The Real Problem with Parsers

[Aiselia]

So, because (assuming you're playing DPS that day) someone might say something like "Wraith, your dps sux, L2P Noob", I shouldn't be able to say something like "Wraith, you're only doing half the DPS of the other DPS, can you please step it up a bit?"

What I think is or isn't too demeaning is irrelevant. What is relevant is what SE thinks and what everybody thinks. This whole thread might be fine with the latter, but there might be 10,000 people in DF right now that wouldn't be fine with it and just don't want to hear it. Now, whether they're right or not is subjective, but whether they're right or not doesn't necessarily mean they won't put in a ticket for harassment, which SE has to deal with in one way or another, which is time and resources spent on what could be a non-issue.

If you could guarantee that the former would be a rarity while the latter the more common, that would, I'm sure, help in an argument about whether it should or should not be allowed. But you can't guarantee that, can you? There's always the possibility that the people that would say the former would outnumber the people that would say the latter, isn't there? Some people find it difficult to stay civil in a thread on the forum about someone's completely hypothetical DPS that they've just made up. Why should SE expect that those people could stay civil in-game if they rescinded the policy to not bring up someone's DPS?

You can't use a parser

ACT doesn't exist, I see.

Maybe you should consider the factual difference between "can" and "are officially allowed to". Because they quite clearly can, even if they're not officially allowed to.

[StouterTaru]

Maybe you should consider the factual difference between "can" and "are officially allowed to". Because they quite clearly can, even if they're not officially allowed to.

Word meanings change over time, it's not 1900 any more.

auxiliary verb, present singular 1st person can, 2nd can or (Archaic) canst, 3rd can, present plural can; past singular 1st person could, 2nd could or (Archaic) couldst, 3rd could, past plural could.
1.
to be able to; have the ability, power, or skill to:
She can solve the problem easily, I'm sure.
2.
to know how to:
He can play chess, although he's not particularly good at it.
3.
to have the power or means to:
A dictator can impose his will on the people.
4.
to have the right or qualifications to:
He can change whatever he wishes in the script.
5.
may; have permission to:
Can I speak to you for a moment?
6.
to have the possibility:
A coin can land on either side.

And you sidestepped the entire point, harassment is against the ToS and always will be. Calling someone out on their damage isn't necessarily harassment.

[Aiselia]

Word meanings change over time, it's not 1900 any more.

Even by that definition, "can" is still correct. They, by virtue of action (or lack thereof), give permission to use them. If people didn't essentially have permission to use them, SE would ban everyone that uses them. By not banning everyone who's posted their parse links here, they permit the use of them. If I have all my doors locked and you break in my window and I'm just sitting there watching you steal my things without doing anything, I'm permitting it to happen, even if I want you not to. So sorry, you don't even win a semantic victory.

Calling someone out on their damage isn't necessarily harassment.

And what constitutes harassment is subjective. If I was doing 200 DPS in a run and someone ranted at me for half an hour about how terrible I am, I wouldn't care because if I did care, I wouldn't have been auto-attacking only. Other people may consider "Hey, your DPS is a little low, could you do maybe try a bit harder?" to be harassment and report them. You ignored the important point, that whether or not something is objectively harassment, that doesn't mean that reports can't be put in about it and that's something SE has to deal with somehow, costing time and resources that may be better spent responding to more important matters.

[RiceisNice]

...

If this is considered harassment, then player interaction in general is harassment (and goes on to show just how south this community has gotten if they can't even take personal responsibility for this sort of thing and the developers have to hold our hands through everything. Anything that gets added to the game can be ammunition for harassment.

[Aiselia]

If this is considered harassment, then player interaction in general is harassment (and goes on to show just how south this community has gotten if they can't even take personal responsibility for this sort of thing and the developers have to hold our hands through everything. Anything that gets added to the game can be ammunition for harassment.

And you stopped before the important part: Whether or not it's considered harassment makes no difference if people report it and waste SE's time responding to an increase in tickets. Even if 10,000 people report someone for harassment and none of those reports are actionable, SE still had to devote time and resources to those 10,000 tickets.

Nobody won victories for being able to carry a gun by saying "Well, I could just stab someone with my pen, so what are you going to do, ban pens?" Nobody won victories for drug legalization by saying "Well, I could just overdose on Tylenol, what are you going to do, ban Tylenol?" So why do people think that they'll win victories for parsers by saying "Well, I could just harass someone for wearing purple clothes, are you going to ban purple dyes?"

[StouterTaru]

Even by that definition, "can" is still correct. They, by virtue of action (or lack thereof), give permission to use them.

...

You ignored the important point, that whether or not something is objectively harassment, that doesn't mean that reports can't be put in about it and that's something SE has to deal with somehow, costing time and resources that may be better spent responding to more important matters.

Permitting something to happen is not the same as giving permission. With your own logic you are giving ISIS permission to commit atrocities.

People submit reports for worthless BS all the time, parsers wouldn't change anything. I'm sure SE has a crybaby list of people that report everything that they don't like, and zip through their complaints without much investigation.