So, given the publicity that Calcium's thread has garnered, and the intense discussion it's cause, I figured I'd give my own opinon on the current status of the Harassment violation.

What Constitutes Harassment

As per the current ruleset, harassment is explained as the following:

• Making repeated/severe personal attacks toward or slandering another Epicmafia user when the user has asked the harasser to stop. If filing on behalf of another user, one must show the consent of the harassed person.

The important things to note here is the following:

1. Repeated or Severe
2. Personal Attacks against or Slandering
3. User has asked the harasser to stop

These 3 components is what constitutes a current harassment violation. If one of them is missing, a harassment violation is unlikely to be given. However, the second component of this rule is something that is rather argueable as to what is considered "Personal Attacks or Slandering". From my personal opinion, I find that anything that can give a user a bad name among the players on this site, given society's standards, should be considered harassment. Some of these terms are:

• Pedophile
• Molestor
• Thief

Now obviously, just because someone calls someone else a slanderous word, does not mean that the one being called it finds it harassing. I've been called plenty during my time on this website, and have never reported for harassment as I've never found anything I've been called to be severe. So you shouldn't NOT say the terms I mentioned before in fear of being slapped with a harassment vio. However, when asked to stop YOU SHOULD STOP.

Harassment in the jakerton report

Next I'll give my thoughts on the report which brought about the original discussion of the report.

1. At 10:07 in the game was the first instance of jankerton calling Jeff a pedophile.
2. At 10:25 Jeff reacted and told him that's harassment. That should had been indicative enough for jankerton to stop, but I could see someone not getting the memo here.
3. However he continued at 10:44.
4. Jeff straight out asked him to stop at 10:50.
5. At 12:10 Jankerton calls Jeff a "teen tickler" once more,having been firmly asked to stop.
6. Though 14:46-15:07 He continued, however did not explicitally named Jeff.
7. At 16:30 He once again Called Jeff a "teen tickler"
8. At 16:43 Zayn asked him why he's harassing him.\

At points 1, 3, 5, 7, and arguably 6, Jeff was called a pedophile (+synonymous words) by jankerton. At points 2, 4, and 8, he was asked to stop + pointed out that what he was saying was harassment.

So given the previous 3 important pieces of a harassment violation, we can easily see the following:

1. Repeated / Severe Repeated
2. Personal Attacks / Slandering Slandering
3. Asked to STop Three Times

At that point, what jankerton was doing consitituted harassment, and definitely constituted a vio.

NOTE or Vio?

Now we get to the moment of which the original arguement between mods in the previous thread sparked. Does it deserve a note, or a Harassment 1st? If we go by what the rule page specifies, a first time offense is supposed to get a warning. A quick search of previous reports against jakerton finds that he only has a single active vio for gamethrowing, and none currently of harassment. Therefore, going by what the rules page says, he should had been warned (vio reports) and told to stop and further instances of it.

6 Months Too Long?

Another point that was made in the thread/report was that an active harassment vio for 6 months seemed too long. Comparing the rule to other community violations finds the following:

• Hurtful Comment Expires in 3 Months
• Exploit Abuse Expires in 6 Months
• Inappropriate Biography Expires in 3 Months
• Inappropriate Avatar Expires in 3 Months
• Inappropriate Content Expires in 4 Months
• X-rated Material Expires in 3 Months
• OPI Expires in 9 Months

Now the only ones that you could compre Harassment too is Hurtful Comment, However, when compared to community violation lengths of the other reportable offenses, 6 months DOES seem too long. Especially given that you could get a Harassment violation easily just for having a bad day and pissed at someone. In my opinion, I find that harassment vio's should be lowered to 3 months given that Hurtful comment gives you a 3 month experation period, or HC should be bumped up to 6 months expiration period.. This point is argueable, of course, and could be open to some discussion.

Final Thoughts

Honestly the public discussion got way out of hand. Generally speaking, if you disagree with a verdict of a reprot on this site, should you not first discuss with the moderator who gave the sentence to find out why?

• It was DEFINITELY harassment
• Report should had been a note + a warning from a mod given he had no previous active vios
• HC and Harassment vio expiration length should be the same
• Both Shoopie and Ally got out of line with the direction they took in the report and topic
• you all.