XBL "Continued" Harrassment & Solutions

One of my amazing friends is being constantly harrassed
on XBL. She utilizes the "Submit Player Review" & "File Complaint" options attached to the
harrassing profiles. However the person/people that are constantly harrassing her
continue to do so by creating new/dummy accounts. Assuming that
Xbox/Microsoft
is smart enough to block the IP Addressess of those members and not just Gamertags, I'm left to assume that either the harrassing person/people are smart enough to
bypass Microsoft's methods or that
Microsoft's methods are just being implemented frustratingly slow, without any significant options to utilize.



My friend messaged me on XBL this morning stating that this ordeal is making her consider not gaming anymore as the consistent harrassment takes away from the happiness that gaming has provided her for so many
years. That message broke my heart as I realized how powerless a lifelong gamer can be against hateful people online.
Cyber bullying really should be illegal if it isn't already. Be that as it may, my efforts to contribute to any type of solution led to me coming up with my
recommended solution that Microsoft
implement the option for XBL members to enable automatic message blocking from
unknowns/non-friends/strangers.



I think that all 360 users in addition to
X1, (Xbox One), users would benefit from having the "options" to either:

block messages from XBL members not on their friends list


or

block messages from XBL members not on their friends list that are less than a year old



With the implementation of either option, tenured members would still be able to receive messages from their friends as well as add members of
XBL, new & old. XBL members that want to message to a person that automatically blocked messages fron non-friends would need to have the other member add them by informing them to do so through contacting them in person or
through their usual website for communication.



The most important part of implenting these features though would be for either
the "Send Message" option to be removed from view by those automatically blocked or
a notification be sent to users letting them know that person can only recieve messages from friends/tenured members. This would prevent any misunderstandings from happening in regards to one person claiming
they sent a specific message while the other claiming they never recieved. One of the most
annoying features currently on the 360 is that game & party invites can be declined without the host knowing causing them to patiently wait & wonder if their invite was declined or seen at all. Speaking of which, please add the option for
users to receive a notification when their invites are declined/deleted
so that they know to move instead of pointlessly patiently waiting for nothing, (been there, done that, it sucks).



Lastly please add the option to block all friend requests, similar to whats offered by
Xbox's major console competitor. Some people
don't want a maxed out friends list and actually prefer having a
small friends list, (such as myself).



In summary please add these options/features to the
360 & X1

- block messages from
XBL members not on their friends list

- block messages from
XBL members not on their friends list that are less than a year old

- the "Send Message" option to be removed from view by those automatically blocked

- a notification be sent to users letting them know that person can only recieve messages from friends/tenured members

- users to receive a notification when their invites are declined/deleted

- block all friend requests



I'm sure that there are those that can think up
better options than these and I encourage any and everyone to please do so and
post them. Thank you for taking the time to read this as well as
contribute.



- ^_^

:)

 

Profane messages FROM A GIRL!

[quote user="brandiesel1"]

^^ Squeaker! lol

[/quote]

[Mod Removed]



I'm not sure what the "harrassment" the girl originally was dishing out, but maybe she felt trash talk was part of the game? Mybe if the OP had manned up & taken it, rather than deciding to kill her party, things wouldn't have gotten out of hand. Nobody
sees their part in things anymore.

 

Tali's face

Spoiler

[quote user="Bon3zz1001"]

[quote user=""]

How do you know that's Tali?

[/quote]Because she's the only one in the game that gives you a picture like that. If you romanced her in ME2 and continued that in 3, she gives the picture to you after the 'scene".

[/quote]

Ahhh. I've never "romanced" her -- I find chicks with claws & chicken feet offputting.

 

*Note - my recommendation for the addition of the option to "block messages from XBL members not on their friends list that are less than a year old" refers to actual "XBL
memberships" less than a year old not blocking actual infants. However, I suppose though if an infant had a profile created for it after it was born its profile would indeed fall into the category I am requesting to be created. Sorry
infants

 

Has your friend considered....ignoring their messages?

Why are random words in your post in bold?

 

The option to block messages from people not on your friends list is already there.

 

This is all your friend needs to do without the addition of any new software or tools to our arsenal:



-Mute the offender

-File a complaint

-Block the offender communications

-Adjust her ONLINE STATUS to friends only. (Now no one not on her friends list can see when or where she is online)

 

[quote user="El *** JimBob"]

Has your friend considered....ignoring their messages?

[/quote]

The answer to your question is that she is a very
positive & playful person, perhaps to a fault. She is/was looking to make new gaming friends with fellow gamers based on their
conversations, personality & gaming
interests. In seeking new & interesting people to socialize with she periodically checked all her messages. The fact that the people harassing her do so from
multiple fake accounts further makes it hard for her to identifiy & ignore the
bad message senders from the good message senders. As
proper and polite as my friend is I kind of wonder if should actually could ignore recieved messages. She messaged me this morning saying that she is taking a break from gaming, which led me to checking this post.



Situations like these remind me of why Nintendo has been so
reluctant to implement a true quality online gaming experience, which was to
protect the innocence of kind-hearted gamers, kids & adults alike, from the
cruel & selfish people online that cowardly exist due to
anonymity.

 

[quote user="THEOWENKILLER"]

The option to block messages from people not on your friends list is already there.

[/quote]

You are correct and thank you for correcting me on that. I realize now that I should have checked the privacy options currently offered before creating my post instead of only going off the outdated things that
I rembered.

However I still believe the other 4 of my 5 recommendations would make
XBL better. Furthermore, the reason why I recommended the option to "block messages from XBL members not on their friends list that {XBL memberships} are less than a year old", was to allow members
to enjoy social interaction among random gamers with genuine profiles without the inclussion of interactions with people that created
last second expendable profiles for the sole purpose of
harassment. My friend has come across many fun & interesting people that she has become friends with through games like
Halo & Diablo. If she would have used the option to "block all messages from non-friends"/"Friends Only", (which disables voice communication in addition to text
communication with random people), she wouldn't have been able to "get a feel" for the type of people she was
randomly gaming with & might not have been encouraged to befriend those same random people that sent her friend requests and whom she now calls
friends.

 

[quote user="Temhotabot"]

This is all your friend needs to do without the addition of any new software or tools to our arsenal:

-Mute the offender

-File a complaint

-Block the offender communications

-Adjust her ONLINE STATUS to friends only. (Now no one not on her friends list can see when or where she is online)

[/quote]

I appreciate help and I must apologize for not clearly stating in my original post that my friend has performed the first 3 out of the 4 options you have recommended.

In regards to the 4th option, my friend has
not performed it because she has met a lot of her good friends through the conversations she had from
random gameplays with them in games such as Halo &
Diablo. Being that she is primarily being harrassed by mulptiple fake profiles the inclusion of an option to block profiles with XBL Gold memberships
less than a year old would be a more suitable alternative than blocking
all voice & text communications with people that aren't on her friends list. She does not wish to block communication with any
potentially amazing people just because of her harassers. Unfortunately if the best options you can offer are options she is
already aware of then the only thing I can immediately do for her is remind her of them. However I still would like to see the implementation of the recommendations I have mentioned in my original post, exlcuding the "Friends
Only" option, which a fellow member has greatfuly pointed out already exists.

I will view the
New XBL Account Security FAQ link you have have attached, in addition to other posts, to see if there is anything further than can be done. The real purpose of this post though, in addition to helping my friend, is to serve as a reminder that online harasment
is still going on and to see if new &
better solutions to this ongoing problem are actively being researched & sought by
Microsoft instead as opposed to everyone just settling with the current anti-harassment measures offered.

 

Online harassment is part of being online. If your
friend is unable to understand this, then the
internet is most likely not for her. It is as
simple as that. None these implementations you suggest will
be implemented, because they will be
useless for 99% of the community. If your friend is unable to ignore everyone who calls her a mean name, then she is going to find the
internet to be a very scary place.

 

I reread the posts in this thread, and I fail to see where he specified that the harassment was "someone calling her mean names". Harassment online can go a lot further than that, and be much more invasive. I've lived through it myself, and I know this
to be fact.

 

[quote user="El *** JimBob"]

Online harassment is part of being online. If your
friend is unable to understand this, then the
internet is most likely not for her. It is as
simple as that. None these implementations you suggest will
be implemented, because they will be
useless for 99% of the community. If your friend is
unable to ignore everyone who calls her a
mean name, then she is going to find the internet to be a very
scary place.

[/quote]

I understand what you are trying to say. However it
seems that your words are actually advocating/implying online harassment as being
acceptabe and that Microsoft
shouldn't try to do anything more to prevent online harassment from continuing to occur. Thoughts like that probably are the reason why my friend has
stopped gaming and the reason why she has requested her profile be
terminated on the social gaming site, (gamertagpics), that her harassers originated from.

Honestly, its just sad overall as to how the
internet is more & more becoming a place for cowards &
cruel people that abuse the established rules & sytsems while those that follow them are just continually suppose to "take it". Being that I don't value the addition of new friends & actually
appreciate having a small friends list, would-be harassers don't bother me as "Mute" & "Block" are two of my favorite features on
Xbox. However if I received harassing messages at the same
frequency that my friend has been receiving them I'm not sure how
tough I'd actually be.

 

Seriously, why are you using bold text on random words???