I figured I should reply to the above in it's own thread instead. Or the other one would be messy...To add a cherry on top:
Code:
Cherek tells you: In theory yes? Harassment to me is if you target someone for
absolutly no reason, or because you hate them iRl and want to drive them from
the game, etc, or other obvious things
Who and how can make it "obvious" that they are bent on driving someone away from the game? I'm asking, cause I have been on the receiving end of this shit quite a few times. You usually expect "proof" from me when I suggest someone is cheating/abusing. So please elaborate (and try to be informative, not quantitative) on how a player can "prove" that s/he is being harassed according to the above mentioned definition.
Also - what are those "other obvious things"? I'm curious really. They SHOULD be named and placed into rules.
What does not show in that quote from me is that it's part of a longer discussion on harassment, where both me and Irk express things we feel are harassment. And my whole point was that the definition of "harassment" is different for different people. The above were some examples of things I personally feel would count as harassment, and I personally could think of a bunch of other things as well. You can probably think of some too, and Irk can think of some. And anyone you ask can come up with a bunch of things. Many will probably be the same, but a some things will probably be different too depending on who you ask. This of course makes it both hard to know what harassment is, and hard for us to judge.
I actually planned to change the rules of harassment to exactly what you ask, a few months back. That is, add specific information about what is harassment and what is not, since I generally do not like "case by case" rulings. I prefer having simple, clear, rules and treat everyone exactly the same based on those clear rules. So, we had a long discussion in the AoP team about how we could change the rules of harassment to be more specific, and after the discussion I changed my mind, since the conclusion of that discussion was that if we were to in detail describe every possible way someone could be harassed, it would be a VERY long list. And no matter how long we made it, there would always be situations not covered by the list. So by starting such a list, we felt it would just be complicated, and still not cover everything. And it might make people feel anything NOT on the list is okay, since we could probably not cover all types of harassment possible...
So... we decided to keep the rule as it is for now, and stick to the case by case judgements to our best ability, since we felt that's currently the best solution. It's not perfect, but harassment is a very tricky subject. Not only here, but everywhere. We also agreed to always discuss each harassment case so not ONE person makes the decision alone. In the most recent harassment case that me and Irk were talking about, all four members of the AoP felt the same way about it - that it was not harassment. Of course the one making the complaint feel differently. But in cases like this one side will always be unhappy regardless of what we decide. Based on the information we gather, we try to make the best decision, in all cases. Regardless of who is involved.
But if someone has a suggestion on how to make rules about harassment more clear, without it turning into a 10-page manual, then I am definitely listening. The more clear rules, the easier it is for us to handle things, and logically, players would be less angry since it would be very clear which rule they have broken. I re-did the botting rules and punishments for botting together Mirandus a couple of months ago, to make it more clear what is botting and what is not, and to make all punishment the same, and more suitable to the "crime".
And no I agree that I can't ask you for "proof" of harassment since the rules are not clear enough on that subject. What I have asked you for proof have been other more obvious things that you have suggested. For example that wizards share vital wiz-only information to mortal friends, which is very clearly not allowed, and very clearly against the rules if proof are found. Harassment is a much more complex subject to both prove and judge.