"Enhanced Blacklist Functionality" Safety Concerns

[Moqi]

Right, I just said it in another thread but it should go both ways. It's a good first step but it's effectly just covering your eyes and ears. It needs to go both ways and remove the problem at the source.

[Johners]

I don't really see the problem with no removing your character from their screen. At some point you need to stop bickering like children and just move on. Square Enix are giving all players on all platforms the ability to blacklist someone and not see them. Likewise, you can remove them and all their alts from your estate. This is an entirely reasonable solution and doesn't require Square Enix to babysit the community. I've also seen some people complain that blacklisted players can still join your duties via the duty finder. If you honestly expected the developers to completely rewrite the duty finder algorithm to add tons of complexity for each individual blocklist, that copium must be some strong stuff and I want some. Besides, if these people are actually harassing and trolling in duties you can report them because it's already against the terms of service. The only thing I do want Square Enix to add is the two-way removal from the friends list which is standard functionality on literally any other game/platform.

[Valence]

Spoken like someone that's never been truly harassed or stalked.

[Moqi]

Spoken like someone that's never been truly harassed or stalked.

All the opposing replies here and elsewhere are different shades of victim blaming.

[Valence]

Personally I don't believe much in turning anybody or anything invisible or playing ostrich. It's too full of exploits in both ways to really work.

An easy first step would be to make friendlist removal reciprocal. The lodestone stalk changes are also a good step in that direction, as well as the account wide block application. The mutelist/blacklist could also benefit from removing the possibility to search for the victim ingame (notably for their location).

This is not gonna fix everything though, especially regarding spotters and other elaborate methods used by stalkers, but it certainly makes it a lot harder, especially when one can also detect the spotters easily in non crowded areas and also block them (account wide).


Edit: to be clear I do understand that muting is already a form of making something invisible, which is text and speech. You choose by muting someone not to be able to read anything anymore, and they could be spouting really bad stuff about you already. The obvious culprit here is the total uselessness and training on the side of GMs in this game.

[HollowedDoll]

If you're so worried about a person who cannot meaningfully interact with you in any way shape or form potentially standing there menacingly, then maybe use the mute function instead?
I for one welcome the option of not having to look at Limsan bots.

[Fawkes]

Another concern of mine is that this feature will also result in less stalking and harassment cases actually being resolved; you cannot report stalking and harassment that you don't know about, so less harassment cases are reported, therefore the harassers get a free pass to continue stalking and harassing as opposed to being reported and punished.

If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, is it harassment?

[Rongway]

It sounds like basically everything you don't like about the new blist is handled by putting people on the new mute list instead.

[MrJadeOfStars]

You're giving too much power to your harasser, with this new Backlist function you can't hear or even see them anymore and they can't enter your house. Stop feeding them attention, if your worried about your character just fantasia into the UGGGGGLYIST thing you can create in this game, a Hograther. Guarantee you they'll find another target.