Blacklist: The "anti-disagreement" button

I just have a little story to share this morning... names have been omitted of course. :P

So last night, my gf and I were on our marriage quest... specifically, the Sad Lonely Widow quest. For those unfamiliar with the MQs, this particular quest involves a somewhat-annoying boss which can, depending on the couple, take a little while to kill. So a line tends to form.

Last night was no different, with somewhere around six other couples ahead of us. Luckily, everyone present was respecting the line (sometimes they don't -_-), things were progressing smoothly, and everyone seemed nice (even letting the couple ahead of us have a second go at the boss after they both died). But among the line-goers I noticed one person who wasn't married at all. She was a veno, and she had her herc out, but all the herc was doing was helping by distracting the adds while the boss was being killed. On top of that, the veno herself was donating sparks to the current tank every chance she got.

As far as I could tell, this was just a randomly helpful person.

Shortly after MQ, I notice someone spamming WC every five minutes or so - an all-caps request to marry someone, advertising herself as "a veno with herc." That is when I actually looked at the name and noticed this was that same veno who was helping out earlier (she'd been spamming WC with this even before we arrived, but I hadn't paid attention). My first instinct was "eh ok, good luck" - say what you will about gold-diggers in this game, but at least she was trying to help people.

About a minute later, a few people - including an old acquaintance of mine - began answering her in WC. As far as I could tell, they were picking on her... a name was mentioned that I didn't recognize and reference to a "scammer," but I shrugged that off and figured they were just taunting this person who appeared to simply be a gold-digger. So I felt it prudent to use one of my own (admittedly few) teles to offer the veno a little defense.

I immediately got a PM from a person in a prominent faction on my server (who also happened to be at the MQ spot when I was), informing me that the veno was in fact (a) a guy (b) actually that other person they referenced on WC, and (c) actually a spammer.

Of course I only had this PMing person's word for that, but what did I care? All I did was throw out one tele in defense of someone who was helping me and several other people earlier. I thought that would have been the end of it.

Yet this person continued to explain to me how the veno was in fact a scammer. I attempted to explain that, quite frankly, I didn't care - if I was mistaken about her intentions, then I was mistaken, but it was just one throwaway comment and I was sure as hell not going to get into any drama for it. When I explained this to my PMer, she tried to suggest that I was "involved" with it anyway. I replied that I could, in fact, opt out of drama at any time and suggested I would do so immediately. I figured that's the last time I'd PM her.

Then I get this: "BL for failing" o.O

The whole exchange took about 60 seconds.

So to sum up: I see a helpful person, she later spams WC in the style of a gold-digger, she gets flamed, I send out one WC in defense of her because she was being helpful, somone PMs me explaining how I'm apparently wrong and how I'm somehow "involved" in the drama now, I tell the PMer I don't feel like getting involved in drama, she blacklists me.





Here's the moral of the story, if I could go out on a limb to suggest one: don't abuse your blacklist. Why is it that people seem to constantly use blacklist as a means of censoring people they simply don't agree with? Hell, I wasn't even arguing with the person. I simply said one throwaway comment in WC which may have been factually inaccurate (how was I supposed to know if she was a scammer?), and when I didn't defer to my PMer's apparently perfect opinion, I was blacklisted. o.O

Personally, my blacklist is empty and always has been. When I have a problem with someone, I let them know in the most tactful way I can. When someone has a problem with me, I listen and keep an open mind - sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they're right. That's the responsible way to deal with people. IMO, blacklisting should never be done unless the person is clearly harassing you, and then only after clear and multiple warnings.

In closing, it's worth remembering that civility is important on games like this... but at the very least, don't shoot it in the foot by abusing your blacklist. It's meant for people who harass you, not people you don't agree with. A situation like this one only proves that you are closed-minded and take pleasure in feeling like you can silence someone for no good reason. If you honestly take pride in something like that, well, you have my pity.