Regarding the Revision of the Prohibited Activities and Account Penalty Policy

[Olivia0x25]

These changes need to be reverted for the rules.

There should be no reason for a GM to intervene unless it gets out of control. You are actively making the community an unsafe space to be. Some of these new rules that you just put in place, I could apply towards people on my friends list, and my entire FC, and know I could in fact get someone banned for the things that have been said and done to me. All of which that could be instead of banning the player (which is unfair), to just blacklisting them instead. I already have the power to mute what I don't agree or don't want to hear.

These rules are not community safe what so ever. If anything, you just gave a reason for new players NOT to come here now. You gave a reason for normal players to want to leave, or not say a word. Any sort of social interaction now has to keep in mind "am I going to get banned for saying something to this person". With a game that NEVER had any issues, or any sort of problems what so ever that I have seen in the time that I've been here (not saying it doesn't happen), I've seen a respectful and welcoming community.

You are actively punishing the entire community for a thing only some people do, and regardless, the power to mute and blacklist is already there for a reason.


I for one now don't feel safe talking to my FC anymore because I joke around and poke fun, and now that can be considered harassment or an annoyance to ANYONE in my FC, even if it doesn't relate to them, and I'll be banned for it.

I Know for a fact I could login right now with these new rules in place and report a few people who have been bugging me slightly and actually acting out towards me and probably get them banned.

The reason why I don't is because I find it unfair, even as the victim. Blacklist is there for a reason. Do NOT intervene unless it's a HUGE issue, like what you once did.

[Baalfrog]

The thing to remember is common sense over absolute rules. Like, if I park my mount on top of an NPC, while its technically against the rules, in most cases its not done on a malicious intent so it shouldn't be a bannable or warnable offense...

Issue is that you can't contest the claims and depending on the mood of the gm, you might get punished anyway. Also, this system is very much open for exploitation over some minimalistic infraction and people mass reporting someone over it could be an issue.

[Xtrasweettea]

You can't force compassion... but you can ban people who are so averse to being compassionate that they'd rather break the rules than control their own behaviour to avoid a ban.

You are still trying to enforce compassion. You cannot force someone to do an action that they either have no capability of doing or refuse to do. Those people will either be disciplined, or be smart enough to only associate with people who are like them.

[Maeka]

The thing to remember is common sense over absolute rules. Like, if I park my mount on top of an NPC, while its technically against the rules, in most cases its not done on a malicious intent so it shouldn't be a bannable or warnable offense...

Issue is that you can't contest the claims and depending on the mood of the gm, you might get punished anyway. Also, this system is very much open for exploitation over some minimalistic infraction and people mass reporting someone over it could be an issue.

Which is exactly why it's bad.

This whole Guilty Into Proven Innocent crap with how these rules are worded. If someone doesn't like you, they can play the victim and find dang near ANYTHING to complain about you, then you're done. It encourages people to be a victim, and rather than protect the general population, it gives trolls all the tools they need to get innocent people banned.

[noxen]

Well damn. I'm someone that's known for my controversial and thought-provoking conversation starters. Guess I'm gonna be getting banned soon, then.

[Moshantu]

The problem with this mentality is that we already had a perfectly fine system in place, where if you actually did anything bad to somebody, you'd get in trouble.

Now, the new system is that if you "hurt" somebody (which can be anything) you can get banned no matter what it was, if the GM is in a bad enough mood.

I think you're over-estimating how difficult it is to actually get -banned.- Banning isn't their step 1 unless it's a -very- serious violation, which likely involves things like death threats, spreading personal information with malicious intent, that sort of thing. And that goes beyond the things covered as "nuisances" or "offensive" and goes more into full-on harassment, which the rules for are much less vague.

Also can we call a moratorium on this "if the GM is in a bad mood..." cherry-picked argument? How grumpy does everyone think these GMs are? How -unprofessional- do you think they are? Can it happen? Of course it can. But it's not even close to being common enough to be considered a behavioral trend. It's basically fear-mongering. I fully expect to be linked reddit and forum posts of examples where people have been on the receiving end of a GM in a bad mood, but those are examples out of how many cases? How many open tickets ended that way? Let's say that I am somehow linked 1,000 examples of GMs in a bad mood. That would mean that to even be 1% of all tickets, there'd have to have only been 100,000 tickets in all of FFXIV:ARR's lifetime. And I know there's far fewer examples than 1,000, and far more lifetime report tickets than 100,000.

[Gralna]

Are you kidding me!?

Welp. I will probably never say another word in-game again other than FC chat. It's just too dangerous to talk in-game right now.

It's the same jargon they use whenever you have to do HR training at a new job nowadays, intent doesn't matter only how your actions/words made another feel. Technically you could get fired from a job for saying "hi" to someone if you made them feel bad enough, in practice though I've never seen anyone abuse it to that point. Only time I've seen it enacted is when people are attempting to make joke and someone takes offense to it.

[Iscah]

Are you kidding me!?

Welp. I will probably never say another word in-game again other than FC chat. It's just too dangerous to talk in-game right now.

Again... it's almost certainly a way to ensure they can punish someone who was deliberately doing something wrong, even though they didn't outright say in the text log that they were doing it deliberately.

That's been an issue in the past, so I think they are now trying to cover themselves against that.



In the end, the "anything could get you banned!!!" panic seems unfounded because Square Enix doesn't want to ban you all. They want you to stay around and pay them money. The rules, vague as they are, have not been designed to catch you out and get you banned for the fun of it.

Yes, they need some more clarity.

No, they are not trying to set a trap for you.

(Unless of course you're actually doing the disruptive things they couldn't punish you for under their previous rules.)

[Yshnal]

This is what happens when some people go into someone else's house (SE's), and keep causing all kind of trouble with their other guests due to their own selfish attitudes. Eventually the owner will get tired and will treat everyone like the little kids that they seem to be.

I agree that some of the rules "seem" a bit out of hand and/or pretty vague. But I also think that at this point, after so many hints of them telling us to stop acting like selfish spoiled brats (the MSQ dungeons and the various things that some people have done, and do, to cheat the system are the prime example of this) we have earned this, either actively or by omission. However, I also think that this all is more to have their ground covered than to go around with the ban hammer hitting everyone as soon as they say anything. In other words, use your common sense and you should be safe. Let's see what happens before screaming censorship.

[Olivia0x25]

I think you're over-estimating how difficult it is to actually get -banned.- Banning isn't their step 1 unless it's a -very- serious violation, which likely involves things like death threats, spreading personal information with malicious intent, that sort of thing. And that goes beyond the things covered as "nuisances" or "offensive" and goes more into full-on harassment, which the rules for are much less vague.

Also can we call a moratorium on this "if the GM is in a bad mood..." cherry-picked argument? How grumpy does everyone think these GMs are? How -unprofessional- do you think they are? Can it happen? Of course it can. But it's not even close to being common enough to be considered a behavioral trend. It's basically fear-mongering. I fully expect to be linked reddit and forum posts of examples where people have been on the receiving end of a GM in a bad mood, but those are examples out of how many cases? How many open tickets ended that way? Let's say that I am somehow linked 1,000 examples of GMs in a bad mood. That would mean that to even be 1% of all tickets, there'd have to have only been 100,000 tickets in all of FFXIV:ARR's lifetime. And I know there's far fewer examples than 1,000, and far more lifetime report tickets than 100,00.

Yeah but the fact of the matter is, that something went from no chance in happening, to now a POSSIBILITY of it happening. The simple fact that you are disagreeing with her right now, she can say her feelings are hurt and report you for what you wrote because you see a different view than her, and that can be a warning placed on your account for doing something so horrible as to disagreeing with her point of view.

Just like I can technically be held responsible for assuming Maeka's gender...

I'm part of the LBGT community, and even I find these new policies unhealthy for anyones sort of benefit.