I thought about naming and shaming on this thread — started typing out a response, deleted it — but because I don't think most parties involved in this particular debacle did anything wrong, I don't feel comfortable doing so.
A while ago I joined a game run by some people for whom I have the greatest respect; they're good people. Feminists, caring staffers, people whom I have no doubt are invested in the idea of creating a positive atmosphere on their game. They had a public policy of no tolerance for creepers, and openly invited people to come forward about any incidents that might occur on their game.
An incident did occur, to me, and I did not come forward. Or rather, a series of incidents centred around a specific individual who kept making me very uncomfortable.
When I joined their game, I did so with the sense that I was a guest and a relative nobody. They didn't know me, and I didn't know almost anyone playing on this game either. I got the sense, however, that everyone else was part of a tight-knit community of friends, including people who know each other IRL, and so on. The public channels and OOC lounge were constantly filled with people clamouring for each other's attention, reminiscing on the good times they had playing other games, sharing in-jokes, and so on.
So when someone started harassing me in pages, to the point of inducing severe mental health related discomfort, to the point of driving the one friend I joined this game with out (he did it to her too), to the point of compelling me to avoid his character at all costs, I felt like I was faced with two choices:
- Come forward, tell the staff their close buddy was bothering me, and possibly risk burning all my bridges here if they took his side over mine, or drive out other players who were friends with him if something was done about it.
- Accept that I'm a relative nobody on this game and I'm probably not going to get along with everyone.
I tried ignoring this player, but the behaviour persisted. I politely told him, in private, that I have mental health issues that he's exacerbating, and that for this reason I would prefer to limit contact with him, or else postpone our conversation to a later date, when I'm feeling a bit better and I'm better equipped to handle it. He not only wouldn't accept me putting up boundaries, but became increasingly aggressive in his desire to push them, and then came to MSB to complain about an anonymous someone (I saw his posts and knew he meant me) who was frustrating him through her refusal to communicate with him and resolve certain issues. These issues, to me, seemed to largely revolve around me not giving him enough attention.
In case someone can infer from this story who/where I'm referring to, I do want to say for the record that the harassment was not sexual in nature. I think this guy is an arsehole, but I'm not looking to accuse him of more than he deserves. He did want a romantic relationship with my character, and then became ICly & OOCly passive aggressive towards both me and the dude my character ended up hooking up with when he realised that wasn't happening, but that was it. I do think that he's emotionally abusive, manipulative, paranoid and narcissistic. He would regularly assume the worst of minor inactions and then go on the aggressive because of it. ('You didn't respond to my page or react to my joke on the channel within 5 minutes, therefore xyz'.)
I half regret that I didn't complain about him but at the same time ... I'd like to hear from staffers here. Someone you don't know joins your game and says 'your BFF here is making me extremely uncomfortable and wilfully ignoring the fact I've told him he's exacerbating my mental health issues, along with my polite requests to terminate our communications'. Whom do you believe? I didn't want to be a trouble-maker. I wanted to come to this game where no one really knows me, stay anonymous, have fun, no drama, and not rock the boat.
I upvoted @mietze's post quoted in the OP because holy crap do I know what you're talking about, especially in that first paragraph. So yeah — anyone who thinks creepy stuff only happens on games that don't have anti-creepy stuff policies, you are very wrong.
At a later date, staff from this game approached me via private message on MSB and asked if I would be interested in joining another game of theirs. My initial answer was hell yes, I would, I think you're great. But I stopped to ask, 'Does your friend x still play there?' The answer was yes. So I said 'no thanks, in that case', and left it at that.
I don't know that I have constructive advice on what should be done. The obvious is, 'You should have told staff, Kestrel.' But when there's a tight-knit circle of friends, most of whom are wonderful and one of whom is awful, it can be pretty intimidating to consider the risk of ruining their mojo by letting the others know that one of them isn't real sweet to individuals outside that circle.
