Yeah this is getting pretty bad, but as for standing up for others: quite often they will also turn their abuse to you. Although I still advocate doing so, just mentioning that sometimes you can just shift the abuse by telling them to quit.
It happened to me during very 1st season, after telling a player to politely shut up their abuse, they also turned it on to me.
Also threatening to come and 'visit' me personally (although good luck trying to track down a player from online!)
I did end up having to 'chat back' at this player, and he finally backed down, even apologised to me, LOL after he actually believed some of the stuff I wrote (not all of it was BS, just some). I know it was a he because we swapped 'ex-military' stories, until he finally backed off (and the nature of some of his threats were very 'male', shall I say). But he still kept on at the other player
One thing that will definitely cut this down is that some 888 tourneys do not allow observer chat, or chat once you have been eliminated. Maybe revoking chat 60 seconds after elimination is an idea? Thats enough time for legit "good game, gl all" chat, and the like. This seems to be a time when players get
really bad, when sucked out on and busted...
Also remember people, we can always click onto the stats or info tab and disregard the chat. Not for the whole game, just while the idiot blows of some steam at you... Not the best solution, but one none the less.
Does 888 have a 'Disable Chat' feature for individual players? I like sites that allow this, and to ignore observer chat....
I don't really think 'name and shame' will have the desired shaming effect for such abusive players though... Not to mention most of them probably aren't on the forum, or the 888PL website often?