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Harassment and how to deal with it.
12 years ago
Okay. Lately, I've been getting quite a few third-party harassment reports in my notes inbox. All of them could easily be solved if the target of that harassment acted differently.
So, to clear a few things up, I'm writing up a Q&A-ish thing. I might be a bit blunt in it. If that offends you for any reason, you should know what to do when you finished reading.
-Q: Hello, random admin! My buddy is getting harassed by this troll, so I want to report him!
-A: Are you certain it's harassment, and not just 2 friends messing around? (This is why we don't accept third-party reports.)
-Q: Yea, the guy is telling my friend his art looks like shit, and he's calling him names.
-A: Has your friend blocked him yet?
-Q: No.
-A: BLOCK the harasser, problem solved. ( <-- this would fix 90% of the harassment issues on the site. If users would JUST BLOCK the other guy instead of engaging him/her)
-Q: I'm being harassed on Skype / email / deviantart / twitter / some other site by user X!!!
-A: So, none of it is happening on FA?
-Q: No, but he's being really mean!
-A: We can't help. We have no authority outside of FA, and we can't suspend people on FA for their behaviour outside of FA. (Block & Report them on whatever medium they are harassing you!)
-Q: Help! I'm being harassed by user X!
-A: Have you blocked him yet?
-Q: No, but I have removed his nasty shouts / comments! That'll show him.
-A: Well there goes our evidence. If you delete the harassment, it's GONE. We can't look at it, we can't use it against the user. Hidden comments on journals and submissions are visible to us, though. UNLESS you delete and re-upload the file. Basically: if the button says "DELETE", don't press it. If it says "HIDE", by all means, do, we can still see it.
-Q: User x is leaving harassing comments on one of my older my submissions!
-A: Have you blocked him? And can you link me to the harassing comments?
-Q: Yea, I have, and here you go: http://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/cerberusnl/
-A: Good. Please link directly to the harassing comments. We have better things to do than to search through all your submissions and the comments on it to find the harassment.
-Q: I don't like user X, please ban!
-A: Block him and move on.
-Q: User X left a nasty comment on my page! I got him back with a comment of my own and I blocked him. Please ban him!
-A: You blocked him, that should be enough. If I'm going to ban user X, I should ban you too, because you retaliated in the same manner he attacked you. (DON'T retaliate! Then you're no better than the harasser)
-Q: User X is calling me names in his journal.
-A: BLOCK him, and report him in a trouble ticket. make sure you link to the journal.
-Q: User X is really out of control. He's spamming me with harassment, and threathening me.
-A: BLOCK him, and report him in a trouble ticket.
-Q: User X is writing mean things about me in this journal: <link>
-A: I don't see your name in it, he's just saying "This guy/girl I know..."
-Q: But I KNOW he's talking about me.
-A: We can't punish someone for saying mean things about "This person he knows", unless he's actually hinting at who that person is.
-Q: User X is calling the president / santa / himself names!
-A: So?
All of this is of course based on real reports. I migt add more later, if I think of new Q/A's.
Oh, did I mention BLOCKING the offending person usually solves the issue?
So, to clear a few things up, I'm writing up a Q&A-ish thing. I might be a bit blunt in it. If that offends you for any reason, you should know what to do when you finished reading.
-Q: Hello, random admin! My buddy is getting harassed by this troll, so I want to report him!
-A: Are you certain it's harassment, and not just 2 friends messing around? (This is why we don't accept third-party reports.)
-Q: Yea, the guy is telling my friend his art looks like shit, and he's calling him names.
-A: Has your friend blocked him yet?
-Q: No.
-A: BLOCK the harasser, problem solved. ( <-- this would fix 90% of the harassment issues on the site. If users would JUST BLOCK the other guy instead of engaging him/her)
-Q: I'm being harassed on Skype / email / deviantart / twitter / some other site by user X!!!
-A: So, none of it is happening on FA?
-Q: No, but he's being really mean!
-A: We can't help. We have no authority outside of FA, and we can't suspend people on FA for their behaviour outside of FA. (Block & Report them on whatever medium they are harassing you!)
-Q: Help! I'm being harassed by user X!
-A: Have you blocked him yet?
-Q: No, but I have removed his nasty shouts / comments! That'll show him.
-A: Well there goes our evidence. If you delete the harassment, it's GONE. We can't look at it, we can't use it against the user. Hidden comments on journals and submissions are visible to us, though. UNLESS you delete and re-upload the file. Basically: if the button says "DELETE", don't press it. If it says "HIDE", by all means, do, we can still see it.
-Q: User x is leaving harassing comments on one of my older my submissions!
-A: Have you blocked him? And can you link me to the harassing comments?
-Q: Yea, I have, and here you go: http://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/cerberusnl/
-A: Good. Please link directly to the harassing comments. We have better things to do than to search through all your submissions and the comments on it to find the harassment.
-Q: I don't like user X, please ban!
-A: Block him and move on.
-Q: User X left a nasty comment on my page! I got him back with a comment of my own and I blocked him. Please ban him!
-A: You blocked him, that should be enough. If I'm going to ban user X, I should ban you too, because you retaliated in the same manner he attacked you. (DON'T retaliate! Then you're no better than the harasser)
-Q: User X is calling me names in his journal.
-A: BLOCK him, and report him in a trouble ticket. make sure you link to the journal.
-Q: User X is really out of control. He's spamming me with harassment, and threathening me.
-A: BLOCK him, and report him in a trouble ticket.
-Q: User X is writing mean things about me in this journal: <link>
-A: I don't see your name in it, he's just saying "This guy/girl I know..."
-Q: But I KNOW he's talking about me.
-A: We can't punish someone for saying mean things about "This person he knows", unless he's actually hinting at who that person is.
-Q: User X is calling the president / santa / himself names!
-A: So?
All of this is of course based on real reports. I migt add more later, if I think of new Q/A's.
Oh, did I mention BLOCKING the offending person usually solves the issue?
And Cerberus, there is another way to solve the harassment issue....
Ignoring the troll
Always block them and don't respond. They get bored faster, and it's easier to clean up.
Seriously. Sometimes the most obvious answer can be handed to a user, and they still fail to grasp the most basic of concepts. Try dealing with this when its co-workers. Then it gets truly messy. They usually share the same freaking office space..
Keep your chin up and keep on drinking tea. It will soon flow from your ears like a beautiful fountain.
(Note: that was back when I was a bit younger and a lot dumber, and I haven't had any trouble like that in a while)