An Approach to "Harassment"

A quick note before the main content of this thread is started. I'll try to keep this thread to an as factual basis as possible without throwing terminology like "snowflake" and its likes around.

Currently I've seen a ton of reports against other players of the community for seemingly small amounts of "harassment" (if you even want to call it). I was in the shoutbox actually recently where someone was "offended" by the word "nazi". Should I be offended by that and "communist" since I'm of German and Eastern Slavic descent (Weird flex but ok). What about "fascist" because I'm of Italian (and German) descent? Not that, but even smaller cases of someone being tilted and, at most, saying 4 or 6 lines in the chatbox/shoutbox. These aren't even PMs, they're just in the public chat. The reports of this pettiness are below:

https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-ahmaud-arbery-got-rdmed.55526/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-ptfoorgtfo.55552/ (Seriously? Getting "rekt" is now offensive too?)
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-sticky-bandit.55574/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-slaps-ethenak.55587/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-indy.55467/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-indy.55458/

This is getting ridiculous. Not only that, by "warning" these people for "harassment" we are giving the green light to make reports for the stupidest shit ever. I'm going to start making reports for being called "retarded", "communist", and "fascist". Maybe I'll start making reports too if someone says my opinions/approach to something is "dumb" or "idiotic" or "moronic". There is a standard being created and when people see pettiness like this being marked as valid reports, people think that they can be "offended" by anything. Being called retarded once isn't harassment. Having someone not agree with your opinions isn't harassment. Being called a "pussy" in a video game 3-4 times in a short span of time isn't harassment. Over the course of minutes after not dropping it is harassment though.

This is getting ridiculous and if the staff team keeps marking these types of reports valid, there will only be more of these petty reports coming in. These reports should just be invalid and the reporter being told anything from the above paragraph. That's the suggestion I guess.

 

Personally, my report against Sticky was revenge for his petty report against me, but for staff letting it fly or handling. I feel it's been either ignored too much or overhandled. Some are for jokes which extend for a meme which I wish was being handled, but it has gone too far. Personally I think it's just drama causers who believe causing problems is the best for mutual attention. I remember the good old days back in Jan, Feb. I think corona is just hitting everyone hard. But the community really needs to have a serious talk and maybe reform so everyone can be happy. Or even stricter comments on zed reports such as "Don't report for someone saying "suck it"". But harassment is harassment, adding up should be reported but some people wanna jump the gun before the build up becomes too much.

Man, looking back a couple of months, I remember when we were all happy and got along perfectly fine. There was a few mishaps but we got over them and lived happy ever after.
My question is...
What changed?

 

While that may be true there is a precedent being set where it seems to be acceptable to file reports like these no matter what.

 

Personally, and this might sound crazy, but I think the harassment rule should go. In Gmod, the only type of harassment you can’t avoid is text chat, which honestly shouldn’t be too bad to deal with. On the forums you can mute users you don’t want to hear from. There are ways around the harassment.

However, I think the real reason it should go is the weird trend you are talking about here, where insignificant grievances are being treated as actual crimes worthy of investigating and imparting judgement on. Like @Pokeben10 was saying, it’s far more about revenge than justice, and this is where it gets weird and is, in my eyes, the core of the issue.

Why are we treating players that are willingly playing on our servers as if they have paper skin when the argument for slurs being allowed is that “it’s the internet so they should get used to hearing them”?

Having both allowed makes for a weeeeird situation in which players are simultaneously extremely racist degenerates with unbelievably paper thin skin. I think the harassment rule should just go, players that are actually being targeted should be listened to without the need of an official definition and ruling. We don’t need concrete rules for something as simple as just being kind and empathetic.

But some of you have so little going on in your real lives that all you do is thrive off of your internet persona and being a douche, so you might need to grow up first.

Edit: Turns out slurs were banned since I was here last! Huzzah! Hopefully we see some meaningful change from that, but I still stand by my statement that the rule should be removed altogether and instead we opt for empathy and kindness and encourage players to avoid harassment however they can. We don’t need a rule to stop telling someone to be a dick, and we shouldn’t try and invent rules to make it so that we can ban them if they are. We should all work together to create a positive experience for everyone and have each others backs.

 

Get a load of this riceting

 

yyyeeEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

and I was banned for a good ass meme too ok well I shall revise my post thank you Jabba

 

Its no wonder they spend all their time on here, they wouldn't last 1 picosecond outside of a safe space

 

Excuse sir but I think you are looking for 1 femtosecond

 

@My Dime Is Up

I've used this thread a sort of a monolith for this report. Forgive the notifications you may recieve.

https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-jabba-the-slut.55612/#post-587935

 

Honestly, I want more staff posting in here so we can actually make sense of the recent flood of reports, and multitude of bans that make no sense at all.

 

All I know is there's tons of reports on staff members and their ain't nobody in the modded servers no mo

 

Thats interesting, because I don't see one report made by Sticky on the front page of the reports.

 

There are no people on modded anymore because the staff have bloody killed those servers and 90% of our playerbase is gone. The only people who play on Vanilla are newcomers and non-VIPs who have been in the community for around a month tops

Of the 32 people on vanilla right now, 6 are vips.

 

Was

 

Examples of mine, cowcakes, and sticky's reports

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

@Hongo p sure he meant this