How does the current blacklist/block/anti-harassment measures work?

I have a friend (no, really) that is on the fence about coming back after roughly three years away, mainly because of a group of people who were harassing her.

I know there was an uproar when they implemented the one system that inadvertently exposed your info (for those who know how to look for it), and that they've tweaked it since.

How does it work-in game? Last I heard you can blacklist/block someone, where you won't even see or hear them, but did they change it so they won't see or hear you? That would make more sense stalker-wise.

No, they haven't changed anything
You still can not remove yourself from others friend lists
You still can not hide yourself from player you blacklisted
And, worst of all, "countermeasures" they applied are not effective, alt tracking is still possible. We just do not have a bad actor who will build public tool to do so yet.

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Originally Posted by TattersailNightwish

How does it work-in game? Last I heard you can blacklist/block someone, where you won't even see or hear them, but did they change it so they won't see or hear you? That would make more sense stalker-wise.

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If you blacklist someone, it removes every character on the entire account from the overworld for you. Every character on the account becomes invisible to you, they can't contact you in any way, you won't hear anything they say, they can't see or join your Party Finders and you can't see or join theirs, but they can still be matched with you in Duty Finder, where they will be visible and show up as Unknown 01 (or 02 and on if there are multiples) and, while in instances, their party chats will show up as from a blocked character. This later bit is to prevent the blacklist from breaking duty finder matching and making fights more difficult by having invisible players in them.

Blocked characters can still see the person who blocked them (but won't be made aware that the other player has them blocked). The game does not currently have anything like virtual restraining orders to force onto other players (beyond the Party Finder effect); that sort of ability absolutely would get abused.

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Originally Posted by TattersailNightwish

I know there was an uproar when they implemented the one system that inadvertently exposed your info (for those who know how to look for it), and that they've tweaked it since.

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They sent legal letters to the person and they no longer (at least publicly) have this data available.

They also changed how it works so that the account ID for all players seems different each time to log out and back in, or something like that. I'm told it's possible to reverse engineer it still, but I think that even if it is, it's probably much too annoying for a tool to collect that info now and they know that there would be legal risks to do so.

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How does it work-in game?

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You can expel them from your house or ban them from the vicinity, I believe. If you blacklist them, their entire account's characters and chats no longer appear and they can't join your party. If you join other parties that they are in or get matched in DF, they appear as "Unknown". It also blacklists them on the lodestone. You can set the lodestone to private so they can't see your details. You can also petition GMs for a restraining order.

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did they change it so they won't see or hear you?

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I'm not aware of it having any effect on their ability to see you or what you say.

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Originally Posted by Astronis

The game does not currently have anything like virtual restraining orders to force onto other players (beyond the Party Finder effect); that sort of ability absolutely would get abused.

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https://i.imgur.com/z49sNG0.png

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Originally Posted by Voidsent-Uchiha

https://i.imgur.com/z49sNG0.png

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That's very obviously not a standard function of the blacklist, but good to know that in certain instances GMs can impose such a thing.

When I said the game doesn't have that, it should have been clear I meant that it was not a feature of the game that players could invoke themselves--the blacklist could not impose it on another player simply by placing them on it, but I suppose it was not.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I'm told it's possible to reverse engineer it still, but I think that even if it is, it's probably much too annoying for a tool to collect that info now and they know that there would be legal risks to do so.

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Legal risks don't stop many people. There is simply not much interest in making a public tool because there's not that much real purpose. But all it takes is one player who holds a grudge and it will be PS2.0 all over again.

Something really stupid about the blacklist that I'm not even sure how it remotely got through quality check is that when a blacklisted character says anything in chat it mentions "blacklisted user wrote in chat" like that's just embarrassingly bad why even bother showing anything at all?

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Originally Posted by Deejudanne

Something really stupid about the blacklist that I'm not even sure how it remotely got through quality check is that when a blacklisted character says anything in chat it mentions "blacklisted user wrote in chat" like that's just embarrassingly bad why even bother showing anything at all?

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There's an option in the filter settings to make that stop appearing in (most) chats, but it is still pretty dumb that it's not turned on by default.

Moreover, I do not understand why I am not hidden from a player that I have blacklisted. It's like whole thing was made in reverse.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Moreover, I do not understand why I am not hidden from a player that I have blacklisted. It's like whole thing was made in reverse.

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Imagine for a moment that someone who is a real shitheel manages to convince hundreds of other players that YOU are the problem, and they all blacklist you. Now your game is suddenly far more empty than before and your duty finders are inexplicably full of Unknown 01 - 03 and everything said in them is (this message is from a blacklisted player)...when your blacklist is empty. It would take some dedications, but serious harassers are nothing if not dedicated.

And in many cases where the blacklist is useful it would be complete overkill to do anything more than remove that person from one's virtual existence. The game doesn't need to affect someone else's client and force them to blacklist me just because I'm irritated that they afk using /shakedrink or they have a habit of playing annoying bard music. If someone is harassing someone so much that making them invisible, inaudible, unable to join PFs, and banned from houses isn't good enough, more stringent measures than a blacklist likely need to be taken anyway.

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Originally Posted by Astronis

If you blacklist someone, it removes every character on the entire account from the overworld for you.

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The best part, that u can abuse this system, to track one person's alts.

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Originally Posted by Astronis

And in many cases where the blacklist is useful it would be complete overkill to do anything more than remove that person from one's virtual existence. The game doesn't need to affect someone else's client and force them to blacklist me just because I'm irritated that they afk using /shakedrink or they have a habit of playing annoying bard music. If someone is harassing someone so much that making them invisible, inaudible, unable to join PFs, and banned from houses isn't good enough, more stringent measures than a blacklist likely need to be taken anyway.

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Totally agree here, the game should able to partially restrict characters. Like, to hide their ugly glam, silence their awful bard performance or hide their "emote spam", block trades/party invites. Instead, game just suggest to totally "erase the player" or mute them in chat forever.
Not even an option, to "mute for 1 day" or "mute until current duty". Not even a single note. Mute list and blacklist is just a big mess to work with.

Blocking, especially anything more than the traditional old school client side ignore, is hard.

Do it wrong and it can even cause worse problems than it was intended to solve, such as the stalker issues in FFXIV or the material influence on discussion (sometimes to the point of even actively aiding in the promotion of misinformation) that Reddit's most recent iteration of the block feature has caused.

Harassment sucks, but it's important to ensure the solution isn't worse than the problem.

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Originally Posted by Astronis

Imagine for a moment that someone who is a real shitheel manages to convince hundreds of other players that YOU are the problem, and they all blacklist you. Now your game is suddenly far more empty than before and your duty finders are inexplicably full of Unknown 01 - 03 and everything said in them is (this message is from a blacklisted player)...when your blacklist is empty. It would take some dedications, but serious harassers are nothing if not dedicated.

And in many cases where the blacklist is useful it would be complete overkill to do anything more than remove that person from one's virtual existence. The game doesn't need to affect someone else's client and force them to blacklist me just because I'm irritated that they afk using /shakedrink or they have a habit of playing annoying bard music. If someone is harassing someone so much that making them invisible, inaudible, unable to join PFs, and banned from houses isn't good enough, more stringent measures than a blacklist likely need to be taken anyway.

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It's also the same reason the blacklist doesn't block people from showing up in one's duty finder, because again, if a committed harasser got even a quarter of the people on a world/data center to block someone, then their queues would become agonizing long (if they ever popped at all), to say nothing of how it would extend the time of EVERYONE'S queues after a while if the game is having to cross-reference every single person's blacklist to make sure nobody ends up partied with anyone else on each other's blacklists. Some people claim they would be okay with longer queues if it means never ever seeing somebody they blacklisted ever again (even as an Unknown), but they never stop to consider that THEY are the ones that might have been blacklisted to keep then out of duties, or if not them, then one of their friends/FC mates they grouped with that day.

The blacklist has shortcomings (it's too small for starters), but giving it too much power can end up doing more harm than good.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

It's also the same reason the blacklist doesn't block people from showing up in one's duty finder (...)

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Yeah...I wish it did, just as an ideal world kind of thing, but I completely understand why it doesn't. DF would just stop functioning.

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Originally Posted by Amarande

Blocking, especially anything more than the traditional old school client side ignore, is hard.

Do it wrong and it can even cause worse problems than it was intended to solve, such as the stalker issues in FFXIV or the material influence on discussion (sometimes to the point of even actively aiding in the promotion of misinformation) that Reddit's most recent iteration of the block feature has caused.

Harassment sucks, but it's important to ensure the solution isn't worse than the problem.

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Currently, solution is worse than the problem

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Currently, solution is worse than the problem

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I would have been extremely grateful for a FFXIV-style blacklist in another game I played where I had an issue with another player who not only did not respect boundaries, but intentionally pushed against them, leaping past them in ways no one should ever have to put up with. Wouldn't call her a stalker, but I would have been very relieved to delete all that person's characters and any future characters from my digital existence, as well as prevent any other kind of contact.