How do you think Yoshida would react to the following hypothetical regarding parsing?

[Vnolan]

Say several thousand players come together and announce they'll be posting parses publicly in chat on a specified date. Just the numbers, no commentary on them.

Does Yoshida issue temp bans (and potential permabans if they already have a record) to several thousand customers who would not be doing anything wrong, or does he let it slide?

[Nandrolone]

Have a hissy fit and punish everyone for it, as usual.

[Aurida]

...who would not be doing anything wrong...

By 'anything wrong' you of course mean the bit that had a 40 minute long lecture about the usage of third party tools in the latest live letter, right? And how they're against the terms of service? All that jazz?

I and many others would love nothing more than a metric by which to evaluate and quantify personal performance, but all this hypothetical is going to do is give the moderation staff a very large and very easy workload to mow through. Furthermore, no amount of raw data or objective facts will change the mind of anyone who's happier to go about the process of permanently revoking your access to the game than they are to go about the process of bettering themselves or the community as a whole.

Just keep your numbers to yourself and wield vote dismissal as a holy sword if you must, but know that the windmills you tilt against are many in number.

[Fawkes]

Anyone who gets reported would probably get a ban.

[DrWho2010]

i'd love to see all those people get reported and given suspensions.

[Sebazy]

It’s safe to say that yeah, regardless of numbers, a report will equate to a ban. SE have shown that they aren’t afraid to ban in mass in the past.

[Krotoan]

"THEY CAN'T STOP US ALL!"

- all the banned people who would do this.

[Theodric]

It'd be a pretty interesting experiment to see unfold, since it's the sort of thing that would probably be picked up by the gaming media. Which, in turn, would cause the reaction to be scrutinised very carefully. Rival MMO's could also potentially exploit the situation for their own game by highlighting that they allow for the use of certain mods, too.

Besides, if they did ban thousands of players then that'd open the door to people asking why they haven't banned the hundreds of players who hang around in Ul'dah on Balmung and Mateus with explicit search info.

[KDSilver]

What is the purpose of that question exactly ?

[MitsukiKimura]

If you wanna go public about using a third party system so that you can show your numbers to the world, I don't feel sorry if you're thrown a ban hammer. Game Over