright by saying that those information actually belong to SE and not you?

Originally Posted by rina_inverse

am I wright by saying that those information actually belong to SE and not you?

Technically, yes. SE shared your in-game character information through the Lodestone Community service. However, that is besides the point. The point with the OP was the fact that this particular and publicly available character information can be accessed by anyone and thus can be used for undesirable purposes, like stalking and harassing.

However, the information itself does not contribute to the fact that people are being stalked. Its the means to reply blog posts of the designated player, as well as anyone listed in their Friends-, Linkshell- and Free Company List. What the OP suggested is to make sections of the profile and the blog private so that only authorized people (friends and administrators) can access this particular info. However, this is only part of the problem.

The things you have in control is the information you post on the blogs, the biography of your profile and what you post on the forums. It's these sections where the player has to be most careful with. Refrain from posting personal information, like your location, contact details or anything that can be linked to you as a person and you should be ok.

Other then that, you are basically in the hands of SE and it's up to SE what to do with this bit of information (up to a certain degree, since the privacy of the player is still an item the company has to ensure/maintain).

As long as no rl personal information (city of residence, rl name, phone numbers etc) is being shared on the blog parts, I see no reason to worry. Be responsible with your information. A stalker/creeper isn't going to be able to do much with in-game profiles. What are they gonna do, really? Find out what linkshell you're in? They can already see that for themselves ingame.