Drama Mamas: Guild to guild harassment

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

We've seen a lot of drama pass through these pages, but funsuckers can always surprise me with new methods of drama-mongering.

Dear Drama Mamas,

I come to you with a problem that at first seemed simple enough to fix but has proved to be a royal pain that not even Blizzard will address for me. Recently I was told by several people in my guild that they were being whispered in game by a people all from one set guild asking them if they were happy with their guild. Now normally this isn't a problem, I know people often do this to find new people but it quickly became a problem when after the said people continued to whisper the people in my guild over and over, even changing to a different toon to repeat the process.

At first this was just one person who was talked to but it soon became at least 2-3 members of my guild each day, being done so by anywhere from 5-6 different toon names from the other side. I have tired to take the correct path and just tell my member to place them on ignore, but as I said earlier after you get whispered by three different toons within a ten minute period, simply ingoing becomes very bothering.

I even resorted to speaking to their current guild master, only to be told I was a childish (insert profane words here) and quickly placed on ignore by them before I could even reply.

Sadly Blizzard has decided that this isn't an issue that warrants their attention, even after I have provided names of the harassed and the harassers, along with chat dates and times. (I've asked my members to let me know if this happens to them anymore and let me know the names involved) The only thing I can think of is to have each member on my end who was confronted to place a ticket, but even with all the information I provided them, I don't see this going very far.

Is there anything else I might be able to do? It saddens me that so many make this a daily behavior for themselves and chose to burden those just trying to enjoy their game. I am thankful that my members have not resorted to their level of childish actions.

Thank you,
Annoyed and Ignored

Drama Mama Robin: Annoyed, what is happening to your guildmates is absolutely annoying. Harassment shouldn't be used as a recruiting technique. And honestly, I'm not sure what that other guild is expecting to accomplish. Who would want to join a guild that tries to recruit in this way?

You were right to talk to the offending guild's leader to try to resolve things, but that obviously didn't work. Unfortunately, funneling all the complaints through you to Blizzard doesn't work either. When you act as the middle man between your guildies and customer service, you are putting in an extra layer of hoops for the people trying to help you to jump through.

Rather than have each person tell you when they get harassed, they should be opening up their own ticket. This is particularly the case when the offenders are changing characters to get around ignore. That is harassment and Blizzard will do something about it -- they just won't tell you what they're doing. But the report has to come from the person being harassed, not a go-between.

It is good for each person reporting to mention that this is part of an overall harassment campaign being carried on by the offending guild. As much information as possible should be put on each ticket. And another report should be made each time a person is bothered by that guild. But again, the person affected needs to make the report.

Here's a direct quote from Blizzard: DaxxariIf your harasser by-passes the /ignore feature and contacts you on an alternate character, immediately place that character on ignore, then open a support ticket to report Ongoing Harassment, and include that phrase, as well as the offending player's name, realm, the exact phrase that they used to harass you and that they by-passed the /ignore feature to do so. Please be detailed, our Support team works hard, but they aren't wizards. Mostly.
Hopefully this won't continue much longer. Good luck!

Drama Mama Lisa: Pick me! Pick me! Pick my link, I mean. Robin and I have been churning through old letters and replies to find out what issues players ask for help with the most often. Then we're compiling and refreshing our previous advice to develop the Drama Mamas No-Drama Guide. And in situations like Annoyed and Ignored's, the No-Drama Guide allows me to do this:

/summon

The Drama Mamas Guide to Handling In-Game Harassment

Robin's reminder about reporting the character-swapping as Ongoing Harassment is key. Beyond that, have each of your members follow the steps in our guide, and the repeated reports should choke out this irritation fairly soon. Remind your guild members that they rock by not stooping to countertrolling the poachers. Here's hoping this whole thing will be in your rearview mirrors soon! Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with a little help and insight from the Drama Mamas. Play nice ... and when in doubt, ask the Drama Mamas at robin@wowinsider.com. Read Robin's section of this post on how to get your letter answered and please remember that we cannot answer privately. Tags: advice, drama, featured, guild-advice, guild-drama, harassment, playing-wow, warcraft-advice, wow-advice, wow-drama, wow-drama-guide, wow-player-guide, wow-q-and-a

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Drama Mamas

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