As a player who's never been reported, why aren't behavior penalties ever forgiven?

[Nix]

Part of my concern is that GMs are often so rigid in their execution of this draconian policy that someone can be reported for cursing generally, not even at a specific player, and still be penalized. And personally, I don't think this improves the game's community. I think it just encourages passive aggression, and allows players to bait people into losing their patience before reporting them for breaking the rules. The issue is that you can't assume that the person who is filing the report is always a reasonable and well-intentioned player. Especially since their new policy, which they announced, is to intervene more often than not. They said as much. I can find the specific quote if anyone wants to see it.

This wouldn't be so bad to me if the penalties weren't permanent. That is by far the worse of the two concerns, in my opinion.

A little draconian, yes, but given today's climate I can see why they're taking such action.

I want to be clear that I'm not totally against strikes being wiped out after x_amount of time - like others have said, people change... That being said, my point still stands that if you (the general "you") find yourself getting multiple strikes, then maybe it's time to assess your online behavior.

[Lunavi]

Because they're permanent I stopped talking outside of my FC chat and linkshells in-game. If I can't moderate the channel, I don't talk in it because now I'm afraid another overly sensitive snowflake is gonna report me over something stupid.

How hard is it to not use slurs, excessive cursing, or being straight out mean to people? You make it sound like they take action against any reports they get, which they don't. Most of the sob stories that paints this picture are from people who actually did use highly inappropriate language or were overly rude to people, the only exception is the person who got thrown into jail for becoming the FC leader of a dead FC on their inactive alt pretty much. As long as you can behave like a decent person you have nothing to fear by talking in public channels, I do it all the time.

[xbamfo]

Because they're permanent I stopped talking outside of my FC chat and linkshells in-game. If I can't moderate the channel, I don't talk in it because now I'm afraid another overly sensitive snowflake is gonna report me over something stupid.

This. Absolutely this. I see others making wild assumptions about how this guy "must be bad" or something, but it's absurd. So many people are so quick to get extremely upset and fly off the handle over the most minor of percieved transgressions. They are seriously the worst kinds of people, and completely humorless.
I've had people get mad at me over me simply trying to be friendly in a dungeon. I don't swear, I don't do anything. I'm totally squeaky clean. Just a 'hi'. And it's "DID YOU JUST LOOK UP MY SKIRT YOU PERVERTED POTATO!?" With complete seriousness.

I've had so many people get mad at me for the most idiotic of reasons in my time gaming. Not so much ffxiv, usually people love me with a couple bad encounters spanning across years (best ratio for friendly encounters i've ever seen in a game :3). But for all I know, someone's reported me for rping wrong or something, and I could end up with an unremovable strike because someone got 'offended' and believes that anything they remotely dislike needs to be purged and burned.

(And yet people often are elitist and hate my in-game race and call me a pervert just for playing a small knight in armor. wtf)

[Shadha]

[...] the only exception is the person who got thrown into jail for becoming the FC leader of a dead FC on their inactive alt pretty much.

Well, the only exception that we're aware of. If that could happen at all, I think it represents a larger problem in the system. I politely doubt it's the only highly questionable penalty that's been issued in the game's nine years, but who could tell? People who're punished have no recourse, and it's very easy to not care about any of this if you've never been punished yourself. I wonder how the Japanese fanbase feels about all this.

[Lunavi]

This. Absolutely this. I see others making wild assumptions about how this guy "must be bad" or something, but it's absurd. So many people are so quick to get extremely upset and fly off the handle over the most minor of percieved transgressions. They are seriously the worst kinds of people, and completely humorless.
I've had people get mad at me over me simply trying to be friendly in a dungeon. I don't swear, I don't do anything. I'm totally squeaky clean. Just a 'hi'. And it's "DID YOU JUST LOOK UP MY SKIRT YOU PERVERTED POTATO!?" With complete seriousness.

I've had so many people get mad at me for the most idiotic of reasons in my time gaming. Not so much ffxiv, usually people love me with a couple bad encounters spanning across years (best ratio for friendly encounters i've ever seen in a game :3). But for all I know, someone's reported me for rping wrong or something, and I could end up with an unremovable strike because someone got 'offended' and believes that anything they remotely dislike needs to be purged and burned.

(And yet people often are elitist and hate my in-game race and call me a pervert just for playing a small knight in armor. wtf)

So, could you tell me how many times you have ended up in trouble with GMs due to these misadventures? As that is the topic, not people raging at you after they assumed you peeped up their skirt. There is a HUGE difference between people getting annoyed with you and you ending up in trouble with GM and getting warnings.

[SaberMaxwell]

If you get two strikes, even in 2.0, I'd kinda start thinking about why you're getting those strikes.
In my many years of gaming, I'm yet to get a single one.

You're avoiding the point. IRL there are statute of limitations laws for a reason. People grow and people change. Keeping any but the most serious infractions on any kind of permanent record is silly.

[xbamfo]

So, could you tell me how many times you have ended up in trouble with GMs due to these misadventures?

How many times I've actually received warnings? None. But I've had an instance where a GM did get talk to me and it took some rather serious convincing to show that the other person was being overly sensitive. The other person didn't help their case by being a flailing idiot the whole time either, but I've still almost gotten in trouble over incredibly minor stuff because people get needlessly offended.
Like it or not, some people are fragile snowflakes and I don't want to get banned from the game because I happen to get unlucky too many times.
An amount of time to pass by without problems should get rid of previous infractions. This would get rid of that possibility.

And... "There is a HUGE difference between people getting annoyed with you and you ending up in trouble"
Barely any. It's all a matter of how far someone else wants to take their (often minor) slight. Some GMs will roll their eyes at these people, and others will cater to their every whim.
These people in my opinion, are far more toxic than even those that actively go out of their way to sling insults. Cry bullies who want to rip a game and hobby away forever from someone who annoyed them. And they never get punished for their antics either, because there's no rules against being like that.
They are the worst, and unfortunately are more common than one would like to imagine.

[SturmChurro]

Barely any. It's all a matter of how far someone else wants to take their (often minor) slight. Some GMs will roll their eyes at these people, and others will cater to their every whim.
These people in my opinion, are far more toxic than even those that actively go out of their way to sling insults. Cry bullies who want to rip a game and hobby away forever from someone who annoyed them. And they never get punished for their antics either, because there's no rules against being like that.
They are the worst, and unfortunately are more common than one would like to imagine.

Well said. Even if someone did throw an insult it is of my personal opinion that they do not deserve to lose potentially thousands of hours of work put into their account. Even if I hate the person, if someone throws an insult at me I would rather deal with it myself or ignore it all together. I never report anyone over something petty like that in-game, have never once used the report feature. The most I'll report is some gold spam or something, but I think you can right click report that, but it's been so long since I think I have even done that I am not 100% on that. I don't even think there should even be some sort of strike system, you should only be permanently banned for the most egregious of offenses. This is an mmorpg where you are potentially putting thousands of hours of your life, and thousands upon thousands of dollars into your account. You shouldn't lose it all because you hurt someones "feewings" at some point in what could be several years.

People go out of their way, and take the time out of their day for some petty "revenge" with the line of thinking 'we don't need those kind of people in OUR game". You see it all the time in these threads. When they report you, they report you with the goal of getting you banned, and to them, preferably permanently.

[Fynlar]

If they were made leader of the FC due to inactiveness of the previous leader why did they not change the slogan before they were reported? They had to have known it was vulgar and could have easily changed it upon becoming the new leader. Ignoring it they are just as guilty as the person who wrote it.

I don't even know where to find a FC's slogan, so...

[Nix]

You're avoiding the point. IRL there are statute of limitations laws for a reason. People grow and people change. Keeping any but the most serious infractions on any kind of permanent record is silly.

No I'm not, please read my post following the one you quoted.