Can we Clarify Harassment?

There IS overlap. A multitude of staff in this thread have given you their opinion; majority of which overlap. Certain situations may be handled differently due to the staff member present, but that's the same for literally everything in life; things are going to be interpreted differently by different people. We aren't sentient robots. If you personally feel like a staff member is either too lax or too strict, there are many ways to contact someone about it in an official manner.

"Common sense" is a rule clause here that can also be applicable to harassment. Say "hey man, I think you're a faggot"? Sure, that's harassment. That's common sense. Say "hey man, I don't like you very much." That is NOT harassment, just a personal feeling that is most likely being shared so you will leave said situation or whatever the context may be.

You can have a negative opinion of someone and still be able to convey yourself properly like an adult or with at least a common ground of courtesy. If you can't or they can't, like I said, just ignore them. Hit the ignore button and magically everything they say will disappear.

 

The context is just in general. Day to day life. Someone you frequently are forced to interact with, or who forces interactions with you. If that person does not know you dislike them, in what possible manner are you going to tell them that?

Edit: And to further the "Which is more mature" thing, I chose #2 and #3 off of what I see staff do and frequently. I will post links if you want

 

I mean, yeah, I agree with you, except that some admins and people on this thread say that saying "Hey man, I don't like you very much" is indeed harassment.

 

That isn't really context. However, keep in mind, no one is forcing you to be here. This is just a website with a few servers you play and take enjoyment out of. You aren't forced to interact with them. This isn't like workplace harassment at all - you don't have to quit your job to get away from someone. This isn't to say we want players forcing other players to leave our community. If someone is forcing interactions with you that harass you, it should be reported and handled. But if you simply can't "be in the same room with the person" (as a manner of speech) - they shouldn't be punished for being in that room under valid pretenses.

If you want to convey to someone you don't like them, a public post / shoutbox comment / whatever is not the way to go about it. It breaks our rules. You could PM them, assuming you take the right approach. The people who've said that saying "I don't like you" have provided context. In a PM, the context is different. "Hey, I don't like you very much, could you not post on my threads?" in a PM I wouldn't consider harassment, though I will point out this can't stop them from posting on your threads provided they follow our rules, but it lets them know your feelings. If you add reasons or other things that could be construed as insults / harassment, that's a different story.

However, I don't see a scenario where you need to tell someone you don't like them here on the forum or in games (in a scenario where you "could", you could also more realistically get staff involved). As I said previously, everyone here has the right to participate in the public threads, shoutbox, profile posts, etc., provided they follow the rules. Just like those same people have the right to be in-game on a server with you, again - provided they follow the rules. If you make a thread, or participate in a thread, you have to accept the fact someone you don't like might just post something completely relevant to the thread that doesn't break our rules. We aren't going to strip away their right to post on the thread just because you don't like them. The same goes for in-game as well, except in game you have more control - you can move to a different server, or, if none are available, just leave.

 

To follow up my post - our community is just that, a community.

Let's compare it to a public pool. People that are allowed to be there can be there. So, someone you hate - although they might not know this, can be there as well. This might make you uncomfortable or otherwise strip your enjoyment away. However, they have every right to be there as well. So as long as they abide by the rules that pool has in place, and consequently laws regarding harassment, aggression, etc., as inherited from the government the pool resides in, they can be there.

The "adult" thing to do would be to settle your differences. But, of course, they might not be reasonable - therefore you have to ignore them. If they decide to force themselves near you, become aggressive (verbally or otherwise), etc, you would - logically - get the police involved. But if that person isn't doing that, you have no right to ask them to leave in this scenario.

Otherwise, if they won't let you settle your differences (or you can't settle them yourself), the "adult" thing to do is to ignore them and go about your day. If they decide to turn it into an issue, they will be punished appropriately. Otherwise, you don't want to be the one who turns it into an issue - that makes you the one in the wrong, and the one that gets punished.

 

Since you wish for harassment to be clarified (when it is and when it isn't), I'll try my luck at giving you a more clear image, but please note that this is based on my interpretation. Anywho, starting from the entry in extended rules:

Spoiler: What is harassment?

What is "aggressive pressure"? Let's break that down first, then: aggressive is the opposite of defensive. When you're defensive you deflect attacks, therefore aggressive must be when you attack. Pressure? Pressure has many interpretations, but the one which seems to fit most here is "pressure" as in "peer pressure" - that is to say disrupting someone else and or negatively affecting them.
So aggressive pressure must be when you attack someone, disrupting them and or negatively affecting them.

What is intimidation? It's when you (attempt to) make someone timid. What is timid? It's when you're unwilling to speak, typically due to being scared of something or someone. The reason I include "attempt to" is that some people are naturally timid, and inversely, some people are more inclined to speak up when they feel intimidated, i.e. they grow agitated. Intimidation can also be used to alter behaviour, e.g. make someone leave an area or stop doing something by (show of) force. So intimidation is when you make someone scared to speak or agitated, or forcibly alter their behaviour.

For the altering of behaviour, please note that it is related to force. It follows that moderators/admins warning you for harassment is a kind of intimidation, but they have the authority to do so and it is done with the intent of making things as enjoyable as possible for all involved parties. In that way, they are akin to police.

Now some people have thick skin and are not easily intimidated, whereas others are given to reacting strongly to what is said to them, so sometimes the same line may be harassing to one party and at worst trash talk to someone else. Hence the line "[It] is very discretion based, as all moderators have a different tolerance for it." That applies not only to staff, but to everyone else as well (besides, staff is part of everyone else, we're all normies here). Now if someone feels harassed, their best course of action is to tell staff, so that they can discourage the harasser from continuing to do so.

With that out of the way, addressing your initial inquiry:

If they persistently attack you and or go out of their way to comment on your words and actions, this could be seen as being a scenario where "you attack someone, disrupting them and or negatively affecting them." applies. Discouraging interaction may be unwise depending on circumstances and how you go about it; the mouse that runs is the one the cat chases. It'd be better to inform staff of your displeasure if it happens on the servers/forums, provide evidence of it, then let them talk with the player.
As for saying things like your examples, or different versions, it all depends on how you say it. Text does not convey emotion. In itself, saying "just fuck off" I would not class as harassment. It may fall under the definitions given above, and as such I'd discourage it, but if you're clearly being harassed that emotional outburst would probably be forgivable. But like zomb suggested, it's better to ignore them and or bring it to staff's attention.

It is not, but... Let's focus on the 2nd one: it could be taken as slander/libel, in which case you might indeed agitate someone as they could be offended by it. If you said it or similar things deliberately multiple times to someone, it would cross over into being harassment, as it will now begin to look like aggressive pressure. It's going from just being offensive to being harassment, because you're persisting in saying things that clearly offend someone. And please note, there's a difference between discussing and instigating.

Words do not convey emotion. One guy might just be messing around, but if you felt attacked by it, you could report his comment on your profile or pm staff, and then I believe staff would probably ask him not to speak to you like that again. However, two wrongs don't make a right. This isn't TTT, you can't attack someone just for attacking you, you'll just end up getting yourself in trouble.
You can defend yourself and ask them to stop (again, mind your words and how you say them), but if you attack him and he reports you, you're at risk of getting a warning. Mind you, if he had clearly instigated, he would probably be getting a warning too.

Now, not every little thing has to be managed by staff, but if it's a large or growing issue, the best thing to do is take it up with someone and have them mediate, instead of letting it get out of hand.

As for your more recent posts, it's not possible nor necessary to clarify every nuance of every situation in which harassment could be perceived as happening. There are far too many variables to do so, hence it's a slightly vague definition to allow dealing with harassment if and when it happens, while still allowing for friendly banter and trash talking, which is simply a part of video gaming. Besides, it's not like the current rule is ambiguous, it's just concise.
Really you can boil it down to "Don't be a dick" but then you lose nuance. The rule is good and doesn't need more clarification than is present in the rule, in my opinion at least.

PS: I spent waaaay too much time writing this, I apologize for the length <3

 

I honestly feel as if you are being intentionally dense with the point, at this point. Yes, there are laws that protect people from harassment and all that, both RL and in the community. However, telling someone "I don't like you" Still is not a crime RL, but is most definitely a crime within the community, and leaves the only viable method to express a disliking of someone passive aggression. I am NOT just saying you randomly go up to someone as say this, but saying you can never outwardly express a disliking of someone while frequently condoning passive aggressiveness, while saying you are being more adult about the situation, is just ridiculous.

 

What? Since when is telling another member "I don't like you" considered harassment in the community (or rules?) That's honestly ridiculous if someone gets offended by having another person say that to them.

 

You were not punished for saying only that though, and I doubt anyone else will be as well mate. Also, from everything that I've read of this thread, nobody at all has been saying that you're not allowed to say it in the community. I've read several times that context matters and that is an important aspect of it. If you just told that to someone with nothing else and were respectful about it, it's not harassment.

I'm not sure why this thread has gone on farther than it's needed to go. Just let it rest mate.

 

Going to tag @Robokiller87 here since they were the one I talked to more extensively about this, and said outright that if someone feels offended by you saying "I don't like you" then it would be harassment. Though, @Falcor either agreed or was just completely dismissing me, it was hard to tell.

 

I was summoned?

You're asking someone who can barely remember two days ago what happened and I don't have the time to go thru 3 pages of this so someone tl;dr me.

<------

 

Clearly what we need to do is make a rule saying how many times you're allowed to insult someone before it's harassment. Say, four times a day and it's harassment. But then someone will insult someone three times a day for a week, and that's obviously harassment; so we need to make a rule about how many days in a row you're allowed to do that. Let's say three. But then someone will insult someone for three days in a row, skip one day, then do three more days. So obviously that's harassment, and we need another rule for how many clusters of three days you can do in a row.

Or you could just not say anything to people you don't like, and avoid drumming up constant drama.

 

Silent Artimis is upset about the discretionary nature of how harassment is handled on the servers. There's a whole bunch of other points here, but the one he's stuck on right now is that he thinks telling someone "I don't like you" and only that in a respectful manner can count as harassment and he's citing you as a source for thinking that.

 

I told him "I dont like you" in only a respectful manner is harassment?

Since when? You can say it once and move on with your life other than that you're beating a dead horse. State your personal opinion without mudslinging or name calling and move on with your life. And no I believe the situation he's avoiding is he was telling people to fuck off at one point.

 

I mean, it is the most blatant example of how ridiculous the discretion can be. Especially since any admin casually browsing through the forums could see something like that, and doesn't even need someone to report in order to issue a warning/ban. They can just do it on literal whim

 

We do it "on a whim" with reason. Discretion is we don't follow protocol because the situation calls for more immediate or more serious actions. You want a list of something like:

When we would use discretion in a harassment claim:

- Scenario 1
- Scenario 2
...
- Scenario 100

or am I missing something

 

You told me, when we talked about it, that if I said "I don't like you", and the other person took offense, what I said would be considered harassment. I clarified the only I said was "I don't like you", and you still said it would be harassment. Furthermore, since Rozboon didn't even report me in the situation, you can be warned/banned just because staff stumble upon the post and decide that the people involved were harassing each other, even though there was no inclination that either party took it that way

 

You're going to need to send me a pic of a refresher or something I can't remember the exact talk and what I stated.

 

Thanks for the clarification Robo. What you wrote makes a lot more sense than what was being said beforehand.