Recent Developments of TOS Actions Taken

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Originally Posted by Legewiel

it was his own stream lol, why you want to protect a harasser so badly?

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I am not saying he did not do that, you took my post out of context.
I am arguing against SE using third party evidences to judge players overbreaking the TOs these could be manipulated in evil way to cause a ban of someone innocent.

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Originally Posted by Hash_Browns

Not that I agree with the ban or anything, but:



It's already in the ToS.

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Yeah, I was looking to see any changes and was about to update
my previous post about it. They also said this here.
"To keep our players safe, we will continue to keep track of trends both in online games and in the real world, as well as remaining vigilant of the social norms of our time."
Link - https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...216f5aef769c60

The thing is with this guy, he had all his info right there so...
I can take the "vent" topic as an example of people talking about their frustrations.
Not once, have I ever seen anyone call out a person by name.

@Nedkel - It'll be tricky to go on about Photo Manipulation yeah but
this wasn't the case here. As said, the guy has his entire info out in public
so it was a no-brainer to knock him down. Unless the dude has an
evil twin somewhere lol.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

I am not saying he did not do that, you took my post out of context.
I am arguing against SE using third party evidences to judge players overbreaking the TOs these could be manipulated in evil way to cause a ban of someone innocent.

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Yes and what i said is that they didn't do that, they got the evidence from his own stream, so it's pretty much a clean evidence against him. It's not a picture that could be photoshoped and then yeah could be a cause to ban an innocent.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

I am not saying he did not do that, you took my post out of context.
I am arguing against SE using third party evidences to judge players overbreaking the TOs these could be manipulated in evil way to cause a ban of someone innocent.

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This isn't simply taking someone's screenshots which can easily be doctored, we're talking about a video from a verified twitch account where they claim responsibility for everything shown on their stream.

I agree with SE

Rude/Mean Behavior/Foul Language

You can be mean, and rude to Friends in Your Closed Room/Group, no one cares there

But when You are going out, to Public(aka Stream for everyone), now here You have to be polite

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

They should start banning for use of hunt radar, triggers, visual mods that provide combat advantages, automated waymark placement and account piloting? What about uploading logs? You can't argue it falls into what's allowed regarding parsing. That's a lot of people to ban.

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You're kind of twisting in the wind here. HyoMin neither said nor insinuated any of this. But rather how inconsistent the moderation has been. It took them 18 months to possibly (we don't know whether they quit or not) a BLM notorious for speed hacking in PvP despite numerous vods of him doing so. There is presently a well known botter on Cactuar who has been caught in several vods. Nothing has ever been done about it. So to make an exception because Arthars said some mean words on Twitch but not go after actual cheaters does set a bad precedence.

Now if this is a step to actually better enforcing their rules, it might be worth something. I highly doubt that will be the case.

I don't think in many cases people are taking issue with what he actually got banned for, in terms of being toxic towards another player, it's pretty obvious he was being a massive jerk, that's not really what the problem is for us who seem like we may be "defending" him. The issue is, it's a pick'n'choose case, something SE like to do very much. One day you can do something that should get you permed when reported, but won't, the next day someone else gets reported for telling a player to "stop being bad at the game" and they'll get a two week. Flaming is nothing new to hardcore raid streamers, if you're going to ban Arthars then simply put, you have to ban all of them for the same reason, but they won't. They just chose to make an example out of this singular case as a deterrent, and that's bad. Was a bit like when I got sacked from my job a year ago, I got sacked for crashing a forklift and the tldr of it was, I got made an example of that accidents due to carelessness were no longer a slap on the wrist. No-one had a problem with the fact I had an accident and got sacked, it was more they happened on a daily basis, people had done worse and gotten off with written warnings, so why was my case any different lol (someone chopped someone else's finger off and kept his job).

If I was that sad of a person and pathetic I could pull vods from probably every single popular streamer that uses ACT and has ever trashtalked another player's performance, I would put my house on the fact you wouldn't ban any of them. I'm obviously not going to do this because that's well... pathetic, and no1 likes a grass lol. Let's be honest again - Arthars got hit because there was no way SE could justify to the "victim" that he was still streaming every day after being reported because then he'd KNOW no action was taken and wonder why and they would never be able to explain it (jk "we don't accept 3rd party evidence")

In setting this example, SE breeds the very clique culture that people claim is elitist and not welcome in the game - and that is where if you're new or bad - you will never get anything done in this game because all the half decent players will form their own groups just to get away from you and not get banned.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

Yeah, I was looking to see any changes and was about to update
my previous post about it. They also said this here.
"To keep our players safe, we will continue to keep track of trends both in online games and in the real world, as well as remaining vigilant of the social norms of our time."
Link - https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...216f5aef769c60

The thing is with this guy, he had all his info right there so...
I can take the "vent" topic as an example of people talking about their frustrations.
Not once, have I ever seen anyone call out a person by name.

@Nedkel - It'll be tricky to go on about Photo Manipulation yeah but
this wasn't the case here. As said, the guy has his entire info out in public
so it was a no-brainer to knock him down. Unless the dude has an
evil twin somewhere lol.

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I believe once the line is being crossed about whether the player knows they are being talked about is honestly the turning point. I can't seem to find any clips of what was going on exactly, all of them have been deleted now - but from what I understand, the BLM in the group was also being an ass, and sassing him a bunch.

BLM was most likely in his stream as well, and when you start doing things like this:

https://i.imgur.com/OIGvAcy.png
(without the red box, I added that)

You are pretty much asking to be banned by SE.
He also apparently had some sounds that would trigger when the BLM messed up or something, and received donations from viewers also shit talking the blm.

This isn't even the first time he's done something like this, but I assume it's more of a character he plays up.

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Originally Posted by BloodRubyXII

In setting this example, SE breeds the very clique culture that people claim is elitist and not welcome in the game - and that is where if you're new or bad - you will never get anything done in this game because all the half decent players will form their own groups just to get away from you and not get banned.

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I still remember in another game when, as a healer who hadn't grouped much, I was told to bring mobs to the tank. The tank did so in a polite manner, not yelling or bashing me for running around with mobs beating on me. I also remember standing in front of a boss, not thinking about my placement, and the tank telling me I should move out of the aoe range. That too was told to me in the same manner.

You can be an "elite hardcore raider," best of the best however "best" is define, top of the charts, yadda yadda yadda, and still not harass other players or even be condescending when pointing out things you think they should be doing or not doing. It's not a fine line between the two.

"From my experience it's better to not stand there as the boss spits out goo and wipes people" - nobody will ever get banned for saying that

versus

"You're a dumbass for standing there. Don't you know how to play this game?"

The problem is that he broadcasted this players name to his entire audience, which usually creates harassment.

I've smack talk players before, we all have, but i dont go on the fourms broadcasting their names or anything. I laugh with my friends about it then move on.

Did SE overstep boundaries? Perhaps. Did he sorta deserve it? Yeah. If anything it should've been twich who should've suspended him tho, since he was spreading the hate on their platform.

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Originally Posted by Miracle_Diva

Yeah, but has someone ever been banned for saying something on twitch regarding FFXIV community?
We live at times where anyone can get offended by anything. Even if you sit in the corner of your room, there will be someone who will be offended by that x) Thus people can find twitch stuff offensive even if it wasn't offensive in the first place.
As I said, I did not see the clip and I can't tell what was there, my point is that a player got banned by saying something outside the game and this is bringing the question if next time you will get banned by saying something about another person in a public discord.

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Anyone can be offended at anything and can report the offense, but SE will still have to make a judgment call on whether it is an actionable offense. The potential to offend someone with anything does not excuse actions that are actually meant to be offensive (again, SE will have to make a judgment call on that). (I didn't see the actual clip, so this is not talking specifically about this incident.)

I do believe that its bad that the streamer did badmouth that person but until recently SE never took any outside information to punish people and I am not sure if I like that they suddenly are allowed to do that. Especially if they still turn a blind eye to famous raiders that are using parsers for their raids.

So if they do suddenly take outside information than be clear about this and fair. First tell us about this so that people can take actions (like not showing their streams with parsers) but also that everyone needs to "fear" this and not turn a blind eye on certain cases.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I do believe that its bad that the streamer did badmouth that person but until recently SE never took any outside information to punish people and I am not sure if I like that they suddenly are allowed to do that. Especially if they still turn a blind eye to famous raiders that are using parsers for their raids.

So if they do suddenly take outside information than be clear about this and fair. First tell us about this so that people can take actions (like not showing their streams with parsers) but also that everyone needs to "fear" this and not turn a blind eye on certain cases.

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I don't think his ban was about the parser at all. He was a complete and utter jerk, had a special window set up that put act in the middle with a booing crowd effect, and ranted about the guy publicly.

He then complained that "they'll ban my character but let me play another account. I'm still going to trash talk players, if they don't want me to do that they shouldn't let me play at all"

Clearly he's not one who just did this in the moment, he had a whole setup for shaming people and it sounds like he does it often.

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Originally Posted by Hash_Browns

I believe once the line is being crossed about whether the player knows they are being talked about is honestly the turning point. I can't seem to find any clips of what was going on exactly, all of them have been deleted now - but from what I understand, the BLM in the group was also being an ass, and sassing him a bunch.

BLM was most likely in his stream as well, and when you start doing things like this:

https://i.imgur.com/OIGvAcy.png
(without the red box, I added that)

You are pretty much asking to be banned by SE.
He also apparently had some sounds that would trigger when the BLM messed up or something, and received donations from viewers also shit talking the blm.

This isn't even the first time he's done something like this, but I assume it's more of a character he plays up.

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To clear a little bit of this up. Yes, the BLM was in Arthar's stream—which is what led to the report being filed.

And while Arthars does use cut aways like this for play up a "character," he doesn't have sound effects, triggers or anything that specifically go off for any one player; nor are people encouraged to donate/sub based on these images.

Finally, no. This is far from the first time. Arthars has several cut away images like this. Some poke fun at bad players while others have poked fun at SE themselves. An example of the latter being his Ninja clip after the 5.1 buff.

Ahahaha at all the people fearmongering. You guys are a real riot.

I'm with SE on this one. If you don't want to get punished, don't act like a douche. It's really that simple. In what world is publicly harassing someone okay?

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I don't think his ban was about the parser at all. He was a complete and utter jerk, had a special window set up that put act in the middle with a booing crowd effect, and ranted about the guy publicly.

He then complained that "they'll ban my character but let me play another account. I'm still going to trash talk players, if they don't want me to do that they shouldn't let me play at all"

Clearly he's not one who just did this in the moment, he had a whole setup for shaming people and it sounds like he does it often.

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No he may not have been punished because of the parser but he could only truly bad mouth that player because of having one. And as we know parser are against the Tos. Right now people are save from punishment because before that SE did not take outside informations as something to punish but that line has blurred now.

So if they are fair and are now using outside information, anyone streaming with a parser should theoretically be punished. Because they are using something which is against the ToS. If they turn a blind eye on that (and Yoshida and his teams are probably watching such streams for world first clears) but do punish someone else then they are purely biased.

Also this means that they somehow until now also turned a blind eye to any other evidence about hacking or botting yet somehow followed that one example through..

I am good with that decision. It's just a suspension, not a permanent ban. When someone's doing "bad things" with our company's property - might it be intellectual or actual - steps are also taken there.

The rest boils down to being FFXIV's equivalent of "Why didn't the cop pull THAT other speeder over?" or "Why was the speed camera taking me instead of the others?" - instead of asking, why you were speeding in the first place, you fall into Whataboutism. That's been never an adult's solution.

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

How? Are they going to lose subs as a result?

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Because you shouldn’t arbitrarily decide when to enforce rules and when not to. It leads to inconsistency in moderation, and I know you’ve been around long enough to know how people feel about that. Just because they’re still subscribed doesn’t mean it’s an okay thing to do, and it doesn’t mean that people are okay with it.

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How many players have canceled their sub because SE does not enforce their ToS? The argument could be made they get more subs from allowing players to use bots and sell content for money.

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It doesn’t matter if players are still subscribed or not. It’s the principle of the matter and the possibility of bad press as a result. These forums are a good example of how inconsistent and bad moderation has earned them a not-so-favorable reputation with a portion of the playerbase. The bad press surrounding them and previous bans is what caused the moderation team to set up a “ban appeal system”. Sadly, the system is pretty much a flimsy attempt to save face. It hasn’t reversed any previous ban—no matter how silly—to my knowledge.

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Only if they were to go after parsing, which they won't given how many use it and the current rules around it.

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I wasn’t talking about going after parsing? I was talking about cherry-picking moderation and how that can hurt the reputation of the game. Where are you coming up with these statements?

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Doesn't mean anything if they stay subbed.

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I disagree. It can still very well hurt the reputation of the game and the company. Using this as a defense of poor practice is as concerning as your statement appearing to support SE enforcing their rules whenever it’s deemed convenient for them. That’s not how rules should be enforced.

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They should start banning for use of hunt radar, triggers, visual mods that provide combat advantages, automated waymark placement and account piloting? What about uploading logs? You can't argue it falls into what's allowed regarding parsing. That's a lot of people to ban.

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Where on earth was I talking about any of this? My entire post was dealing with my concern over your statement (“SE’s game, SE’s rules; they can enforce them whenever they want”) being problematic because inconsistency in punishment and moderation is problematic. Did you actually read what I wrote, or are you too busy coming up with illogical responses to do that?

I haven’t seen the video but if the player that was being talked about by the streamer name is clearing visible then I can see it being against TOS. At the same time however, SE has demonstrated for years that there’s a lack of uniformity in how it polices it’s TOS. There seems to be a pick and choose approach to how and when they enforce something

I was really confused when I read about this as well. I understand Arthars was trashing the guy but it was not done in game. I always thought SE would not punish for things outside of the game. I was in Limsa and a guy was shouting that he was going to shoot up a school and kill a bunch of kids, so I screenshotted and reported to the GMs. They said they can't do anything about it because they can't take outside evidence since screenshots can be altered. So that's why I was confused that they would use outside game media to ban someone in this instance. Some type of clarification would be appreciated.

The fact that the player’s name was out in the open could lead to people following the stream to harass that player in game. That I believe is SE’s logic in the ban

Squeenix will never ban people for nebulous reasons that dont violate any in-game rules.

Anyone still want to hold to that one?

No?

SE spent years saying they wouldn't accept issues/proof outside of the game as evidence for ToS enforcement. It's only until recently did they decide to cherry pick. They seem to have a knack for taking action when it's more out in the open to a larger audience though. (like streaming, or well known members, etc) Either way, SE is hypocritical here.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

So, let's look at what he did.

- Talked a lot of crap about a player in his party
- Enlarged the parse screen
- Used special sound effects and animations to draw even more attention to the "bad player"
- Showed their name in the clear; no attempt to obfuscate their identity.

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If these were happening in the video, then I think punishment was justified. We can split gray hairs cause there is nuance to the situation. If he purposefully made a stream or video to crap on someone and didnt even bother to hide the name, thats a step to far and is I think within SE's right to go after said player cause its part of the SE platform. If it was him talking about bad players and parses, and didnt use any specific information or made it as a general video to talk about bad play or other mishaps or even vent a bit (again without doing specifics to a player) then thats fine. It's the act of purposefully singling out a person with specific information thats an issue.

We also need to stop protecting and treating streamers like theyre some journalist, comedian, or otherwise. Theyre not. If youre a streamer and youre being a donkey to someone for the sheer reason to be a donkey and mean, that shouldnt get people going out there and sticking up for the guy and treating SE like theyre the bad guy. Just cause you stream doesnt give you carte blanche to crap on other people and not have some kind of pushback or reprimand for it. If you want to have running commentary or have off hand commentaries, thats plenty fine as long as private player IDs are being masked. Remember, that person theyre streaming isnt a public person. That person could be the worlds biggest butt, but that doesnt make it right for a streamer to use their reach and single them out with the intent and purpose to get them publicly shamed and lynched by their followers, even if its off platform. Even if that isnt the intent, streamers should full well know by now that they cannot control their base and that creating hyperbolic videos that selectively go after someone privately is gonna be an issue.

If this other player was another streamer with their own following and put themselves out there, thats fair game then, even if it may be still somewhat jerkish to go after them.

Dude, after your entire post, is still comes down to having absolutely zero to worry about if you abide by the ToS. The Tos shouldn't have to define the grey areas for you if you practice common courtesy and respect towards others.

If you have to ask, "is this ok?" Then the best bet is to not even do it. And if you have to ask about the grey areas then you're already a shady player in my book. Also, another players banishment on a Reddit forum has no bearing on your own gameplay, nor any other account that does not belong to you. Move on.

So many mindless fanboys (and -girls, and -whateverkindamicrowaveornanimalyouare since I don't want to get reported for sexism or whatever) in this thread just repeating "tHeIr GaMe ThEiR rUlEs" - wow. Seriously. And y'all so incredibly hurt over this, like your precious, fragile self was "brutally assaulted" (actual quote) instead of the BLM in the clip in question. Next thing you know they start banning people that post in r/TalesfromDF on reddit and didn't blur out their own names because thats "brutal assault" and you are gonna cheer for that, huh?

And yet you lot wonder why "no one is talking in dungeons anymore". Yeah, take a wild guess there mate how this could have come about. Maybe it's because everyone and everything is instantly reported if they dare and voice an opinion different than those of the god damn snowflakes I see ruining my game experience everywhere.

You can now press report on this post because I "brutally assaulted" your precious feelings. See ya in a couple weeks.

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Originally Posted by FirstnameLastname

So many mindless fanboys (and -girls, and -whateverkindamicrowaveornanimalyouare since I don't want to get reported for sexism or whatever) in this thread just repeating "tHeIr GaMe ThEiR rUlEs" - wow. Seriously. And y'all so incredibly hurt over this, like your precious, fragile self was "brutally assaulted" (actual quote) instead of the BLM in the clip in question. Next thing you know they start banning people that post in r/TalesfromDF on reddit and didn't blur out their own names because thats "brutal assault" and you are gonna cheer for that, huh?

And yet you lot wonder why "no one is talking in dungeons anymore". Yeah, take a wild guess there mate how this could have come about. Maybe it's because everyone and everything is instantly reported if they dare and voice an opinion different than those of the god damn snowflakes I see ruining my game experience everywhere.

You can now press report on this post because I "brutally assaulted" your precious feelings. See ya in a couple weeks.

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No one talked in dungeons before. There was the same amount of silence, going all the way back to 2.0s launch. This thought that the new tos made people talk less is just silly.

Also, pretty sure you can get thrown out of any public place for being a jerk, not sure why people seem to think streamers are exempt from this.

SE: We won't accept outside sources when reporting players

Also SE: *uses outside sources to issue bans*

https://media.giphy.com/media/5t9wJj...cPNk/giphy.gif

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

No one talked in dungeons before. There was the same amount of silence, going all the way back to 2.0s launch. This thought that the new tos made people talk less is just silly.

Also, pretty sure you can get thrown out of any public place for being a jerk, not sure why people seem to think streamers are exempt from this.

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Look at the post below you. The hypocrisy is just so baffling.

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Originally Posted by FirstnameLastname

Look at the post below you. The hypocrisy is just so baffling.

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They won't accept video or screen shots that can be doctored. A live stream of a person logged in to their character who is a public and well known figure is not the same.

Not that I'd ever heard his name before last night. The lengths people go to to defend some random streamer are just as silly.

You guys have become ruled by streamers.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

They won't accept video or screen shots that can be doctored. A live stream of a person logged in to their character who is a public and well known figure is not the same.

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It's still a video. A stream can also be doctored.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

It's still a video. A stream can also be doctored.

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While live? And on the person's account which is linked on his lodestone profile attaching his stream to his SE account and character?

Please explain how one can doctor a live stream that is in progress.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

It's still a video. A stream can also be doctored.

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How do you doctor a stream that's linked on their Lodestone page, exactly?

It's all rather worrying, simply because technically anyone can be banned for anything according to the terms of service. Ordinarily that isn't a concern, since most companies do not actively make use of such power. Yet when people are told that outside evidence isn't permitted as evidence, it's a kick in the teeth for outside evidence to then be used to ban someone.

I hope this means that the death threats posted on a certain infamous Twitter blog devoted to forum quotes are finally going to be dealt with, especially when there's a clear link in many cases between the Twitter posters and their FFXIV character. Though something tells me enforcement of the rules will continue to be very selective. I hope I'm wrong, though!

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

They won't accept video or screen shots that can be doctored. A live stream of a person logged in to their character who is a public and well known figure is not the same.

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If this were the case, why didn't they ban the BLM speed hacking Feast or the numerous amount of bots that have been caught. In the latter case, I know someone who went out of their way to stream a known botter on Cactuar. Guess what he was told? "We can't accept evidence outside of the game."

The only difference here is Arthars is a well known streamer. How isn't that a double standard?

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

While live? And on the person's account which is linked on his lodestone profile attaching his stream to his SE account and character?

Please explain how one can doctor a live stream that is in progress.

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The GM did not watch the rant live. A time stamp of the recordad video was linked.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

While live? And on the person's account which is linked on his lodestone profile attaching his stream to his SE account and character?

Please explain how one can doctor a live stream that is in progress.

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Err, perhaps I should have rephrased. Some live streams are recorded, and those can be edited. Still though, it's an outside source and SE has said on multiple occasions that they won't accept such sources as evidence. Yet, here they are enforcing something they should have been all along using those sources. So...they need to make up their minds. Because if they allow this then bots and such can be reported the way they should be.

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Originally Posted by FirstnameLastname

Look at the post below you. The hypocrisy is just so baffling.

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That's not hypocrisy, maybe inconsistent, unless they simply changed their policy internally or it's different depending on the issue.

Hypocrisy is when you say someone else's action is bad while performing that action yourself.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Err, perhaps I should have rephrased. Some live streams are recorded, and those can be edited. Still though, it's an outside source and SE has said on multiple occasions that they won't accept such sources as evidence. Yet, here they are enforcing something they should have been all along. So...they need to make up their minds. Because if they allow this then bots and such can be reported they way they should be.

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So, are we mad they are finally enforcing things they should have been or are we mad that streamer guy we liked who was a complete and utter jerk got banned for it?