There were 2 slots in that game that did not produce content. Get off your high horse and accept that.
You guys chose to make the prod lengths that long. You chose to make the extra replacements. The rules never stated that you needed to do so. So just stop lying man. You keep talking about the rules. But the rules were so god damn vague that they could have been enforced anyway you wanted to. You made them enforced in one of the weakest ways possible.
I'm not arguing for removing players for posting not adequately enough. If I was I'd argue for a lot more players to be removed. So get off your high horse and stop saying that's what I'm saying cause it just ain't so.
Fundamentally there were two slots not playing by the end of day one. You keep dodging this fact and saying it was "Low content" not it was no content. Nobody else will take the position it was content. I'm not arguing for altering the deal. I'm saying that you guys enforced it in the weakest way possible. You could have made prods 48 hours, prod length is not noted in the rules. Neither is what "Repeated prods are".
This isn't altering the rules mate. What the **** are you talking about.
Edit: I mean **** man, you've even said that the way I interpreted the rules is a viable option so you know that this is a possibility. Like I just don't get why you're even saying this. Take ownership for these mistakes and stop trying to blame it on the rules or on the players. This was a moderation decision to interpret them in that way.
Like here is the rule as written.
Each player is expected to post content at least once every 72 hours. Saying "Catching up" is not content. Failure to do so will result in being prodded. Repeated prodded will lead to replacement or modkill without warning - at a penalty to your team.
So lets focus on the word repeated. That seems pretty key to understanding this rule. To repeat something means to do twice, for something to be repeated its several times. So, by the rules as written and understood in the most textual way possible, you get prodded ever 72 hours, you get additional prods possibly every 72 hours but that's not as clear. But you need to be prodded multiple times for it to be repeated.
Also, the rules are not clear. Is saying catching up the result in an additional prod? Or does it equate to a players post not counting? It says .... "Saying "Catching up" is not content. Failure to do so will result in being prodded." ... Failure to do what? Saying catching up is not content? I'm uncertain what failure to do so is even referring to as should anyone else with a basic understanding of English grammar rules.
So, but your understanding of the rules its 9 days of no content before you are forced to be replaced. And if you come back in those 9 days you can post ONCE and then not post again for 8 days and do it all over again. That's how the rules read. Clearly in no realm of reality should that be the case, and I doubt anyone thought that was what the rules were saying.
Clearly, the modkill or replacement is at the discretion of the moderators. There is nothing that says when either triggers. So, what I am asking for wasn't changing the rules. In fact its whats fair to the players playing that game. I'm not really sure what else there is to say. A myopic textual reading of the rules clearly shows that it allows for situations that the drafters didn't intend for, a holistic approach clearly lands where I want it to land. And you're arguing that somehow it changes the rules when clearly it doesn't.
What I can say is this the rule as drafted clearly shows a preference and the intention for the rules to be punishing to lurkers. The rule clearly allows for moderators to say something is egregious and modkill.
So, now I'm going to ask some questions.
What is game health?
What did you mean when it was said that the players were not being mod killed due to game health?
Why is it fair to reward the mafia for such decisions(and if you want to argue it doesn't reward the mafia feel free to do so)?
Why were the moderators providing replacements at all? The rules clearly state teams are responsible for their own replacements.
Why did Osie have to fight so hard to have his own team replace him when they were dead in their game? That seems like one of the easiest yes's I've ever seen.
Actually I'm going to make a second part to just break this up.
But now that I'm really reading these rules with a critical eye I'm left with even more questions.
Rules
Follow MTGS Rules. In particular, no flaming. Please report posts you believe break the forum rules rather than arguing in thread.
These games will have a very low tolerance for rudeness and toxicity. Please think carefully before you post and try to foster a pleasant playing environment for everyone.
The Spirit of the Rules is more important than the letter: if you think you have found a mistake or loophole, talk to the mod about it before you post.
Questions, Comments, or Complaints for the mod should be addressed to them in private. Do not bring accusations of cheating or rule breaking to the thread
Please try to avoid angleshooting. This includes things like discussing the real-world reasons behind replacements or activity.
DO NOT edit or delete your posts.
DO NOT post if you are dead (not even "bah" posts).
DO NOT post in the thread during Night.
DO NOT directly quote or screenshot your role PM or any communication from the mod or any other private communication. You may paraphrase this information. Check with the mod if you even the slightest bit unsure.
DO NOT attempt to use the wording, structure, or content of any roles PMs to try and deduce alignment.
Do not "Thank" posts.
As long as the game is ongoing, do not talk to anyone about the game outside of the game unless your role PM explicitly allows you to.
No funny stuff, like cryptographic claims, tiny/invisible text, trust tells etc.
Deadlines and Activity
Each Day last two (2) weeks. This may decrease as the playcount does. These deadlines are unlikely to be flexible.
Night will last 72 hours.
A lynch requires a simple majority. Once this is reached, the Day will end after a short Twilight (in which players may continue to post)
If the Deadline is reached, I will pretend everyone not voting does not exist: if there is a majority vote, that player will be lynched. If not, the Day will end in a No Lynch.
Each player is expected to post content at least once every 72 hours. Saying "Catching up" is not content. Failure to do so will result in being prodded. Repeated prodded will lead to replacement or modkill without warning - at a penalty to your team.
Please do not monopolise or spam the thread. Players used to a significantly faster pace of play are requested to play with patience and the consolidation of thought that our deadlines allow.
Players are allowed to post less if they let the mod know that they are unavailable beforehand.
Alright now this gets weird. You want to talk about rules and pulling a Vader let's do this.
If you notice in the rules section there is nothing that says any of that is punishable, or what the punishment is.
I only see two rules there that I know were broken. First, Angleshooting was done by Gemma. The result was a modkill. So, I guess the punishment for breaking any of these rules is modkill? Yet, you said to me and I quote.
I hear your complaint re: the team event but I don't know what you expected us to do instead. Modkill Nancy for breaking the "spirit" of the prod rule by having extended V/LA that was further delayed due to travel?
Yet nancy clearly broke the spirit of the rules. And the rules say clearly that has consequences. This was before Gemma dropped the bomb shell that she did as well. Clearly these rules can be enforced in many ways.
Furthermore, since there is no punishment indicated on the second part of this I'm once again left with questions.
You've explicitly expressed that modkills are available for not posting in the 72 hour rule. Yet there seems to be no other such warning anywhere else in the rules. Strange yes? Seems to me that the rules indicate that not posting is the most egregious crime you can commit. Nothing else gives a remedy or a solution to any of the other rule breaking. But we can infer that none of the other rules are as important as the posting requirement because the posting requirement has a remedy, and allows itself the maximum punishment but none of the other rules even suggest that they will modkill for breaking the rules.
Furthermore we have rules such as
Please do not monopolise or spam the thread. Players used to a significantly faster pace of play are requested to play with patience and the consolidation of thought that our deadlines allow.
Which were also not enforced at all. Kanji being a prime example of this.
Its strange no? Clearly there are some things different, but my point is thus. If someone posted during night(And they did) the punishment clearly isn't to modkill that player. But why would a player expect angleshooting to equal a modkill. Maybe we are going to argue its some sort of intention qualifier and with intention the punishments ramp up.
We have trust tells banned too. What? That's just WIFOM. That seems a little extreme.
So, there you have it. I could go in a lot more into detail about why these rules are poorly drafted and why if a player was reading them they might come to conclusions that clearly were not implied, but you know I get why they are drafted this way.
Just don't argue to me that the "Rules said X". When clearly the rules don't say much and even when they do its clearly up to the moderators.
Edit: Another thing that occurred to me is the angleshooting rule.
Someone attacks player X for lurking. I respond, yeah but I know they are having a hard IRL time so I'm not willing to use that as a reason to scum read them.
Is that angelshooting? In the strict way the rules are written it is. But I don't think under my understanding of what we are trying to prevent that it is. It's hard right?
Dude, no one, literally no one is saying the lurking was acceptable. Merely that the rules do not allow a no notice modkill until the player has been prodded repeatedly. That is *literally* the only thing being said.
Your complaints have been heard and we'd like to discuss alterations to the rules that would help instead of going around in circles about whose interpretation is more correct. Moderator always gets the final word on rules interpretations, and we tried to interpret them as fairly as we could. If you don't want to talk about solutions and are trying to get us to say we're terrible people for being human and making mistakes or something, you've gotten as good as you're going to get on that front. We've clearly and plainly admitted that mistakes were made and we'll try to do better next time.
What do you actually want out of this if not that? I even apologized several posts ago that the lurking impacted your enjoyment and I got condescended to about how you need to teach me why lurkers are bad.
I've played mafia for so long I forgot why rules are so important.
Yeah right?
I've played so long I look at these rules and I can clearly say "X = modkill Y = warning".
But the rules don't really explain any of that.
-------------------------------------
Silver let me explain in totality.
I hate things like this. There is nothing more in the world that I hate than double standards. I just hate it. I can always give a myriad of examples, but the one that always rings true comes from law enforcement.
I've seen police officers damn a person for a simple crime. Yet at the same time see another officer do the same thing and rally behind him and say "Hes a good guy". That's bull*****. You either give both people the same benefit of the doubt or you give nobody the benefit of the doubt.
How does this relate to mafia.
To me its the way that the rules is twofold for these games. I think you guys did a great job at giving the teams an even game. The balance in the games seemed fine. At that point you have to wash your hands clean of the balance aspect and look at player behavior.
So what are the double standards.
First, you treated players that broke the rules early different from those that broke the rules later. Nancy is my example. You can't setup a system that will gladly replace players early game, but then sort of fudge the rules later in the game because you don't have replacements. That's not fair. Maybe those earlier players deserved the same opportunity, or maybe those later players didn't. But you didn't treat them equally and for me that's a big deal. Its worse than that to me though because the system as I see it rewards you for later rule breaking and tells players that as well.
You've done your balancing right? The games were balanced, you gotta at some point let players make their own plays as they see fit and if the rules say you're out you're out.
Secondly, there was some focus on the player comments in this game. I don't have a problem with that really in the sense of maybe how that sounds. My problem is that if you are going to interpret a rule as strict as you can one way, and be active about promoting it. Its strange that another rule is then going to be interpreted as loosely as it was here.
That's my issue. Eco thinks a good game is nobody being mean or using swear words. I think good game might include that but really it should be about player enjoyment. I objectively think Arkham was a failure because of this. Games rules and design should promote memorable games. I think Azreal's disheritance is an example of that. You replace any amount of players with others and I still think I would remember that game. Certainly there is some luck involved with some of the elements sort of brewing together.
And I'm angry about it. I'm angry that my time wasn't respected in this game. I'm angry that I feel cheated even though I left early by that loss in the game. I'm angry that I have to fight so god damn hard to say hey the rules are not fair.
I want rules that tell players what to expect. Clearly that didn't happen here. My point with all of the rules being drafted as they are is that there isn't a Vadar situation. That the rules are so vague players don't know what to expect. We all have a sense of what's fair, what we think we should expect. But clearly some of us have different standards.
I want moderation going forward to be more clear. I think a lot of issues are caused that way. And if a moderator says "I can't explain it right now, but please believe me this is the best decision and we can talk about it later" I think that's fine too because a moderator might not be able to reveal all information. But with these games that wasn't there. You made rules about prodding people a mod kills and replacements and nobody knew what was going on or why you got there.
What I think needs to happen is for rules to clearly state their remedies.
Modkill, replacement, warning. With intent being factored in.
I've seen players take screenshots of things post them and be surprised when they get automodkilled. And its because they thought it wasn't that bad, or didn't understand why it was against the rules. I remember when you had to paraphrase your pm's instead of copt pasting within reason. I'm glad we are past that.
I think the rules need to be rewritten. Even the loosest of interpretations requires us to come to the conclusion that the prods had NINE days before you could be replaced. Nobody intended that. In my mind its actually 12 since repeated implies more than three to me.
I'm going to try and write some new rules with all of this in mind. I'm open to suggestions on what should be included. I just want to respect players. The goals should follow to basic guidelines to me.
First, to remove negatively impact player actions.
Second, be clear.
We've already said we welcome suggestions and that the rules weren't clear enough and failed in many respects.
I just don't get what you get out of relitigating and scrutinizing every single mod action and trying to force me to defend them after we've already admitted we made mistakes and we'll try to do better next time.
If you want to talk about whether this thing or that thing should be allowed, that's a fine thing to debate. If you want to talk about specific changes to the rules you think would improve them, that's fine too. But I'm not going to justify every mod action that happened, especially after we've already all agreed some of it shouldn't have.
But I have a problem with the way you're framing double standards, because you're essentially arguing that issuing modkilleds once you run out of replacements is also a double standard that unfairly harms the team of the player that replaced out later. Double standards can only apply when all circumstances, including available replacements, are extremely similar if not identical. Just my two cents.
As far as Nancy specifically goes, I categorically deny your version of events. She would not have been replaced even if we already had someone queued to take the slot who was caught up in the game, and that is a fact. It's a sad fact, because she shouldn't have been given so much V/LA in the first place, but that's the way it is, and that's how it happened.
Thank you eco, dan, and silver for running this. It's time consuming to keep up with three games and 13 team channels, and I really appreciate that you all took the time to put this together.
I really love team mafia and had a good time.
I'm sorry to my team and my game that I ended up not being able to really keep up and put more effort in to the games.
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There were 2 slots in that game that did not produce content. Get off your high horse and accept that.
You guys chose to make the prod lengths that long. You chose to make the extra replacements. The rules never stated that you needed to do so. So just stop lying man. You keep talking about the rules. But the rules were so god damn vague that they could have been enforced anyway you wanted to. You made them enforced in one of the weakest ways possible.
I'm not arguing for removing players for posting not adequately enough. If I was I'd argue for a lot more players to be removed. So get off your high horse and stop saying that's what I'm saying cause it just ain't so.
Fundamentally there were two slots not playing by the end of day one. You keep dodging this fact and saying it was "Low content" not it was no content. Nobody else will take the position it was content. I'm not arguing for altering the deal. I'm saying that you guys enforced it in the weakest way possible. You could have made prods 48 hours, prod length is not noted in the rules. Neither is what "Repeated prods are".
This isn't altering the rules mate. What the **** are you talking about.
Edit: I mean **** man, you've even said that the way I interpreted the rules is a viable option so you know that this is a possibility. Like I just don't get why you're even saying this. Take ownership for these mistakes and stop trying to blame it on the rules or on the players. This was a moderation decision to interpret them in that way.
Like here is the rule as written.
So lets focus on the word repeated. That seems pretty key to understanding this rule. To repeat something means to do twice, for something to be repeated its several times. So, by the rules as written and understood in the most textual way possible, you get prodded ever 72 hours, you get additional prods possibly every 72 hours but that's not as clear. But you need to be prodded multiple times for it to be repeated.
Also, the rules are not clear. Is saying catching up the result in an additional prod? Or does it equate to a players post not counting? It says .... "Saying "Catching up" is not content. Failure to do so will result in being prodded." ... Failure to do what? Saying catching up is not content? I'm uncertain what failure to do so is even referring to as should anyone else with a basic understanding of English grammar rules.
So, but your understanding of the rules its 9 days of no content before you are forced to be replaced. And if you come back in those 9 days you can post ONCE and then not post again for 8 days and do it all over again. That's how the rules read. Clearly in no realm of reality should that be the case, and I doubt anyone thought that was what the rules were saying.
Clearly, the modkill or replacement is at the discretion of the moderators. There is nothing that says when either triggers. So, what I am asking for wasn't changing the rules. In fact its whats fair to the players playing that game. I'm not really sure what else there is to say. A myopic textual reading of the rules clearly shows that it allows for situations that the drafters didn't intend for, a holistic approach clearly lands where I want it to land. And you're arguing that somehow it changes the rules when clearly it doesn't.
What I can say is this the rule as drafted clearly shows a preference and the intention for the rules to be punishing to lurkers. The rule clearly allows for moderators to say something is egregious and modkill.
So, now I'm going to ask some questions.
What is game health?
What did you mean when it was said that the players were not being mod killed due to game health?
Why is it fair to reward the mafia for such decisions(and if you want to argue it doesn't reward the mafia feel free to do so)?
Why were the moderators providing replacements at all? The rules clearly state teams are responsible for their own replacements.
Why did Osie have to fight so hard to have his own team replace him when they were dead in their game? That seems like one of the easiest yes's I've ever seen.
But now that I'm really reading these rules with a critical eye I'm left with even more questions.
Alright now this gets weird. You want to talk about rules and pulling a Vader let's do this.
If you notice in the rules section there is nothing that says any of that is punishable, or what the punishment is.
I only see two rules there that I know were broken. First, Angleshooting was done by Gemma. The result was a modkill. So, I guess the punishment for breaking any of these rules is modkill? Yet, you said to me and I quote.
Yet nancy clearly broke the spirit of the rules. And the rules say clearly that has consequences. This was before Gemma dropped the bomb shell that she did as well. Clearly these rules can be enforced in many ways.
Furthermore, since there is no punishment indicated on the second part of this I'm once again left with questions.
You've explicitly expressed that modkills are available for not posting in the 72 hour rule. Yet there seems to be no other such warning anywhere else in the rules. Strange yes? Seems to me that the rules indicate that not posting is the most egregious crime you can commit. Nothing else gives a remedy or a solution to any of the other rule breaking. But we can infer that none of the other rules are as important as the posting requirement because the posting requirement has a remedy, and allows itself the maximum punishment but none of the other rules even suggest that they will modkill for breaking the rules.
Furthermore we have rules such as
Which were also not enforced at all. Kanji being a prime example of this.
Its strange no? Clearly there are some things different, but my point is thus. If someone posted during night(And they did) the punishment clearly isn't to modkill that player. But why would a player expect angleshooting to equal a modkill. Maybe we are going to argue its some sort of intention qualifier and with intention the punishments ramp up.
We have trust tells banned too. What? That's just WIFOM. That seems a little extreme.
So, there you have it. I could go in a lot more into detail about why these rules are poorly drafted and why if a player was reading them they might come to conclusions that clearly were not implied, but you know I get why they are drafted this way.
Just don't argue to me that the "Rules said X". When clearly the rules don't say much and even when they do its clearly up to the moderators.
Edit: Another thing that occurred to me is the angleshooting rule.
Someone attacks player X for lurking. I respond, yeah but I know they are having a hard IRL time so I'm not willing to use that as a reason to scum read them.
Is that angelshooting? In the strict way the rules are written it is. But I don't think under my understanding of what we are trying to prevent that it is. It's hard right?
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Your complaints have been heard and we'd like to discuss alterations to the rules that would help instead of going around in circles about whose interpretation is more correct. Moderator always gets the final word on rules interpretations, and we tried to interpret them as fairly as we could. If you don't want to talk about solutions and are trying to get us to say we're terrible people for being human and making mistakes or something, you've gotten as good as you're going to get on that front. We've clearly and plainly admitted that mistakes were made and we'll try to do better next time.
What do you actually want out of this if not that? I even apologized several posts ago that the lurking impacted your enjoyment and I got condescended to about how you need to teach me why lurkers are bad.
What do you want?
Yeah right?
I've played so long I look at these rules and I can clearly say "X = modkill Y = warning".
But the rules don't really explain any of that.
-------------------------------------
Silver let me explain in totality.
I hate things like this. There is nothing more in the world that I hate than double standards. I just hate it. I can always give a myriad of examples, but the one that always rings true comes from law enforcement.
I've seen police officers damn a person for a simple crime. Yet at the same time see another officer do the same thing and rally behind him and say "Hes a good guy". That's bull*****. You either give both people the same benefit of the doubt or you give nobody the benefit of the doubt.
How does this relate to mafia.
To me its the way that the rules is twofold for these games. I think you guys did a great job at giving the teams an even game. The balance in the games seemed fine. At that point you have to wash your hands clean of the balance aspect and look at player behavior.
So what are the double standards.
First, you treated players that broke the rules early different from those that broke the rules later. Nancy is my example. You can't setup a system that will gladly replace players early game, but then sort of fudge the rules later in the game because you don't have replacements. That's not fair. Maybe those earlier players deserved the same opportunity, or maybe those later players didn't. But you didn't treat them equally and for me that's a big deal. Its worse than that to me though because the system as I see it rewards you for later rule breaking and tells players that as well.
You've done your balancing right? The games were balanced, you gotta at some point let players make their own plays as they see fit and if the rules say you're out you're out.
Secondly, there was some focus on the player comments in this game. I don't have a problem with that really in the sense of maybe how that sounds. My problem is that if you are going to interpret a rule as strict as you can one way, and be active about promoting it. Its strange that another rule is then going to be interpreted as loosely as it was here.
That's my issue. Eco thinks a good game is nobody being mean or using swear words. I think good game might include that but really it should be about player enjoyment. I objectively think Arkham was a failure because of this. Games rules and design should promote memorable games. I think Azreal's disheritance is an example of that. You replace any amount of players with others and I still think I would remember that game. Certainly there is some luck involved with some of the elements sort of brewing together.
And I'm angry about it. I'm angry that my time wasn't respected in this game. I'm angry that I feel cheated even though I left early by that loss in the game. I'm angry that I have to fight so god damn hard to say hey the rules are not fair.
I want rules that tell players what to expect. Clearly that didn't happen here. My point with all of the rules being drafted as they are is that there isn't a Vadar situation. That the rules are so vague players don't know what to expect. We all have a sense of what's fair, what we think we should expect. But clearly some of us have different standards.
I want moderation going forward to be more clear. I think a lot of issues are caused that way. And if a moderator says "I can't explain it right now, but please believe me this is the best decision and we can talk about it later" I think that's fine too because a moderator might not be able to reveal all information. But with these games that wasn't there. You made rules about prodding people a mod kills and replacements and nobody knew what was going on or why you got there.
What I think needs to happen is for rules to clearly state their remedies.
Modkill, replacement, warning. With intent being factored in.
I've seen players take screenshots of things post them and be surprised when they get automodkilled. And its because they thought it wasn't that bad, or didn't understand why it was against the rules. I remember when you had to paraphrase your pm's instead of copt pasting within reason. I'm glad we are past that.
I think the rules need to be rewritten. Even the loosest of interpretations requires us to come to the conclusion that the prods had NINE days before you could be replaced. Nobody intended that. In my mind its actually 12 since repeated implies more than three to me.
I'm going to try and write some new rules with all of this in mind. I'm open to suggestions on what should be included. I just want to respect players. The goals should follow to basic guidelines to me.
First, to remove negatively impact player actions.
Second, be clear.
I just don't get what you get out of relitigating and scrutinizing every single mod action and trying to force me to defend them after we've already admitted we made mistakes and we'll try to do better next time.
If you want to talk about whether this thing or that thing should be allowed, that's a fine thing to debate. If you want to talk about specific changes to the rules you think would improve them, that's fine too. But I'm not going to justify every mod action that happened, especially after we've already all agreed some of it shouldn't have.
But I have a problem with the way you're framing double standards, because you're essentially arguing that issuing modkilleds once you run out of replacements is also a double standard that unfairly harms the team of the player that replaced out later. Double standards can only apply when all circumstances, including available replacements, are extremely similar if not identical. Just my two cents.
As far as Nancy specifically goes, I categorically deny your version of events. She would not have been replaced even if we already had someone queued to take the slot who was caught up in the game, and that is a fact. It's a sad fact, because she shouldn't have been given so much V/LA in the first place, but that's the way it is, and that's how it happened.
Edit: accidentally words
I really love team mafia and had a good time.
I'm sorry to my team and my game that I ended up not being able to really keep up and put more effort in to the games.