People advertising they're running Parsers

[caffe_macchiato]

I’m in full agreement. Casuals vs Raiders at this point.

Correct. Many casual players feel threatened and uncomfortable with this. There’s nothing wrong with that. The developers have always made a point to cater to casual players. It was a founding goal of ARR. Whether someone has completed Savage yet is of no relevance, as the content is open to all who have a subscription. Better yet, it’s even open to those without one; FFXIV has only been able to grow by broadening the audience of who might play an MMO. Seeing one’s own damage might be beneficial, but the social phenomenon of logging is a legitimate concern to the community at large. Said phenomenon is no longer limited to a small group of insular raiders, but instead is publicized openly on Twitch and other places. FFXIV streamers have huge audiences now. The FFXIV population is exploding in America due to it and recent events concerning World of Warcraft, which has a similar logging culture. Thus, the increase in popularity for parsing and logging culture is new, even if said things existed in a smaller form in the past.

They have a point when it comes to people harassing others with parse numbers. However, that is about it and the consensus is that people who are harassing others with parsers should be reported and banned.

The issue at hand isn’t just isolated incidents of harassment, it’s a culture that has taken root within the FFXIV community and occasionally bleeds over into the game proper as OP illustrated. The change in game culture is the root cause of what OP described. Square Enix only deals with the symptoms by addressing inappropriate expression in-game. Far worse behaviors exist outside of the game. People are doxxed and harassed just because of their parse. This happened in Japan to a prominent player, which caused Yoshida to take a firm stance against damage meters to say “just don’t do it”. FFlogs could take initiative against bad actors by making log uploads opt-in instead of opt-out. The webmaster could easily do this. The community could also crack down on harassment within its own Discords and forums, although this is harder. The easiest, albeit unpopular, solution would be for Square Enix to remove the battle log. Regardless, as OP illustrated, it’s a problem and a legitimate concern.