Stalking and Harassment, GM/Square Enix Refusal to act

[Solowing]

Some people are also trying to assert their own hypotheses about a given situation to downplay it, which frankly is equally ridiculous.

This was already explained in the discussion with said poster. You are right, standing in the same vicinity is not an issue, and nor is it stalking or harassment, when combined with several other things, e.g., excessive directed emote use combined with inappropriate tell messages. If they were merely only in the same vicinity I wouldn't really care

As for non-solicited pictures there are plenty of plugins that allow you to pluck another players character data without their permission, subsequently allowing you to do whatever you like with it, they proceeded to do that and proceeded to send a /tell with a link to said screenshot. Honestly, it's less about the emotional distress caused, and more about the fact that allowing such behavior to go unsanctioned only entertains the idea for that person, that the behavior is OK, when it really isn't, irrespective of emotional distress.

Like I've said, it's something I've seen first-hand rather than something I have personally had to experience.



I don't really know how much clearer I can make it lmao. I am not supporting any given use-case of whether harassment and stalking is or is not blown out of proportion.. I am simply supporting harder moderation for the context of harassment and stalking... I have also stated that moderation is inconsistent, on occasion, they will ban you for a simple profanity, on the other end of the spectrum they are equally known for ignoring or electing to go with complete inaction. Hence, inconsistent

i've had my run in with GMs, They're ontop of it. I would disagree with that assessment. The TOS is strongly enforced here speaking from experience.

So you want square to enforce their t o s while openly ignoring the fact that you're breaking the tos , because you want them to enforce selective parts of it?

While opening unsolicited links sent by the player via unsanctiondd Psyk... I mean mods.. you're expecting them to enforce one rule while breaking another yourself.

[Bubert]

This was already explained in the discussion with said poster. You are right, standing in the same vicinity is not an issue, and nor is it stalking or harassment, when combined with several other things, e.g., excessive directed emote use combined with inappropriate tell messages. If they were merely only in the same vicinity I wouldn't really care

As for non-solicited pictures there are plenty of plugins that allow you to pluck another players character data without their permission, subsequently allowing you to do whatever you like with it, they proceeded to do that and proceeded to send a /tell with a link to said screenshot. Honestly, it's less about the emotional distress caused, and more about the fact that allowing such behavior to go unsanctioned only entertains the idea for that person, that the behavior is OK, when it really isn't, irrespective of emotional distress. inconsistent

Again. All this is easily avoidable with a blacklist and no one is holding a gun against your head demanding to click links.

[RaionKansen]

Again. All this is easily avoidable with a blacklist and no one is holding a gun against your head demanding to click links.

Kaurhz is victimmaxxing. I had to give up. They told me explaining what being harasssed looked like for them is "nobody's business" which is code for "I know my story is BS".

[RaionKansen]

This constant elusive "you don't need to know the details!" and "#believeAllVictims" while the GMs allegedly don't do anything in this game that is infamous for strict moderation is indeed at least worthy of a raised eyebrow.

I reported 2 NSFW listings in PF and had a GM respond to me within the hour like a week ago.
I get the feeling that they don't actually report anyone, or they don't fill out the fields correctly.

Most likely, they don't report anyone because the chat logs would also show them breaking the ToS as well.

[Brynne]

Frankly, I believe the people who say that SE isn't acting on the stalking and harassment. I believe those who say they have been stalked and harassed and they can't get any movement on their GM tickets, and the stalker still continues to run free. What does a little empathy cost me? Nothing. If I'm wrong? It doesn't impact me in the slightest. I'd rather believe people and potentially look a little silly than NOT believe people and potentially be victim-blaming and dismissing genuine stalking and harassing. People who are victims of stalking have enough trouble getting other people to take them seriously (as is evident in this thread) and they don't need one more.

I have no idea what it's like to be stalked. I hope to never find out. I have heard that it is scary and isolating. I hope the people here never have it spill over into real life. I have heard of stalkers persisting for years without any response from the victim, so I believe it when they say that blacklisting and ignoring doesn't cut it, and that the stalker will find ways around the blacklist (ie, creating new free trial characters, stalking the company guest book, etc).

I guess what I want to say is, to the people experiencing this: I hear you, I believe you. To SE: you can do better. Listen to some of the suggestions made in this thread, and always be trying to improve the experience for victims while making it harder for stalkers. Thank you in advance.

[Astronis]

I reported 2 NSFW listings in PF and had a GM respond to me within the hour like a week ago.
I get the feeling that they don't actually report anyone, or they don't fill out the fields correctly.

Most likely, they don't report anyone because the chat logs would also show them breaking the ToS as well.

I've always had the GMs respond quickly to reports I've made, and suspect they've acted (clearly they don't tell me, and I don't expect them to, but the one NSFW PF I reported that was straight up soliciting someone to pay them actual money for cybersex came back three days later significantly less obvious, so I figured that player got a time out).

That's all a bit different than someone making 30+ reports to GMs, getting responses, using their blacklists and other tools to stop the player(s) from harassing them, and still having to deal with the same problem, though. The scale of the issues being dealt with are different, and I can easily imagine where one-offs and minor issues are dealt with swiftly, dedicated harassers and stalkers are a stickier problem.

[RaionKansen]

Frankly, I believe the people who say that SE isn't acting on the stalking and harassment. I believe those who say they have been stalked and harassed and they can't get any movement on their GM tickets, and the stalker still continues to run free. What does a little empathy cost me? Nothing. If I'm wrong? It doesn't impact me in the slightest. I'd rather believe people and potentially look a little silly than NOT believe people and potentially be victim-blaming and dismissing genuine stalking and harassing. People who are victims of stalking have enough trouble getting other people to take them seriously (as is evident in this thread) and they don't need one more.

I have no idea what it's like to be stalked. I hope to never find out. I have heard that it is scary and isolating. I hope the people here never have it spill over into real life. I have heard of stalkers persisting for years without any response from the victim, so I believe it when they say that blacklisting and ignoring doesn't cut it, and that the stalker will find ways around the blacklist (ie, creating new free trial characters, stalking the company guest book, etc).

I guess what I want to say is, to the people experiencing this: I hear you, I believe you. To SE: you can do better. Listen to some of the suggestions made in this thread, and always be trying to improve the experience for victims while making it harder for stalkers. Thank you in advance.

Blind empathy at best, but really just sympathy.
There's no reason to believe people that have no interest in actually elaborating on their claims. SE can always do better, but people either don't know how to behave themselves, can't report others because they also break the rules constantly, or don't want to be held accountable for their poor decision making.

[Majatok]

GMs can't help because they use mods lol, they all could get punished for using them even though they are the victims. There are entire communities within this game that use specific mods as the basis for their socializing, and it's because of these mods that stalking is such an easy thing to do. For heaven's sake, guys, we had someone create a literal stalker mod last year that caused such a commotion that the devs had to make an official statement.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/515102

[Bubert]

Kaurhz is victimmaxxing. I had to give up. They told me explaining what being harasssed looked like for them is "nobody's business" which is code for "I know my story is BS".

That one indeed made me roll my eyes… If people post their problems on the internet it becomes everyone’s business automatically. :z

[Aidorouge]

I don't really know how much clearer I can make it lmao. I am not supporting any given use-case of whether harassment and stalking is or is not blown out of proportion.. I am simply supporting harder moderation for the context of harassment and stalking... I have also stated that moderation is inconsistent, on occasion, they will ban you for a simple profanity, on the other end of the spectrum they are equally known for ignoring or electing to go with complete inaction. Hence, inconsistent

Aside from the GM inconsistency, it's also the fact that a large part of the community likes to say the MMO equivalent of "well, what was she wearing?" every time they hear about someone getting stalked, as if somehow it's ALWAYS the victim's fault that they got targeted, usually while also making some dismissive comment about them being ERPers or modders. (IE: They lowkey hope the person being harassed is breaking the TOS so they'll get punished as much or worse than the stalker.)

At best, the dismissive party are concern-trolling for reactions (because being contradictory gets the hits). At worst, they're trying to bait people into incriminating themselves (even if the person they're subtly accusing is innocent). But none them are actually trying to help anyone with their comments, they're just stirring the pot.