It’s ridiculous to cry, “Punish him! Punish him!!” and force all the responsibility onto other people because we can’t just say, “He was mean, I’m ignoring and moving on with my life.”
As opposed to you just now shifting the “responsibility” for being harrassed onto the person being harrassed? ôO
As wrong as it is to claim that Anet doesn’t do anything about trolls and other [insert small feline here] in the game, it is even worse to pretend that, when it happens to you, your responsibility of blocking and reporting is greater than the responsibility of the person who was harrassing you to be a decent human being. I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion. It’s like getting told by teachers to just “stay out of his way” all over again, as if it was my fault some guy decided to pick on me for years. The greater fault always lies with the person doing the harrassing, not with the person at the receiving end.
The responsibility lies with the harasser, and the harasser alone; they should not be harassing in the first place. But people will break rules and people will be mean, so we have to decide how to deal with it. The harasser has harassed, they have broken this social convention, so now what do we do? Do we block them, ignore them, maybe report them, and move on? Or do we whine and cry and appeal to a higher authority to do something about it instead of managing it ourselves?
Sometimes a higher authority is necessary. In cases of persistent and severe bullying, for example, it’s best to get the help of parents, teachers, authorities or managers to eliminate the problem at its source. “Toughing it out” or “brushing it off” doesn’t always work, and it’s not always a good option. This goes for both in-person and internet bullying. It’s important to judge when this is necessary, but it should not become the default option for every case, and herein lies the problem with current social trends and entitlement.
The OP was not specific as to what this “harassment” constituted. Was the OP rudely criticized for his/her actions in PvP? Insulted for his/her armor appearance choices? Told he/she was running a sub-optimal build in dungeons? Cat-called? Rudely hit on?
And then, the most important part: how, or to what intensity? A single isolated comment, “ignore.” Multiple comments, “block” and maybe “report.” Switching accounts to get around the block, getting friends in on the harassment, joining LFG parties and kicking the OP, intentionally losing in PvP… There are a lot of really mean, really bad things that people can do to take what started as an isolated incident or single rude comment too far.
So, use good judgement, be a good person, and try your best to not let downers get you down.
One final note on a part of your post:
I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion.
I have never harassed anyone, in any medium, and I do not condone this behavior. It is most certainly not an excuse for harassing people, though harassers themselves will on occasion try to use it as such (“If it bothered him, he’d block or do something about it, hue hue.”). This is exactly the advice that a psychologist would offer: when confronted with adversity, do you break down and let it control you, or do you take charge of your own life and do what is necessary to stop it? Sometimes this is a simple block, sometimes this is going to a teacher, sometimes this is calling the police, and sometimes this is a plea to the devs.
But without the facts and more information, we don’t know. Hence the advice and debate.
