This is also a bit of a dissenting opinion but I think things such as misgendering, missing the 10 post count rule, and aggression should all be warned in-thread and not in PM. It not only reinforces those rules but it shows we are taking them seriously.
If we're going to be harder on the rules I think we should do it universally, not piecemeal.
On principle I totally agree! But both Natiko and Monkey have presented good counter-arguments, and since I'm not familiar with PM discussions about moderation it's fair to admit that said discussions could derail the game thread and result in a bigger mess.
It seems everyone is in agreement about public warnings for misgendering though.
I don't really know much about these PM based conversations that are happening surrounding these issues, but when the majority of warnings are handed out entirely in private, it gives the impression that not much is really happening.
Ultimately I'm not sure who this secrecy around dealing with aggression helps, certainly not the person who feels wronged and in the long term I don't feel like it helps the aggressor.
But I also agree with both of you. I believe there're two suggestions that were interesting;
- Ketkat's idea of issuing warnings in the respective thread. The only caveat here would be how to replace/modkill someone that has made no infraction in the game thread without revealing too much.
- Stan's idea of incorporating these "PM friendly reminders" into the warning structure. This could be a bit too much for gamerunners to keep track of, but if they can write a short PM before the actual infraction and respective warning occurs, some of these situations could be avoided.
For reference,
this is Era's rules and policies on a similar topic. Their's is far more comprehensive than what we have but even they include wording on how situations have to be dealt with as they come.
Here
is Mafia Universe's code of conduct as well. I'm unsure how their forum is in terms of friendly vs not-friendly but it could hopefully give us a better look at rules that relate to mafia instead of just a forum in general.
Oh, good idea! Fanto already highlighted all the nice bits of MU though. Of the rest I liked these, but they're already used here one way or another;
Thingyman said:
Make our community welcoming. Be the reason people come back.
Thingyman said:
If you moderated, it is not a punishment, and it is not an attempt to publicly or even privately shame you. It is our way of guiding you toward our expectations for the health of Mafia Universe.
I've read the Era guidelines in the past but I'll need to check them again when I have more time.
Or sometimes we do issue a private warning if we know the player may be likely to push back - maybe they're heated, maybe they're just someone who pushes back, who knows (I am someone who pushes back on everything, so I categorize myself here). If these are done publicly, they may end up derailing the thread or the problem might escalate and that's definitely a path to replacement or modkill when instead something can just be handled privately.
Yeah I see where you're coming from. The issue here is the rest of the players being in the dark about the actions that were taken. And even if you go with a "trust that the gamerunner will properly address the problems" approach, there's still plenty of room to disagree with the mod's choice, as we've seen multiple times.
Would you say that more defined rules around aggresion could help a bit with this?
The attempt to list increasingly specific types of inappropriate hostile action (like in the MU example) seems like a fundamentally flawed approach to this issue, as getting into specific do's and do-nots cant ever functionally apply to a game where there are about a billion ways these hostile actions and the circumstances that motivated them may play out. Expecting the players and mods to remember and follow a long list of specifics just strikes me as an untenable solution.
I think a more basic framework for judging hostile action is appropriate, something that can readily apply to virtually anything said in these games, that can more easily be minded by both the game runners and the players even in the heat of a running argument, and that can be easily communicated to new players.
Of course at the end of the day it will always be up to the gamerunner, but - apologies if I'm reading this wrong! - the way the rules are already worded is pretty much a "basic framework". Are you arguing for more or less defined phrasing?
Stan has been in these games and I've seen him post without having this level of aggression, and I've even seen people egg him on or act excited for him to get into spec chat to really tear into people. I don't really care if this is how Stan normally is or if it's just a facade for entertaining others, it's not the kind of stuff we should want in these games. It makes people uncomfortable to see this level of aggression over a game, and I'll personally say it makes me uncomfortable despite reading a few games with Stan in them.
In regards to this. Although I normally enjoy Stan's sense of humor, I do agree that celebrating it can unintentionally feel like cheering for aggressive behavior. Especially when we're talking about new players and how to make this a more inviting community for them. I guess it's kind of similar to the idea of "you may find this to be too much but I don't" and the important part there is how does the affected player feel. You said it already;
Which brings me to the last line here, it's not about how you feel, but how the person who is insulted feels. If they feel that you have crossed the line talking with them, then you most likely have.
But I'm honestly unsure on what to do in this case.
Unrelated but if we put in place some kind priority penalty, how much should it be? I guess the amount depend on whether we've implemented priority degrading over time.
This too. How much are we talking?
I really don't have much to say on this line of discussion since it dives into things I absolutely won't get into in a public setting. To put it as simply and vaguely as I can, there are situations that arise in games on the moderation side that a general player probably has no knowledge of. People try and force their way into getting what they want. They can be manipulative and instigate. Airing all of these conversations out in a public setting, in the middle of a game, is absolutely not a smart choice in all circumstances.
There's lots of pulling of examples in which people are only quoting one person - it's much more often a combination of two or more people all getting heated. If three people get in an argument, and they all exchange words, do all three get yanked from the game? People are sitting here saying that "if Player A takes offense you should back them in all contexts". What if three people argue and exchange words and ONLY Player A is offended? Do you yank all three even though the other two weren't offended at all? Only Players B and C since A was the only one offended? What if Player A clearly baited the others for a reaction and then after getting exactly what they wanted decided it was time to cry foul for something they teed up? These situations are not always as black and white as they're being portrayed as.
I totally get this, ironically enough because I haven't seen that side of the issue. But that can't be an excuse to keep things unchanged. So let's look at the PM/public debate from a different angle. What do you think about Stan's suggestion about incorporating PM warnings into a more regulated warning structure? Would that be too much to keep track of?
