The unsolicited message.

[yuiyoshida]

Lately I have been playing this on line game... its been hella fun! However...

While working on upping some of my power points, and gathering coins for the next round of purchasing Rune stones.. a message pops up. Now, granted I have not even tried to make any friends here. Mostly been ignored for the most part... I even tried sending a message to one person in the game, and received nothing but stone cold silence, so...seeing a message pop made me curious...and so I clicked on it.

"HELLO, YOU WANTA FUCK?"

Huh? Someone I don't even know, or who has never seen me, asks this question. Thoughts ran though my mind... Maybe its just some stupid teenager, trying to goad me, or was it really some troll out looking for fun. It occurred to me I really had no way to report this, or to block this individual from sending me further messages. I mean, it was totally annoying to know, that if this person wanted to, they could harass me enough to consider leaving the game.

I thought of a billion replies I could send back, but that would only inflame the situation, so I simply erased it. I figured maybe if I didn't respond he (or she?) would go away. I have since not received any more nasty messages. But, I won't soon forget how I felt, thinking I have received a message from someone enjoying the game like I was and just wanted to reach out.

No such luck I guess.

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Even if it's just a stupid teen, what makes that teen think this is acceptable behavior?

It's probably best to disregard give that you have no way of reporting the behavior but it's sad that such crappy stuff is tolerated.

I have a tendency to create male profiles on unmoderated websites because it's just less hassle that way --- much less hassle.
When my gender on DU was undeclared a fair number of people assumed I was male. It was an interesting experiment.

[yuiyoshida]

2. many have suggested this...

But as you can see...


Its a little difficult to change horses in the middle of a stream.

[Gormy Cuss]

3. Honestly, it's not a solution. It just takes the attention away from you.

Other girls and women will still get the "wanta fuck" creeps trolling them.
It's too bad that there isn't a mechanism for getting the attention of the inappropriate messengers -- in a gaming realm the threat that THEY'll be the ones forced to start over would be a good start.

[LeftyMom]

4. When I was in my teens I always identified myself as just north of legal for that reason.

It dramatically reduced the problem, which says some really horrifying things about creeps on the internet (or at least creeps on AOL in the middle 90s, but people are people and I doubt anything's changed.)

[Gormy Cuss]

5. It's really sad that there are adult creeps who think this is acceptable behavior.

I can ALMOST understand teens who haven't been socialized enough to have empathy, but not the adults.