Harassment

With any social activity there are some people who sadly like to harass and abuse other players. This can cause bad feeling between players and societies and so should be dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Harassment on Vent
Harassment on the vent server can happen. Luckily it is very easy to deal with.

Muting a single player
If a player is harassing you, you can easily mute them to remote them from your personal experience. Right clicking on a users name lets you enable or disable muting of that specific user. You will continue to receive the sound events generated by the user but Ventrilo will not play them. When a user is muted an "M" will appear in front of their name.


 * Right Click on username
 * User
 * Mute



Stop Announcement Spam
When a new user enters your room Vent will tell you. Users can use this to spam you with announcements. To prevent this:
 * Click on settings
 * Select the Event Tab
 * Select All Nothing or customise to your liking.

Harassment in game
Sadly harassment often happens in game or in one of the chat channels. Luckily, this type is the easiest to deal with.

DO NOT HARASS THEM BACK

Even though it is very tempting to bite back with a few choice words, it is very unlikely to solve the situation. It will either give them what they want or aggravate the situation. The worse case could see you banned for harassment.

The quickest and best way to deal with the situation is to take a screen shot and raise a support ticket.

Screen shot and Support
FLS are very eager to prevent harassment as it drives people away from the game and costs them subscription fees. They will take action on support tickets reporting harassment.


 * 1) Screen shot - Take a screen shot of the harassing text by pressing the P key. Remember you can scroll the chat window or resize it to get all of the harassing text in the screen shot.
 * 2) Support ticket - Press Escape to bring up the options menu, then select Support. This will take you to the FLS support site where you can raise a ticket.
 * Select the incident type as Harassment and add a brief explanation of the event.
 * Attach the screen shot. FLS will check the chat logs to confirm the incident, but the screen shot will help them quickly find the text.

Once the ticket is created you should take no further action. Do not aggravate the situation in game as you may find yourself the target of a harassment ticket. You can of course add the person to your ignore list.

Flagging as a traitor
This system is designed to mark a player who is griefing a battle by cross teaming or some other process to hurt the nation. Examples include


 * High level characters repeatedly bringing low level ships to a port battle to deliberately harm the nation. (accidents happen so check first)
 * Repeatedly blocking shots or protecting enemy ships.
 * Repeatedly T boning friendly ships.

All of the above can happen by accident, lag or lack of experience and a captain should only be flagged as a traitor if they repeatedly hurt the nation through deliberate action.


 * If in doubt don't flag

Flagging Process
Even though the flag effect is instant, FLS check each and every flag to ensure it is not used to settle a grudge, harass or grief another player. If FLS think the flag has been given incorrectly they will punish the flagger for harassment. This could result in a temporary or permanent ban.

Flags should only be given when you are sure they are deserved for the reasons above. Take screen shots of the event and chat window in case you need them later. If you are not sure about the validity of the flag you may be better off using the Screen shot and Support method above to deal with a situation.

Above all, do not flag for the wrong reasons, FLS will ban people abusing the system.

The victim of flag abuse
If you feel you have been incorrectly flagged use the Screen shot and Support method above to bring it to FLS's attention. They will look into the flag anyway but filing a support ticket will ensure the flag is dealt with quickly.



How not to deal with harassment

 * Do not fight back in chat or on the forums - You risk being punished yourself for harassment and at best it won't fix the problem.
 * Do not complain to the British Council - The council doesn't have any power to ban or punish harassment outside of it's own forums.  We can argue all day on the council forums but the best way to put a stop to harassment of members is to Screen shot and Support.  Do it quickly then leave it for the GM's to deal with.
 * Do not leave the nation or the game - All you're doing is letting the bullies win. There is a system in place to get rid of people who grief and harass.  Use it, get rid of them, enjoy the game you love playing.  Letting an abusive minority push you around is cowardly.  Together we can show them we will not tolerate harassment on our server.