Help with potential harassment

Jolene-elune · August 19, 2019, 5:46am

Report for language, if applicable.

Being in the same location as someone isn’t against the rules, even if it feels like stalking. This isn’t real life, where you can be harmed by an actual stalker and can have a restraining order against them; it’s an MMO, where people are generally allowed to be anywhere in game they’d like.

Report as a real life threat. That is taken seriously.

Report as ongoing harassment. Keep in mind, though, that when he uses alts to bypass ignore to make contact, if your guild member converses with him it’s viewed as a two-way conversation, NOT as ongoing harassment. Even if your guild member is just asking to be left alone. The point of ignore and report is to prove that the contact is genuinely unwanted, and the best way to make that point is to not respond at all. Ever.

Potentially ongoing harassment, but all you can do is report them and have a GM look into it to make that call.

That is exactly right. What you’re all doing is giving him the attention he is seeking. You want to be left alone, and he wants attention… guess who is winning that battle right now? Him. If you genuinely want to be left alone, have everyone put him on ignore and shut him out entirely.

GM’s don’t care if you’ve been civil to him. They don’t care if you’re only asking him to stop contacting you. They care if you’ve been completely ignoring him in every regard, and that he’s bypassing that and breaking rules by FORCING contact. If he’s not on ignore, it’s consensual, and any conversation had is considered mutual.

Does this make the situation more frustrating for you and your guild? Absolutely. But you’ll need to follow some basic steps if you want it dealt with properly.

Everyone here has given you honest and genuine advice. This isn’t the first time this topic has come up on the forums, and your fellow posters are trying to help you get the resolution you desire; if you choose to refuse their advice, you’re in for a long battle ahead with your former guild member.

Rufflebottom-bloodhoof · August 19, 2019, 6:11am

Reporting Harassment in WoW

It does not result in immediate action against the harasser. It is queued just like any other report and investigated before any action is taken. That is why you need to put the harasser on ignore. As well, Blizzard will not tell you what action they have taken. It is between the other player and Blizzard.
Any communication you make with your harasser negates your claim. It become a conversation. Even telling them not to contact you counts as conversation.
If they bypass your ignore, then you can report them for ongoing harassment. If you don’t have them on ignore, you can’t. As long as you are not using an add-on to extend your ignore list, Blizzard can see if you have their account ignored.
You need to do this on any of your characters that the harasser knows you on.

Put them on ignore. You do not need to police their chat. It’s a childish attempt at trolling. Don’t give them the attention they crave. Do not respond if they do bad-mouth your guild or its members. That makes what is happening a conversation again, not harassment.

Blizzard will not stop him from attending. If you want to control access to your event, make a raid and hold it in someone’s garrison.

Not your issue. There’s only drama if you respond.

No one is telling you it’s your fault. We are telling you how to address your issue. Any contact from you to them makes what is happening a conversation. Even you telling them to not contact you again.

It’s not real life. It’s a game.

Your response to the advice is. Blizzard has a procedure for dealing with harassment. Report them, put them on ignore, report them every time they bypass the ignore. They won’t interfere if you don’t follow these steps.

That does not require a response from you.

If it’s in-game, there is nothing that will be done. Blizzard will not dictate where someone can or can not play in game. If it’s in real life, call the police.

Report it to Blizzard as a “Real Life Threat”. It is an option when making a ticket.

Report it every time it happens as “ongoing harassment” and bypassing the ignore feature. It is an option when making a ticket.

No, it’s not your fault, but you are not handling it properly. Stop giving them the attention they crave.

You are giving him consent to contact you if you don’t have them on ignore. If you didn’t want him to contact you, you would have him on ignore. Ignore what they are doing if they do “stalk” you in game. Blizzard requires you to have them on ignore to pursue it as harassment. Otherwise it’s just a conversation and role-playing.

Mastadôn-thrall · August 19, 2019, 11:13am

And were told EXACTLY what to do, citing a Blizzard post on the matter no less.

Funny I didn’t see that at all. I saw spot on advice on how to deal with it. The tools are in place blah blah can’t force a horse to drink yadda yadda

This is a game, not real life. A game that empowers the player to solve the situation without interference.

BTW if he bypasses that solution in game it is not a silence on his account, it is a suspension.

Based on this post, and the previous posts not wanting to heed the advice or even budge, I strongly suspect there is more to the story here.

Dathrel-malfurion · August 19, 2019, 12:40pm

Idea for a forum tweak: don’t let people mark themselves as a solution. Worth suggesting?

Anyways, there’s really nothing else to say. If someone is “stalking” you in real life by showing up in public places (following publicly available information) and you respond by hanging around them and speaking to them instead of phoning the police, then that’s really not stalking, because you’re evidently fine with the interaction. It doesn’t sound like any of you have even remotely attempted the correct courses of action that you’ve been supplied.

-report bad language
AND/OR
-place on ignore
-open ongoing harassment ticket if ignore is circumvented

The correct response when Wulf first explained this would’ve been: “Okay, we’ll do that. Thanks!” Possibly include why you hadn’t done so already, but you don’t need to patrol what other people say about you. Most people in the game know that if someone is singling out a guild in a public channel with negativity, it’s probably the someone’s fault.

Banewulf-terokkar · August 19, 2019, 12:59pm

The only thing I saw here was Guild drama.

And an unwillingness to take the proper steps. Why? Drama. “They might say bad things about us and we won’t see it”. Drama.

/ ignore and move on.

If you were actually able to make a ticket, a GM told you the same thing.

Pû-eitrigg · August 19, 2019, 1:25pm

Many of the incidents listed here could very well be violations of some sort. And definitely reportable. I would certainly advise everyone in the guild putting him on ignore. If you want to leave one or two to monitor public chat, thats fine. But do not respond to his nonsense. Just right click report his comments. But any inappropriate languse should be reported by everyone. Multiple reports from multiple players are more powerful than multiple reports from one player. And definitely report for ongoing harrassment if you discover he is bypassing the ignore by using alts. I’m always an advocate for aggressive reporting and let Blizz take it from there. But also make use the of the available “defensive” tools.

Good luck. I hope you can get this unfortunate situation resolved quickly.

(Side note: Why does ignore apply to characters? Shouldn’t it apply to the actual person playing behind the characters? Just curious.)

Rufflebottom-bloodhoof · August 19, 2019, 1:42pm

Ignore applies to all the characters on the account you are ignoring. To bypass it someone would have to create a new battlenet account or try and get someone to pass a message. This sort of harassment has a harsher punishment than the first report of harassment. The ignore list is character-specific though, so it needs to be done on every character on the account doing the ignoring.

Pû-eitrigg · August 19, 2019, 1:45pm

Gotcha. So it’s account wide on the “offender’s” side, but character specific on the “victim’s” side. That’s definitely better. Thanks.

Mastadôn-thrall · August 19, 2019, 3:42pm

If I were to ignore you on this toon, your entire account would be ignored by this toon.

However if I were on say Mastalt, you would be able to still whisper Mastalt.

Vrakthris · August 19, 2019, 11:08pm

If we didn’t, that would either require removing the solution option completely or only allow a blue to mark it as a solution. It seems that would give an expectation that Blizzard staff would check various posts in order to flag solutions. Right or wrong, if that is the solution the OP feels is applicable to their issue, that is their right. That said, there are some situations in which a Support Agent may change the solution text to something more applicable.

I don’t know if I fully agree with that. Actually telling a player that you’d rather not talk to them before placing them on ignore is fine. Our investigation would look at what kind of communication is taking place. Continually telling someone to stop talking to you and not putting them on ignore would certainly limit any kind of action that we could take. The key is to make sure and place them on ignore and not engage in a discussion with them.

That isn’t at all true, Carhagen. The others are trying to give you advice on how best to handle this kind of situation.

A couple of points I want to cover:

An individual may request that another individual not communicate with them, but they have no authority to make that request on behalf of another player, even if they are in the same guild.

Any contact with the person must be addressed by the person being contacted. If they do not wish contact they can use the ignore option. If that ignore option is somehow circumvented they can report it as ongoing harassment so that it might be investigated.

That does not mean that the overall picture of specifically targeting guild members won’t be looked at, but proper procedures must be followed in order to establish a pattern of behavior.

Not that there is any comparison between stalking in real life and what a player in WoW is able to do with the protections that we have in place. However, there are specific steps and protocols that the harassed must follow in real life as well. Imagine getting a restraining order against a stalker and then the harassed simply walks up to them to talk to them… can you see how that might muddle things a bit?

Please be sure that you are doing so because you were recently contacted by the person after you have placed them on ignore. If you are reporting them on behalf of someone else, or because they contacted someone else that may be a part of your guild, we’re likely not going to be able to help.

Good luck.