Harassment

On this server, “Harassment” is the act of (or attempt of causing another player in real-life harm.

This should not be confused with the prior “Bullying” rule (now Kill Spamming), as that pertains to excessive PvP killing in-game.

What is Harassment

Each case of harassment is handled and investigated in depth by admins before being acted upon, so each case is done on a case-by-case basis.

The following are examples that may constitute harassment:

• Physical assault against a fellow player in real life.
• Sexual harassment.
  • Persistent sexual comments, advances, images, or other sexual behavior directed toward another player, specifically after being told to stop, may constitute sexual harassment.
• Grooming underage players. This is building an inappropriate relationship with a minor for the purpose of sexual exploitation, sexual contact, or obtaining sexual material. This can include:
  • Gradually introducing sexual topics or behavior.
  • Requesting or sending sexual images or other material.
  • Manipulating an underage player toward sexual activity.
  • Note: Grooming does not require that in-person sexual contact or exploitation ultimately occur.
• Deliberate disclosure of another player’s personal information without consent (A.K.A., Doxxing).

It should be noted, there certainly could be several other potential examples of harassment listed here, some certainly being worse than the examples above. However, we do not feel it is necessary to list every permutation of abuse one player can enact on another.

If and when we see a new example of harassment occurring, it can be added. In the meantime, we don’t want to give the players who would do such actions any further ideas if possible.

What is not Harassment

Harassment is NOT any of the following:

• Being mean in chat.
  • Saying curse words, giving controversial political opinions, or not liking fellow players is not going to put other players in real-life danger and is further protected by MinecraftOnline’s Freedom of Expression policy.
  • However, things said in chat are handled with respect to our Mojang Compliance and will be censored if deemed needed.
• Killing players in-game.
  • If this is being done excessively, this should instead be a report for our kill spamming rule. Otherwise, this is not against the rules.
• Feeling unsafe due to another player knowing information about them.
  • If one willingly provided any personal information to someone previously trusted and now no longer trusts them, we cannot take action unless they attempt to use that information to harm players, like via doxxing, for example.
• Releasing public information about a player.
  • Information that a player has deliberately made publicly available, such as a public-facing profile, photograph, or commonly used name, will not be considered private for purposes of this rule.

Note: Before a harassment case is requested, if a player had done something that could have been considered harassment but was then resolved with the victim player in a way that the victim player is no longer under threat of any danger, as well as confirmed it is no longer an issue, then we will not take action.

MinecraftOnline’s scope of coverage

Harassment has historically usually happened outside in-game or our relays, such as through real-life encounters, social chatting platforms like Discord, or even on other servers. In such cases, our ability to verify such out of game events is extremely limited. We need absolute and concrete proof for any allegations or claims made, and due to the nature of such private instances the evidence we require can be much extremely difficult, if not impossible, to completely verify.

As such, we always recommend to submit reports to the relevant platform or service provider this occurred on so they can handle it further, as well as submit a case to any relevant authorities or agencies that can help you further deal with any serious actions from said player.

Even if a player banned from our server for harassment, it does not mean that they have been dealt with on any out of game respective platform or service this occurred on, nor does it mean we will take legal action against them.

Someone not being banned on MinecraftOnline does not mean we stand by them or their actions. Even if our investigation reveals various concerning, disgusting, or malicious traits of their character, at the end of the day we are only going to take in-game action if it specifically breaks our rule against harassment that we defined above.

How to report Harassment?

If you want to make a claim of harassment, please contact the admins via admins@minecraftonline.com with any and all evidence you have to back up the claims made. Sometimes the email sent will go to our spam, but you can always contact any of us via in-game or privately to check if the email went through. If we confirm we got your email but do not respond to it, that does not mean we are ignoring it. It takes time to discuss and investigate issues like this, and the amount of time it takes for us to take action is always going to be affected by the quality, clarity, and quantity of information provided to us.

If you get any new evidence, please provide an update with that as well. Context is key in these types of situations, and often knowing just a little bit more could tip the scales of someone being banned or not being banned.

What you can do to handle terrible people

If a player is not banned for harassment, that does not mean there are not other ways to deal with them being in-game.

One of the most effective ways to deal with these types of people is via public ousting and ensuring the community knows of what they have done. People who try to hide their shittiness will have a much harder time doing so when everyone knows their behavior. The ability to openly denounce bad behavior is one of the major advantages of our free speech policy.

Note: Before revealing any information about someone, please be sure that there is no private information revealed about oneself or others involved without consent. This can result in causing more problems than what the person being ousted has done and ultimately ends up undermining any point being made against the ousted player. Likewise, do not break any of MinecraftOnline’s rules to do so.

Alternatively, killing that player can be an effective (and possibly quite fun) way of dealing with them still being on the server.