How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'd love to hear what these other places are because a huge chunk of the toxicity in WoW I encountered was related to parsers. It may even have been most of it.

The games change but players stay the same. If FFXIV gets an official parser I'll be shocked if the mentality towards it is different to WoW. Before parsers were commonplace in that game the community wasn't too different to how XIV is right now. I'd love to be proven wrong but it's unlikely.

I'd have to dig, but a few people in this very thread mentioned it. Regardless, you have to consider the enormous difference in population. And as per usual, negative news always travels faster than anything positive. You will always more about bad experiences than good even if said bad experiences are outnumbered a 100:1. In fact, look no further than people who generalize Balmung or Gilgamesh, claiming they always see shitty players from there, be it in terms of skill, attitude or both. Is it that both servers are awful, or that they dwarf every other server (or used to), thus making it far more likely to find a jerk from either?

And I disagree with calling it a coddle mentality. Since when is it coddling to want to reduce the chance of encountering harassment as a victim or observer? It's a bad thing now to want to minimise needless drama? What a depressing thought.

That is the very definition of coddling. A beneficial tool is being banned because some people may abuse it and say mean things. How is this any different than an equivalent "safe space?" Instead of rooting out the toxic individuals, you're shifting blame on the tool itself. Reducing encounters of harassment should not come with "ban every potential tool that may cause it even if said harassment will be in a distinct minority." The devs tried this approach with Feast chat. Ironically, it made Feast worse because now we can't properly communicate. All because some people were assholes. That is pretty much coddling 101.

And these threads exist because parsers have essentially become a boogeyman. There is no basis whatsoever the community would dissolve into anarchy if tomorrow the devs openly allowed ACT to be discussed publicly. Typically, you see exaggerated doom and gloom scenarios or people who aren't very good wanting to preserve the status quo lest they be called out for their lack of willingness to improve.