Things to think about before you call someone "Bad"

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I too thought (and think) so, which is why I found this thread to be a disappointing surprise. The title of the thread was pretty clear and wasn't really open to interpretation. You don't go around calling people bad. People however, questioned it, and some went as far as to claim calling someone bad could very well be an accurate assessment. Then had someone else claim that it could be too that the term bad was referred to a player's performance. Basically, anything and beyond to justify harassing someone.

I know my stuff well so I don't come across very often into situations where someone attempts to blame me for a wipe or teach me how to do my rotation, but on the rare occasion I had a bad day, or I was playing a job I was not used to, or I came back from taking a break and felt extremely clumsy, or even made a mistake that cost the team some deaths or even a wipe, I was 9 out of 10 times welcomed with a "heal????????????????" or "is it very hard to aoe???" - proceeds to kick - or "keep the f******* aggro".

If you are not part of what I call "the legion of friendly advice givers", there's zero reason why you should even feel alluded by my words, because what I'm condemning here is harassing others on the internet, not truly offering friendly advice. Thing is, my experience has repeteadly demonstrated me that friendly advice in a forum translates into harassment ingame in the heat of the moment. You really are friendly and tactful when approaching someone? Cool. But know many aren't. So do not act surprised when people raise the alarm when someone approaches to tell them they could play differently a 10th time when the other 9 times they got insulted and mocked.

Please explain how a tank typing "heals???" in chat is, in any way whatsoever, harassment? They have no idea whether it were simply a brain lapse on your part or you have no idea what you're doing. All they do is they died. Let's assume they popped CDs, so it was a healing error. While them making a comment may across blunt, it's hardly harassment.

[Gallus]

Please explain how a tank typing "heals???" in chat is, in any way whatsoever, harassment? They have no idea whether it were simply a brain lapse on your part or you have no idea what you're doing. All they do is they died. Let's assume they popped CDs, so it was a healing error. While them making a comment may across blunt, it's hardly harassment.

It comes off as hostile though. The 90 question marks are not needed. You are already setting the grounds for bad things to happen in that run. If for whatever reason, the healer makes another mistake, what are you going to do, add 1 question mark to your already 90? Most likely a recrimination or two are going to slip, and from there it all goes downhill. The underperformer won't learn a thing, and the only thing you'll manage for them to obtain in that run is a bitter experience.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It comes off as hostile though. The 90 question marks are not needed. You are already setting the grounds for bad things to happen in that run. If for whatever reason, the healer makes another mistake, what are you going to do, add 1 question mark to your already 90? Most likely a recrimination or two are going to slip, and from there it all goes downhill. The underperformer won't learn a thing, and the only thing you'll manage for them to obtain in that run is a bitter experience.

While debatable, even taken at face value, you're equating hostility with harassment. Those are vastly different things. Does it become less hostile if they type a single question mark? Putting all that aside, who made you the arbiter of player etiquette? People are allowed to express their annoyance. Now if they continuously heckle this hypothetical healer, you'd have a point. If done once? It's nothing. It certainly isn't harassment by any stretch of the definition. You're essentially demanded a safe space where people voice absolutely nothing except praise or remain silent lest they hurt someone's feelings. A potentially rude comment does not constitute harassment.

[Gallus]

While debatable, even taken at face value, you're equating hostility with harassment. Those are vastly different things. Does it become less hostile if they type a single question mark? Putting all that aside, who made you the arbiter of player etiquette? People are allowed to express their annoyance. Now if they continuously heckle this hypothetical healer, you'd have a point. If done once? It's nothing. It certainly isn't harassment by any stretch of the definition. You're essentially demanded a safe space where people voice absolutely nothing except praise or remain silent lest they hurt someone's feelings. A potentially rude comment does not constitute harassment.

It might not qualify as harassment if you take the incident as an isolated case. However, if hostility happens on a regular basis, I believe we could start considering harassment.

People are allowed to express their annoyance.

People are allowed to do so politely.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It might not qualify as harassment if you take the incident as an isolated case. However, if hostility happens on a regular basis, I believe we could start considering harassment.

Only if it involves the same people in perpetuity. If I type, "Can't I get a damn heal?" Towards two different healers, in two different instances, there is no correlation whatsoever except I died due to lack of healing and expressed my annoyance. This doesn't make it harassment unless we have some invisible "harassment meter" that fills up after every vaguely blunt remark.

You are allowed to do so politely.

Again, I ask, who elected you little miss fun police? If I say the aforementioned, your only recourse outside staying quiet is to offer your opinion for my critical remark. I'm under no obligation to care one way or another. That doesn't make it harassment nor is it against any rules. Is that remark blunt? Yes. But I wouldn't even classify it rude. Just someone annoyed they died due to a lack of healing. I've done that after dying three times to a tank buster I even over-mitigated.

But I suppose I should make absolutely certain I, instead, type "I'm sorry to trouble you, White Mage, but if it isn't too much difficulty, can you please heal me? Oh, oh! I'm sorry. I should just stay in tank stance. After all, I can't risk hurting your feelings otherwise I would be harassing you!"

[KaivaC]

But I suppose I should make absolutely certain I, instead, type "I'm sorry to trouble you, White Mage, but if it isn't too much difficulty, can you please heal me? Oh, oh! I'm sorry. I should just stay in tank stance. After all, I can't risk hurting your feelings otherwise I would be harassing you!"

I am jerkish enough that I actually might type something like this in-game tonight. I'll try to remember to post the results if I run into a situation where I might have to say this :P

[gamepob]

I am jerkish enough that I actually might type something like this in-game tonight. I'll try to remember to post the results if I run into a situation where I might have to say this :P

I am always for experiments so I would be very interested in the results. But in order to be "objective", you could try 3 different types of wording this. First one is exactly how Bourne said, second is the same without sarcasm, and third is "learn to play White Mage!!!!". Please, let us know how it goes.

[Gallus]

Only if it involves the same people in perpetuity. If I type, "Can't I get a damn heal?" Towards two different healers, in two different instances, there is no correlation whatsoever except I died due to lack of healing and expressed my annoyance. This doesn't make it harassment unless we have some invisible "harassment meter" that fills up after every vaguely blunt remark.

This isn't about you or your own harassment meter as an individual player, it's about people generally being called out, harassed or insulted. If a person is called out on a regular basis, whether it's you or somebody else calling them out makes no difference when it comes to qualifying it as harassment, as long as it happens often. You are looking at this too much from your own personal perspective. Start looking at the big picture here.

Again, I ask, who elected you little miss fun police?

Starting to show our true colours? It hasn't taken much from what I can see, all I needed was to express an opinion that didn't match yours. I wonder in what kind of stuff this sort of discrepancy translates to when you are in an ingame context. Friendly advice it was I believe?

But I suppose I should make absolutely certain I, instead, type "I'm sorry to trouble you, White Mage, but if it isn't too much difficulty, can you please heal me? Oh, oh! I'm sorry. I should just stay in tank stance. After all, I can't risk hurting your feelings otherwise I would be harassing you!"

You don't need to write all that, behaving like a civillized human being and not like a child with anger issues is more than enough.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

This isn't about you or your own harassment meter as an individual player, it's about people generally being called out, harassed or insulted. If a person is called out on a regular basis, whether it's you or somebody else calling them out makes no difference when it comes to qualifying it as harassment, as long as it happens often. You are looking at this too much from your own personal perspective. Start looking at the big picture here.

Of which you provided no examples of; instead attempting to lump all three together. When called out yourself, the goalpost shifts or you backpedal. And like modifiers, you don't seem to understand how harassment works. If someone is being called out by multiple people with no connection to one another, they are all isolated instances. Therefore, it doesn't qualify. Furthermore, this logic, ironically, destroys your prior generalization since that "harassment" can derive from casual players as well as raiders. Yet you placed the blame solely on raiders.

Starting to show our true colours? It hasn't taken much from what I can see, all I needed was to express an opinion that didn't match yours. I wonder in what kind of stuff this sort of discrepancy translates to when you are in an online context. Friendly advice it was I believe?

No, you spoke in absolution and have presented your opinions as fact. My "friendly advice" would be don't make baseless generalizations and engage in arguments where you can't handle your opinions challenged.

You don't need to write all that, behaving like a civillized human being and not like a child with anger issues is more than enough.

Do civilized human beings generalize thousands of individuals based on the actions of a few? Is that polite because it sounds quite childish to me...

[Daibunnie]

It comes off as hostile though. The 90 question marks are not needed. You are already setting the grounds for bad things to happen in that run. If for whatever reason, the healer makes another mistake, what are you going to do, add 1 question mark to your already 90? Most likely a recrimination or two are going to slip, and from there it all goes downhill. The underperformer won't learn a thing, and the only thing you'll manage for them to obtain in that run is a bitter experience.

It’s 3 question marks and they’re calling out the healer who is in charge of healing the party along with their cohealer. No amount of crying and yelling “harrassment” will change that they do have a responsibility when in any raid. In the end, the other players could easily not say anything and just kick you for being a bad healer who is too busy making mistakes. No one has any obligations to teach you how to play your class on their own time, especially not in a clear/farm party.

Speaking of bitter experiences, wonder how many bads go back and reflect on how little they did during shinryu. Very few most likely considering that you still see the same mistakes being made on savage content.