Rules Determination

[eddie2]

sorry for the double post but i need to correct the statement about perma bans.

kylegraves1 has been given a perma forum ban within the last 2 weeks.

[jgordon1111]

On the good side thank you KA for coming in and letting it be known you have read what is going on.

Any thoughts,besides the guidelines info?

[Woodruff]

The Community Guidelines is always being neglected or forgotten. It may answer some of the questions some of you posted here. No matter how many times you direct a person to it, it's either still not read or selective reading is given to it or just forgotten. You know it's there, but nobody's looking.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7785#p1759438

The Community Guidelines is precisely where I gathered most of the information for this suggestion. So I'm really confused as to how the section of the site I have most of my complaints about could be the place that could answer some of the questions I have.

Or have I completely misunderstood what you were trying to say here?

sorry for the double post but i need to correct the statement about perma bans.

kylegraves1 has been given a perma forum ban within the last 2 weeks.

That's not a perma-ban. A perma-ban is a permanent vacation from the website in entirety.

[agentcom]

[Deleted a bunch of stuff to keep this from getting unwieldy. This is your response to my last comment about using a foreign language.]

I couldn't find any in my search either, but I am absolutely certain it has happened in the past. At any rate, because my search skills seem to suck, I'm willing to concede that PERHAPS it never existed. <chuckle>

The problem, as I see it, is that someone seeing game chat in a foreign language can't know whether it is secret diplomacy or not, right? So they go to a web-translator to see if it is. But by doing so, they discover that the foreign language posted was indeed secret diplomacy AND YET because they are REQUIRED to make this check before it can be declared "secret diplomacy"...it fascinatingly no longer QUALIFIES as secret diplomacy, because it's not secret anymore (it was revealed via the web-translator)! Essentially, the "secret diplomacy via foreign language" rule is null and void as it is currently applied. If the use of a web-translator is required of a user to discover if a foreign chat is secret diplomacy or not, then the possibility of "secret diplomacy" cannot possibly happen. It is a useless rule and should therefore be eliminated.

I understand where you're coming from. What you are saying is quite right from how a person MAY handle the situation. But from a rules perspective it is different:

Once information in another language is posted about the game, there IS a rules violation. It doesn't matter if anyone in the game translates it. All that has to be done is for it to be reported. If you don't know if it is information about the game, you can report it anyway. That is what happened in the recent C&A posted by (I think) akabob.

Now, you don't HAVE to post a C&A. You could usually just ask the players to speak English. Problem probably solved. Not to say there wasn't a violation, but it probably won't get reported and if no one cares, the issue stops there.

You have to look at what these rules are trying to prevent: Secret Diplomacy. If there's no SD, there's no rules violation. If there is some small amount of SD, then there is a rules violation, but the player may end up choosing not to report it, if things get fixed and no harm is caused. If there is lots of SD, then the player will probably report it and those players will be punished.

BTW, have you ever been to a poker room in the U.S.? This is very similar to how language is handled in the many that I've been in. I don't think that this is a problematic area of the rules, AS APPLIED. But of course, I haven't seen someone being punished for non-SD foreign language.

But I do agree that this is a problem as the rules are written. If I could edit the rule (or if I could edit the mod guidelines for the rule) it would say: 1. English only in game chat unless all players agree otherwise. 2. Any conversation about the game in another language is SD, unless all players have agreed otherwise. 3. Any conversation in another language, regardless of topic, will be regarded as SD (or at least a punishable offense), if any player has requested that English only be used.

This last part would reinforce that English is the preferred language, and would prevent players from continuing to use another language and have all the other users wondering whether or not there's any SD going on or whether they should report it.

[agentcom]

[Deleted a bunch of stuff]

In reading that entire statement (deleted to save space, but it's in the post directly above this one), it should become quite clear what the intent is. I'm sorry the context is creating a struggle for you. Not only that, but focusing on that aspect really completely takes away from the potential effectiveness of the suggestion itself.

This conversation is going no where. I'm not sure if you're being intentionally insulting or not. I originally thought that I was helping you clarify your stance, but then you seemed to disagree with me both when I said you WEREN'T trying to get rid of the rules and when I said you WERE trying to get rid of them. Based on the discussion that is going on, it looks like you are trying to MODIFY or REPLACE the existing rules not get rid of them. If this is correct, I'd prefer we just drop this because I don't think it is adding anything to the conversation.

[thegreekdog]

(1) Someone being "intentionally annoying" is subjective. Some posters may find a user to be intentionally annoying, while others may not.

Certainly true, and I believe that this particular "guideline" would only apply to the most egregious of circumstances for exactly that reason. For instance, pimpdave's incessant "Tea Party Death Squad" threads...is there really ANY question he wasn't just trying to be intentionally annoying?

I agree with you that it should be applied only in egregious circumstances, but if it doesn't fall under trolling, baiting, flaming, I don't think it should then fall under intentionally annoying. Those three cover the intentionally annoying class.

(2) Bigotry should not be subjective and there should be concrete rules on what is not acceptable. However, bigotry is subjective. Someone said this in another thread: an American may not find the word "Paki" to be objectionable. But it is to a whole lot of people. I also don't want to chill any speech on race, religion, etc. So, bigotry is going to be subjective.

What you say is true. And yet, intent and context do explain most instances where real bigotry is being displayed. If there is a question about it, then it shouldn't be handled as a punishment...but far too often, there really isn't a question about it but the term used "just wasn't on the list"...that kind of crap really has to stop.

I'm not certain I agree that determinations are made because the word wasn't on the list. As I stated, bigotry is subjective and words may be bigoted to some and not bigoted to others. I think having a list of words would make things simpler, but the intent of the post has to be shown. Calling someone a retard isn't bigoted (in my opinion, many others disagree). Posting something about how all mentally disabled people should be killed is bigoted.

(3) Flaming is also very subjective. I believe that flaming happens when someone is truly bothered by what someone else posts about them. For example, you might tell me to f*ck off. That doesn't bother me. If it truly bothers someone else, I think that's flaming. Total subjectivity.

I tend to think that flaming ISN'T particularly subjective, to be honest. Being insulting isn't flaming. What I engaged in toward pimpdave in the thread about my cadets...that was flaming. The real problem on this subject is the massive lack of consistency involved...when someone has a target on their backs, simple insults are marked as flaming whereas far worse statements being made about someone by a moderator-friendly individual are completely overlooked.

I think this is more a personal issue than a generally applicable issue. Maybe instead of saying flaming is subjective, I should have said flaming is in the eye of the beholder. If we take a very harsh definition of flaming, any insult becomes a punishable flame. How many insults are flung about in the off topics forum? When I was not a moderator and after flame wars was extinguished, I purposefully would bandy insults that didn't look like flames (no "bad" words, no violence, no anger) to avoid a potential ban. That's something that is arguably a flame. Anyway, I digress - if a user follows another one around constantly belittling the person without using any substance, that constitutes flaming.

I think that people complain about moderation because it's easy to complain about.

Perhaps in many cases what you say is true, but it is not with me. I used to be a hardened supporter of the moderators on this site. I am now amongst the most critical. I'm far from the only one, as I could point to a number of high-ranked and high-visibility users who feel the same way I do about the moderation on this site. If many of the vocal and ardent supporters have been turned against the moderation team, then I would suggest to you that there is more fire than smoke involved.

From what I understand, moderation has become better in the last few years (after someone named Twill or something, I don't know all the details). I would urge you to get the high ranked (which is irrelevant to me frankly) and highly visible (much more relevant) users to post in this thread so I could get a sense of what their criticisms are. From my perspective, only a handful have complained about moderating. With maybe a couple of exceptions, most of the complaining has to do with consistency between 2012 moderating and 2008/2009 moderating or taking too long to come down with disciplinary action.

For example (and as I've argued before), if I were to make a very strict interpretation of trolling as being intentionally annoying and applied it with consistency to all users, we would have little participation in the forum because everyone would be on three months bans.

I disagree completely. I am absolutely of the opinion that such a thing wouldn't happen at all and I believe you are completely off-base. I have BECOME a sarcastic, biting annoying bitch of a poster BECAUSE I am so frustrated at the lack of action taken against those who troll so blatantly. Look at the first two years of my posts...see the difference. I was CREATED by the lack of action. (Note that I am not meaning to blame the site and not myself for my inflammatory statements, trolling, or otherwise over-the-borderline statements, merely making a point of some culpability by the site.)

Frankly, I am and have been on other fora who do take that strong stance and they manage quite well.

I've collected more than a few examples during my short tenure as a moderator of how enforcing the rules in a certain way would end up killing a lot of stuff in the forum. I will refrain from posting them because they are specific examples. Put let me provide a fake example:

On Day One, User #1 creates a thread talking about some political issue. The premise involves a ridiculous assertion with tenuous evidence (User #1 does not agree with that observation, however). A discussion ensues.
On Day Two, User #2 creates a thread talking about a different political issue. The premise also involves a ridiculous assertion with tenuous evidence (User #2 does not agree with that observation, however). A discussion ensues.
On Day Three, User #1 reports User #2's thread as trolling or baiting because the premise involves a ridiculous assertion with tenuous evidence.

Is User #2 guilty of trolling? If so, and we ban him or her, does User #2 rightfully accuse us of inconsistency because we did not also ban User #1 for posting a thread with a ridiculous assertion based on tenuos evidence? And if we do ban both users, are people going to be less likely to post political threads (ignoring that a lot of users don't like political threads)?

This is one completely fake example. My concerns, as you may know, are that (1) we will be inconsistent and (2) we will stop participation on the forums. These issues are more concerning to me than whether User #1 doesn't happen to like User #2's thread which he is not forced to read or respond to.

[eddie2]

what gets me about the trolling baiting intentionally annoying thing is

if a player has you on foe and goes around the forums reading your posts making minor baits and other things in them this is okay. this should not be classed as ok it should come under one of the trolling intentionally annoying busts.

[deathcomesrippin]

Maybe the mods and admin should get together, and decide on how much of each kind of posting is cool with each group, and then relate it to the general public? In C&A, we have far less tolerance generally speaking for baiting and flaming, insomuch as we will lock a thread if it even looks like it could get carried away, but like tdg said in OT they can carry on a bit further than most others. At least for that part of the rules it might iron things out for people.

[thegreekdog]

Maybe the mods and admin should get together, and decide on how much of each kind of posting is cool with each group, and then relate it to the general public? In C&A, we have far less tolerance generally speaking for baiting and flaming, insomuch as we will lock a thread if it even looks like it could get carried away, but like tdg said in OT they can carry on a bit further than most others. At least for that part of the rules it might iron things out for people.

I think that makes sense in light of how those two forums operate. Off topics and Cheating and Abuse are very different places and are moderated by different people with different visions of what each forum should look like.

[deathcomesrippin]

Maybe we can open a discussion tgd and see if it can lead anywhere?

[Woodruff]

BTW, have you ever been to a poker room in the U.S.? This is very similar to how language is handled in the many that I've been in.

Indeed...I lived in Reno and Biloxi for a total of about 8 years, and played poker often.

But I do agree that this is a problem as the rules are written. If I could edit the rule (or if I could edit the mod guidelines for the rule) it would say: 1. English only in game chat unless all players agree otherwise. 2. Any conversation about the game in another language is SD, unless all players have agreed otherwise. 3. Any conversation in another language, regardless of topic, will be regarded as SD (or at least a punishable offense), if any player has requested that English only be used.

This last part would reinforce that English is the preferred language, and would prevent players from continuing to use another language and have all the other users wondering whether or not there's any SD going on or whether they should report it.

I also like this because it gets the onus and work off of the C&A team. Not that they don't want to do the work, but it seems to me that they unnecessarily have to do more work the way it is currently worded.

[Woodruff]

(1) Someone being "intentionally annoying" is subjective. Some posters may find a user to be intentionally annoying, while others may not.

Certainly true, and I believe that this particular "guideline" would only apply to the most egregious of circumstances for exactly that reason. For instance, pimpdave's incessant "Tea Party Death Squad" threads...is there really ANY question he wasn't just trying to be intentionally annoying?

I agree with you that it should be applied only in egregious circumstances, but if it doesn't fall under trolling, baiting, flaming, I don't think it should then fall under intentionally annoying. Those three cover the intentionally annoying class.

That's probably true, sure.

(2) Bigotry should not be subjective and there should be concrete rules on what is not acceptable. However, bigotry is subjective. Someone said this in another thread: an American may not find the word "Paki" to be objectionable. But it is to a whole lot of people. I also don't want to chill any speech on race, religion, etc. So, bigotry is going to be subjective.

What you say is true. And yet, intent and context do explain most instances where real bigotry is being displayed. If there is a question about it, then it shouldn't be handled as a punishment...but far too often, there really isn't a question about it but the term used "just wasn't on the list"...that kind of crap really has to stop.

I'm not certain I agree that determinations are made because the word wasn't on the list. As I stated, bigotry is subjective and words may be bigoted to some and not bigoted to others. I think having a list of words would make things simpler, but the intent of the post has to be shown. Calling someone a retard isn't bigoted (in my opinion, many others disagree). Posting something about how all mentally disabled people should be killed is bigoted.

I essentially agree with that logic, and would say it also applies to words such as "nigger" which currently seem to earn a punishment by their simple use in non-bigoted instances of clarification.

(3) Flaming is also very subjective. I believe that flaming happens when someone is truly bothered by what someone else posts about them. For example, you might tell me to f*ck off. That doesn't bother me. If it truly bothers someone else, I think that's flaming. Total subjectivity.

I tend to think that flaming ISN'T particularly subjective, to be honest. Being insulting isn't flaming. What I engaged in toward pimpdave in the thread about my cadets...that was flaming. The real problem on this subject is the massive lack of consistency involved...when someone has a target on their backs, simple insults are marked as flaming whereas far worse statements being made about someone by a moderator-friendly individual are completely overlooked.

I think this is more a personal issue than a generally applicable issue. Maybe instead of saying flaming is subjective, I should have said flaming is in the eye of the beholder. If we take a very harsh definition of flaming, any insult becomes a punishable flame. How many insults are flung about in the off topics forum?

I agree, and that should be avoided, certainly.

Anyway, I digress - if a user follows another one around constantly belittling the person without using any substance, that constitutes flaming.

I would see that more as trolling/baiting, but I can see where you're coming from.

This is one completely fake example. My concerns, as you may know, are that (1) we will be inconsistent and (2) we will stop participation on the forums. These issues are more concerning to me than whether User #1 doesn't happen to like User #2's thread which he is not forced to read or respond to.

And those concerns are certainly valid and must be considered. No question.

[Woodruff]

what gets me about the trolling baiting intentionally annoying thing is

if a player has you on foe and goes around the forums reading your posts making minor baits and other things in them this is okay. this should not be classed as ok it should come under one of the trolling intentionally annoying busts.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. You seem to be saying that if a player has you on foe (but reads your posts anyway) and continuing to bait you, this is currently treated as ok...is that what you mean?

[Woodruff]

Maybe the mods and admin should get together, and decide on how much of each kind of posting is cool with each group, and then relate it to the general public? In C&A, we have far less tolerance generally speaking for baiting and flaming, insomuch as we will lock a thread if it even looks like it could get carried away, but like tdg said in OT they can carry on a bit further than most others. At least for that part of the rules it might iron things out for people.

I think that makes sense in light of how those two forums operate. Off topics and Cheating and Abuse are very different places and are moderated by different people with different visions of what each forum should look like.

While I do admit that OT should be more lenient than the C&A regarding this sort of thing due to the disparate natures of the forums, I do dearly love how C&A is handled and really wish OT was closely similar. I also recognize that's just my personal opinion. <sigh>

[thegreekdog]

Maybe the mods and admin should get together, and decide on how much of each kind of posting is cool with each group, and then relate it to the general public? In C&A, we have far less tolerance generally speaking for baiting and flaming, insomuch as we will lock a thread if it even looks like it could get carried away, but like tdg said in OT they can carry on a bit further than most others. At least for that part of the rules it might iron things out for people.

I think that makes sense in light of how those two forums operate. Off topics and Cheating and Abuse are very different places and are moderated by different people with different visions of what each forum should look like.

While I do admit that OT should be more lenient than the C&A regarding this sort of thing due to the disparate natures of the forums, I do dearly love how C&A is handled and really wish OT was closely similar. I also recognize that's just my personal opinion. <sigh>

It would be an unmitigated disaster.