The GM team is completely ineffective.

[DivineP]

*which I shouldn't have to do* - sorry on mobile can't edit.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Why would the GM action a single persons account for spam when it's multiple separate people advertising a venue? You're allowed to advertise your venue, even if you get fed up seeing multiple people from the same venue advertising it. You can block the people and soon we get the chat filters also. If they change policy to disallow groups from advertising RP venues then all it takes is a twat with a vendetta to advertise venues obnoxiously on purpose on an alt account to get other people associated with the venue in trouble. No action should be taken on a single persons account for the actions of other people.

[1313]

Yes, we know, the gm's don't enforce the user agreement or issue account actions for prohibited behaviors unless you call someone a **** ******.

[1313]

Why would the GM action a single persons account for spam when it's multiple separate people advertising a venue? You're allowed to advertise your venue, even if you get fed up seeing multiple people from the same venue advertising it. You can block the people and soon we get the chat filters also. If they change policy to disallow groups from advertising RP venues then all it takes is a twat with a vendetta to advertise venues obnoxiously on purpose on an alt account to get other people associated with the venue in trouble. No action should be taken on a single persons account for the actions of other people.

the term filter is already being circumvented by ad spammers, its dead in the water before its even released.

[Kazmarek]

Why would the GM action a single persons account for spam when it's multiple separate people advertising a venue? You're allowed to advertise your venue, even if you get fed up seeing multiple people from the same venue advertising it. You can block the people and soon we get the chat filters also. If they change policy to disallow groups from advertising RP venues then all it takes is a twat with a vendetta to advertise venues obnoxiously on purpose on an alt account to get other people associated with the venue in trouble. No action should be taken on a single persons account for the actions of other people.

Why should an action be taken against a group of people if they're harassing you? It's the actions of multiple people, not just a single person. You're allowed to say what you want, even if the other person doesn't like it. I guess in that case the GMs have to throw their hands up and say "well it's multiple people, nothing we can do about it. If only if was a single person."

Come on. You're smarter than this.

Also just to add on- again- the blacklist isn't infinite. I'm not against advertisements. I'm against too many advertisements. I don't care if there's two or three, I care when there's 5+ because that's excessive. I don't think they should be suspended immediately. I think a GM should go in and say "hey, please tone it down a bit with the ads." If they ignore the warning, then they should have action taken against them.

Lets compare this to the real world for a moment. You can't honestly tell me you don't get frustrated seeing the same ad for the same thing 5 times in a row in the course of your day. It's like that. Nobody likes ads. That's why adblockers are so prominent. Unfortunately, there is no adblocker in XIV. You'd have to dip into third party plugins for that, which is, of course, blatantly against the Terms of Service. I shouldn't have to break the ToS to make my experience better. The blacklist is not a solution- not in its current form.

[Kazmarek]

Hey all,

I have been reading this thread and for pre context, spam doesn't really bother me.

That said, I do think however the emote text should be off by default - I've had to message 3 sprouts over the last week that were simply just playing with emotes but it was spamming chat to let them know they could be reported and receive action on their account if someone was vindictive enough to report them. I have then explained where the toggle is for it - which i really should have to do. (I've seen a few horror story's where ppl have been reported for this)

I think with spam, ppl need to just either switch their chat box to 'event' or move areas - how we've come to the era of text spam been reported e.g emotes from a new comer I'll never understand.

I think its wrong if ppl just want to see what each emote does cause it could be considered 'spam'.

I broadly agree with what you're saying. If a sprout's "spamming" emotes to find out what they do and they get reported for it, that's what the action policy is for. Warning->3 day suspension->10 day suspension->20 day suspension->permanent suspension. In this particular case, I think receiving a warning would be too tough. All a GM has to do is pull the new player in and say "hey, just be careful, here's how you can turn it off if you so desire" and send them on their way. No "mark" on their account, no suspension, just an honest interaction.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, stems from when they skip the warning phase and go straight into a suspension. For example, I had someone join an FC I was in.... roughly 4 years ago? They had just started playing a couple days before joining us. Their name was unacceptable by SE standards. So, when they got reported, the GM took them in, suspended them for 3 days and of course told them they had to change their name. Sure it was "only" a 3 day suspension, but that decision- especially on a new player- was so outrageously dumb I'm still having a hard time believing they actually did it.

But to get back to your point about sprouts and emote spam- I don't think they should be getting penalized for the first "offense."

[Sjol]

Why should an action be taken against a group of people if they're harassing you? It's the actions of multiple people, not just a single person. You're allowed to say what you want, even if the other person doesn't like it. I guess in that case the GMs have to throw their hands up and say "well it's multiple people, nothing we can do about it. If only if was a single person."

Come on. You're smarter than this.

If you're suffering a coordinated harassment campaign and the GMs aren't doing anything about it, that would be bad. That said, spam and venue ads aren't harassment which is why they are covered by different clauses.

[Kazmarek]

If you're suffering a coordinated harassment campaign and the GMs aren't doing anything about it, that would be bad. That said, spam and venue ads aren't harassment which is why they are covered by different clauses.

Man that's crazy. I'm sure nobody's suffered a coordinated harassment campaign before and watched as the GMs did nothing.

[Kaurhz]

Not defending it but... It's a sticky situation with any report.

Not all reports are sanctioned the same, and depending on how detailed you were with it, is only something that would be in a vacuum, it really heavily depends on GM interpretation more than anything, and certain things I imagine they just cannot disclose and I would say probably due to policy given how uniform it is behind disclosing information, I probably wouldn't even put it on the GM, but rather those above the GMs, e.g., managerial. So I don't think it is incompetence nor incredibly stretched thinly with resources, though it could still be the case, but I don't think it would be due to your outlined reasons.

Another thing that makes this difficult is a lot of bans are arguably down to interaction, and the problem is if you are too willing to share information on the report, it only encourages the person to query more information, and you really do run the risk of oversharing information which potentially exposes 'data' on the person who made the report.

Is it fair on the person who needs to reflect? Nah -- Because they run the risk of repeating same mistakes, and it's just running in blind, and makes people overly anxious on what their sanction was actually based on.

But in the same vein there are reasons why it is how it is. I personally wouldn't put it all on the GMs.

[Sjol]

Man that's crazy. I'm sure nobody's suffered a coordinated harassment campaign before and watched as the GMs did nothing.

I'm sure there have been and I hope something was done about those GMs who ignored harassment. I don't think you'll get a lot of pushback on the idea that GMs should be doing something about harassment, and especially coordinated harassment.

You've also mentioned being upset at GMs not knowing what is and isn't against the ToS. They don't know what's against the ToS and stating that something is or isn't would likely get them fired. The ToS are a legal contract between you and SE. The GM has zero ability to interpret the actual ToS and making a legal interpretation of it would so go beyond their role that I'm sure they've gotten quite strict instructions on not saying anything about that because what they say can be used in court as an official stance of the company.

They probably wouldn't even be able to talk about internal policy, because it's internal and as soon as it gets out individual GMs would be held to account, dramatically limiting the community team's discretion on how to resolve issues. There are reasons why these things are like they are, and you may not like them -- many people don't -- but they're there to protect SE.