My name is not against ToS/Rules - Yet being forced to change it

[Xirean]

According to some ppl in this thread they would literally hunt the OP down and report him until he was forced to change the name to something else. Sounds very reasonable in this context

Define "hunt down" in this context. This isn't people tracking the OP and doxing their IRL details. People saw a player in a game with a name they thought was inappropriate and reported said name that was on their screen, likely from chatting or being qued together.

[Solakor]

Define "hunt down" in this context. This isn't people tracking the OP and doxing their IRL details. People saw a player in a game with a name they thought was inappropriate and reported said name that was on their screen, likely from chatting or being qued together.

I'll let the GMs decide what is hunting down since they seem to be so adept at enforcing the rules

[Avoidy]

I'll let the GMs decide what is hunting down since they seem to be so adept at enforcing the rules

I know you're being sarcastic about this, but for anyone new to this ongoing conversation about GM action: they're horrible about this. There's another thread up right now, (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Refusal-to-act) where someone has been stalked and harassed by 1 guy for 3 years. GMs haven't done anything. But if your name offends someone for any reason, you can report it and it goes right up to a GM who can make a subjective judgment call.
The implications of this are honestly kind of scary, because we've seen in the past as well that GMs don't care so much about the harm being inflicted as they do about the fact that someone could have been offended. In one example that I read about a couple of years ago, two friends queued leveling roulette together. A tank and a healer. They had been friends for a while, and liked to joke with each other in the chat. At one point, the tank died and jokingly blamed the healer, saying some stereotypical noob stuff like "grrr stupid healer, u let me die >" and the healer, who, again, was friends with the tank and was not offended by this at all, just sorta laughed and went like "fku lmao" and they kept going and eventually cleared. Now, neither of these 2 involved in the interaction were offended by what the other was saying. But a DPS in the group did not know the tank and healer were friends, so he filed a report against (iirc) the tank for being mean to the healer. The tank was then disciplined over his rudeness and given a strike on his account. When the GM refused to explain what the ban was about, the tank took a wild guess and told the GM in the gaol like, "hey if it's about what I said to a healer, that was banter with a friend of mine, he knows I didn't mean that stuff" and the GM basically said that it didn't matter that they were friends, it didn't matter that nobody was actually harmed; all that mattered was that somebody else in the group who wasn't even involved in the conversation felt bothered enough on behalf of the healer (who wasn't offended) to send in the report. I wish I could find the damn thread; it's been years.

Going off of that precedent and this one though, the door's basically open for me to report any name I want, for any stupid reason, and it's basically a cointoss on whether or not a GM decides my feelings warrant you changing a name that you've had for years. All the people in here talking about reporting the OP have names similar to real people I can google. I am free to report that because their real life name references "break my immersion and I'm also offended on behalf of the people they're referencing, who never asked to be used in such a way." You might think I'm being ridiculous to say something like that. You might even say that I'm misinterpreting your name. But none of that matters if we examine the precedent already set in this instance, and in other instances. All that matters is I'm upset, I'm blaming you for it, and now we'll see if a GM agrees or not. They might say it doesn't even matter that your name's harmless; since it offends me, that's enough. Now, I wouldn't do that because I'm not a rat snitch, but the precedent is there now. Congratulations. This is your game.

Just one more reason to never interact with any of the brittle people playing it.

[Xirean]

The implications of this are honestly kind of scary, because we've seen in the past as well that GMs don't care so much about the harm being inflicted as they do about the fact that someone could have been offended. In one example that I read about a couple of years ago, two friends queued leveling roulette together. A tank and a healer. They had been friends for a while, and liked to joke with each other in the chat. At one point, the tank died and jokingly blamed the healer, saying some stereotypical noob stuff like "grrr stupid healer, u let me die >" and the healer, who, again, was friends with the tank and was not offended by this at all, just sorta laughed and went like "fku lmao" and they kept going and eventually cleared. Now, neither of these 2 involved in the interaction were offended by what the other was saying. But a DPS in the group did not know the tank and healer were friends, so he filed a report against (iirc) the tank for being mean to the healer. The tank was then disciplined over his rudeness and given a strike on his account. When the GM refused to explain what the ban was about, the tank took a wild guess and told the GM in the gaol like, "hey if it's about what I said to a healer, that was banter with a friend of mine, he knows I didn't mean that stuff" and the GM basically said that it didn't matter that they were friends, it didn't matter that nobody was actually harmed; all that mattered was that somebody else in the group who wasn't even involved in the conversation felt bothered enough to send in the report. I wish I could find the damn thread; it's been years.

Going off of that precedent and this one though, the door's basically open for me to report any name I want, for any stupid reason, and it's basically a cointoss on whether or not a GM decides my feelings warrant you changing a name that you've had for years. All the people in here talking about reporting the OP have names similar to real people I can google. I am free to report that because their real life name references "break my immersion and I'm also offended on behalf of the people they're referencing, who never asked to be used in such a way." You might think I'm being ridiculous to say something like that. You might even say that I'm misinterpreting your name. But none of that matters if we examine the precedent already set in this instance, and in other instances. All that matters is I'm upset, I'm blaming you for it, and now we'll see if a GM agrees or not. They might say it doesn't even matter that your name's harmless; since it offends me, that's enough. Now, I wouldn't do that because I'm not a rat snitch, but the precedent is there now. Congratulations. This is your game.

Just one more reason to never interact with any of the brittle people playing it.

While I do think it's stupid to not inform the person of their alleged wrong doings; to be taken to the actual GM jail requires more than just one bad incident (unless it was an insanely bad incident). If this pair were playing together for a while and had this banter the entire time and only now is the tank being reprimanded for it then they were likely accruing reports for a while. The action taken in that instance is because of a noticed pattern of reported chat behavior. Depending on how much they banter back and forth it wouldn't surprise me if the healer also had collected a good number of reports as well.

As frustrating as that situation can be, you do need to take into account that other people often cannot tell the difference between a random person being rude to another and friends joking with each other in an online space.

[Avoidy]

While I do think it's stupid to not inform the person of their alleged wrong doings; to be taken to the actual GM jail requires more than just one bad incident (unless it was an insanely bad incident). If this pair were playing together for a while and had this banter the entire time and only now is the tank being reprimanded for it then they were likely accruing reports for a while. The action taken in that instance is because of a noticed pattern of reported chat behavior. Depending on how much they banter back and forth it wouldn't surprise me if the healer also had collected a good number of reports as well.

As frustrating as that situation can be, you do need to take into account that other people often cannot tell the difference between a random person being rude to another and friends joking with each other in an online space.

Gonna be real with you, I was paraphrasing most of that since I read it years ago. He could've been replying to an email about the strike or something. My main point was when he tried to communicate with the team about it, they slapped him with "it doesn't matter that no real harm occurred, what matters is someone was offended enough on behalf of somebody else to report you in the first place." This is the crux of the issue. And when it comes to usernames, it leaves the door wide open for anyone to get butthurt about something wholly unrelated and then just report a person's name to get back at them or something. It's baffling to me how the whole system's ripe for abuse, while simultaneously useless where it's actually needed.

[Xirean]

Gonna be real with you, I was paraphrasing most of that since I read it years ago. He could've been replying to an email about the strike or something. My main point was when he tried to communicate with the team about it, they slapped him with "it doesn't matter that no real harm occurred, what matters is someone was offended enough on behalf of somebody else to report you in the first place." This is the crux of the issue. And when it comes to usernames, it leaves the door wide open for anyone to get butthurt about something wholly unrelated and then just report a person's name to get back at them or something. It's baffling to me how the whole system's ripe for abuse, while simultaneously useless where it's actually needed.

I see your point, however that is the same flaw of any report led enforcement. I always encourage people to file a report if someone did something bothersome, because without reports it is a near certainty that nothing will be done at all. It's also not likely that the reporter will get any notification that their report did something in the first place. You just send it and hope for the best. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it does serve a purpose and in this case as well as your hypothetical I would agree that it worked as intended.

The gms have done things for that stalking thread. The person is using trial accounts and fake info to continue doing it.
There isn't much that can be done by SE to stop that from an administrative pov. IPs change, so an IP block won't work. MAC filtering also wouldn't work, as that changes with each hop in a route.
They need to either make changes to housing to allow block lists to function, which stormy hates because venues, or make it so trial accounts can't access even more, like search info and housing districts at all.

Resolving the stalking issue requires a rework of many systems for this game. At present it doesn't seem like SE wants to do that, but hopefully if people keep making noise about it we may some day see change.

[_Amorphous]

All the people in here talking about reporting the OP have names similar to real people I can google. I am free to report that because their real life name references "break my immersion and I'm also offended on behalf of the people they're referencing, who never asked to be used in such a way."

Please report me for this. The GM could probably use a quick laugh and an easy ticket to dismiss.

[Avoidy]

There isn't much that can be done by SE to stop that from an administrative pov. IPs change, so an IP block won't work. MAC filtering also wouldn't work, as that changes with each hop in a route.
They need to either make changes to housing to allow block lists to function, which stormy hates because venues, or make it so trial accounts can't access even more, like search info and housing districts at all.

Then they haven't done enough, because that person is still being abused and all they've done is an account ban that even the dumbest kid can skate around by just making a new account. There's a workaround for most things if you're determined enough; doesn't mean they just shouldn't try because he might skate around it. Try the IP ban. Maybe his ISP gave him a static one and it'll actually be a pain in the ass for him to change. Hell, when he wants to make a new account, he has to go to the same webpage on the same PC using the same internet connection to set up a new account, right? Maybe find a way to block him there. Idk. I agree with what you're saying in the last bit though; there need to be more changes to this game overall to make it less friendly for stalkers, but they don't even do that either. Game's been awful in this regard for years and it just stays that way. It's a topic for another thread, but it pisses me off.

More to the point, outside of that thread I posted (I only defaulted to it because it was easiest to find) I could name so many more instances of people just being awful in this game and allowed to continue by GMs who don't do jack because on -these- infractions of the ToS, they enforce the rules sporadically at best. Look at the guy who filmed himself flying through the Fall Guys arena and uploaded it to twitter. Man cheats in pvp every day. Where are the GMs? Nowhere to be seen! Look at the bots under Limsa, just chilling there. Or the bots flying to different nodes in the same zone. Or the bots farming exploratory zones. Same dudes, week after week, no GM action there. Like ... the point is these GMs are not consistent in how they enforce the rules of their own game. They bow to the whims of hurt feefees over harmless BS like some banter in a dungeon or a name shared by thousands of other players, while letting the rest of the game go straight to hell without lifting a finger. Where's the clarity? If the name is so bad, can they make it inaccessible in the character creator going forward? That way nobody ever has to get offended by it again, right? But they won't do this. Because it's not even about the name; it's about the fact that someone got upset and the moderation team is hell bent on placating offended players even when it's frankly obvious that they're just weaponizing their reports to strike at people they dislike.

Please report me for this. The GM could probably use a quick laugh and an easy ticket to dismiss.