The 3-Strikes Policy - Is it really a good thing?

[HyperiusUltima]

So, for those who want a premise, read this reddit thread. No, it's not a link to something dumb - but it heavily ties into the big fiasco regarding Party Finder usage and the unreasonable account suspensions.

The thread itself already gives a few points as to why Final Fantasy XIV's policies need some reform, as the current system is built in a way that pushes many people who have made mistakes and gotten account strikes in the past into reclusion.

We're talking like ALLLLLL the way back in 2.X, or even 3.X, when FFXIV was on the rise as an MMO giant. Why can't these strikes be forgiven? As stated from the reddit thread, it has to do with their policies in regards to Account Strikes. Considering you are unable to remove an account strike regardless of your own reasoning, it's basically a zero-tolerance system that is unforgiving.

Humans make mistakes - everyone here knows this to some extent. Yet, why can they not forgive after a set amount of time? Does it have to do with their culture on the developers' side of the world? Does it have to do with how they want to stand out? I don't know the reason, but with how SE is heavy handed in their policy, it forces the thought that if they screw up again for some benign reason or another they basically can't play the game anymore.

I'm looking to open this thread for discussion about this topic because aside from reddit, I want to see what people on the Forums think in regards to how things are.

[Lium]

I've been following that thread a bit. I have to say, I had no idea this was a big problem. I myself have been spit on while standing around in Limsa Lominsa. No idea why. I'm guessing it was because I either bailed on a group, or someone didn't like what I posted on the forum and recognized my name.

But I didn't do anything about it because who cares? I'm also curious to know if this is an equally big issue in the JP community.

[Krotoan]

I think that certain infractions should never fall off your record (harassment, hatespeech, cheating) but things like swearing or other understandably "oops" able things should. Maybe you forgot what chat you were in, maybe you were having a bad day, maybe you even had a technical difficulty that caused you to "AFK" in every dungeon you did that day and people reported you for it.

Infractions of certain types are unforgivable however. People who do these are likely to do them again and any incentive we can give NOT to do it again should be used. Hatespeech should never be used, no matter how "mad" you are. Harassing someone on purpose through game mechanics or systems should be highly stigmatized. Using cheat programs or methods (though i believe this is a one strike and you're out right now) if counted as a strike should always be on your record, otherwise this is a license to wait out the expiry and then cheating again.

[HyperiusUltima]

I think that certain infractions should never fall off your record (harassment, hatespeech, cheating) but things like swearing or other understandably "oops" able things should. Maybe you forgot what chat you were in, maybe you were having a bad day, maybe you even had a technical difficulty that caused you to "AFK" in every dungeon you did that day and people reported you for it.

Infractions of certain types are unforgivable however. People who do these are likely to do them again and any incentive we can give NOT to do it again should be used. Hatespeech should never be used, no matter how "mad" you are. Harassing someone on purpose through game mechanics or systems should be highly stigmatized. Using cheat programs or methods (though i believe this is a one strike and you're out right now) if counted as a strike should always be on your record, otherwise this is a license to wait out the expiry and then cheating again.

While I do agree that a majority of what you said should be considered permanent, I think that minor offenses would need to be categorized in a manner that would help; and depending on the context of the logs it could escalate to a permanent action. Generally these 'minor' offenses should only stack up twice before become a full offense. And of course, repeat offenders don't get a chance. With how things are, CM post aside in that particular thread, it'd be a good thing for them to consider in terms of leniency - because there is none right now.

[Krotoan]

While I do agree that a majority of what you said should be considered permanent, I think that minor offenses would need to be categorized in a manner that would help; and depending on the context of the logs it could escalate to a permanent action. Generally these 'minor' offenses should only stack up twice before become a full offense. And of course, repeat offenders don't get a chance. With how things are, CM post aside in that particular thread, it'd be a good thing for them to consider in terms of leniency - because there is none right now.

That's also a good suggestion. Having frequent "minor" infractions add-up to an actual strike instead of just counting them outright would be a good addition.

While I've never been warned or jailed, I do understand that humans are humans and we cannot always be completely TOS compliant especially when the terms are so vague. I hear a lot of people complain about how when they do get strikes they have no idea why and while I understand the reason for not being able to reference the exact infractions, when you have such nebulous guidelines to work from, you should get a few chances to refine your behavior as well as forgiveness if you manage to comply for an extended amount of time.

I get the idea and I agree but I do feel if we do a system to remove strikes it should be for everything.

People grow but there are infractions out there that have no excuse. They are blatant and easily distinguishable from "passionate" or "accidental" infractions. Hatespeech, Targeted sexual harassment, hacking/cheating/exploiting.

[Awha]

That's also a good suggestion. Having frequent "minor" infractions add-up to an actual strike instead of just counting them outright would be a good addition.

While I've never been warned or jailed, I do understand that humans are humans and we cannot always be completely TOS compliant especially when the terms are so vague. I hear a lot of people complain about how when they do get strikes they have no idea why and while I understand the reason for not being able to reference the exact infractions, when you have such nebulous guidelines to work from, you should get a few chances to refine your behavior as well as forgiveness if you manage to comply for an extended amount of time.



People grow but there are infractions out there that have no excuse. They are blatant and easily distinguishable from "passionate" or "accidental" infractions. Hatespeech, Targeted sexual harassment, hacking/cheating/exploiting.

People can say or do things they often regret. Tolerance of forgiveness should cover everything. I personally operate on a simple principle every action is forgivable or no action is. Seems silly how people pick and choose what is a tolerant mistake over and unforgivable one.

[Krotoan]

People can say or do things they often regret. Tolerance of forgiveness should cover everything. I personally operate on a simple principle every action is forgivable or no action is. Seems silly how people pick and choose what is a tolerant mistake over and unforgivable one.

.. So murder is just as forgivable as jaywalking?

[Kuya420]

That's also a good suggestion. Having frequent "minor" infractions add-up to an actual strike instead of just counting them outright would be a good addition.

While I've never been warned or jailed, I do understand that humans are humans and we cannot always be completely TOS compliant especially when the terms are so vague. I hear a lot of people complain about how when they do get strikes they have no idea why and while I understand the reason for not being able to reference the exact infractions, when you have such nebulous guidelines to work from, you should get a few chances to refine your behavior as well as forgiveness if you manage to comply for an extended amount of time.



People grow but there are infractions out there that have no excuse. They are blatant and easily distinguishable from "passionate" or "accidental" infractions. Hatespeech, Targeted sexual harassment, hacking/cheating/exploiting.

i agree with the targeted harassment (doesnt have to be sexual), hacking/cheaitng/exploiting, for the rest, who decides what is hatespeech? who dictates what can and cant be said? thats the only issue i have, the game itself has suggestive dialogue, its not a kids game, dont get me wrong that doesnt mean people should have a free license tp be as offensive as they want to be, but also theres no way to report in game currently, other than RMT, as i just came on to figure out how to report someone who sent me a scam msg with a url link thats designed to steal peoples accounts, i feel stuff like that should take a slightly higher priority, since it does make it so people cant play the game until they go through customer support, if its even active atm, meanwhile if someone is being offensive, you can just block them (granted shouldnt have to, but not everyones gonna be nice, gotta learn to deal with the people that arent so pleasant to deal with

also i was hearing that people were getting banned for RP Party finder stuff, like too many people cluttering up the PF with RP groups, i dont know how it is on other servers, but ive only seen them on non-selected groups and its usually at the bottom of the list anyway, so i really dont get what the big deal is

[Krotoan]

Except for the fact I was only painfully lucky that he re-looked at it, as I technically was asking for information on what occurred which is a no go.

I also know it would be a strike, and I know it would be a 3 day (As I got a 3 day for saying F word after this, oops to me, but imagine what it could have been if instead of 1 F it was 30 C's.)

I also can only assume that this was my report being taken in reverse, which isn't even a confirmation, because of the line "Regarding another case" Which, if I wanna sit and think on that, would mean a ticket with 0 relation to me marked me as the culprit. Imagine if I didn't question it, as 99% of the time it's just a waste to ask them to re-look at it?

That could have been a permanent mark on my account. I already gotta deal with having 2 (the first was like 5 1/2 years ago, for emoting too many times, where I also apologized and stopped but nobody cares about that </3) so having another where I couldn't have done anything wrong permanently sitting on me is not a very welcoming adventure.

Lucky? Or exactly what the review process is for? They don't just take reports and boom, action. They stick you in the Gaol till you actually get to talk to a GM. A person. An actual living breathing person reviews your infraction and makes sure you understand what's happening. And what happened? You showed confusion and then they reviewed and hey.. this wasn't you.
You were never in danger of being marked for something you didn't do because the process worked in your favor as it should when you're innocent.

I'm not gonna say I love the system, or even that it's close to what it should be. But It's miles ahead of a lot of other games where bing-bang you get enough reports and you're auto silenced/banned and you have to try your dangdest to get customer service or whomever to review your case after the fact. Errors happen in the world especially when you involve humans, but in this case it's nice that they do because humans can review these cases and react to the supposed rule breakers questions and replies.

It's not really about innocence, it's about the fact that if the strictest interpretation employed by GMs was used as the standard uniformly, literally 100% of the community would be guilty.

So it becomes a question of having your report get handled by the right GM on the right day, which means any and all rules are arbitrary since there's no reason to believe they will or won't apply to you for a given case. How much information you even get isn't even consistent.

Is it? Or did they actually question what was happening when a possibly new or uninformed GM started handing out warnings left and right and panicked the forums? When one (or more, there are 100+ pages of that thread and no, I'm not reading them all) of their team applied the rules non-standardly they retracted those actions. For years and years people understood the rules and as long as they followed what was said were fine.

I know "bootlicker" or some such is going to be thrown around.. but seeing how SE actually reacted to a GM giving non-standard warnings and actions out, was pretty reassuring that they're not only trying to keep standards, but willing to act when one of their own misinterprets or acts out of line.

i agree with the targeted harassment (doesnt have to be sexual), hacking/cheaitng/exploiting, for the rest, who decides what is hatespeech? who dictates what can and cant be said? thats the only issue i have, the game itself has suggestive dialogue, its not a kids game, dont get me wrong that doesnt mean people should have a free license tp be as offensive as they want to be, but also theres no way to report in game currently, other than RMT, as i just came on to figure out how to report someone who sent me a scam msg with a url link thats designed to steal peoples accounts, i feel stuff like that should take a slightly higher priority, since it does make it so people cant play the game until they go through customer support, if its even active atm, meanwhile if someone is being offensive, you can just block them (granted shouldnt have to, but not everyones gonna be nice, gotta learn to deal with the people that arent so pleasant to deal with

also i was hearing that people were getting banned for RP Party finder stuff, like too many people cluttering up the PF with RP groups, i dont know how it is on other servers, but ive only seen them on non-selected groups and its usually at the bottom of the list anyway, so i really dont get what the big deal is

Sexual being pretty undisputably definable .. and hatespeech is pretty easy to define as targeting a particular demographic with hateful language. Calling someone a girl isn't , but calling someone say.. " a weak.. *insert derogatory word for female*" is most certainly hatespeech.

There is reporting in game, it's in the support section. There's no one button click, but as long as you can remember or track their name and server, you can report someone. In the menus under system: Support desk - Contact us- then pick a category. Honestly either type will get sent to the team and be looked at. Especially if someone is spamming bait URLS. I have rarely gone more than 10 minutes without a GM contacting me about any submitted tickets. Last one I sent was a month ago, so it's not like they're AWOL during the pandemic.


People were being warned for RP party finder stuff, possibly actioned (didn't see any, but again.. LOTS of pages), the forum had a thread that shot up in replies, the GM's responded and said that the warnings were in error and the responsible parties had been advised.
direct quote"

Thank you for your patience while we reviewed the situation. In short, there was an internal miscommunication which led to account actions being issued incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for the concern that this has caused the community. There has not been any change to our existing policy, and we want to assure players that our focus is on taking action against inappropriate advertisements/listings.

The thread is here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...31#post5512931
and an interesting read.. but the first few pages and then the GM replies are really the only useful info, the rest is kinda.. bickery.

[TurtlesAWD]

i agree with the targeted harassment (doesnt have to be sexual), hacking/cheaitng/exploiting, for the rest, who decides what is hatespeech? who dictates what can and cant be said? thats the only issue i have, the game itself has suggestive dialogue, its not a kids game, dont get me wrong that doesnt mean people should have a free license tp be as offensive as they want to be, but also theres no way to report in game currently, other than RMT, as i just came on to figure out how to report someone who sent me a scam msg with a url link thats designed to steal peoples accounts, i feel stuff like that should take a slightly higher priority, since it does make it so people cant play the game until they go through customer support, if its even active atm, meanwhile if someone is being offensive, you can just block them (granted shouldnt have to, but not everyones gonna be nice, gotta learn to deal with the people that arent so pleasant to deal with

also i was hearing that people were getting banned for RP Party finder stuff, like too many people cluttering up the PF with RP groups, i dont know how it is on other servers, but ive only seen them on non-selected groups and its usually at the bottom of the list anyway, so i really dont get what the big deal is

I mean there definitely are things that unambiguously count as hatespeech, and for dubious cases they could defer to something like a list from the SPLC or something along those lines. There are experts who work in that field and track language like that as it changes and shifts.

But, A) there's no way to know that a specific instance of hate speech is actually going to get punished, and B) there is reason to think that far tamer language would be punished in the same way, at the same rate, with the same consequences which undermines their capability to effectively fight against more severe infractions.