Hey folks, hoping to get some advice here because I’m at the end of my rope.
Currently I am an officer in another guild on one of my alts, and we’ve (myself and the other officers) have had to deal with a problematic ex-guild member who has displayed stalker-like behaviour to our guild master.
He has been told by the guild master and multiple officers not to interact with the guild master or members of our guild because the drama he caused was extremely unhealthy and caused serious issues (to give you an idea, some of the drama he created, if I talked about it here, would get me a forum vacation) but despite being told not to interact with our guild members he continues to show up, hovering around members of our guild and attempting to interact with them.
We honestly just want to be left alone by this individual, but he ignores our requests entirely so now we’re unsure what to do. Can I put in a ticket in-game and have a GM warn this fellow to stay away from us? Or do we just have to endure this?
Even if he’s been told very specifically not to interact with the guild? Like, I’d understand if we didn’t tell him that and he just kept showing up, but we’ve made it clear to him that he is not to interact with guild members, period.
We don’t want him engaging with us. Also, since we can’t trust him not to attempt to slag off our guild if we do have him on ignore, most of us have kept him off our ignore lists just so that we know if he decides to bad-mouth the guild or its members in public channels.
not ignoring gives consent to have them contact you.
have someone on lookout duty but have everyone else ignore the person.
I’m allowed to /who you, see your general location and then try to come find you. This does not break any rules.
When I whisper you, and you ignore me, then I create a new character to try to whisper you, that’s when it’s bypassing the ignore system and a violation occurs.
As it stands, it’s just a fly buzzing around. Ignore his presence or baby spice him.
That’s actually the first mistake. Making contact with this individual makes it a conversation and not harassment. Everyone needs to put this person on ignore. Nobody should be trying to tell them what they can and can’t do.
If people would stop interacting with him, perhaps he’d move on. But if he starts bypassing people who have him on ignore, a ticket for ongoing harassment can be put in.
But it requires that everyone simply ignore the person. No replying to them, nothing.
Here’s a detailed write-up from one of the Blues here that you might want to share with your guild or at least the guild leader:
He was told this once shortly after he was removed from the guild and again by an officer of the guild when he tried to interact with a group of our guild members (we’re roleplayers if that helps clarify the situation a little). Since then there has been no interaction from any officer or any member of our guild, we’ve done everything in our power to avoid the bloke and not talk to him.
Honestly I find it hard to accept that this guy can basically act like a stalker and that the only ‘solution’ is that every single member must put him on ignore, which doesn’t stop him from appearing at our events, it doesn’t stop him attempting to interact with us, it just means we can’t see what he says, which becomes problematic if he decides he wants to actually create drama in public channels.
Here’s the thing though, he’s allowed to be in the game just as much as you and your guildies are. Also, if he’s showing up to events, then there’s likely still someone feeding him info. At the end of the day, it’s just guild drama.
You can’t force your guild to put him on ignore, but those who don’t want to be contacted by him have that option available.
If the guild would stop feeding his trolling nature, he’d grow bored and move on.
But it sounds like you’d rather keep interacting with him anyway. Keep telling him that he can’t talk to guildies…that should go over well. It certainly won’t make him want to keep it up…
Read the link I provided. It’s directly from Blizz.
What you seem to have come here for was for replies backing up your feelings. What we provided was solid advice on how to stop the guy from contacting you.
This isn’t real life. This guy doesn’t have your home address, he plays the same video game. Put the guy on ignore, recommend the rest of the guild follows suit and report every instance of the guy bypassing ignore.
Until the “stalker” works their way up the penalty chain they’re coexisting on the same realm as you.
As mentioned previously, ignore the person. Ignore their existence. Nobody needs to monitor chat to make sure that they’re not talking about you/the guild/the GM.
You giving the person a reaction enticed them to do worse. Ostracize the person.
To be perfectly clear about the type of stuff this guy has done:
He has accused members of the guild (including myself) of supporting sexual assault.
He has stalked our guild master.
He has threatened suicide if he doesn’t get what he wants.
He has used alts to approach the guild in an attempt to bypass the fact that some of us actually do have his main characters on ignore (I just confirmed that to be the case with the officers)
He has manipulated friends of the guild into communicating to us for him.
And that’s just a highlight reel. If I wanted to I could write extremely detailed paragraphs of what he’s done, share screenshot logs that we have of his behaviour.
This guy hasn’t taken the hint, he refuses to, but hey, no, it’s ‘our fault’ he’s harassing us. By not putting him on ignore we’re giving him ‘consent’ to contact us, despite the fact that we’ve been doing our best to stay civil this entire time in our desire to be left alone.
I’ll be putting a ticket in. Hopefully the actual GMs treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves, since you lot clearly aren’t.
report it as ongoing harassment, and bypassing the ignore function.
Blizzard won’t be able to do much if people haven’t taken the basic step of using the ignore function.
if he’s using inappropriate language, threatening suicide, etc, then you can report him for language. you might even submit a ticket about the suicide threat if you like - blizzard takes those seriously.
beyond that - you don’t have the power to tell someone in game who they can and can’t talk to. what you DO have is the ability to completely block their communication with you. use it. it is how blizzard differentiates drama from harassment. you can submit a ticket but they are going to ask you, well if you are ticketing us to get him to stop talking to you, why aren’t they on ignore. and your answer is… well because i want to see what they have to say? not very persuasive.
nobody is trying to tell you how things should be, or saying your situation isn’t frustrating. we are sharing with you how blizzard typically handles harassment. use that information or don’t.
If he is bypassing the ignore feature then you submit a ticket stating harassment, that is the only thing you can do. Unfortunately theres nothing Blizz can do to stop someone playing the game however they see fit. What your saying he is doing is just classic trolling, the more you get worked up about it the more he will continue to do it. Remember the advice, don’t feed the trolls. And another good one, not your circus, not your monkeys. Put him on ignore, everyone needs to do this, if its bypassed, each individual that has him on ignore needs to submit tickets for ongoing harassment. Leave all the guild drama out of it, its unrequired. All that matters is you have him on ignore, and he bypassed it. That’s it, period.
They will tell you to place the individual on ignore and that if he tries to bypass that to report it for ongoing harassment and bypassing the ignore function. Everyone here has given you the correct advice and has seen for years and years what the Blues have posted and what GMs have responded with in tickets.