Re: Regarding the Use of Third-Party Programs and Player Safety

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Don't see why it matters if it has or hasn't.

There is no justification in a tool that collects account IDs and maps characters and alts to a single ID in an unsolicited manner.

Besides most people just aren't going to immediately know if their stalking or harassment is as a result of this third-party tool or not. People do not have crystal balls, they aren't practicing wizardry. They are going to be concerned about harassment long before, and the fact remains this tool is a very big enabler of this (when there is no other justification for it to exist). Further to this most people are just not going to announce their woes on the internet. Some might, but it's hardly a norm circumstance.

To make matter worse, such cases are hardly spoken or tend to be brushed away/downplayed as "just drama lol".

People probably could learn a thing or two by reading the "Dingo case". It's something that happened within FFXIV sometime in the past, and should tell them how low people would go in order to get to somebody when they REALLY want to in general, and just how easily the perpetrator can get away unscathed.

Worse? With this DT BL system, it’s going to be even easier to pick on a target now.

[EunJuAnna]

That's a "no" then.

people were being stalked and harassed, along with those behaviors crossing the line into irl, BEFORE 7.0 released.

of course this tool made it worse.

[MisterNublet]

people were being stalked and harassed, along with those behaviors crossing the line into irl, BEFORE 7.0 released.

of course this tool made it worse.

Maybe I'm clueless, but how does this tool make it worse?

If you blacklist a player, you block their entire account. So even if they were to jump on an alt, or you were playing on an alt, they still cannot interact with you. The blacklist feature makes it harder for those to stalk or harass after 7.0.

The only way they could bypass the blacklist feature is by creating an entirely new service account. They don't need a plugin to do that.

From what I understand, this plugin doesn't even give away personal information, just in game information that is already easy to figure out for the most part.

[Dante131]

Maybe I'm clueless, but how does this tool make it worse?

If you blacklist a player, you block their entire account. So even if they were to jump on an alt, or you were playing on an alt, they still cannot interact with you. The blacklist feature makes it harder for those to stalk or harass after 7.0.

The only way they could bypass the blacklist feature is by creating an entirely new service account. They don't need a plugin to do that.

From what I understand, this plugin doesn't even give away personal information, just in game information that is already easy to figure out for the most part.

it make it worse to provide this information at all. nothing stops a person who already have the criminal mind for stalking someone to create a new account. You dont even have to buy the game since we have such a generous free trial. So people can have multiple accounts just to do harmful activitys. Please dont pretend like people would not do that, people have multiple accounts even without criminal minds in their head. So how it make it worse ? You have a database now which shows everyones character and the alts. Here an example for this situation.

Person A ( attract the stalker by whatever action undercutting market / or not have the same intrest in the person or whatever ) blocks a person
Person B ( the blocked ) is intrested enough to stalk Person A or harras Person A or whatever.
Person B realizes oh i am probably blocked
Person B decides to switch to a new account and there we go nothing will stop them
Person A switches to an alt character to escape
Person B knows this and can just continue his actions on this character.

This is the most basic case of how things can go wrong. But it can gets worse.

Let’s talk about people who use online games as an escape or a safe space separate from their real life. Imagine a teacher, CEO, or business owner dentist, doctor, IT people,someone expected to maintain a certain public image. If they engage in roleplay (RP), ERP, or just act differently in-game, and someone with a grudge gets access to their in-game activities, it’s not impossible that this information could be used to harm them in real life.

Sure, this might sound extreme, but in today’s world, doxing and harassment happen all the time. It’s naive to assume this won’t be misused.


Which one of this cases might or might not happen doesnt really matter since every case is bad and to say its the tools fault is just tone deaf if you and your team which gets money every month created the posibility for such tool.

[EunJuAnna]

You sound mad. If that's not your intent, you're doing a bad job of communicating your intended tone. But listen, it's clear you only want to interpret things in the least generous way possible, so I'm not interested in talking to you. In the world I live in, it's not impossible for a player to post in this thread or on reddit or anywhere else something along the lines of "my stalker found my alt and messaged me from a new account." We don't need omniscience, we don't need 100% concrete proof, we don't need a total player-wide survey. Let's not be idiotic here, come on.

By the way, putting hypotheticals in scare quotes there is weird behavior considering it was a way someone else described this conversation first. But you're trying to make it out like I'm downplaying things because I used the same word that was in a post I was quoting.

Given how quickly you went on the attack and the attitude of some people here that it doesn't even matter if this plugin has caused harm, it really sounds like some of you don't care about actual victims of harassment, like they're irrelevant to this conversation. You spent so much of your post taking about SE and Yoshi-P it looks like all you want is to score points against the devs.

continue to play devils advocate and keep this thread alive. genuinely helping me keep it on the front of these forums. appreciate it.

[EunJuAnna]

It has with me, a stalker I have been dealing with has been wandering around me as my alts they shouldn't know about

I'm sorry this is happening to you. you don't deserve it, no one does.

[Kuroka]

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

[Kaurhz]

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

The basic answer...? - Some people take friendships/connections online a lot more seriously than what some others do, which is where you might find stalking more prominent... For the most part players that just do content and that's all, they may never get stalked (I haven't in the 11 years I've been playing), and then some others may go to social events (or tend to have a more social nature than others), make friends, do RP (Some people also take this more seriously than others), and players like that I would say generally tend to find themselves being stalked more. I've had a few friends where this has been the case.

I also suppose the very existence of this tool/program answers your question as well, because there certainly isn't another reason for it to exist.

[ovIm]

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

There are different reasons why someone would become a stalker. Either it can be a power play, showing a victim that they can't just escape (usually done by bullies), or it could be something like a desperate cry for attention, the offender in their delusion thinking the victim owes them attention and going to lengths to get that. I'm sure there are more possible reasons, but those are usually the big two iirc. May also be both at the same time.

As to the how you get stalked, well... meet the wrong person, really.

[Basteala]

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

You would be surprised what you'd find in the RP community.