Will there be an official response about Party Finder advertising?

[Saefinn]

In the end I get where you are coming from but personally I do not think it is that major of an issue to go with the scorched earth approach. Combating RMT and trying to protect children is noble but when the steps used to protect them start to inconvenience legit players then I say it is too much. Like I said I am not an RPer but they should have every right to use the other tab to promote their own style of play and content. Does that mean I am in favor of erp advertising? No, but purging all to or custom messages is overkill. It is akin to pop feast chat. Sure it was toxic at times but removing the ability to chat just incovenced legit players those wishing to be toxic still found a way. Same will be done with the erp and RMT. They will find a way and barely be phased by it. Those who were using it in a non malicious manner are the ones that will feel it the most. Sure they can and would adapt but why should they.

Pretty much. Especially given van_arn's suggestion here when this last came up (and the same with the GM that caused all this to kick off) was for it to be moved to shout chat. Great, then you've moved it from one public space to a bigger public space. Sure it means people who don't want to see it can turn-off shout chat, like I often do when I enter Ul'dah but what it doesn't do is help this concern with keeping teens away from such advertisements.

There's a lot of use for custom messages in Party Finder and I don't really see a benefit to block them beyond making it easier for people who don't want to see them from seeing them.

Either way, it should come down to the law, people acting appropriately with its confines and SE making the right steps to, which for all we know, they might. Just because we see an 18+ advert doesn't mean the ToS has been violated or the law broken. Who knows, maybe their current method makes it easier to catch people who are up to no good than a scorched earth approach would.

[Breezelyn]

Pretty much. Especially given van_arn's suggestion here when this last came up (and the same with the GM that caused all this to kick off) was for it to be moved to shout chat. Great, then you've moved it from one public space to a bigger public space. Sure it means people who don't want to see it can turn-off shout chat, like I often do when I enter Ul'dah but what it doesn't do is help this concern with keeping teens away from such advertisements.

There's a lot of use for custom messages in Party Finder and I don't really see a benefit to block them beyond making it easier for people who don't want to see them from seeing them.

Either way, it should come down to the law, people acting appropriately with its confines and SE making the right steps to, which for all we know, they might. Just because we see an 18+ advert doesn't mean the ToS has been violated or the law broken. Who knows, maybe their current method makes it easier to catch people who are up to no good than a scorched earth approach would.

Adding onto this: Wouldn't using shout chat for advertising 18+ RP Venues actually be more detrimental in the long run? Even if you can turn tog off the chat option, a lot of people don't do this by default. Minors would be way more exposed to these messages, and will be more inclined to go check these places out. Since... it's being spammed in every other city consistently with how many of these RP venues exist. Just another consequence to think about, if you on board to get rid of custom messages from PF.

With PF, you can filter out the 'other' tab if you don't want to see these custom messages. Just click the tab that doesn't "ALL", then you're good to go. You can actually blacklist character names easily from PF, so you wont see any messages from said character name you blacklist (At least for it works like that?). Granted, BL needs to have a slot increase without how many I've blocked from PF with those run sellers.

I'm just having a hard time grasping people's viewpoint of blocking out custom messages from PF. If a message is actually REALLY NSFW, then YES by all means report them please. I hate seeing someone's kink list or someone selling rl feet pics on PF. No one needs to see that. Those things I agree that should be reported in the long run.

[Nakarumi]

Satirically... I just love how everyone keeps turning this into a civil debate of indecency and completely still ignores the fact that not a single SE representative is willing to give us a straight-up answer to a question that we are ALL asking.

Should we not be directing our passionate aggressions to the company itself that is basically standing there twiddling their thumbs and sipping tea while watching all of you argue and debate???? I mean really~~~

[Themarvin]

Pretty much. Especially given van_arn's suggestion here when this last came up (and the same with the GM that caused all this to kick off) was for it to be moved to shout chat. Great, then you've moved it from one public space to a bigger public space. Sure it means people who don't want to see it can turn-off shout chat, like I often do when I enter Ul'dah but what it doesn't do is help this concern with keeping teens away from such advertisements.

There's a lot of use for custom messages in Party Finder and I don't really see a benefit to block them beyond making it easier for people who don't want to see them from seeing them.

Either way, it should come down to the law, people acting appropriately with its confines and SE making the right steps to, which for all we know, they might. Just because we see an 18+ advert doesn't mean the ToS has been violated or the law broken. Who knows, maybe their current method makes it easier to catch people who are up to no good than a scorched earth approach would.

Tell a 14-17 year old male, which hormones run amok to turn off that kind of stuff, it is not going to happen, it is what the entire thing is about, and probably an angry parent or whatever, was the one that was doing the report, for this kind of special stuff, it is clearly not permitted to advertizing openly about it, whatever people do in their houses or apartments is their business, but if one way or another end with this to lure in at current part in life being a teen on the weakest spot.

SE don't want their game to hit on minors in the wrong way, and a GM no matter who it was or is.... did not react towards this on his or her own, it was reacted onto due to someone who reported it in, and the way it was handled, was following the ways of to keep any of this stuff out of public as well it would be too much to ask SE to give options to filter it better or more as you in that situation put SE in a position where they then have officially allowed it as long as putting x thing on.

It is the same reason, that DPS meters is not in the game, as it can be a tool to grief others with, same can be said that minors easely can end getting violated in these kinds of activity, and SE do not want to have their nametag on that.

This does not mean I am anti-anything about what is happening and that people may like to do, but the message is clear, don't run these kinds of things in a public way or you can get into trouble.

[Saefinn]

Tell a 14-17 year old male, which hormones run amok to turn off that kind of stuff, it is not going to happen, it is what the entire thing is about, and probably an angry parent or whatever, was the one that was doing the report, for this kind of special stuff, it is clearly not permitted to advertizing openly about it, whatever people do in their houses or apartments is their business, but if one way or another end with this to lure in at current part in life being a teen on the weakest spot.

SE don't want their game to hit on minors in the wrong way, and a GM no matter who it was or is.... did not react towards this on his or her own, it was reacted onto due to someone who reported it in, and the way it was handled, was following the ways of to keep any of this stuff out of public as well it would be too much to ask SE to give options to filter it better or more as you in that situation put SE in a position where they then have officially allowed it as long as putting x thing on.

It is the same reason, that DPS meters is not in the game, as it can be a tool to grief others with, same can be said that minors easely can end getting violated in these kinds of activity, and SE do not want to have their nametag on that.

This does not mean I am anti-anything about what is happening and that people may like to do, but the message is clear, don't run these kinds of things in a public way or you can get into trouble.

Hence my point really, pushing them out of the PF pushes them into shout. Earlier in the thread I proposed the idea of better parental controls & made suggestions of how they'd possible works, because whilst this is not an 18+ game, even with the best will in the world the devs cannot guarantee people's interactions will be teen friendly and if a real concern there are better ways of mitigating it than scorched earth or removing the ability to make comments in PF. Plus I take the argument, the more you force these communities to keep it secret the harder they are to moderate and are less likely to report wrongdoing to the mods/GM's, but of course, it's then a balancing act of, if more people know about them, the more likely somebody underaged picks up on it.

Fortunately, I know when it comes to ERP I know it tends to be done in private because most of the time people will show that courtesy, but these big advertisements especially for brothels or variations of brothels are risky.

[Themarvin]

Hence my point really, pushing them out of the PF pushes them into shout. Earlier in the thread I proposed the idea of better parental controls & made suggestions of how they'd possible works, because whilst this is not an 18+ game, even with the best will in the world the devs cannot guarantee people's interactions will be teen friendly and if a real concern there are better ways of mitigating it than scorched earth or removing the ability to make comments in PF. Plus I take the argument, the more you force these communities to keep it secret the harder they are to moderate and are less likely to report wrongdoing to the mods/GM's, but of course, it's then a balancing act of, if more people know about them, the more likely somebody underaged picks up on it.

Fortunately, I know when it comes to ERP I know it tends to be done in private because most of the time people will show that courtesy, but these big advertisements especially for brothels or variations of brothels are risky.

Pushing them into shouts, just increases the report ratio to the extreme though, and doubt that SE would be happy about that either, parental controls never work and never really has, SE's standpoint in this will be a strong one and I can't see them to advocate for insane levels of parental controls due to this is a more family oriented and friendly game in general, it is kind of pushing it, if you value a serious opinion in it.

If want an answer here from them, most likely would not happen here, but more likely that they end updating the ToS that is needed to be agreed on before can continue playing is a more likely thing to happen, and it could be a call out as well in a public statement, as they did with modifications and such as well quite some time ago.

[Saefinn]

Pushing them into shouts, just increases the report ratio to the extreme though, and doubt that SE would be happy about that either, parental controls never work and never really has, SE's standpoint in this will be a strong one and I can't see them to advocate for insane levels of parental controls due to this is a more family oriented and friendly game in general, it is kind of pushing it, if you value a serious opinion in it.

If want an answer here from them, most likely would not happen here, but more likely that they end updating the ToS that is needed to be agreed on before can continue playing is a more likely thing to happen, and it could be a call out as well in a public statement, as they did with modifications and such as well quite some time ago.

I mean in fairness, I guess a "wait and see". From my impression of YoshiP's interview they already have a strategy in place. I personally am happy letting them leave to their devices, they admitted wrong doing on that one GM and we thought it was in error and seemingly that's all resolved.

I am disadvantaged in not having their data or knowing their strategy, clarification of course would be useful, but as I'm don't run any ERP venues I am not in limbo because the verdict so far as been "RP venues are fine to use the PF as long as they don't break ToS", so if I need it in future, I know I am unlikely to have GM problems.

But I don't think people's answers to the their concept about teens and ERP are great, I think there are better pragmatic options to do what they want to achieve. But in reality none of them will solve the problem and present other problems. Heck, for all we know, the GM's may have it under control, it could be the ERP posters we see repeating ERP adverts aren't break ToS and may be found innocent of wrong doing. But again, there's a disadvantage of not having their data. Or it may be they rely on those adverts to know where and when this activity is occurring and they can investigate for any wrong doing.

[van_arn]

Adding onto this: Wouldn't using shout chat for advertising 18+ RP Venues actually be more detrimental in the long run? Even if you can turn tog off the chat option, a lot of people don't do this by default. Minors would be way more exposed to these messages, and will be more inclined to go check these places out. Since... it's being spammed in every other city consistently with how many of these RP venues exist. Just another consequence to think about, if you on board to get rid of custom messages from PF.

With PF, you can filter out the 'other' tab if you don't want to see these custom messages. Just click the tab that doesn't "ALL", then you're good to go. You can actually blacklist character names easily from PF, so you wont see any messages from said character name you blacklist (At least for it works like that?). Granted, BL needs to have a slot increase without how many I've blocked from PF with those run sellers.

I'm just having a hard time grasping people's viewpoint of blocking out custom messages from PF. If a message is actually REALLY NSFW, then YES by all means report them please. I hate seeing someone's kink list or someone selling rl feet pics on PF. No one needs to see that. Those things I agree that should be reported in the long run.

No, because Shout chat is easy to turn off. If shout chatting got too spammy, shout advertising would become ineffective.

[Vahlnir]

I mean in fairness, I guess a "wait and see". From my impression of YoshiP's interview they already have a strategy in place. I personally am happy letting them leave to their devices, they admitted wrong doing on that one GM and we thought it was in error and seemingly that's all resolved.

I am disadvantaged in not having their data or knowing their strategy, clarification of course would be useful, but as I'm don't run any ERP venues I am not in limbo because the verdict so far as been "RP venues are fine to use the PF as long as they don't break ToS", so if I need it in future, I know I am unlikely to have GM problems.

But I don't think people's answers to the their concept about teens and ERP are great, I think there are better pragmatic options to do what they want to achieve. But in reality none of them will solve the problem and present other problems. Heck, for all we know, the GM's may have it under control, it could be the ERP posters we see repeating ERP adverts aren't break ToS and may be found innocent of wrong doing. But again, there's a disadvantage of not having their data. Or it may be they rely on those adverts to know where and when this activity is occurring and they can investigate for any wrong doing.

Personally, I have no problem with standard RP things on the PF like bathhouses or taverns as a couple examples. I don't want to hinder RPers as a whole. What I would like to see though is more of a cracking down on the ERP listings. People can ERP to their hearts' content within reason (and within the law) for all I care, but they don't need to parade it in front of the entire data center.

[Saefinn]

No, because Shout chat is easy to turn off. If shout chatting got too spammy, shout advertising would become ineffective.

If enough people turn it off that is. If people are seeking the kinds of thing in those shout channels they might keep it turned on. And what if it is just the right amount of spammy that people just tolerate it in the main cities where it's happening but keep it turned on, because people use shout chat outside of cities. I mean it'd be inefficient to spam outside of the main cities.

And for sure if it's ERP spam, all those underaged people you're worried about will have plenty of exposure to those ads before they've even decided it's worth turning off shout chat.

It does nothing to fix the problem you're claiming concern about. I think I am starting to see why the OP suggested it's a bad faith argument, because the other thing you have argued is that you just don't want to see it and for it to stay out of sight and out of mind...which this solution would allow you to do. But if anything would likely make things worse for your other concern (about underaged people) because it'd be no longer tucked away in a PF and would be openly visible in a huge public channel.