[DIS] Review the current rules and punishment

[adamaix]

This document is an open letter to the current Game Masters compiled by myself and a number of concerned players. This is an attempt to highlight the holes in the current system and hopefully start a serious effort to improve the quality of gaming for everyone.

Dear Game Masters,

In this thread viewtopic.php?f=20&t=7512 I was depicted as having humorously insulting a player, yet using the same words that resulted in a ban. Katze, thank you for proving our point. Abuse is regarded as highly subjective in nature, there are no standards and rules in place to assist in passing judgment and delivery of fair and consistent punishment. If someone shows up tomorrow and just flat out insults me, but I don't care, because that's in my nature, does that mean no ban is deserved? Is it like pressing charges? If _anyone_ is offended, even just a passerby, then is it abuse? What happened to Sugarcorgit could then be considered abuse/insulting. She offered a gift and someone proverbially spat in her face. And she reacted.

We realise that bans are not a topic for public discussion, yet ironically nowhere in the rules does it states that, furthermore, not only are the current rules archaic but they have not been reviewed and approved of by the current board of Game masters and officially distributed. By current rules, we are referring to the sticky post by Platyna:

1. Do not abuse other players (it means insults, swearing etc. directed to a particular person/s)
2. No bots (and by botting I mean ANY AFK activity in game).
3. No spamming/flooding (including trade spam).
4. No begging.
5. Speak English on public chat.
6. RFC 1855.

Certainly the recent incident regarding hacking accounts should somehow have found a way into this rule set, yet it required elevated admin intervention. There have been many incidents where bans have been placed on characters who have use of defamatory handles, once again, nowhere in the rules does it state so. Rule one can't apply as it is not directed to a particular person. Moving on.

We've mentioned earlier about delivery of fair and consistent punishment, the rules should clearly state the severity of the punishment associated with the crime, procedures for issuing probationary measures as well as initiating a ban. We will give an example of a few incidents of what has happened in the past.

@ban 2d enebeler : He's a repeating offender. And he's very, very abusive. He intentionally shows up to provoke people, yet two days. And sugar got a week long ban for something that is only insulting in a subjective manner, and the screenshots provided by sunsun did not show it directed at anyone, aside from the whisper

@ban 7d dave super market: Impersonating a well known player and attempting to sell a GM hat.

Now that there are larger numbers of GMs, maintaining consistent discretion for punishments is exponentially harder. The length of the bans should be reviewed simultaneously with the rules.

Going back to the subject of abuse, it is more difficult to determine a course to walk as opposed to something like spamming. The current rule states "Do not abuse other players (it means insults, swearing etc. directed to a particular person/s)" Unfortunately this rule is actually having rather adversed effect. It has been reported by some players that Sugarcorgit and others have been targets of provocation on numerous occasions in an attempt to get them banned. Clearly there should be a counter rule for exactly this.

The player reporting abuse should also display that they have made use of tools created by the developers to assist in this very thing, ignore list for example. If this is not done, every trivial insult will be reported and we only have so much GM's that already have enough on their plate.

Due to the subjective nature of the abuse, it is difficulty to assign consistent punishment for it, however, this can be alleviated with an appropriate set of guidelines. Some form of abuse requires heavy punishment, others a warning with threat of punishment if the behavior persists.

here are some examples of what we want:

Serious Abuse
----
Punishment: 1 warning, 1 month ban, 1 month probation, permanent ban

Threatening physical violence in real life.
Derogatory remarks using race or ethnicity.
Derogatory remarks against sexuality.

Mild Abuse
----
Punishment: 2 warning, 1 week ban, 1 week probation, permanent ban
General harassment (including harassment using char names)
Use of vulgar language
Impersonation

etc

In conclusion, we feel that clearly the TMW community has reached a level of sophistication that requires a concise document that is fair, accurate and undisputed and provide a basis for which GM's can exert their authority before we lose more good friends and players.

Kind regards,
Concerned Players

[Kill3rZ]

Look. I totally agree with you, it would be great if we had a perfect system of rules.

Somehow, TMW has got to resemble the real world in that it filled itself with real society issues like greed, avarice, theft, scam, violence, hatred, laziness, exploitation. Exactly like in real world we eventually end up spending all our life savings for shiny useless stuff that we covet for no particular reason. And some of us end up lying and cheating and taking advantage of others' kindness to get it.

And the system of rules would have to be perfect to prevent it because, otherwise we will tear each others' heads off over some paragraph that might suffer interpretations. Exactly like in real world no system of laws is perfect. And the best we can do is try to find honest non-bias judges to solve our issues. The real world wouldn't need human judges if a perfect law system were possible. We already have a "constitution" in the game. The laws will be established or changed as needed. We already make protests when we feel a GM has over-reacted. And I feel that they take our opinions into consideration. It already is better than in real life.

I appreciate Sugarcorgit. I really do. I like it that she found time to help lots and lots of people in the game and I respect the fact that she is one of the "oldest" players in the game. This time she lost her temper and she made a mistake. The punishment was a little too harsh imho, but it wouldn't have attracted all this attention if it had been imposed upon another player. So, you see, in this situation we *want* the law to be a little subjective. It's only fair this way. All her good deeds must play a role when she receives a sentence for something she doesn't usually do. And I'm not sure we can include this sort of situation in a set of rules.

Last but not least, we are only guests here. We should play by the rules of the house. And, unlike in other places, we are lucky that our GMs at least try to be as fair a possible. I don't think we really need a justice reformation. Our "hosts" already have a lot on their hands improving this game without having to write an extended law system that we will criticize and try to change anyway.

[kr0n05931]

We definitely need to make sure that trolling and flamebaiting have the same repercussions as regular abuse.

The rules also need to be humanly translated into Portuguese and Spanish, the 2nd and 3rd most widely spoken languages in The Mana World.

[Jaxad0127]

The rules also need to be humanly translated into Portuguese and Spanish, the 2nd and 3rd most widely spoken languages in The Mana World.

The rules available in game have been translated by humans into several languages.

[Delasia]

Look. I totally agree with you, ............I appreciate Sugarcorgit. I really do. I like it that she found time to help lots and lots of people in the game and I respect the fact that she is one of the "oldest" players in the game. This time she lost her temper and she made a mistake. The punishment was a little too harsh imho, but it wouldn't have attracted all this attention if it had been imposed upon another player. So, you see, in this situation we *want* the law to be a little subjective. It's only fair this way. All her good deeds must play a role when she receives a sentence for something she doesn't usually do. And I'm not sure we can include this sort of situation in a set of rules. ..............

If this were a first time offence then perhaps a warning would have been sufficient, or a lesser ban. But this was not, Sugar has been warned about her temper in the past, and has been asked to exersize a little more restraint when dealing with different languages and cultures. I have in the past been witness to this disrespect, and have spoken to others throughtout the game that as indicated their disappointment in her dealings with some others.
All of this was taken into account, and weighted accordingly.

Having said that the GM's are discussing a more uniform means of punishment, but as with anything new, this takes time and will experience numerous hiccups.

Thank you all for your opinions and concerns.


Play with honor and respect.

[Turmfalke]

We expect people to behave perfect and to act exactly like we are used it.
Since that doesn't worked that good out we introduced beeing called gm with the power to enforce that the other players behave like the gm wants it.
Now we notice that we aren't happy with how the gms act. In some cases we think they overreacted in other we wish they would do more. Sure we could try to create code of law on how a gm has to react or tables and formulae to calulate how long a partiular use has to be baned considering his previous case history, educational background, cultural values, ingame age, community support, drunkeness...
I can't see how that should work.
Maybe we have reached the point at which we should reduce the human factor. From our 6 rules, 5 are needless cause they can be solved by each player. I mean, is it that hard to use the ignore list? When someone starts spamming in Hurnscal immediately 10 players start crying for a gm to ban the spammer. Ok, why don't they us there ignore list? to easy?

I think we should reduce the field of duty for gms to abusing the game system(botting for a example). We also might want to support smaller player communitys more in future to allowed them to enforce there own rules in there own domain.

[Wombat]

Here is my draft of the rules before it was decided that Playtna's original was to be used. I did not include any new amendments that were mentioned on this thread that might be considered. I think my draft is more consistent with how rules are actually enforced and I feel that GMs overstep themselves when they intervene in player conflicts. Most of the time the context of the problem is overplayed by one side or another, screenshots are taken after a conflict is initiated and provocations are used to goad an attempt to ban.

Rules and Etiquette

This game encourages social interaction between players. Please try to get along.

Rules

Players breaking the following rules may be banned permanently or have their character's reset at the GM's discretion:

* 1. Do not abuse other players (it means insults, swearing etc.).
* 2. No bots (no afk or "away from keyboard" playing/killing).
* 3. No comment spamming/flooding (including trade spam).

Etiquette

Etiquette is primarily player enforced:

* 1. Please don't beg.
* 2. Please don't drop steal.
* 3. Please don't kill steal.
* 4. Please speak English in public areas.

[Wombat]

If this were a first time offence then perhaps a warning would have been sufficient, or a lesser ban. But this was not, Sugar has been warned about her temper in the past, and has been asked to exersize a little more restraint when dealing with different languages and cultures. I have in the past been witness to this disrespect, and have spoken to others throughtout the game that as indicated their disappointment in her dealings with some others.
All of this was taken into account, and weighted accordingly.

Having said that the GM's are discussing a more uniform means of punishment, but as with anything new, this takes time and will experience numerous hiccups.

Thank you all for your opinions and concerns.


Play with honor and respect.

I just looked over the Court House report on Sugarcorgit and she should not of been banned. This "honor and respect" is not a rule in the game. Both words are loaded. I know that Delasia has attempted to enforce her morality on the game as a player before in an attempt to have me banned by provoking me and now the GMs are running around attempting to ban players over hearsay that can easily be avoided with an "ignore" on the player in question. This "Not a Discussion Forum" rule is getting to become extreme nonsense and the GMs delete legitimate challenges to their rulings. The "All Mighty Janitor" concept was meant to prevent nonsense from being posted in the Court House, not to end direct responses to GM rulings.

I too feel that we need to revamp the rules in some way and perhaps remove some GMs that take their role too seriously and attempt to impose their morality on other players (honor and respect). Play to have fun, Duck honor and respect, we can argue and get along or just ignore each other. The game is big enough and our clients allow us that space. Use the ignore feature or argue. If you argue, don't go crying to some "higher power" because you were left feeling salty about it.

[Jumpy]

+1 ada !

game evolves and limits are touched so it is part of the process to go one step further!

now please everyone stop talking about sugarcorgit issue this is not the place for it.

[antithesis]

What's the deal with the "speak English" rule? I've seen it brought up all over the forums...

#1 - Who cares? What's the big deal if somebody speaks a language other than English around others?

#2 - Isn't this called "The Mana WORLD"? A world is a very diverse place and should not be controlled and restricted down to the level of enforcing which language is spoken. If such a restriction is to be imposed, I suggest renaming it to "The Mana Region" or "The Mana World For Those Afraid Of Languages They Don't Understand".... or maybe even "The Nazi World"?

[Kill3rZ]

* 3. Please don't kill steal.

What the hell is that? If you're fighting a monster and I strike it too I'm kill stealing?

As for "Please don't drop steal" you have a 15 second (or so) protection. For a while only the real owner of the drop can pick it up. If you don't pick it up in that time, I will, a'ight? Especially if we killed the monster together.

Later edit: You see? It's not that easy to come up with a set of rules everybody agrees to. Stop whining. I doubt that you would make a better GM.

[Wombat]

Hey Killers,

I was posting an old make of another version of the rules to give an example of rules. There is no "see" to anything you said. You didn't even read that make of the rules either because what you are complaining about is under "player enforced" etiquette, both of which are still actually in the game as player enforced etiquette. It is considered rude to walk up and kill something someone else was already killing and it is considered rude to walk up and try to take someone's drop. Even with drop steal protection, it is rude, but not against the "rules".

However, if you actually read any of the other recent thread regarding the GM abuse, I prefer the dropping of most all rules to player etiquette outside of the technical rules of "no bots (no afk killing)" and "no spamming flooding". Thanks for the thoughts Killers, oh and you know what, your name is very clever. I like how you used a number three for an "e" and a "z" instead of an "s". That is brilliant!

[Kill3rZ]

I take that as an offense. Please ban him from the Internet!

Somehow you succeed at being rude without kill stealing. You're my hero. If you scream louder everyone will start listening to you

[Wombat]

Killers, you are my hero....or as you'd probably spell it, h3R0.

[Kill3rZ]

You know, Wombat (or W0mbatZ as I'd spell it) some naive people might consider "kill stealing" as collaborating or sharing the resources. I know what you need. Find a single player RPG. Real people obviously trouble you, you complain a lot lately.

I'm sure you can repeat my words this time too and you'll feel much better. You're cuter by the moment. I might even consider taking you as a pet if you learn how to play dead.