Harassment...Follow

Manly men can't be bothered by anything anyone does, women are emotionally fragile and break down at the drop of a hat, did you get your ideas about the sexes from a cartoon?

and I'm just saying that I disagree with the OP and it's not a trend. There has always been random goofs in online games who do stuff like this. 6 years ago some little gnome on WoW came up and air-humped me and talked crap. and it wasn't a trend then either.

The point I was making was that the duty finder is kind of a mixed bag for harassment but I probably should have been more descriptive. Many people had already complained to that bard to stop pulling, and yes the loot window was open pretty much the entire run so no vote kicking. I'd just had enough of him. Crass as I might have been the guy knew exactly what he was doing. I didnt say anything until Xande so it's not like the first thing I typed was constant harassment toward him. Others had already gone the polite route. I had already had a bad day and thanks to the troll I wasnt having a good night either. It happened. Call me a harasser if you want (not aimed at you Catwho, meaning in general). I guess the GM thought the same because I got a warning instead of a ban.

What do you think the characteristics of the WoW community are?

What do you think the characteristics of the FFXI community are?

I've been harassed in FFXI and stalked ingame and out (blog, forums, email before it was blocked etc) for 18 months but that was a pretty rare situation which in the end the guy had the decency to contact me about when he realised he'd been a complete douchebag and missed something critical about an awkward LS situation.

In XIV, I think the casual nature of DF means it's even easier to be an idiot and abuse people but it's a more casual thing. The raid content is where you see it most. I've had a few people make 'inappropriate gestures' or position their characters in 'interesting' positions around me but nothing serious.

Say it with me, now: Ignoring the problem does not eliminate the problem.

The fact it happens here, in XIV, in XI, on some Blizzard board, Twitter, or wherever today, tomorrow, yesterday, or ten years ago is no justification for the behavior.

History is laden with things that at one time any given culture thought was okay, but in later advancements in society, came to realize that they really weren't. You know, things like slavery, child labor, women's rights, racial segregation and discrimination, and so on. Internet culture is on the cusp of one of those leaps, but it's only going to be taken when the right people choose not to ignore the issues. Things like some text in a giant ToS people never read but scroll through and lazy, underpaid GM staff aren't enough. Essentially, actions escalate because the trolls and other ne'er-do-wells find the reactions rarely do anything, even if there is one. Perhaps the humor found is finding just how futile these responses are, but let's imagine that in the future there is an MMO blacklist and if your name winds up on it, you can never register to play an MMO again? Circumventing that is also equally punishable. Would you like being banned from the internet for life knowing how steadily its become integrated into society? There's legal precedent for that, too.

I know, I know, it's easy to just sit there on the other end and roll your eyes, but it's exactly that kind of complacency that's gonna hit people hard when suddenly they realize that sitting in front of a keyboard isn't a safety net for being a d-bag. More immediate actions are definitely going to be host/service-reliant, but in time, you can certainly bet net rights are going to be more of an issue, particularly under this broader umbrella of cyber bullying and harassment.

Well, ZAM is considered a safe place for a serious discussion. If there's any place to get "really dramatic" about something, it's here.

(If you only want fluffy LOL XIV discussions with no meat or substance, there are plenty of XIV Facebook groups.)

In HR training they always warn that "Harassment is in the eye of the beholder." If you feel you are being harassed, that means you are being harassed. Doesn't matter if the harasser is totally unaware of how his or her actions are making you feel at the time of the incident.