MTG Salvation

Probation does not equal suspension. They would still be allowed /in games but would be on a shorter leash than players that are not on probation. Just to clarify my meaning.

Quote from Tordeck »

Probation does not equal suspension. They would still be allowed /in games but would be on a shorter leash than players that are not on probation. Just to clarify my meaning.

Ah. I getcha now.

BTW, /barn Iso on future clan games being better without Hydras. Generally, I'd be fine with doing away with hydras altogether.

Quote from Tordeck »

Chemtrails from what I can see has not weighed in at all.

Hi.

I don't really feel like I have a horse in this race. I don't play mafia. I thought it would be funny to trololo with my clanmates. None of us cared for hydra games, so we thought this would be a good way to make it fun. I don't think any of us expected it to escalate so drastically.

I do agree that Clan and Mod Mafia games have been given a much less serious air to them than those in our standard formatting, generally speaking.

Quote from DCIII »

BTW, /barn Iso on future clan games being better without Hydras. Generally, I'd be fine with doing away with hydras altogether.

I don't see a problem with hydras in general; for example, in Proph's Basic, TMCT and I were both too busy to contribute enough as a single player, so we created TiMsCoT (which ended up sounding like an actual name, so we ran with it) and played as a hydra. (Of course, we both ended up having to be replaced due to IRL time constraints, and I still feel terrible about that, as it was the only game I've ever replaced out of.) But it's also a chance to improve your playstyle, since it's like having a mentor that can post with you, or simply a post reviewer that shares your alignment.

It's only a problem with the system gets abused.

I am an upper level administrator for one of New Hampshire's ten area agency organizations that provide support and services for individuals with developmental disabilities, such as autism; and acquired brain disorders, such as traumatic brain injury. I have a team of 6 managers I oversee, a staffing pool of over 150, and about 105 individuals with disabilities that I am directly responsible for. If a single employee ever said those words, they would be reported to the state Bureau of Elderly and Adult Services, Bureau of Developmental Services, and our own human resources, and would be terminated on the spot. Also, they'd likely be getting a call from a state investigator, and if founded, they'd be put on the state registry, never to work in the human services field again.
Granted, this is not Megiddo's or Chemtrails' profession. This is "only the internet." I have said some pretty stupid things in my life, similar to these immature comments. But I have seen lesser comments come back founded for abuse. To me, this comment was exactly that: Abuse. This was disrespectful, discourteous, and bluntly abusive to one of our own here on MTGS. You can be upset with his style, you can not like his attitude, hell, you can even be downright repulsed by how aggressive he can be. But you do not need to say something so cold and shallow, Internet or not. I do not take it lightly, and I'm an insensitive jerk most of the time.
With all of that said, I am not one to be big on Kangaroo courts. Megiddo served some "time" for his offense. I would have been fine with that being sufficient. However, he is showing absolutely no remorse for his actions, continuing to be disrespectful to the Council members, and seems to lack the insight necessary to admit his fault in the particular situation. Couple that with the way he treated Bur as the host/mod of that game, I agree with Tordeck's proposal of a probationary period. I don't think Megiddo is an awful person or deserves any more punishment than a simple watchful eye. I would also propose that Megiddo take it upon himself to avoid playing games with the other player the comment was aimed at. If another comment was to be posted though, I would be for a complete ban.
The one thing that attracted me to this community was the tight-knit bonds that everyone seemed to share. While this is mafia, and we all get heated, myself especially, we need to still remain respectful. While many of us can get borderline offensive and blur the lines a bit, for the most part it is to do with the game. Comments of this nature are not for the game at all. I do feel that if the Moderators for the overall site are fine with the punishment that was given, than we should accept that for now. But the egregious nature does warrant something to be done, for the good of the MTGS Mafia community as a whole. If we let this comment slide, than we are moving away from the tight-knit feel, and to something else entirely. How are we to invite new members to this community if this is allowed?

I'll get off my soapbox now.

^ That last sentence part was more just a personal preference musing because I don't care for playing in or against hydras too much. I don't think we need to make a rule or anything - we can keep it to the mod's preference and people can pick and choose to play in games that involve them to their liking.

Based on the comments we've received, my inclination is probation for all three.

There typically is not a set time limit for probation, but a user can request to be removed from the probation list at any time. Probation is simply a reference list which hosts can use to decide whether or not to admit a player to their game.

I believe we also decided a while back that players on probation were limited to 1 game at a time until their behavior improved.

I'm at work so I'll keep this short:

A person who is willing to flame others on multiple occasions, once behind the temporary wall of a false identity, but is appalled about this very same public conduct being called into question in public shows to me a lack of respect for the people he plays with at a core level, because he clearly doesn't treat others how he expects to be treated. I was kind of the judge, jury, and executioner of the community played in before this one and I have to say I outright admire Azrael's level headed way of dealing with this situation, because that cannot be easy.

I feel as if a harsher punishment should be levied at the person who posted the flame than the other two. I view things that disrupt the community more harshly than this particular game breaking aspect. The game is a game, and sure it's important it is done right, but ON TOP of that someone else risked damaging the community with senseless flaming just because. That's a no go.

re: Generic

Generic is an outstanding player who has mastered the art of manipulating other people's emotions, in my estimation. I can understand if you can't handle that (note: literally got a flaming warning while being scumbuddies, that was pretty impressive if you think about it) but I don't view it as a knock on Generic. The pressure gets taken to the extreme and some people crack, that's just solid mafia play. Could be tempered better maybe, but solid mafia play.

I'd call that a difference in opinion.

People that intentionally try to cause emotional unrest in other players disgust me. You're still playing a game at the end of the day, with people you presumably like. Intentionally trying to make them angry, to frustrate them goes against a code of conduct we really should hold when playing a game.

That's in response to the latter part of the post.

To the previous part, I agree completely - Megs behavior is horrible in this recent part of the thread, and I fully support a strong probation on him, at the least. A warning seems fine for Proph's behavior, since it mostly seems lacking a backbone to stand up to Megs - which, well, people should be accountable for their own actions, admittedly, but there was no malicious intent.

As someone who has put people on tilt countless times to get a read on them (or get an easy mislynch) and recently stopped due to the unpleasantries that result, I can't say I'm a fan of such a playstyle.

I don't know if it's just a 'playstyle' when the insufferability and inappropriate behaviour continues into post-game discussions, and into following games, over and over again.

Examples?

I remember a specific instance where Generic voted me (after RVS was over) because he was still mad about getting mislynched the game before.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/outside-magic/mafia/520093-80-sesame-street-mafia-game-over?comment=50
When questioned about it, I got this as a response:

Quote from Generic »

Also, why the mock surprise about my pettiness?

Have i ever given any indication that im not a very petty man when someone messes up on the scale you did that game?

You can read the conversation that ensues if you please.

Sure, this was a while ago, but you can still read almost every postgame of a game that he's in and he will continue to be the most smug person you can imagine, while always considering himself correct. He'll argue out of his mind all day about some contrived reason as to why he was correct to scum read you as town, but will also argue as to why it is NEVER correct to scum read him, whether he be scum or town. He contradicts himself on the regular in this sense. According to him, he's the one to thank if his team wins, and he's never to blame if his team loses. This behaviour is EXTREMELY annoying, and he is very toxic about it. It makes for very unfun discussions (both in and out of the game) when he's sitting there shoving down people's throats why he's the best player and is never wrong (or why you deserve to be lynched this game for making a mislynch the previous game).

If you want a more recent in-game problem that is a carry-over from a previous game, you can even look at the post that triggered Meg to flame him most recently.

Quote from Generic »

Your flamingo clan was terrible in the last clan Mafia. I had to single handedly drag them across the finish line. If you are scum now I pity your team mate. Perhaps that's why they are standing out so easily to us, resignation and panic.

Hmm.

I'll PM Generic later and ask him to tone it down a bit. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Quote from Iso »

I believe we also decided a while back that players on probation were limited to 1 game at a time until their behavior improved.

Was that all players on probation, or just those added for inactivity?

The former, I think.

Quote from Iso »

The former, I think.

Well, it's not actually listed anywhere in the the hosting thread, so if we want to enforce that, we should probably add it in.

Make an exception to that rule for Proph, add all three to the probation list, and decide upon the appropriate time for removal from the list when we receive a request for removal? At this point in time, barring any bizarre and completely uncharacteristic recidivist tendencies, I could envision clearing Proph off the list fairly quickly.

Megs is trickier. Let's say we ignore the flaming portion of events since that's already been dealt with by site staff. Making that a basis for his probation probably isn't justified at this point, as we haven't ever used the probation list that way in the past. Even ignoring that, he doesn't seem to take the hydra issue as anything that was genuinely problematic. I'd be inclined towards a somewhat longer period of observation to make sure we don't have any recurring issues.

As Chemtrails mentioned, this probably won't affect him very much, and that's fine. The probation list is more about making sure games run smoothly in the future than it is about crime and punishment.

I do think that the Megs case may highlight the need to use the probation list to deal with recurring flaming issues in the future, however.

That seems fine.

I concur.

I'm a bit late to the party here but I want to weigh in anyway.

To begin: I don't like the idea of punishment if not required. The idea behind punishment is avoiding future occurrences of a problem, but if the problem already won't recur, what's the point of the punishment? Therefore, I believe that punishment is required only in cases where recurrence is likely.

To that end, I don't like the idea of punishing Proph. There's no way he'll ever do this again, period. It sounds like the current idea is to just slap him on the wrist, which is okay; I would recommend taking him off probation the very moment he concludes his next full game.

Chemtrails: Him having not weighed in, it's hard to judge whether or not he'd do something that breaks the spirit of mafia again. The currently proposed solution pretty elegantly takes care of that; it slaps his wrist for a bit longer until we can be more certain.

And then, we come to Megiddo. His attitude shows that he is likely to commit offenses against the spirit of the game; while I'm a big proponent of not taking games too seriously, Meg has shown that he does not want to be serious enough even to respect the basic rules that are needed for mafia to function. At present, I do not have confidence that any game of mafia Meg might play in would end well.

I believe the current punishment plan of long probation would not fully prevent Meg from doing something stupid again. Even though he's taking a break, I would support a temporary blacklist to back it up (say 2-3 months, nothing too long); slaps on the wrist for Proph and Chemtrails make sense, but I think Meg needs to be shown that this is not something that can be allowed, because right now he 100% does not believe it.

I want to play with the Megiddo who used to play mafia, very badly. That Megiddo is easily in my top 3 favorite players. The Megiddo I've been playing with lately is not him.

Quote from Iso »

There have been an influx of toxic posts and anger flares and civility issues as of late. I think it would be fair to say that the next time something like this comes up, the person responsible will be Blacklisted for a full cycle of games (3 Minis, a Normal, a Specialty, and possibly an FTQ), no questions asked, regardless of who they are or what they have or have not done before.

This doesn't solve the problem. I do not support it. Not only because of what was decided with the mafia subforum not punishing flaming, but also because it doesn't take into account the likelihood of a player doing stupid things again.

We should also probably have the next CCM NOT use hydras, as very few people actually seem to enjoy it.

Now THIS I 100% agree with. More accountability, less confusion.

For the record, flaming is absolutely punishable in Mafia. The gray area is much larger, sure, because we all can tend to toe the line between "you're an idiot" and "your play is making me question whether or not you understood anything you actually read just now". But it's definitely still against the rules.

But it's punished by MTGS as a site instead, which is the distinction I was trying to make (perhaps unsuccessfully).

I think the reason we do that is because one punishment is enough for the single offense, and there are already site rules in place that make it unnecessary to have redundant ones in the Mafia area.

Quote from Wheat_Grinder »

There's no way he'll ever do this again, period.

Can confirm. Meg and I twisted his arm into this in the first place.

If Meg's isn't a least placed on probation for acting like he did it's quite frankly appalling and smacks of special treatment. Calling people autistic *******s in a private setting got most of my friends banned from this site. In a mafia game? Grow up dude. His complete disregard for even caring about the issue to me makes it very clear to just blacklist him. Maybe he learns a lesson and can get reinstated one day. Furthermore it's completely head shaking and speaks to the general truth that moda receive special treatment if prophylaxis is allowed to keep his post. Whether being completely complicit or due to being browbeat, it doesn't matter. He's supposed to help uphold the integrity of the game, and if his friends can brow beat him into taking that likely I say we just find a better fit for the job. Sorry but not sorry.

Furthermore, let me speak on the general cries of behavior here being more "douchey". It is way worse than it use to be. I say this as someone who was constantly critiqued for being harsh and edgy with my diction. However, I kept it in line of attacking thought, plans, play, etc. The outright rudeness I've dealt with in both my returns from the people who are apparently the current standard bearers of the meta, is shocking and deplorable. It is exponentially less fun and friendly to play here than it was 3yrs ago. Some of you should go back and read some old games and learn how to be in a room full of others better.

Remember this is me here talking. But Proph's actions were before he was made a mod. Removing him from modship for this would be a little on the hard side as the rule breach in question is mild and he has been apologetic for his actions.

Pending objections from the other council-members, I'll institute adding all three to the probation list within 24 hours.

I'd agree that Kpaca's onto something with the atmosphere becoming more tense in the last few years. Definitely something we'll need to tackle.

Do you agree, then, Az, about my heavy-handed approach to further disharmony?

I have to agree with kpaca to some degree here, i mean back when The Gutter was in effect... well people got banned and a big bruhaha took place and that was a private/'invite only boys club' kinda deal, it spilled over to the general site and it was a mess, my point being we took a harsh as hell stance on behavior that most members of the site would not even be able to see much less participate in, to see Megs behavior now it really makes me wonder why its being shrugged over and talked about with a 'oh well boys will be boys' kind of attitude, so yeah my voice is pretty much useless but i support the idea of a harsher probation in line with tordecks suggestion at the minimum.

Completely unrelated but i felt rather disappointed on the hydra thing, I personally felt having to sign the posts with names was... well it made me wonder what was the point, yes not signing would have made behavioral analysis hard if not impossible but i thought that was in part the point, to see a post and not be sure who in that hydra was supposed to be the poster and as such having to consider it from all possible angles... that is perhaps the only thing i liked about Flamingo's decision, it made it so that i could not simply say "Oh well these posts tell me you are town because you signed them under X name and thats totes his town play".

Unwanted voice leaving now

Prohphylaxis did this before he was mod but it still shows he can either be walked over by people he likes because he likes them, or if that's not true then it shows a disrespect for the games integrity. Either way it's completely unbecoming.

Quote from Iso »

Do you agree, then, Az, about my heavy-handed approach to further disharmony?

disagree. Throwing your weight around trying to look like a hardass isn't how you get people to be less rude. I was part of a group or rude people that they tried that on once. It didn't work.

I'm not trying to look like anything. I just feel like people need to understand that there are consequences for their actions.

It's stupid to punish for the sake of punishment, and I don't see how what kpaca is suggesting with Proph is anything other than that.

What happened to the Gutter was also stupid, but I don't see why it should be taken out on Proph.

I do agree for the need of a heavier hand with Meg than is currently being given, because he seems like he'd do this again at the drop of a hat. Proph doesn't, so he shouldn't have any harsher of a punishment.

I'd also make the case that having seen first-hand how such a thing could go wrong, Proph is likely to be a better mod than kpaca thinks; he won't bow to that sort of pressure after seeing consequences.

The thing about probation is that not all probations are equal. If enough game hosts are disturbed by meg' behavior, he simply won't be playing in any mafia games on this site for a good long time. And I think that's very helpful at sending the message that it's not simply the council that finds this problematic.

As far as flaming goes, if we were to try setting a time out period, I think it would make more sense to make it a real life time period for purposes of record-keeping.

I think limiting it as more of a symbolic gesture or reminder would be more in keeping for the time being. People just need a reminder more than anything, at the moment. Kick em off the site for 24 hours at mod discretion anytime you infract for flaming, maybe something like that? Or limit that to repeat customers? Call it a cooling off period.

Guys, just dropping in quickly in response to a couple of post the admins have seen. Whilst we are happy to leave the day to day running of the forum to the Council. Any decisions about the staffing of the forum are going to remain in the hands of the Sites Administrators.

As ever. The council has traditionally been asked, as a courtesy, what their opinion on mod staffing choices are, and sometimes has lobbied on behalf of the community for or against certain choices, we certainly don't believe we have the ultimate decision-making authority.

And most everybody is pretty cool with the choice of Proph in spite of this. My larger concern was finding a way to navigate this issue without Proph, the council, or the site staff being seen as handling it an underhanded or unfair manner, due to his mod status. It was an elephant in the room that needed to be addressed openly and frankly, so that we could move on with a clean slate.

I have a pending objection to the probation option in the council cave that needs to be resolved, based on the fact that if Bur did not see fit to enforce his game rule, then why should the council step in? My own stance is as follows:

Quote from Azrael »

Even though Bur failed to enforce the game-specific rule, due to nothing more than inexperience as a host, the behavior is so toxic and corrosive to the integrity of games I think that council action is necessary, and a large segment of the playerbase is inclined to agree. If you're flagrantly breaking a game rule and acting in such a way that you can't be accurately read, you haven't just broken a contract between yourself and the mod, you've broken the contract between yourself and your fellow players.

I've been infracted for flaming in a mafia game.

It was a long time ago, but I bet just throwing me outside (like a 12hr or 24hr ban) would have cooled me off. Of course, the infraction was enough to get the message across but only seemed to make me more angry. A small waited time makes sense.

I'm also pretty sure I received an infraction for flaming in a game. It was also Pre-Curse, but, like Zionite, it was enough to cause me to take a deep breath.

What do you think, Iso, other mods? 24 hour cooling off period?

I think that's a bad idea because it can strongly interfere with a person's ability to post and can have negative impact on game deadlines, which isn't fair to the other players.

Say Bob can only post every other day due to work, for some reason. Bob receives a flaming infraction two days (let's say the mods needed to discuss it, first) after his last post, but before his next post can be made. Bob is now unable to post for almost 4 days. What if it's LyoL and there are only 2 days until deadline? That unfairly negatively impacts Bob's team.

On the other hand, maybe Bob will think a bit harder next time before he flames.

On the third hand, maybe that will only fan the flames of Bob's anger.

While it is a WCS the situation in which Iso describes is reason enough I feel that making a flame infraction anymore than is already established throughout the remainder of the forums would not be useful.

Quote from MisterSins »

So, I know a large portion of this topic is about the use of one name for 3 people on a hydra - but it's clear that a big problem that Azrael (and others(?)) have here is the flaming.

I would just like to point out that, from what I've seen over the last ~5 years that I've been on this forum (I have well over 5000 posts across my accounts, and I've seen a lot - I usually at least skimmed through the games I wasn't playing when I was playing a lot, and I was once a regular around other parts of the forums), Generic has been the most flame-inducing player around. I've seen more players get warnings while flaming Generic than I've seen against anyone else (even more flames than I've seen people induce on the Standard forums ) - and most of those players who flamed Generic, as far as I've seen, rarely - if ever - were warned for flaming anyone else in their time being here.

I'm pointing out that maybe it'd be nice to look at the source of a lot of problems rather than going around trying to bop every problem that springs up from it. (And no, I don't want to have an argument about this, Generic)


Also, in regards to 3 people signing as the same person - how is this much different, if at all, from say: talking in a QuickTopic like everyone does in these hydra games, everyone collaborating on a post (or even just one person saying "post this"), and having only one person always write in the game thread? And I know people have done that before.

I can say from my limited time playing with Generic he is rude and arrogant. He's not openly flaming (that I've seen) but he's insulting to others and talks himself up. It's not fun. Perhaps he's good at "toeing" the line? I think he should speak to people with more respect though.

Hi, everyone!

We're having a discussion in the Mod Cave about removing individual Mod Helpdesks and repurposing the Rules threads for Helpdesks. I suggested that, since Mafia is a pretty standalone area and our rules contains articles that are useful for new players that we don't want to get lost in a jumble of issues, that we simply use the Council thread as a catch-all for any of our inter-forum issues.

Does anyone have any strong objections to this? I feel like few enough people understand the jurisdiction of the Council vs. what the Mods do, anyway, that it would make sense to have the threads in the same place.

Mostly, I'm looking for the input of my fellow Councilmen, here.

What you suggest makes sense. I'd rather avoid clutter if we can, and the Council has always kind of served as a neutral ground to air grievances.

I suppose there's some risk for creating additional confusion as to where the mod/council barrier lies through this arrangement, but if the mods are fine with that, I have no objections on behalf of the council.

EDIT: Hold that thought. When you say repurposing the rules threads, do you mean taking over the signup thread as well? I think just taking over the council thread in part should be sufficient.

Like I said, I think simply adding a second purpose to the Council thread will suffice.