Roleplay/Partyfinder Discrepancies & Policy Enforcement by GM's

[Aslae]

Some one or some group of people are taking it upon themselves most likely to get something started in "cleaning up" PF listings.

The GM isn't technically wrong. PF is there for creating parties. Not for advertising.

The correct method as was mentioned I believe is moving those things to the Fellowship function. The RP crowd should take it upon themselves to collectively move their stuff over there so PF can stay what it was meant to be.

Have you tried using the fellowship function? It's absolute trash. Until we have something better, pf is the easiest way to do it. And by the way, the GM offered the alternative to pf be shouting in cities. It's much easier to avoid a pf advertisement than all of us RP'ers shouting in city chat.

[Solarra]

...the GM offered the alternative to pf be shouting in cities.

I honestly can't see how that would be an improvement. I am fairly sure that there would be a flood of reports if every RP event was advertised through /shout.
I agree Fellowships are too limited to be of much use to anyone and Discord and Twitter, which Rindez suggested above, are out of game.

I think the most elegant solution to this issue would be to give RP it's own tab in the PF.

[Aslae]

I honestly can't see how that would be an improvement. I am fairly sure that there would be a flood of reports if every RP event was advertised through /shout.
I agree Fellowships are too limited to be of much use to anyone and Discord and Twitter, which Rindez suggested above, are out of game.

I think the most elegant solution to this issue would be to give RP it's own tab in the PF.

Absolutely agree with this. RP should have it's own tab, and if people don't like RP they can just avoid it completely.

[TheRedChameleon]

I'm at an absolute loss as to the justification here, in what way could the "Other" tab be used for "clearing content" that isn't fulfilled by another classification in the party finder? It's also by no means clogging up the PF as anything in the "Other" category is relegated to the very bottom of the list.

Also, Fellowships? Really? Fellowships are TERRIBLE for organizing pop-up, casual RP events and are incredibly limited as to how many a single person can join.

[Aslae]

I'm at an absolute loss as to the justification here, in what way could the "Other" tab be used for "clearing content" that isn't fulfilled by another classification in the party finder? It's also by no means clogging up the PF as anything in the "Other" category is relegated to the very bottom of the list.

Also, Fellowships? Really? Fellowships are TERRIBLE for organizing pop-up, casual RP events and are incredibly limited as to how many a single person can join.

oh but don't forget we can "Shout in populated areas" to advertise. >.>

[Airyll]

oh but don't forget we can "Shout in populated areas" to advertise. >.>

Yeah, and then you get reported for "spam" by the people who really utterly hate roleplay and loathe seeing even a single shout interrupting their precious Limsa memeposting.

Honestly my biggest problem with this entire farce is the fact that there's no consistency in the enforcement of this "new" rule. It seems to be one individual GM (which is already suspicious enough, frankly, when out of a team there's only one individual ever going out of their way to pick out specific community members for punishment) who has either misinterpreted something or has a genuine bone to pick with a specific section of the community. Now, if this same individual had approached any of the ridiculous AFK club PFs, or any of the raid sellers who willingly misuse PF and advertise in the wrong sections intentionally, I'd be far more forgiving. (I also don't really deny that public adverts for 18+ venues can't really be tolerated in a game whose legal rating is lower than that and I could understand it to a smaller degree if it was only 18+ venues being targeted.)

But... they don't. They haven't. Arguably worse abuse of the PF, where people are clearly falsely advertising things in the wrong sections for the explicit purpose of pushing down legitimate PF requests, are just left alone to sit there. Yet apparently it is the roleplayers who are wrong.

[MagicAura]

Yeah, and then you get reported for "spam" by the people who really utterly hate roleplay and loathe seeing even a single shout interrupting their precious Limsa memeposting.

Honestly my biggest problem with this entire farce is the fact that there's no consistency in the enforcement of this "new" rule. It seems to be one individual GM (which is already suspicious enough, frankly, when out of a team there's only one individual ever going out of their way to pick out specific community members for punishment) who has either misinterpreted something or has a genuine bone to pick with a specific section of the community. Now, if this same individual had approached any of the ridiculous AFK club PFs, or any of the raid sellers who willingly misuse PF and advertise in the wrong sections intentionally, I'd be far more forgiving. (I also don't really deny that public adverts for 18+ venues can't really be tolerated in a game whose legal rating is lower than that and I could understand it to a smaller degree if it was only 18+ venues being targeted.)

But... they don't. They haven't. Arguably worse abuse of the PF, where people are clearly falsely advertising things in the wrong sections for the explicit purpose of pushing down legitimate PF requests, are just left alone to sit there. Yet apparently it is the roleplayers who are wrong.

There are two things that strike me as weird in this case: (1) it's always the same GM, (2) One person was banned straight away even though they stated it was their first infraction, while the rest were given a warning.

This indicates that perhaps the person reporting and the GM are cooperating for unknown reasons. I say unknown but I suspect it has to do with taking down 18+ PF listings and covering it with taking down all RP ads regardless of being 18+ or not (or perhaps everything in their tiny little minds is 18+ when it comes to RP). If that's the case then the GM is guilty of corruption and gaming the system and should face the consequences.

Just to clarify, I am not a RPer but accept that the RP community needs to be given the tools tools and circumstances to thrive, I have no opinion on ERP if it's between consenting adults and in private, and I absolutely loathe all the RMT/clears/whatever sells that are always at the top of the PF lists.

What I have a problem with is the double standards of this specific GM (as well as the person who reports all these) and the absence of clear rules from SE's part. If 18+ is against the ToS then take them down but make it clear that they are and don't leave it to personal interpretation. As things stand it's a mess and the only thing it achieves is alienate people from the game and give SE a bad name.

[Airyll]

Just to clarify, I am not a RPer but accept that the RP community needs to be given the tools tools and circumstances to thrive, I have no opinion on ERP if it's between consenting adults and in private, and I absolutely loathe all the RMT/clears/whatever sells that are always at the top of the PF lists.

What I have a problem with is the double standards of this specific GM (as well as the person who reports all these) and the absence of clear rules from SE's part. If 18+ is against the ToS then take them down but make it clear that they are and don't leave it to personal interpretation. As things stand it's a mess and the only thing it achieves is alienate people from the game and give SE a bad name.

I'm in basically the same boat - I'm in an RP community on Discord but I've never dabbled with it in game, partly because honestly it was always fairly difficult to find back at the time I had a vague interest in it. If the problem is explicitly NSFW 18+ venues, I'd far rather they just make an announcement saying that, because honestly it's entirely fair. The game is rated for a specific age range and I even think most of the 18+ venue runners would agree that a ruling like that would be fair. They just need to be clear about it; the problem in this regard is the lack of clarity for the situation.

If the problem is this so called "Party Finder Abuse" - where it's "clogging up" the Other category and supposedly hiding content (which let's all be actually honest here: no, it isn't, because almost every other type of content in this game has a category already) then that's fine too. But, if that's the case, enforce it consistently. Target the RMT sellers who are arguably in far worse breach of the rule because they not only don't advertise running content immediately, but they knowingly use the wrong category and so they do legitimately hide or push down other real parties. Target the AFK clubs that are not advertising for a party, and not even looking to do content.

Like the fundamental issue isn't even that this rule is unreasonable; it's that it isn't clear, and it isn't enforced consistently because worse "rule breakers" are being left alone and not harassed, while roleplayers legitimately using the other function to try and find parties are clearly being targeted with a higher priority. And that's what gets me about this.

[Nakarumi]

I'm at an absolute loss as to the justification here, in what way could the "Other" tab be used for "clearing content" that isn't fulfilled by another classification in the party finder? It's also by no means clogging up the PF as anything in the "Other" category is relegated to the very bottom of the list.

Also, Fellowships? Really? Fellowships are TERRIBLE for organizing pop-up, casual RP events and are incredibly limited as to how many a single person can join.

Very good point. I forgot to add this to my list of reasons why the alternates are not applicable.

I'm going to add this, if you don't mind, to the OP.

[Decoy_Wolff]

It's much easier to avoid a pf advertisement than all of us RP'ers shouting in city chat.

For real!! Like even then THAT can be seen as a "Nuisance behavior" and goes contradictory to what this GM is implying that people do! It is much more annoying to be spammed in shout chat with many an advertisement for a club or something than going into a PF. People go into PF to look for one specific piece of content. They know they will find that content in a specific tab. RP venue ads in "Other" is totally fine. SE needs to get their management in shape and come to an agreement on what certain things can and cannot be done.