Recent Developments of TOS Actions Taken

[Vahlnir]

So, are we mad they are finally enforcing things they should have been or are we mad that streamer guy we liked who was a complete and utter jerk got banned for it?

Not sure where you got that from, but okay. I don't even know the guy, nor do I really care about them or their account. I just want some consistency. That isn't unreasonable.

[Theodric]

If the policy has changed, then we need to know exactly how and when it is going to be enforced. It also needs to be enforced in a consistent and fair manner, with a proper appeal system in place.

A player can invest a considerable amount of time, effort and energy into the game. That isn't something that should be taken away lightly. If an account is otherwise clean and the act itself isn't something extremely terrible then it baffles me that the default approach isn't simply a verbal warning.

[Melichoir]

So many mindless fanboys (and -girls, and -whateverkindamicrowaveornanimalyouare since I don't want to get reported for sexism or whatever) in this thread just repeating "tHeIr GaMe ThEiR rUlEs" - wow. Seriously. And y'all so incredibly hurt over this, like your precious, fragile self was "brutally assaulted" (actual quote) instead of the BLM in the clip in question. Next thing you know they start banning people that post in r/TalesfromDF on reddit and didn't blur out their own names because thats "brutal assault" and you are gonna cheer for that, huh?

And yet you lot wonder why "no one is talking in dungeons anymore". Yeah, take a wild guess there mate how this could have come about. Maybe it's because everyone and everything is instantly reported if they dare and voice an opinion different than those of the god damn snowflakes I see ruining my game experience everywhere.

You can now press report on this post because I "brutally assaulted" your precious feelings. See ya in a couple weeks.

This isnt the same thing as "No one talking in dungeons" or other strawmans of that sort. Look at the situation as described - a public streamer with a large enough following was trash talking another player to his followers without even so much as masking the name or information. If you honestly believe that this wouldnt have knock on effects, you are naive and living in a bubble.

Im all for people venting, or saying what they want to say to an extent, but there is a drastic difference between saying "A player I ran into was trash, this is their numbers and this thing bothers me" and "Mr.Bigglesworth on this server is a trash tier player and check their numbers to see how trash they are." Im being oversimplistic of course, but the gist is that regardless of whether you say anything in game, you are purposefully creating a situation where it will have repercussions IN game. He may not be saying to his streamers "Yeah go harass this person" or "Dont ever play with this person", but that is gonna be the end effect and the streamer has to know this. If they dont, then theyre either extremely naive and ignorant of how this all works, or theyre being disingenuous. If it was just him talking about parses and annoying players with no info, I would think SE is in the wrong. It's when he creates a direct link of information to a specific player on a public stream that this then becomes a problem, regardless of whether he says anything in game or not.

Parsers are against ToS, but the spirit of why it is is anti harassment and anti toxicity. It's why SE doesnt typically ban accounts of streamers using parsers. Hes violating that concept by trying to be clever and not being toxic in game but on his stream that will carry over to the game.

[Driavna]

So, are we mad they are finally enforcing things they should have been or are we mad that streamer guy we liked who was a complete and utter jerk got banned for it?

That's not the problem. Some here seems to use that a focal point but it's not. We care about how inconsistent SE is with bans, here and in-game. I know, I know... "don't be a jerk".

Anyway, if you really believe that this person should get punished (and he should) you are letting it go easily. FFXIV is right now in a content lul and he can go and stream anything else because the company that should be given the disciplinary action was not involved.

[ForteNightshade]

So, are we mad they are finally enforcing things they should have been or are we mad that streamer guy we liked who was a complete and utter jerk got banned for it?

I wager the majority are mad at the lack of consistency. Arthars is merely the catalyst for that argument. If he can be banned based off a twitch vod. All players should be subjected to that same criteria; i.e. people can stream botters, speed hacks and etc to show evidence of those players cheating.

If this is merely a one off, then it shows a blatant double standard. They'll punish someone for being a jerk but not someone for cheating. Why? Because the guy being a jerk is more popular on a third party platform.

[linay]

The GM did not watch the rant live. A time stamp of the recordad video was linked.

Is it a link to a time stamped VOD on the streamer's own channel? Then the streamer wouldn't doctor the video to make himself look bad.

Err, perhaps I should have rephrased. Some live streams are recorded, and those can be edited.

If the source can still be viewed, then an edited video wouldn't matter.

[Vahlnir]

Is it a link to a time stamped VOD on the streamer's own channel? Then the streamer wouldn't doctor the video to make himself look bad.

If the source can still be viewed, then an edited video wouldn't matter.

Correct, on both accounts.

[WrenElessedil]

Can't believe people actually defend companies proclaiming themselves the police on platforms completely unrelated to their own. How anyone who isn't in a high position at a company could support a corporatocracy is beyond me. I find it incredibly unlikely that actions taken against someone for something they did on another platform would ever hold up under legal scrutiny, but unfortunately it's not worth the cost of trying to bring in any legal action, and so companies get away with doing whatever they want.

[MitsukiKimura]

So, let's look at what he did.

- Talked a lot of crap about a player in his party
- Enlarged the parse screen
- Used special sound effects and animations to draw even more attention to the "bad player"
- Showed their name in the clear; no attempt to obfuscate their identity.

If we're now in an era where SE takes action on this kind of evidence (And really, SE is behind, because most other operators of online games already do), I'm perfectly OK with SE suspending someone like this.

I also reported that streamer to twitch, since I'm pretty sure his actions violate their ToS too.



Streamers/youtubers/etc have a lot of power to start witch hunts. Not only did he show that player's name, he made it even bigger and more prominent on his stream.

Pretty much this^ If you're going to be toxic then reap the consequences, especially if you're going to be using third party software to do it with.

[Melichoir]

I wager the majority are mad at the lack of consistency. Arthars is merely the catalyst for that argument. If he can be banned based off a twitch vod. All players should be subjected to that same criteria; i.e. people can stream botters, speed hacks and etc to show evidence of those players cheating.

If this is merely a one off, then it shows a blatant double standard. They'll punish someone for being a jerk but not someone for cheating. Why? Because the guy being a jerk is more popular on a third party platform.

They punished him not cause hes popular, but because his actions have a direct impact on another player and he was (IMO) trying to be cute and clever by doing this in a live stream and not in game with the impression that he would not get punished for it cause 'its not in game'. He was completely ignoring the fact that the point of anti parser ToS is to stop harassment but still did it thinking he would use the literal rules to be safe. If you want to argue he did get made an example of, thats fine, but lets not try and be cute and say "WELL SE SHOULDNT HAVE DONE THIS CAUSE NO RULES WERE VIOLATED!" Because if we want to really have a system where everything is clearly labeled and spelled out with no room for interpretation, thats gonna create inflexibility for SE and their response to that will be to create very harsh and draconian ToS.

For all the "SE has to be clear about the rules" shtick, it typically overlooks that Parsing is against the ToS but SE turns a blind eye to it for our sake. Being too specific is just as bad as being overly vague. At the end of the day, he used his parser and streaming power to go after a specific player publicly. We dont live in the 90s. He knew that this would rile up some of his viewers and cause trouble for that player. Frankly, if he was a real boss about things, hed just have the anatomy to talk that smack in game and deal with it. But he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.