Excuse me? Someone used the fact that I had expressed disapproval for lynching regardless of alignment to try to angleshoot me into replacing out of a currently ongoing game. You're condoning that now?
No, that sounds like bullying and the only encouragement that people should be receiving to replace out is if the player clearly doesn't have time for the game, or if the mental/emotional health of the player is being compromised by the game. That is an entirely different matter from "I'm going to try to policy lynch you because I don't like how you play the game".
Wrath_of_DoG attempted to lynch me in every single game we played in together past a certain point, simply because he didn't like me as a Mafia player. I didn't complain a single time. I tried to reason with him and talk to him about it, but he shut down all forms of communication regarding the matter. Instead of stooping to his level or being rude about it, I simply outplayed him and got him counter-lynched or Vigged in response to his antagonism.
There are alternative solutions.
Edit: Such as requesting the host and/or Council look into the player in question. Not just suggesting we let that go untouched.
I've been putting some thought into this.
Osie asked why we have issues. This example by Iso is why. Its habitual, this isn't the only instance of this happening on this site. If I was a mod of any of the games that this happened, I would have immediately given WoD a warning and if it persisted force replaced them out or mod killed them. At that point I'd have moved for the probation or blacklisting after the game ended.
Osie's point is that we shouldn't allow these things to exist as moderators, and that we should do more to foster a positive game environment. Making it King of the Flies and forcing players to deal with it on their own is unproductive.
Its also a little ridiculous that this comment can be made and everyone glosses over it and I guess it isn't a big deal to them. That probabally speaks to how much of an issue this can be on this site.
I am just as guilty of this as anyone else, even recently, but I have been of the strong belief for months that telling another player in-thread that they are obnoxious, toxic, or that they deserve a modkill/non-alignment-based-lynch/etc is toxic itself and detrimental to game and community health. And I at least have warned players to not suggest that in thread.
I agree on this part.
I need to think some more on this. The more I push back, the less crazy I think your suggestion is.
We should foster good game environments. Perhaps we shouldn't force players to legislate their feelings in game and when game hosting we as moderators should moderate.
@DV: I would have readily accepted being modkilled in Scum Love the King.
Fine lets institute the rule, so I can get plenty of slots mod killed for their refusal to play the game or a myriad of other reasons.
I wasn't town in scum love the king so I can not say how I would have acted. But, I might have pushed you for obfuscating yourself with a PR. That's sort of a player alignment read, but its also not at the same time.
I'm really not sure what your problem is with what happened.
You pushed a gimick and players didn't like it so they lynched you. You called them out for game throwing and flipping a coin. But, I think that's decently hypocritical and as your scum buddy in that game I'm a little frustrated with that. You equally threw the game by standing by a gimick that you knew was throwing the game. You got yourself lynched, and in a way that was because you wanted to play a certain way.
I'm just not sure what your issue is with this. I think you have a point that if Tom was to pull a similar gimick he would probabally be fine. I agree with you on that.
But, I don't remotely see how this solves or alleviates a problem. With the other rule I personally think its stupid. I've always felt that some of that OoG information should be allowed. A player is known to lurk to replacement if they are scum(A la creature style). I'm not sure why I'm not supposed to use that information. Additionally, in a certain game that player has some personal issues and says so and they replace out because of that. Normally, I would lynch that player for lurking, but in this case there is some OoG information telling me that maybe that isn't a correct read.
Take the Gemma case in the team game. Gemma correctly use the information about Nancy Drew to nail them as scum. And from what I know from conversations I've had, Nancy was 100% cheating. Yet she got punished for that.
So, lets go back to the issue at hand lynching without an alignment purpose. Let's talk about Ruma. Ruma is lynched typically, because people can't figure out their alignment. Ruma lurks, and trolls. I believe that players lynch Ruma for mixed motives. They lynch him partially because of his indeterminable alignment, but also because they are mad at him for lurking and trolling. With your rule what do?
At the end of the day I just don't see how a rule like this solves anything. If anything its going to create more animosity. Most game moderators on this site will not enforce this rule or will not replace a player out, for these reasons. And players being told they have no recourse at all seems not only bastard to me, but also a recipe for a more toxic environment.
I'd rather ban Post Restrictions than force players to play with a player that is post restricting.
You have to take a step back and think about what this is.
Players express they don't like X behavior. I really don't care if its PR, toxicity, Gif posting.
Player Y continues to do so against all other players expressed wishes.
Players go to mod.
Mod has to ????
Either
A) Mod replaces the player doing X behavior, because clearly the player doing X behavior isn't going to stop.
BUT that player isn't really breaking any rules. So, that doesn't seem fair.
B) Mod replaces the rest of the game. Yeah, just no.
C) Mod does nothing so players lynch them because they don't want to deal with it.
Really what you are trying to do is enforce having fun. Player Z doesn't like player D for posting in Gifs. Player Z is the only player in the game that has a problem with it. Should player D be forced to stop? I'd say no.
Six players have a problem with player D in a 16 person game. They are a minority. Should player D be forced to stop?
At the end of the day you have to recognize something.
Players made it clear to you they did not like you posting in PR. You made the active decision to tell an entire game to go **** themselves by continuing to post that way. The only thing that would have happened here is that if players were forced to talk to a moderator first, the moderator would have told you to stop or be replaced out.
Players solved it by lynching you. You didn't respect peoples opinions and you decided to continue the way YOU wanted to play.
Like what can you possibly see as a way out of this? I see no way in which the moderation comes out in your favor in scum loves the king.
SLTK is not the topic of discussion. It's lynching regardless of alignment.
But if you want to discuss SLTK, I'm fine with doing that as long as it isn't conflated with another topic.
I fail to see how any rule in place would ever stop any problem as you are suggesting it is.
I'm using that as an example.
What you are asking the moderator to do is something moderators should never do. Which is pick a side.
I'd rather ban Post Restrictions than force players to play with a player that is post restricting.
You have to take a step back and think about what this is.
Players express they don't like X behavior. I really don't care if its PR, toxicity, Gif posting.
Player Y continues to do so against all other players expressed wishes.
Players go to mod.
Mod has to ????
Either
A) Mod replaces the player doing X behavior, because clearly the player doing X behavior isn't going to stop.
BUT that player isn't really breaking any rules. So, that doesn't seem fair.
B) Mod replaces the rest of the game. Yeah, just no.
C) Mod does nothing so players lynch them because they don't want to deal with it.
Really what you are trying to do is enforce having fun. Player Z doesn't like player D for posting in Gifs. Player Z is the only player in the game that has a problem with it. Should player D be forced to stop? I'd say no.
Six players have a problem with player D in a 16 person game. They are a minority. Should player D be forced to stop?
At the end of the day you have to recognize something.
Players made it clear to you they did not like you posting in PR. You made the active decision to tell an entire game to go **** themselves by continuing to post that way. The only thing that would have happened here is that if players were forced to talk to a moderator first, the moderator would have told you to stop or be replaced out.
Players solved it by lynching you. You didn't respect peoples opinions and you decided to continue the way YOU wanted to play.
Like what can you possibly see as a way out of this? I see no way in which the moderation comes out in your favor in scum loves the king.
Specifically, him only calling for me and ignoring GJ seems highly disingenuous.
My understanding is you're the one in the most hot water.
Which is 100% warranted, and I totally understand the impetus to ban you, I initially agreed with it. But it's not as though we can suddenly change posting standards and then ban you retroactively for not living up to them. And to say these were the standards before now is disingenuous, because no one was actually enforcing them.
Ahhh,
I understand this a lot better now. I probably overall agree with you I think.
Do you think a more formal rule structure would help then? IE specific steps that should be taken etc. Personally, I dislike the outright ban because with hosts ignoring the list then I say what is the point. So, I'd like hosts to listen to the list when it comes to that. Also, we don't have enough players to be able to be that strict.
If you think about it this way those rules work like a sift. It will work with a high amount of players, the players left probably fit a certain play style. So, it works but it needs a decent amount of players to feed into the system.
I'd propose since we have smaller player base we should work more on sculpting players into model players. That would IMO take a more proactive approach from the community on voicing opinions of problems. In my case I don't want to play if players are not going to enjoy playing with me. Like, whats the point? It isn't fun to have people go "OH X is joining". You feel?
So, I'd argue that we might need a more standardized approach to the moderation. Right now its up the the individual game hosts. Which as Shadow pointed out you are conflating game hosts with forum mods. They are not one and the same on this site.
That all being said, I think a lot of this is case by case. Exceptions should be made for somethings and not for others. Having a set of rules and then having them be broken could cause some players to feel ostracized.
For me personally, having this open conversation has worked for me very well. Iso's been a good help, so have others. I think for me its realizing how much of a problem I was, and that I wasn't willing to admit to myself that there was an issue. It might surprise you as well, but I have very little contact with mods on these issues.
The fact of the matter is that the state of moderation on this site is appalling. It's questionable what the mods actually do. I know I won't make any friends on the mod team saying this, but I respect you enough to be honest about it. When I first came here, I gave up trying to report inflammatory posts. What was the point? The mods made it very clear they weren't ever going to respond to them. They were just allowing them to run rampant. It was unbelievable to me. What is the point of not angrily trolling people? **** it, let's act like angry kids on Fortnite, it's not like the people whose job it is to police conduct seem to care. If they don't, why shouldn't I just tell people what I think of them?
In fact, I actually had a mod tell me, and I am not making a word of this up, that a problematic player was warned, but they didn't want to publicly announce it. This mod apparently thought the best way to promote a law-abiding community was making certain that the fact that a post was against the rules was keeping it a secret. Literally making certain that other people didn't know. Breathtaking.
For context, I used to play on MTGNews, which was the parent site of MTGSalvation before the schism (long story). On MTGNews, if you had to be replaced ever, even once, you were put onto a ban list. If you had to be removed from the game for bad behavior, which was almost entirely unheard of, even once, you were placed onto a ban list. The ban list was not binding, hosts could choose to ignore it at their own peril, but the fact was that this type of behavior was very infrequent because if you acted up, THE MODS DID SOMETHING.
That might seem draconian. Fair. You have to adapt your method of governance to suit the community, what worked in one place might stifle another. But the fact of the matter is the moderation here has been toothless, and this is what you get as a result. Be gentle with weeds, and your garden gets overrun.
I agree with parts of this, somewhat.
Just out of morbid curiosity, did you feel that the moderation of the Debate section when it still existed was also toothless?
If we followed HR's advice half the active players would be banned himself included.
Specifically, him only calling for me and ignoring GJ seems highly disingenuous.
I'm going to say something that might be surprising.
I find a lot of aggression to be unfun too. Its mentally taxing. And when a player says I'm not enjoying X, that doesn't feel good either.
I'm not going to get into the whole SLTK thing either. But, on the topic of treating players friendly whats the difference between Tom's many iterations of PRs and Osies? Soundcloud thing aside.
I agree that DBS probabally go the short end of the stick. I got frustrated with DBS myself, but that was for a very specific reason. DBS was sort of being a problem in Arkham, but not in a way that I felt that someone needed to step in. Osie wanted to and I didn't feel strongly about it so Osie stepped in and gave a really GENERAL hey lets be nice guys post. DBS sort of took that as being directed at her, when it wasn't or at least wasn't directly at her. Then she claimed persecution without even asking at least me, and that sort of went over the line to me simply because she didn't ask the mod in the game.
In Playstation I was totally allowed to get away with more than I should have. Shadow has said he was trying to give me a fair shake. I don't blame him for that and it was his first time modding a game I think. I'd argue that there were numerous other players in that game that also were allowed behavior that shouldn't have been allowed. I'd also say that no matter how Shadow handled me at the end of the day in that game I would have been a problem I had some personal things going on and I at least partially took it out on the thread. To give you an idea how bad it was, I totally didn't think I was nearly as much of a problem as I was. Like, I've reread that game and all I can say is YIKES. It was bad. I'm sorry to everyone for having to deal with me in that.
Personally, I think TS also might have gotten a bad shake I've reread much of Startrek and to be honest his behavior wasn't that bad. His personality might have been. So, I think he got treated differently because of that.
Its hard to say whats right though in that circumstance. If players don't enjoy playing with a player what should moderators do? I come in post once every three days, post about 4 sentences and leave. Is that fun to play with? No. Is it breaking any rules? No.
So, I guess what I'm trying to get at is I think "toxic" is code for not fun. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Personally, I'd like players to want to play with me, so changing that behavior is needed if I want that. But, I'd go further, and say that perhaps we as a community need to change other behaviors too, because other people don't want to play with other behavior when its unfun.
Also, I don't think that policing outbursts is hard at all. If I can be expected to police my own behavior and I should, then other players should as well. What is really the difference at the end of the day?
I think the crux of this goes back to the lack of a clear line on acceptable aggression. It's a really hard thing to manage and different people have a different tolerance. I'm more thin skinned than average who supports a stricter line, while others would find my line chafing and limit their game play options. I think more important than a specific intervention here is a clarification of what's acceptable and what's not. And possibly codifying to some small degree what would lead to warnings/probation/blacklisting if that's going to be handled separately from site wide moderation.
One change that even if not codified would be a community decision to try and frown upon and discourage any sort of near death or post death emotional outburst as either alignment. This isn't restricted to anger but encouraging and rewarding players indignation and emotion when they are about to die as town forces scum to try and mimic that emotion. Which I feel is a problem. I know not everyone agrees though and last time we had this discussion that concern was largely not shared, but I thought it might be time to raise it again. Mafia is stressful, rewarding additional emotional input leads to bad incentives.
Yeah, IDK its hard to figure out.
I think TappingStones is a good example of that. I don't think TappingStones broke any forum rules(Or didn't often) and yet players hated playing with him. Fundamentally, the thing I think is important is players are not enjoying playing with me when I am that way. That's a problem. That's the problem. I don't think anyone would care if I got infracted by forum standards, but nobody was insulted in game.
So, what does that mean? It probabally means that we need something more codified and I would agree with you. We can do a case by case basis thing, but then it turns into a X is acceptable to some players, and Y isn't to others. Should players behavior be forced to conform? I'm unsure. I'd say yes, in my own case with this scenario. But, maybe no in other scenarios.
Example, if a player uses GIFS and others ask them to stop should they be forced to? What if it is only one player complaining about one player? That almost seems like weaponized complaints. What about self assigned PRs? Hopefully you see the problem in trying to "correct" player behavior.
I'm incredibly thick skinned. I'll go the full nine rounds with someone typically before I call uncle. I'm pretty sure I get flamed a lot more by other players too than most, but I also due to how I play provoke it. So, for me its sort of this build up that keeps going. I think I'd be better served if I went to moderators when things bothered me. After moderating a game and seeing how much players did do that, I should be more open to doing that myself. That's something I need to work on.
For me, I would find rules really helpful. I push against boundaries. I'll walk right up to that line and sit there. I'm not sure what that solution accomplishes though other than to allow that up to the line toe touching. Its hard for me to say if that would even work.
Also, what is aggression? Is it player non-enjoyment? Something else?
Let me give an example, and I'm not meaning for this to be an issue.
In Pirates and Playstation KA was town and voted me permanently basically. He didn't enjoy playing with me and didn't like the way I played so he sat on me both games. Then came Ghostbusters. He was scum that game and he mimicked his town play and sat and voted on me.
I was miserable with him voting me in two games previously and he did that again. He did it because he saw it as a way to get town read. I don't think there was any malice in him voting me again the third game. And yet, that heavily detracted from my game enjoyment in Ghostbusters.
KA would damn me for my own play causing his non-enjoyment of the games. Yet, would probabally defend his own play causing my non-enjoyment of the game.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think this issue is incredibly complex. I clearly have a pattern of making games unfun, and so I think its safe to say I need to do something about it. I sort of scapegoated Playstation on other issues and personal issues at the time and so I kind of decided that it wasn't a problem, but I was clearly wrong on that.
I can say looking through my games at least its a recent pattern and not an overall pattern, I'm not sure that's great either, but hey at least I got a starting point. I'm not having these issues in my personal life at this time, so hey at least I know its something about how I play mafia. And has something to do with mafia and isn't just me on the whole.
Anyways, I think what I want to say is I think games should be fun. I think players that make games unfun should be dealt with. I think it might be hard to have a metric of what "Unfun" means. I also think if you're intentionally being unfun that's the worst of all, because then you're just intentionally ruining peoples games.
FWIW, I don't think you deserve probation, Johnny.
Seconded.
D_V has been warned in almost every game I have played with him.
You have not.
Since I've been going through almost all of my games per Iso's advice and looking things. This isn't exactly true Rod.
You and I've played I believe five games together.
I had problems in Playstation and the current on going game.
Pirates I actually never got any warnings. I'm not saying that was great behavior though.
Overwatch Mafia and Horsemen of the Apaocalypse were fine as far as I can tell.
I'm still not disagreeing with your sentiment. I think my behavior is bad. I'm just not big on hyperbole that with only five games played together is sort of a wash.
I disagree with the first part Iso. I don't purposefully toe the line. My best guess is that it puts me on alert and I go yeah that was wrong of me, and so I stop for a while and I just happen to slip back in about the time they fall off.
I agree with the overall sentiment though.
The reason I bring up GJ is he recently bragged in after game chat about how he was purposefully doing this as Mafia. Additionally, the on going game in question had a purposeful attack by him that can only be described as him trying to cyber bully. That action crosses a line for me that maybe it doesn't for you.
I was going to write this long thing but ultimately I agree with Rodemy.
I think the best solution is for me to be placed on probation with incredibly thin. In other words one more **** up I'm out. Probation lasts lets say X games or X time. Ya'll figure out X.
I'd also move that GJ be given the same treatment.
Modkills/replacements are challenging for mods to use: we don't have many people available for replacement (long gone are the days of overfull signups), and modkills can have a huge and unfair-feeling impact on a game. This leads to people not being punished as frequently or consistently as we might like, which means they're not dissuaded.
Sure.
However, allowing players to not post in games for entire day phases is equally unfair and even more so. Allowing players to V/LA for entire day phases is just not fair period. Not replacing players that haven't posted for a week and having not moved to do so is bad modding period. I'm not saying it should be set in stone, if a player is going V/LA for a week but says I'll try and check in and post, I might say to them that it needs to be a good faith effort and that it will be ok. If that player has already had a history of lurking and is now doing this, that probabally isn't going to be ok.
I'm not even certain that it should be a "Post every X day requirement." At the moment I'd take a descourse style of posting over some of our current lurkers. But that feels to me that I'm choosing between the lesser of two evils. At the moment, the biggest problem I see is rules not being enforced. If the rules say post once every three days then players need to post once every three days. I might be willing to occasionally ignore the one day late posts, but if that player is habitually being a problem then it needs to be dealt with.
I think currently we have a problem with out of touch moderators having not been players in a long time, and thinking that modkilling is worse then letting a player lurk for god knows how long. As a player I can say there is nothing worse than having this happen to me. Its incredibly unfun to watch a mafia player be allowed to not post for a week straight and then nothing to be done about it.
Personally, I'd propose the following changes to everyone's mod rules(I'd also like us to get standardized rules).
First, a slot is only going to be replaced at maximum two times. After that its just a mod kill.
Secondly, a strike system for warning players for lurking. Everyone of us is going to have personal problems at some point, and I don't think they should be punished for this. But, we have to look at the greater good. If a player is having personal problems and can't play, I think they should be replaced. Its not personal, I'm probabally not going to look for any punishment, but game health dictates that they need to be replaced. Game health does not dictate that a player that hasn't posted for over a week shouldn't be replaced for "game health reasons".
Third, we need to be a lot more aggressive about checking posts. I ****ed up in Arkham and didn't noticed Dota hadn't posted for like a week and when I had I was close to modkilling him along with another few players. I didn't because I felt it was a little harsh and that it was going to hurt the mafia team significantly. I regret not doing it. When I look at my game a lot of the problems came from my tolerance of the mafia lurking, and I really feel sorry for Tom in that game, because **** he was really the only mafia member that tried. I just can't imagine it was any fun for Tom or any of the town as they just lynched lurkers. It wasn't really playing mafia, it was just POE lynching because content was lacking.
At the end of the day, I really feel that most of our flaming problems and lurking problems have been caused by us being to lax. Not applying the rules we right equally or even literally. If a rule says cross X line get Y, then every player that crosses X line gets Y. Period. Not doing so allows for this *****ty behavior, isn't in line with MTGS forum rules and really just isn't fair.
I'm going to have to agree with you that lurking 3+ days is too much. There's a difference between strategy-lurking and just plain not playing. But to be fair, we already have a way to deal with lurkers in the game: just lynch them. As a player, this is your only tool to get the game balanced to your liking. Yeah, you could be making a bad play, but it may also be your best option to move forward. They're lurking for a reason, or their dead weight for your team.
You, as a player, should never have to leverage for any kind of modkill or replacement. It's simply not your job, and it's not fun. Modkills are a result of direct rule-breaking, not for punishing bad play. Players play badly all the time, but that alone shouldn't trigger modkills. If the host has the appropriate rules listed in their post #1, s/he is can and should enforce those rules. We have a copy/paste rules list still floating about.
If the host is failing to actually host by not enforcing their ruleset, that is a separate issue. Hosts failing to perform can be due to a lack of experience or knowledge on how to proceed, in which case the host should contact the council for advice, protecting the game state and keeping it moving forward. We want to give everyone a chance at hosting, but it isn't easy and often tedious to keep up with. If a host isn't cut out for the work, they may not get another chance to host again. Hosts have to respect the time and months-long dedication their players put into the game, and honor that by following their ruleset to the letter and ensuring a clean game. That means it's the hosts' responsibility to provide a cohesive list of rules for their game, and recognize that ALL players agree to those rules, even when they disappear on you.
So to prevent this from happening again, I recommend we review our 'standard' rules list and notify future hosts that it's available as a resource when designing their own ruleset. But no matter how many rules we write, there's still going to be someone who figures out what we missed and pull a stunt. The host has every right to take action how they see fit in a "no real rule for that" scenario, but again I encourage hosts to seek advice from the council if they aren't sure how to proceed. Simply doing nothing isn't respecting players' time and dedication to the game.
In response to this, I'm moving that the council re-exam my claims about PlayStation Mafia and the moderation done there. Ecophogy has indicated that he believes I wasn't treated equally, but has stated that treating players equally isn't required by moderators of games.
Also, I'm moving for DotArchon to be placed on probation, his lurking has become untenable. He's a nice guy so nobody has really dealt with it, but we need to start being more proactive about this.
Its my same approach to the current flaming problem. We need to write rules that are clear and none of this gray area bull*****, and when players cross them we punish them. When they don't we don't. Its really just that simple. We can easily codify these things and write good rules, and I think if players have it explicitly explained to them what we expect and we don't make exceptions for the way we are feeling that day then the rules stay the rules. That's the problem, we have lurking because we have allowed it in the past and set up that you won't be replaced for not meeting the posting requirements. And its so sporadically enforced that players have no clue what is and isn't acceptable.
I'd just like to point out that this is bit different issue than the others. All the other things you mentioned are responsibility of game mods, but this is responsibility of site mods (like me, Iso, Cythare, Wildfire...)
So while you can affect all other things by creating rules with mafia council, this is site-wide issue and isn't something that mafia council can just change.
So would we kick players after a certain amount of flame warnings? If we forcibly replace players for flaming should their be site mods having given them warnings? If that player has close to zero or zero warnings is removing a player for that reason acceptable?
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I've been putting some thought into this.
Osie asked why we have issues. This example by Iso is why. Its habitual, this isn't the only instance of this happening on this site. If I was a mod of any of the games that this happened, I would have immediately given WoD a warning and if it persisted force replaced them out or mod killed them. At that point I'd have moved for the probation or blacklisting after the game ended.
Osie's point is that we shouldn't allow these things to exist as moderators, and that we should do more to foster a positive game environment. Making it King of the Flies and forcing players to deal with it on their own is unproductive.
Its also a little ridiculous that this comment can be made and everyone glosses over it and I guess it isn't a big deal to them. That probabally speaks to how much of an issue this can be on this site.
I agree on this part.
I need to think some more on this. The more I push back, the less crazy I think your suggestion is.
We should foster good game environments. Perhaps we shouldn't force players to legislate their feelings in game and when game hosting we as moderators should moderate.
Fine lets institute the rule, so I can get plenty of slots mod killed for their refusal to play the game or a myriad of other reasons.
I wasn't town in scum love the king so I can not say how I would have acted. But, I might have pushed you for obfuscating yourself with a PR. That's sort of a player alignment read, but its also not at the same time.
I'm really not sure what your problem is with what happened.
You pushed a gimick and players didn't like it so they lynched you. You called them out for game throwing and flipping a coin. But, I think that's decently hypocritical and as your scum buddy in that game I'm a little frustrated with that. You equally threw the game by standing by a gimick that you knew was throwing the game. You got yourself lynched, and in a way that was because you wanted to play a certain way.
I'm just not sure what your issue is with this. I think you have a point that if Tom was to pull a similar gimick he would probabally be fine. I agree with you on that.
But, I don't remotely see how this solves or alleviates a problem. With the other rule I personally think its stupid. I've always felt that some of that OoG information should be allowed. A player is known to lurk to replacement if they are scum(A la creature style). I'm not sure why I'm not supposed to use that information. Additionally, in a certain game that player has some personal issues and says so and they replace out because of that. Normally, I would lynch that player for lurking, but in this case there is some OoG information telling me that maybe that isn't a correct read.
Take the Gemma case in the team game. Gemma correctly use the information about Nancy Drew to nail them as scum. And from what I know from conversations I've had, Nancy was 100% cheating. Yet she got punished for that.
So, lets go back to the issue at hand lynching without an alignment purpose. Let's talk about Ruma. Ruma is lynched typically, because people can't figure out their alignment. Ruma lurks, and trolls. I believe that players lynch Ruma for mixed motives. They lynch him partially because of his indeterminable alignment, but also because they are mad at him for lurking and trolling. With your rule what do?
At the end of the day I just don't see how a rule like this solves anything. If anything its going to create more animosity. Most game moderators on this site will not enforce this rule or will not replace a player out, for these reasons. And players being told they have no recourse at all seems not only bastard to me, but also a recipe for a more toxic environment.
I'm using that as an example.
What you are asking the moderator to do is something moderators should never do. Which is pick a side.
I'd rather ban Post Restrictions than force players to play with a player that is post restricting.
You have to take a step back and think about what this is.
Players express they don't like X behavior. I really don't care if its PR, toxicity, Gif posting.
Player Y continues to do so against all other players expressed wishes.
Players go to mod.
Mod has to ????
Either
A) Mod replaces the player doing X behavior, because clearly the player doing X behavior isn't going to stop.
BUT that player isn't really breaking any rules. So, that doesn't seem fair.
B) Mod replaces the rest of the game. Yeah, just no.
C) Mod does nothing so players lynch them because they don't want to deal with it.
Really what you are trying to do is enforce having fun. Player Z doesn't like player D for posting in Gifs. Player Z is the only player in the game that has a problem with it. Should player D be forced to stop? I'd say no.
Six players have a problem with player D in a 16 person game. They are a minority. Should player D be forced to stop?
At the end of the day you have to recognize something.
Players made it clear to you they did not like you posting in PR. You made the active decision to tell an entire game to go **** themselves by continuing to post that way. The only thing that would have happened here is that if players were forced to talk to a moderator first, the moderator would have told you to stop or be replaced out.
Players solved it by lynching you. You didn't respect peoples opinions and you decided to continue the way YOU wanted to play.
Like what can you possibly see as a way out of this? I see no way in which the moderation comes out in your favor in scum loves the king.
Ahhh,
I understand this a lot better now. I probably overall agree with you I think.
Do you think a more formal rule structure would help then? IE specific steps that should be taken etc. Personally, I dislike the outright ban because with hosts ignoring the list then I say what is the point. So, I'd like hosts to listen to the list when it comes to that. Also, we don't have enough players to be able to be that strict.
If you think about it this way those rules work like a sift. It will work with a high amount of players, the players left probably fit a certain play style. So, it works but it needs a decent amount of players to feed into the system.
I'd propose since we have smaller player base we should work more on sculpting players into model players. That would IMO take a more proactive approach from the community on voicing opinions of problems. In my case I don't want to play if players are not going to enjoy playing with me. Like, whats the point? It isn't fun to have people go "OH X is joining". You feel?
So, I'd argue that we might need a more standardized approach to the moderation. Right now its up the the individual game hosts. Which as Shadow pointed out you are conflating game hosts with forum mods. They are not one and the same on this site.
That all being said, I think a lot of this is case by case. Exceptions should be made for somethings and not for others. Having a set of rules and then having them be broken could cause some players to feel ostracized.
For me personally, having this open conversation has worked for me very well. Iso's been a good help, so have others. I think for me its realizing how much of a problem I was, and that I wasn't willing to admit to myself that there was an issue. It might surprise you as well, but I have very little contact with mods on these issues.
Specifically, him only calling for me and ignoring GJ seems highly disingenuous.
What exactly do you agree with Osie?
I find a lot of aggression to be unfun too. Its mentally taxing. And when a player says I'm not enjoying X, that doesn't feel good either.
I'm not going to get into the whole SLTK thing either. But, on the topic of treating players friendly whats the difference between Tom's many iterations of PRs and Osies? Soundcloud thing aside.
I agree that DBS probabally go the short end of the stick. I got frustrated with DBS myself, but that was for a very specific reason. DBS was sort of being a problem in Arkham, but not in a way that I felt that someone needed to step in. Osie wanted to and I didn't feel strongly about it so Osie stepped in and gave a really GENERAL hey lets be nice guys post. DBS sort of took that as being directed at her, when it wasn't or at least wasn't directly at her. Then she claimed persecution without even asking at least me, and that sort of went over the line to me simply because she didn't ask the mod in the game.
In Playstation I was totally allowed to get away with more than I should have. Shadow has said he was trying to give me a fair shake. I don't blame him for that and it was his first time modding a game I think. I'd argue that there were numerous other players in that game that also were allowed behavior that shouldn't have been allowed. I'd also say that no matter how Shadow handled me at the end of the day in that game I would have been a problem I had some personal things going on and I at least partially took it out on the thread. To give you an idea how bad it was, I totally didn't think I was nearly as much of a problem as I was. Like, I've reread that game and all I can say is YIKES. It was bad. I'm sorry to everyone for having to deal with me in that.
Personally, I think TS also might have gotten a bad shake I've reread much of Startrek and to be honest his behavior wasn't that bad. His personality might have been. So, I think he got treated differently because of that.
Its hard to say whats right though in that circumstance. If players don't enjoy playing with a player what should moderators do? I come in post once every three days, post about 4 sentences and leave. Is that fun to play with? No. Is it breaking any rules? No.
So, I guess what I'm trying to get at is I think "toxic" is code for not fun. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Personally, I'd like players to want to play with me, so changing that behavior is needed if I want that. But, I'd go further, and say that perhaps we as a community need to change other behaviors too, because other people don't want to play with other behavior when its unfun.
Also, I don't think that policing outbursts is hard at all. If I can be expected to police my own behavior and I should, then other players should as well. What is really the difference at the end of the day?
Absolutely.
Edit: I should preface I think most of that is your story so I don't think I have any right to stop you either way.
Yeah, IDK its hard to figure out.
I think TappingStones is a good example of that. I don't think TappingStones broke any forum rules(Or didn't often) and yet players hated playing with him. Fundamentally, the thing I think is important is players are not enjoying playing with me when I am that way. That's a problem. That's the problem. I don't think anyone would care if I got infracted by forum standards, but nobody was insulted in game.
So, what does that mean? It probabally means that we need something more codified and I would agree with you. We can do a case by case basis thing, but then it turns into a X is acceptable to some players, and Y isn't to others. Should players behavior be forced to conform? I'm unsure. I'd say yes, in my own case with this scenario. But, maybe no in other scenarios.
Example, if a player uses GIFS and others ask them to stop should they be forced to? What if it is only one player complaining about one player? That almost seems like weaponized complaints. What about self assigned PRs? Hopefully you see the problem in trying to "correct" player behavior.
I'm incredibly thick skinned. I'll go the full nine rounds with someone typically before I call uncle. I'm pretty sure I get flamed a lot more by other players too than most, but I also due to how I play provoke it. So, for me its sort of this build up that keeps going. I think I'd be better served if I went to moderators when things bothered me. After moderating a game and seeing how much players did do that, I should be more open to doing that myself. That's something I need to work on.
For me, I would find rules really helpful. I push against boundaries. I'll walk right up to that line and sit there. I'm not sure what that solution accomplishes though other than to allow that up to the line toe touching. Its hard for me to say if that would even work.
Also, what is aggression? Is it player non-enjoyment? Something else?
Let me give an example, and I'm not meaning for this to be an issue.
In Pirates and Playstation KA was town and voted me permanently basically. He didn't enjoy playing with me and didn't like the way I played so he sat on me both games. Then came Ghostbusters. He was scum that game and he mimicked his town play and sat and voted on me.
I was miserable with him voting me in two games previously and he did that again. He did it because he saw it as a way to get town read. I don't think there was any malice in him voting me again the third game. And yet, that heavily detracted from my game enjoyment in Ghostbusters.
KA would damn me for my own play causing his non-enjoyment of the games. Yet, would probabally defend his own play causing my non-enjoyment of the game.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think this issue is incredibly complex. I clearly have a pattern of making games unfun, and so I think its safe to say I need to do something about it. I sort of scapegoated Playstation on other issues and personal issues at the time and so I kind of decided that it wasn't a problem, but I was clearly wrong on that.
I can say looking through my games at least its a recent pattern and not an overall pattern, I'm not sure that's great either, but hey at least I got a starting point. I'm not having these issues in my personal life at this time, so hey at least I know its something about how I play mafia. And has something to do with mafia and isn't just me on the whole.
Anyways, I think what I want to say is I think games should be fun. I think players that make games unfun should be dealt with. I think it might be hard to have a metric of what "Unfun" means. I also think if you're intentionally being unfun that's the worst of all, because then you're just intentionally ruining peoples games.
Since I've been going through almost all of my games per Iso's advice and looking things. This isn't exactly true Rod.
You and I've played I believe five games together.
I had problems in Playstation and the current on going game.
Pirates I actually never got any warnings. I'm not saying that was great behavior though.
Overwatch Mafia and Horsemen of the Apaocalypse were fine as far as I can tell.
I'm still not disagreeing with your sentiment. I think my behavior is bad. I'm just not big on hyperbole that with only five games played together is sort of a wash.
I agree with the overall sentiment though.
The reason I bring up GJ is he recently bragged in after game chat about how he was purposefully doing this as Mafia. Additionally, the on going game in question had a purposeful attack by him that can only be described as him trying to cyber bully. That action crosses a line for me that maybe it doesn't for you.
I think the best solution is for me to be placed on probation with incredibly thin. In other words one more **** up I'm out. Probation lasts lets say X games or X time. Ya'll figure out X.
I'd also move that GJ be given the same treatment.
Thanks
DV
In response to this, I'm moving that the council re-exam my claims about PlayStation Mafia and the moderation done there. Ecophogy has indicated that he believes I wasn't treated equally, but has stated that treating players equally isn't required by moderators of games.
Also, I'm moving for DotArchon to be placed on probation, his lurking has become untenable. He's a nice guy so nobody has really dealt with it, but we need to start being more proactive about this.
So would we kick players after a certain amount of flame warnings? If we forcibly replace players for flaming should their be site mods having given them warnings? If that player has close to zero or zero warnings is removing a player for that reason acceptable?