Stalker in WoW made guildie quit

#1 - April 12, 2011, 11:21 p.m.

A guildie of mine was forced to leave the game recently because of a persistent stalker who had harassed him on and off for several years over WoW. This stalker harassed not only him but other guildies she delusionally thought to be "involved" with him. He and others in the guild reported her, ignored her toons only to get tells from yet ever more toons, and in the end, the continuing harassment soured his enjoyment of the game, even though his friends in the guild offered (and did) pay the subscription fee for him so he doesn't feel the cost out of pocket.

Now, I won't accuse Blizzard of inaction. I'm sure well-meaning GMs have done their part to discipline this stalker. Perhaps they banned her account only for her to make another and another to continue the harassment. But I do hope that this post sheds light on an issue, on the inability of players to escape chat-based harassment from a specific person just because they can hop toons and and continually avoid ignores, and on the actions necessary to truly stop ill-meaning players from ruining others' in-game experience.

Vrakthris

Support Forum Agent

#57 - April 13, 2011, 1:29 a.m.

I'm sorry to hear that your guild mate believed they had to leave the game in order to deal with this issue, Muphrid.

While there will always be people that you would rather not speak with, in life and in-game. Most contact, as long as it is not deemed inappropriate, is generally permitted. Now there are activities that by themselves may not be considered a violation of our Terms of Use, if they are done in conjunction with circumventing the ignore feature amongst others, may fall into what is considered "ongoing harassment".

In such cases, if reported, we can take appropriate action based on what we find. While this may not result in the instant closure of an account it will hasten a person's climb up our Penalty Volcano.

Penalty Volcano
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20221

For the most determined, this may not have a lasting impact, but we will continue to work with a person experiencing these issues and take what steps we can to help limit, if not eliminate, such contact.

Please note that we are always looking into ways to help improve our players experience and while such activity may not be able to be eliminated all together, we continue work to improve our ability to help.

Good luck.