Reporting and removing obvious trolls

Hello, if you are here to say "they are not doing anything wrong just standing" dont waste your time.

I am usually not this angry by anything but I have a very good friend that did nothing wrong and their venue is getting harrased by a troll army, just standing there , like 30 of them with horrible names, this is obviously done by someone and they are just there to fill up space and make the place horrible, how can we get them removed at the moment when that happens? The reporting system doesnt even allow to do that, this is causing stress and making my friend feel bad, please be considerated with your answers such as "They are not breaking ToS or anything" because right now because just leaving it like that its not right at all, I WISH there was a ban system where the OWNERS could just ban people like this,

I am talking about "lvl 1 bots standing inside a house obviously on purpose" , how to report and get them banned ASAP, I am aware they will come back with more free accounts but there must be a way to keep reporting them and getting them removed rigth away too.

Thank you

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

Hello, if you are here to say "they are not doing anything wrong just standing" dont waste your time.

I am usually not this angry by anything but I have a very good friend that did nothing wrong and their venue is getting harrased by a troll army, just standing there , like 30 of them with horrible names, this is obviously done by someone and they are just there to fill up space and make the place horrible, how can we get them removed at the moment when that happens? The reporting system doesnt even allow to do that, this is causing stress and making my friend feel bad, please be considerated with your answers such as "They are not breaking ToS or anything" because right now because just leaving it like that its not right at all, I WISH there was a ban system where the OWNERS could just ban people like this,

I am talking about "lvl 1 bots standing inside a house obviously on purpose" , how to report and get them banned ASAP, I am aware they will come back with more free accounts but there must be a way to keep reporting them and getting them removed rigth away too.

Thank you

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inside the house or outside of it? outside you can do little aside from report them, inside, the owner can change permissions so they cannot enter

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

inside the house or outside of it? outside you can do little aside from report them, inside, the owner can change permissions so they cannot enter

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It’s difficult, it sounds like they run a venue. Some friends of mine used to run a club and they were mercilessly greifed by two players. They would imitate staff members, engage in unsolicited RP with venue goers, and were generally pests. They ALWAYS played the plausible deniability game inside the game in order to avoid an open and shut case by the GMs but you knew they were being nasty in 3rd party chats ie discord.

It’s tough to deal with

What rules in the TOS are they breaking though? You can't just have them banned because you don't like them.
If they're just standing in a public location that's not really harassment either unless they're blocking something like an NPC or an interactable object.

The solution would seem to be to move your venue indoors and modify the permissions on the house to not allow them to come inside. Other than that they're really not doing anything wrong for existing in a place you don't like. If they aren't saying anything abusive, their names aren't abusive, and they're not blocking anything important then there's not much a GM could even do.

No, a GM could easily put two and two together and realize exactly what is going on and take action against this. Outside of just reporting them, and hoping the GM actually does their job, there isn't much more to do.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

No, a GM could easily put two and two together and realize exactly what is going on and take action against this.

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It’s harder than you think. The post above is a fair response: how do you differentiate who is trolling and who isn’t? It’s much more difficult to prove disruptive behaviors than you might realize. We ended up reporting our harassers for months and no action was ever taken.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

It’s harder than you think. The post above is a fair response: how do you differentiate who is trolling and who isn’t? It’s much more difficult to prove disruptive behaviors than you might realize. We ended up reporting our harassers for months and no action was ever taken.

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It's pretty easy if there are actually 30+ bots with idiotic names entering or hanging around someone or somewhere.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

It's pretty easy if there are actually 30+ bots with idiotic names entering or hanging around someone or somewhere.

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Oh, yeah fair.

In the case of the original post, it should be pretty easy to get the offenders out of there. I got too wrapped up in my own issues with it.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

Oh, yeah fair.

In the case of the original post, it should be pretty easy to get the offenders out of there. I got too wrapped up in my own issues with it.

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In your case, they could also be banned by a diligent GM.

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Communication can take place in a variety of styles. As such, we do not prohibit specific words or sentences. Instead, we look at the whole picture in order to judge the intent and meaning of the communication, in conjunction with how the person on the receiving end perceived it, to determine whether or not the exchange falls under prohibited activities.

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It is prohibited to do this anywhere an expression can be made, such as chat (including Quick Chat in PvP content, macros, and emotes), markers, comments, or titles. It is also a violation in cases where a player character name involves a term that could be considered harassment in any way.

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■Nuisance behavior
"Nuisance behavior" is speech or behavior that hurts others or obstructs their gameplay, but which is not classified as harassment. Even if it was not intended, a penalty may be issued if the end result was that another person was hurt, or their gameplay was obstructed. If the behavior was observed being conducted by multiple players, all involved members will be issued a penalty.

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Just as in the real world, it is important to be considerate of other players to maintain cordial relationships and positive experiences in the world of Final Fantasy XIV. It is prohibited to make expressions or to act in ways that would be unacceptable in the real world. This includes disturbing the peace and having a lack of consideration for others.

(...)

Separately, in Final Fantasy XIV, player communities may have their own specific set of loosely established rules and guidelines, which involve their own manners, morals, and etiquette. These community-specific rules and guidelines are not officially established as a unified set of rules for the entire community, so they may differ from one community to another. What may be acceptable in one community may be objectionable in another.

If there is a situation in which a person repeatedly says or does something that can be judged as intentionally trying to disrupt the peace, such as "intentionally ignoring the community-specific rules and guidelines while being aware of them" or "unwilling to learn of them," a report can be made. If we determine that the behavior falls under our prohibited actions, a penalty will be imposed.

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

I am aware they will come back with more free accounts but there must be a way to keep reporting them and getting them removed rigth away too.
Thank you

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Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee a swift moderation process. The GM team has to deal with a lot, and how fast they can deal with anything you report to them will depend on their current case load as well as the due diligence they need to perform to ensure that they are genuinely taking action against people who warrant it. So unfortunately, the reporting process is probably not going to be something you can rely on to deal with issues like this in a timely manner.

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

their venue is getting harrased by a troll army, just standing there , like 30 of them with horrible names

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The horrible names probably gives you a leg up in the reporting process. If the names violate the ToS, that alone could be enough to invite GM action, so this may be worth reporting.

In addition, don't be dissuaded by folks who say that just standing in a place isn't breaking the ToS, because it is against the ToS to harass people; that's why GM's exist, because they're humans who are capable of understanding the nuances of human behavior. If people are harassing you, make a report of it will all the details; in this case, it seems like what the players are doing is pretty transparent and the GM's will have no problem identifying it as harassment.

It's also possible that if this keeps happening and you keep reporting it that a GM may be able to take a more proactive approach; for example, it would be pretty easy for a GM who understood your situation to just keep watch for a few hours and instantly ban characters that raced through character and straight to your house. I'm not sure if they would do that, or what it would take to get things to that point, but I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. So I encourage you to not lose hope and to keep using the report tools. If GM's intervene at a high enough level, it likely won't be worth the trolls' time to keep it up.

In addition, make sure that you, your friends, and the other customers don't feed the trolls. Don't complain about them or insult them in /say, /yell, or /shout; just entirely ignore them. Don't do anything that would only temporarily kick them out of the house if it's possible they could walk back in. The trolls are there because they want to make you suffer and get a reaction out of you, and if you don't give that to them they'll get bored. It may take days or weeks for them to get bored, but eventually they will.

In short, keep reporting them, and try your best to have fun while pretending they're not there. In time it will be solved. I know that's a less than ideal solution, but stay strong!

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

What rules in the TOS are they breaking though? You can't just have them banned because you don't like them.
If they're just standing in a public location that's not really harassment either unless they're blocking something like an NPC or an interactable object.

The solution would seem to be to move your venue indoors and modify the permissions on the house to not allow them to come inside. Other than that they're really not doing anything wrong for existing in a place you don't like. If they aren't saying anything abusive, their names aren't abusive, and they're not blocking anything important then there's not much a GM could even do.

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You didnt even take 5 seconds to read my post,
1) not my venue
2) they are 30 bots idling around with offensive name
3) it SAID I know it doenst break any TOS and thats the first thing you say lmao
4) I said it was inside "lvl 1 bots standing inside a house obviously on purpose"

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

In your case, they could also be banned by a diligent GM.

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This is actually super helpful, since I already tried reporting and nothing happened the last 2 times this happened I was wondering what coulda gone wrong, I appreciate your answer I'll use these quotes in my reports later on.



We have evolved into more than just dungeons and questings, a lot of people have finished content and are doing other content, Its so incredible to think a simple banning system from a house is not implemented, nothing will be perfect but having this will do more good than bad in the long run, even trolls might think about doing something bad twice because they know they might be banned from a place.

If they have been asked to leave and refuse, then you can report them. That is disruptive behavior. Bonus points for the inappropriate names, then you can report those too.

Reports take a while and a GM can't deal with it real time. The number of reports seem to help too so if you can get the other venue patrons to report them as well, the better.

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

You didnt even take 5 seconds to read my post,
1) not my venue
2) they are 30 bots idling around with offensive name
3) it SAID I know it doenst break any TOS and thats the first thing you say lmao
4) I said it was inside "lvl 1 bots standing inside a house obviously on purpose"





This is actually super helpful, since I already tried reporting and nothing happened the last 2 times this happened I was wondering what coulda gone wrong, I appreciate your answer I'll use these quotes in my reports later on.



We have evolved into more than just dungeons and questings, a lot of people have finished content and are doing other content, Its so incredible to think a simple banning system from a house is not implemented, nothing will be perfect but having this will do more good than bad in the long run, even trolls might think about doing something bad twice because they know they might be banned from a place.

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If it doesn't break any TOS and it's not your venue then what's even the problem? Just avoid them and blacklist. You can't just whine and demand people are banned from the game because they annoy you. If they have actual offensive names that break TOS then report them but if you've reported them and GMs have said it's not a problem then you just gotta learn to deal with it.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee a swift moderation process. The GM team has to deal with a lot, and how fast they can deal with anything you report to them will depend on their current case load as well as the due diligence they need to perform to ensure that they are genuinely taking action against people who warrant it.

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Bro what there is a very simple solution??? Hire more GMs...

Ok, let me state a few things.

1. How many of you and the other dj's and staff were even around the venue/owner in mid 2021 to early 2022 to be able to make the statement "did nothing wrong"? Are you even aware that 3 other venues by her best friends got closed in the past due to attacking 10+ venues for 5+ months, that were primarily the reason for the prohibited behaviors update in late 2021? That these harassment charges included /actual/ fake party finder openings off hours, groping guests, doxxing other owners, blackmailing other owners with fake documents, public defamation in PF, advertising other venues inside of openings, sexual harassing guests including via voice audio links dropped in chat, flooded chats about sexual acts, stalking outside of opening hours, impersonation, barding over paid performances, etc. And you have the audacity to come to the forums to complain about people sitting still in a venue? You have no idea what harassment actually is, nor what happens in venue owner only discords and DM's in the background as a DJ or a regular staff member.

2. You aren't going to be able to do anything due to factors you aren't aware of because the owner is keeping everyone in the dark. You're not dealing with a troll. You are dealing with a former owner, one of the top former owners on Aether, that has relationships to other owners that have known GM's over the years. You are not going to get advice on the forums that surpasses the knowledge of venue owners with years of experience filing tickets with direct connections to ask for clarification on how GM's process events. You have no idea how far out of your league you currently are. Maybe you should have her ask one of her friends in the discord who got their main permabanned from back then and almost faced legal charges for defamation for help since they should have experience with GM's. Hopefully they remember something still after having to leave the RP community and stick to raiding after people found their irl information and they couldn't hide behind a screen anymore.

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Originally Posted by Koros

Bro what there is a very simple solution??? Hire more GMs...

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How many? And how much will that offset the team's budget? Where will they get the money to fund that? Does it mean diverting resources from another project, or do you have an additional source of revenue in mind?

Which is to say, it seems like an easy solution if you imagine that CBU3 has infinite bandwidth and funds. But that's not true of any company.

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Originally Posted by tsuchii

If they have been asked to leave and refuse, then you can report them. That is disruptive behavior. Bonus points for the inappropriate names, then you can report those too.

Reports take a while and a GM can't deal with it real time. The number of reports seem to help too so if you can get the other venue patrons to report them as well, the better.

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Just want to respond to this one alone since I'm not going to respond to every single person. The definitions of Prohibited Behaviors can be found at:
https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...la=1&kid=68216

・Expressions that attempt to unilaterally exclude someone from the game or content/community, etc.
(Except when in accordance with rules set by an administrator such as a Free Company Master)

The idea that you can ask someone to leave a venue and report them if they don't is a fallacy. They have to break a rule of the venue/community first before you have justification to even file a ticket. Even in the event of a rule breakage:

If there is a situation in which a person repeatedly says or does something that can be judged as intentionally trying to disrupt the peace, such as "intentionally ignoring the community-specific rules and guidelines while being aware of them" or "unwilling to learn of them," a report can be made. [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[If we determine that the behavior falls under our prohibited actions, a penalty will be imposed. ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Even if you break a community rule, if it doesn't fall under a prohibited behavior in and of itself such as being impolite purposely, interrupting communication, etc. then the report may not go through.

Reports to a GM generally only take 1-2 days to actually process. If someone is online 2 days after you file a ticket, it failed.

The numbers of reports help forward it to the top of the list/increases interest in said situation, but the issue is that you can't file tickets on behalf of other people. So other venue guests that don't own the house/venue don't even have a right to file a ticket and will get dismissed. They, themselves, have to be harmed in a manner defined by ToS.

The offensive names charge listed is a lie which is the reason they haven't been able to get the accounts banned yet. Offensive names also aren't even bans so it's a useless charge to even go for. You get a warning on your account and asked to do a name change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnyJ9Untk3s

GM's live shadowing events is a long standing principle that can be done and has been done in the past (such as the rain event with the billboard), but if no infractions actually happen, even if a GM is live to yip up accounts immediately, nothing will happen.

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

Hello, if you are here to say "they are not doing anything wrong just standing" dont waste your time.

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

I have a very good friend that did nothing wrong

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Oh the ironing.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

In addition, don't be dissuaded by folks who say that just standing in a place isn't breaking the ToS, because it is against the ToS to harass people; that's why GM's exist, because they're humans who are capable of understanding the nuances of human behavior. If people are harassing you, make a report of it will all the details; in this case, it seems like what the players are doing is pretty transparent and the GM's will have no problem identifying it as harassment.

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If standing in place was considered harassment, Limsa would be empty most of the time.

The standing in place is not harassment. The characters are not doing anything. The offensive character names, on the other hand, could be considered harassment depending on what they are.

And of course if they are actual bots, that's grounds for permanent bans. The problem is if it's a level 1 bot army as stated, they're probably free trial accounts easily replaced with new accounts.

The only way to try to keep them out is to lock the door and use a bouncer that can control guest access. It will be harder for them to enter if they don't know when the door will be unlocked though it's not a guarantee.

A suggestion would be to turn them into a joke with the venue guests. If they stand together in the same spot all the time and there's some extra items placement slots yet, get some Factory Partitions or Gaol Partitions that can be used to cage them up when they appear then come up with a joke name for the new prisoner group. There may be other ideas to use depending on where they are standing.

Sometimes the best way to get rid of a pest is to make use of them instead of showing they're annoying you.

Officer, arrest that man! He was standing there menacingly...
https://i.ibb.co/jJdm3hp/download.gif

This is one of those things that walks RIGHT up to the TOS line and goes "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!"

All the more reason there needs to be a white/black list for housing.

Sorry you're going through that OP but I think the only thing you can do is screenshot and report and do it daily. They might get sick of the daily reports and actually do something.

Maybe.

Probably not.

Mostly if not all automated.

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Originally Posted by Limecat

Oh the ironing.

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So sad to see people selecting something and ignoring the fact i said they are over 30 bot accounts lvl 1 just idling and covering space

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

If it doesn't break any TOS and it's not your venue then what's even the problem? Just avoid them and blacklist. You can't just whine and demand people are banned from the game because they annoy you. If they have actual offensive names that break TOS then report them but if you've reported them and GMs have said it's not a problem then you just gotta learn to deal with it.

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Didnt I say its my friends? its incredible to find this level of emphaty, "they should do everything" right? just wow, how can you believe 30 bot accounts jsut taking up space is not wrong?

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Originally Posted by Voidsent-Uchiha

Ok, let me state a few things.

1. How many of you and the other dj's and staff were even around the venue/owner in mid 2021 to early 2022 to be able to make the statement "did nothing wrong"? Are you even aware that 3 other venues by her best friends got closed in the past due to attacking 10+ venues for 5+ months, that were primarily the reason for the prohibited behaviors update in late 2021? That these harassment charges included /actual/ fake party finder openings off hours, groping guests, doxxing other owners, blackmailing other owners with fake documents, public defamation in PF, advertising other venues inside of openings, sexual harassing guests including via voice audio links dropped in chat, flooded chats about sexual acts, stalking outside of opening hours, impersonation, barding over paid performances, etc. And you have the audacity to come to the forums to complain about people sitting still in a venue? You have no idea what harassment actually is, nor what happens in venue owner only discords and DM's in the background as a DJ or a regular staff member.

2. You aren't going to be able to do anything due to factors you aren't aware of because the owner is keeping everyone in the dark. You're not dealing with a troll. You are dealing with a former owner, one of the top former owners on Aether, that has relationships to other owners that have known GM's over the years. You are not going to get advice on the forums that surpasses the knowledge of venue owners with years of experience filing tickets with direct connections to ask for clarification on how GM's process events. You have no idea how far out of your league you currently are. Maybe you should have her ask one of her friends in the discord who got their main permabanned from back then and almost faced legal charges for defamation for help since they should have experience with GM's. Hopefully they remember something still after having to leave the RP community and stick to raiding after people found their irl information and they couldn't hide behind a screen anymore.

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Are you saying because others are getting it worse this doesnt matter? Is this for real? must be a joke or something, like are you telling me if there is something wrong you know its wrong, i know its wrong jsut dont do anything because nothing will happen? once again, is this for real? lol

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

So sad to see people selecting something and ignoring the fact i said they are over 30 bot accounts lvl 1 just idling and covering space

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Hi. Can I have context to the situation? What caused this? When did it start? What are they doing there while they are there? Have they reached out to anyone to talk about what they want? Etc.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Hi. Can I have context to the situation? What caused this? When did it start? What are they doing there while they are there? Have they reached out to anyone to talk about what they want? Etc.

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Please dont take me the wrong way, but even if i had the whole story it wouldnt do much explaining here, all i know is that the trolls seem to know the owner and just decided to do this, I mean, the owner is an online friend and all ive know is that they are nice, i have no clue if they deserve this or not but all i know is that they are stressed and feel really bad for this,

All I tried to do by coming to this forum is to try to see if there is a better way to report and make the GMs aware of this because in game reporting doesnt seem to work,

i have seriously no clue why some community members think they can instantly assume the worse from someone who is having this problem, i dont care if someone has 50 years of experience in the game, all i know this is wrong and I am trying to find a better way to stop this.

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

i have seriously no clue why some community members think they can instantly assume the worse from someone who is having this problem, i dont care if someone has 50 years of experience in the game, all i know this is wrong and I am trying to find a better way to stop this.

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because the forums have a history of posts of people complaining about things like this and then the whole story emerges, and the whole story is much different than presented..... context is always important. if they have offensive names, they are reportable, standing there doing nothing... you can try.

the forums in general, especially lately, are not a great place for information. all you can do in game is report and pray. thats it. there is no real "better way".

Well I welcome our new bot overlords, they didn't nothing wrong. Bots have rights and freedoms too!

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

Please dont take me the wrong way, but even if i had the whole story it wouldnt do much explaining here, all i know is that the trolls seem to know the owner and just decided to do this, I mean, the owner is an online friend and all ive know is that they are nice, i have no clue if they deserve this or not but all i know is that they are stressed and feel really bad for this,

All I tried to do by coming to this forum is to try to see if there is a better way to report and make the GMs aware of this because in game reporting doesnt seem to work,

i have seriously no clue why some community members think they can instantly assume the worse from someone who is having this problem, i dont care if someone has 50 years of experience in the game, all i know this is wrong and I am trying to find a better way to stop this.

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Sounds like a case of someone pissing someone off to me. The GMs probably won't get involved either since they have a very "work out disputes like adults" mentality for most cases.

You also don't know the story as you claim so might be best to get the information or ultimately stay out of it. I honestly think there's more to this cause these things don't tend to happen randomly.

Speaking from my own experience with GMs, they didn't get involved until I had actual threats made against my life and my stalker went psychotic.

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Originally Posted by PartyZapper

i have seriously no clue why some community members think they can instantly assume the worse from someone who is having this problem, i dont care if someone has 50 years of experience in the game, all i know this is wrong and I am trying to find a better way to stop this.

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It's very common, but even if the worst were true, I fail to see the relevance of it. Harassment is harassment regardless. Or in other words.. two wrongs don't make a right.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Speaking from my own experience with GMs, they didn't get involved until I had actual threats made against my life and my stalker went psychotic.

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I definitely do not agree with this style of ToS enforcement. If they would have acted, things may have never gotten that far.

Since it seems to be a venue...my best guess on what they can do is close down for a week or so and try to relocate the venue somewhere else and rebrand the name. If it's a direct attack on the owner then doing things for the venue behind the scenes at a new location/name might help.

I say might...people who do this clearly have no life and will break out into weird dedication to being a troll.