Poll: Should we limit certain kinds of speech in TW?

[Guest]

"Discussions of politics, race, gender, sexuality, and religion are not allowed."

i agree..if unable to use common decency/sense to enforce A1, then make this part of A1 and put a stop to it.

[Falconeer]

I think everybody should take responsibility for themselves. You have a point about the mods/staff and the slippery slope of free speech, so why not moderate yourself and stop trolling, stop provoking people, etc. That way extreme measures don't need to be taken. But as you said you'll NEVER stop trolling in your quest to "find good people" (lol..) so what do you expect? It's not just for you but every troll, this is what I'm saying about personal responsibility. If people refuse to moderate themselves, don't be surprised when others do it for you. And if you're concerned about dictatorship well, you'll be happy to know much of the world is ok with dictatorships as long as they do a good job. I'm sure there are people here who can not only spend some time moderating the game, but also do a better job than the current staff who I agree cannot be trusted to moderate this game properly. So, my solution, is that trolls take responsibility themselves and we can make progress, first and foremost that is my preferred solution. But since people are fallible at best, and actively going against the grain at worst, I think a proper moderation system run by competent staff is a suitable alternative for making this game a much more welcoming place. I feel like I'd extend the vote to also include personal attacks, which are usually very thinly veiled and easy to determine, but staff turns a blind eye. Also note that with proper, no-nonsense rules enforced by a competent authority, it is self-moderation feature. Nobody wants to be banned so they will take an extra second to think how their message will come across and maybe make them backspace instead. Is that really such a bad thing? The way you present it is so dystopian and appealing to higher values that have no place which to me suggests you'd really, really hate it if there was a way to shut you up, even temporarily. Games can have these rules, bro, and many of them do, and our society is still here. Much larger games too. But then, they don't have the insanely pro troll god "Falconeer" in those games, do they, to tell them of all the epic wisdom they'll be missing out on if they restrict the speech. Nor would they care because in their eyes, you're just another idiot player player to ban. Your hacker skills don't make you above the rules, unfortunate I know.

If you think there will be problems trying to ban trolls who adjust their tactics then I'd like to test that. Show me any chat log and I can point out who is the offending party, if the chat log is complete and accurate. Actually I'm sure most can, they just wouldn't be honest about it. If you're so concerned let's test it. But something has to change, people can't be allowed to keep creating a hostile environment that drives away new and old players alike. It's one change of many this zone requires, I agree with you there. Keep in mind I like free speech environment, it even benefits my style, I am not offended by nearly anything anyway. I would consider the world better off if others were the same also. But my belief doesn't automatically make others feel safe and welcome here, which is the primary concern imo. It used to be that TW was quite unique in its free speech, but nowadays you can find these alt-right debates nearly everywhere. Would it really be so bad to moderate it and see if we can get more players with this change and more ? Because I feel like there are thrice as many people who will run from such fringe/open environments as there are people who will be comfortable and at home, and this will ultimately be better for the game (and not just the people who benefit from having a platform due to the tiny population and poor moderation). Thoughts?

"Hacker skills don't make me above the rules." What rules? Dictatorships only have one rule, listen to the people in charge or be banned. You're already starting to extend what is bannable and the first set of rules isn't even in place yet.

Secondly hacker skills do make people above the rules. When this game finally gets a competent hacker, who can't be traced, who can bring down servers, and unban and go undetected on top of it, i will be laughing. By being tyrants you lose the moral argument for why you are in the 'right' against a hacker and you get no sympathy from the public. There are plenty of hackers who make it a mission to target people who run their communities this way. Also banning is what creates hackers in the first place, most people move on after a ban but a small percentage of people learn programming, install linux, teach themselves networking and security and learn to evade the ban. All that matters is how much time they have and how much they care. You basically enable your trolls to become hackers.

Focusing on policing others and making it personal, not even automating it with systems and code, is the downfall of continuum subspace. So many hours could have been spent improving the game and bringing players. These acts alone actually solve a whole array of your problems, as in cures them vs. treating the symptom of the overlying problem... the symptom being trolling, the bandage being moderating, an endless cycle of shit.

Who said i want free speech? i've clearly said i take a moderate stance, i have had a middle ground stance since i started posting, i want the current rules enforced properly, which they never were since i started playing TW this january.

It's almost better to just silence everyone, at least you don't discriminate and mods/admins would be silenced too, across all topics. speech entirely gone.

Also you say people won't want to get banned so they'll moderate their own speech, that's true most people are cowards. But i'm someone who stands by my principles, i will want to get banned, then i will win the moral argument and make sure everyone knows why the community and moderators are wrong. And then i'll back up my principles by learning to unban and basically become a problem you can't get rid of anymore.

[wicket666]

No. I am against this.
We know who are the Trolls. We know one Creates names over and over to Troll. We also know one player will jump to accuse about everyone who wont accept him as a female.
We know what one is always talking racist knowing they wont be banned for the words they use.
We also know there is a Option called ?Ignore %tickname.
Instead of censoring The chat why don't we take a different approach. This approach should Include a Zoner!
- Please use the ?ignore %tickname option on those who you find to be a nuisance.
We have a low population mainly because of no Advertisements. Not because of Trolls.
I feel we need to focus more on Advertisements. How with no money? easy the Players!
We need a Logo for all to download from Trenchwars.org, Bumper stickers. the cost is to the player for sticker paper on the printer only. "I'mconfident we can get a few to be dedicated to passing them out."
A second Problem is the way the game download turns on everything. when you download the game for the first time or redownload again, the chat is filled with bot messages and enter/leave messages, kill messages, Graphic overload. Only seasoned players know how to fix this. ?kill Center, ?Enter off, !helpoff, esc f6 help ticker.
New Players are being drove off because of chat for its full of useless junk.
Perhaps revamp the download. make it where ?kill messages is center or off, Stars turned off, enter and leave messages are turned off. The only thing a New player should have in chat is the F6 help ticker. also Turn off Rolling ship and thrusters.

Recap
No to censorship
Yes to Bumper sticker download
Yes to Revamp download
Yes to ?ignore %tickname zoner
Yes to week silences to our main Trolls.

[qan]

Feels dangerous letting the public vote on something like this. The answer is absolutely not, especially if the punishments for holding a conversation about any of these topics isn't yet defined at all. And this isn't even a slippery slope kind of argument. Enacting any kind of strict policy on any of this stuff would be going too far. Pub culture is literally at least 50% public pseudo-science conspiracy debate, sure. But what's wrong with that? I actually do enjoy reading it and chiming in sometimes. It seems to me, if you're remotely intelligent enough, you should be able to see it for what it is and not cry foul whenever you see something that triggers you. Welcome to subspace, we've been here for 20 years.

Just to clarify again, this isn't a vote but a poll, and the results are only to get a rough gauge of public opinion which will then be used to inform policy changes.

I personally think it's one of the worst ideas that's ever been proposed in the history of Subspace, really throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And as I said before, if it's seen as necessary to push something this heavy-handed through in order for the game to survive, I'll be retiring.

But that's ultimately not important. Rab and several others believe this is a good idea, and it's worthwhile seeing how many agree. (There were no other agreements about how to deal with this problem; this seemed to be the only one several people could agree on. The only way to boost the signal-to-noise ratio sifting through the thousands of ideas proposed over the years is to look for agreements. I apologize to those who feel marginalized because their ideas aren't listened to. If you can find people who can agree with you, it might be worth making a new thread and seeing if you can get momentum behind it.)

Is there a regular zoner set up so people who don't lurk the forums can get to hear about this?

Yep, will be running for one week.


If you have a strong feeling about this either way but haven't bothered to vote, it would be worthwhile to do so. Very early results show the community is essentially divided 50/50 on this issue.

[Falconeer]

If it ends up being 60/40 that's not enough to throw half the population under the bus and go ahead with it. Unless your goal IS to kill the game even more. It needs an overwhelming majority. Like 80/20 minimally. Even then a 1 week poll is retarded, keep it up until 200 people use it. Keep telling people to go and vote personally. I also think it was the wrong question to ask. The question should have been should we moderate text or have a zone with 100% free speech. From there you make secondary polls, to address the free speech issue or the moderate text issue.

[Rab]

If the outcome were throwing people under a bus I might agree with you. But it's only asking you to consider other players (which if you did by yourself there'd be no need for this poll).

I'd accept 60/40 as needed for a clear outcome, but not 80/20. Even though I do expect a result similar to 80/20 in my favour.

I'd accept running the poll for longer than 1 week, but no more than 4 weeks, and such an extension should never allow you to evade the usage restriction.

The poll is nothing to do with free speech. In RL we all likely agree that free speech is important. This poll is about how you're using free speech without consideration for other players in a 2d spaceship game environment, which should be about meeting people from all over the world and killing them, not debating race, gender, etc. Go to twitter for that.

[Rab]

if it's seen as necessary to push something this heavy-handed through in order for the game to survive, I'll be retiring.

I think it is necessary.
I also think it's necessary for you to stick around for the game to survive, otherwise one day something will break and nobody else will fix it.

[Falconeer]

If the outcome were throwing people under a bus I might agree with you. But it's only asking you to consider other players (which if you did by yourself there'd be no need for this poll).

I'd accept 60/40 as needed for a clear outcome, but not 80/20. Even though I do expect a result similar to 80/20 in my favour.

I'd accept running the poll for longer than 1 week, but no more than 4 weeks, and such an extension should never allow you to evade the usage restriction.

The poll is nothing to do with free speech. In RL we all likely agree that free speech is important. This poll is about how you're using free speech without consideration for other players in a 2d spaceship game environment, which should be about meeting people from all over the world and killing them, not debating race, gender, etc. Go to twitter for that.

There would be no need for this poll if staff was properly moderating extreme text: racism and sexism.

50/50, 55/45, 60/40 is too polarized and divided to make such a major change, in either favor, if it was 60/40 for no moderation i'd be saying the same thing. You would be upsetting a huge chunk of the population. That doesn't mean give up, it means work to compromise or sway more people to your point of view until the poll is 80/20, then the changes made would actually be for the benefit and in the interests of everyone.

2/3 weeks sounds good, and I agree, one vote per person, check mac id's if you have too.

If people go elsewhere to get their chat fix, they won't be playing the game, imo. And maybe that's good in a world where we dehumanize others, and say "we don't want you here anyway" but it's my view that most people can be reasonable... that's why moderation should target extremists imo. As in those people who remain unreasonable. We can't just ignore that for a large portion of the population this game is mostly a chat/social client, especially after they've played every nook and cranny of the game for 20 years. If we can re-invent the game we also re-invent what happens in the chat, because people would actually be playing instead of talking.

It should be a good view that we can talk about politics/religion minimally, without devolving conversations to insults and racism and sexism. Once that happens moderate the racism/sexism. But moderating the whole topic just says that racism/sexism and hate is tied into politics and therefore no one should speak about it... it really sends a bad message.

Also an argument can be made that everything is political or politics. From the clothes you wear, to the choices you make day to day. In which case the poll should have just stated "Should we limit text to topics about trench wars only" as even topics about other zones becomes 'political'... heck i can politicize trench wars too. Everything we're discussing here has to do with 'rights' and 'oversight'...

[Jessup]

How about staff just do their job and moderate in a sensible and sane manner using the tools they already have in place which had worked for 20 years. I left out 2 years because in our 22 the last two have been a complete joke when it comes to staff behavior and conduct. Free reign trolling was somehow decided to be ok by a certain select group of "high ups" who decided that HATE SPEECH = FREE SPEECH. This was one of many huge blunders to the zones detriment I've witnessed. Any decent mod should know that race baiting is unacceptable. Players spouting racial superiority, bigotry towards LGBTQ community(Always was covered by harassment guidelines which all S-mods completely have failed on!!), and any over the top hate speech or harassment directed at a players race, religion, gender or sexuality should be dealt with.

Qan I must say..I'm very disappointed that this is an idea you have posted when it comes to a "fix" for Trench Wars trolling matters. You are seriously considering banning free speech in general?? There is nothing offensive about good healthy debates when discussions are done in a basic sensible way with the things you listed. I'm honestly blown away...?... you came up with this horrendous idea! Look at your crappy staff. They can't even moderate and stop the trolls we have now, let alone achieve this monumental nazi task made here for this horrendous poll idea. Come on man.. this makes me sad that you posted this idiocy. You should be better than this. Get your damn staff to follow the rules in place and start using some common sense. Finding that troll line when it is crossed should be an easy task to do if you are a ban mod. It only requires the said staffer have a basic decent sensibility and an ounce of a heart that contains compassion while they review TW-guard and talk to players involved. Decent people know when someone crosses the line using bigotry and hate speech. They can see when someone harasses a person beyond acceptable levels. ...It is not hard to do. There are clear guidelines already set in place too. There should have never even been a debate about LGBTQ hate speech being acceptable by you and Henry. Poor leadership!

I'm also not talking about staff being triggered by words like fag or idiot or noob or N word or whatever name calling is done in single words. I'm talking about putting whatever is going on chatwise that may be an issue for staff to act on it by putting it into context. It is the context that matters and staff needs to get their act together to know when to do their job!

PS.. I should not have been fired so quickly after you all asked me back over a simple mistake. That was pathetic decision making yet again and I find it absurd. I was a great staffer for years before you or henry came on the scene. I was also a great one while you and Henry were staff but you failed to see it. I always made my quota and did 1000's of calls correctly with very few hiccups. I helped SOOO MANY people on this game and trained and hooked sooooo many new players (well for a month or two or six) yet you allowed trolls to run rampant and ruin our environment even more than it was that most got pissed and quit.. That alone is a sad feat in itself as Trench Wars was always a trolly place but these days.. a NEW LOW!!.. congrats... I was also officially axed over trolls harassing me because staff didn't like me being rude to them back while I defended myself since you all time and time again refused to act and stop it, LOL!!!!!!!! What a joke. I asked for help so many times and all you and other s-mods could do is say do ?ignore while you ?ignored me as a staffer which you were not supposed to do. Pathetic. I listed completely valid reasons why I had issues with certain trolls and provided evidence of harassment with screenshots and details explaining how it was something that needed staff interjection to help me with.. but noooooooo .......too much for you all to deal with. I am not alone in these frustrations either and know of many great old staffers and players who have quit because they feel the same way about this zone now. THIS is the type thing why this game and staff are failing.

Again.. get your staff in line!! WHAT WE SHOULD BE POLLING ON IF ANYTHING IS HOW TO IMPROVE STAFF AND WHO SHOULD BE ADDED INTO THEIR RANKS WITH SMOD POWER TO STOP THIS POWER GRID OUTAGE THE CURRENT S-MODS ARE CREATING FOR THE ZONE! (I'm very serious here) I support a vote for at least 2 new S-Mods joining staff ranks to curb this incompetence I'm witnessing. Let's poll on that instead...??????.. not this asinine idea of blanketly stopping players free speech.. facepalm...

[Jessup]

I'm glad to see qan said he didn't like the idea.. but why post it then??.. Why allow a vote lolllllll ??.. poor leadership either way....

[Falconeer]

PS.. I should not have been fired so quickly after you all asked me back over a simple mistake. That was pathetic decision making yet again and I find it absurd. I was a great staffer for years before you or henry came on the scene. I was also a great one while you and Henry were staff but you failed to see it. I always made my quota and did 1000's of calls correctly with very few hiccups. I helped SOOO MANY people on this game and trained and hooked sooooo many new players (well for a month or two or six) yet you allowed trolls to run rampant and ruin our environment even more than it was that most got pissed and quit.. That alone is a sad feat in itself as Trench Wars was always a trolly place but these days.. a NEW LOW!!.. congrats... I was also officially axed over trolls harassing me because staff didn't like me being rude to them back while I defended myself since you all time and time again refused to act and stop it, LOL!!!!!!!! What a joke. I asked for help so many times and all you and other s-mods could do is say do ?ignore while you ?ignored me as a staffer which you were not supposed to do. Pathetic. I listed completely valid reasons why I had issues with certain trolls and provided evidence of harassment with screenshots and details explaining how it was something that needed staff interjection to help me with.. but noooooooo .......too much for you all to deal with. I am not alone in these frustrations either and know of many great old staffers and players who have quit because they feel the same way about this zone now. THIS is the type thing why this game and staff are failing.

To be fair, i think trolling in a staff position isn't good. When you troll and have power, you already have unequal footing with other trolls so they will target you even more because of the power and the position you hold. In a sense combining trolling with power influences others into attacking you, whereas if you were just a troll they would be less likely to target you. In fact when random smurf trolls spend hours attacking me in the game, they indirectly say i'm relevant and have some sort of power that they want to challenge.

I've thought about this for awhile, a moderator who trolls, but who only uses their powers to move trouble makers who refuse to listen to private arenas to troll them for hours, could be very effective. A troll is someone who uses text only, and doesn't power abuse. Thus, you would be a troll mod. Once you abuse powers and ban/silence, after goading people with trolling, you aren't a troll but a griefer (someone who uses actions) as well as a power abuser. But ultimately a true 'troll mod' would be a sort of vigilante justice decided by one person, the sort of dynamic would be created that RAB is proposing here. That is, lets get these trouble makers to quit the game... (similar to lets ban them). In the end, in the long term, it's no good.

You need a person in charge who isn't looking for a quick fix, who can unite people, who shows real care for everyone and doesn't just treat people as criminals or insane. Who spends time talking to people and finding common ground... and never falters. This is unique, unheard of, i don't actually think such a person exists in our game currently. The staff is right in saying don't insult players, don't trigger them etc.

[Rab]

Yeah Jess it wasn't qan's idea it was mine, so if you're gonna be mean to someone it should be me (but don't, lol).
I agree if staff would moderate all the arguing under current rules that would be better, that's what I originally argued for.
qan said they couldn't do that, and a clear rule would be required for staff to be able to follow it.
So I made up a rule.
qan required for it to be implemented I needed to show that the majority of players actually wanted it.
The only way to do that is to vote in some way, the way qan has some up with is solves the major issues with running votes, and could be re-used for votes on other matters.
So here we are, just vote for what you believe and we'll see what the result is.

[rothe]

Wow i'm back for a short period of time and its down to this. Staffers should be on good behavior but funny to get convos started in pub so it isnt silence get people talking and show it isnt dead in there. Pub players should be talking simple as that. Staffers should know when people have crossed the line. Where that line is that is obvious spam and attacking other players or hunting one player openly. The thing that should be more enforced is when teams get so unbalanced who the fuck wants to play then? Not new people when there is no terr or shark on the other team and its just slaughter. When the other team just holds the flag game after game after game. That seems more of a problem than dam words to me. If people are getting worked up over their feelings being hurt than the dam game play well hell... Why are they playing the game in pub? More so why are so many sitting in spec and not playing? You will loose more to something like this and there will be just more trash alts than getting to the real problem. Not only that making more problems with the staff and getting the staff yelled at because of trash alts and shit like that. I mean think ahead.. Its a loose loose.. It requires a brain of is the person trying to be an ass or just get discussion going. I mean hell some times yea.. Spam shit is just funny.. I'll admit.. lol At least there isnt silence.. New people dont want to come into a game and just hear silence it looks like a dead game imo. Shit again i'm no saint but those are my thoughts

[Lupin]

Don't limit speech, that's going too far and will turn long-standing players off from the game. Silence people who are trolling pub for no reason (calling everyone a faggot, PMing ppl kill messages and shit) cus that's annoying and will make new people quit.

If people are offended by normal speech in pub that isn't meant to be antagonizing, well - there is an ?ignore function for a reason. For specific cases, staff should come in to help and respond appropriately to calls.

Don't limit speech - this kind of rule is not needed or appropriate for this game.

[Falconeer]

Look at this. If you wanted to curb trolling slightly, and get more speccers into the game, this is a good way to do it, and it's entirely possible. I've been saying to do this instead for awhile now.


FalconeerToday at 10:18 AM
yo
is this possible to do in the game
For limiting spec chat, you can setup a system where people need to play the game to earn typing time. Every minute of play grants 15 seconds typing. So one hour gives 15 minutes typing. It's a 1/4 ratio. You can also just adjust the time required to play and time given to type. Those are just examples. Of course this would be zone wide and apply to pub chat too.
like do you see a path to accomplishing it
regardless of how much work it is
im curious if its possible

---

JorisToday at 1:28 PM
technically? sure
although, how would you count a second of typing?
1 second per 10 letters?

---

FalconeerToday at 1:29 PM
i would count it real time i guess
1 second gets you nothing
maybe you can mash keyboard and press enter
f
f
f
f

---

JorisToday at 1:30 PM
this you can not really count tho

---

FalconeerToday at 1:30 PM
you would have to play 1 minute and get 15 seconds to type 1 sentence

---

JorisToday at 1:30 PM
server does not know that you are typing
server only knows that you sent an entire line

---

FalconeerToday at 1:30 PM
then do it by lines
i guess
1 minute of play time gives you 5 lines of text

---

JorisToday at 1:31 PM
continuum only sends to the server: > The player just typed: "bla bla bla bla bla"

---

FalconeerToday at 1:31 PM
yeah
but it can be done with lines right
so why doesn't trench wars do that?
instead they want to ban spec chat

---

JorisToday at 1:31 PM
lol what

---

FalconeerToday at 1:31 PM
and ban topics of conversation

---

JorisToday at 1:32 PM
would be easier to earn lines, or earn letters

---

FalconeerToday at 1:32 PM
they being retarded =/
that's what i said

---

JorisToday at 1:32 PM
but that sounds super weird yea

---

FalconeerToday at 1:32 PM
earning lines/letters
means you help decrease spec chat
more people playing
overall good
trolling decreases in some ways
can you tie this into the engine and gun usage of a ship?
or no
cause we dont want people floating in pub either haha

---

JorisToday at 1:33 PM
yea you can get statistics on how often you fire a weapon and such

---

FalconeerToday at 1:33 PM
so its possible
just what level editing it requires?

---

JorisToday at 1:33 PM
although you don't really know how the player is flying

---

FalconeerToday at 1:33 PM
Server?
bot?
client?

---

JorisToday at 1:34 PM
for example, the server can not tell the difference between a Repel, and holding Up

---

FalconeerToday at 1:34 PM
but the server can tell location changes?
and stipulate that you must be playing

---

JorisToday at 1:34 PM
yea

---

FalconeerToday at 1:34 PM
if given the stats of someone who plays

---

JorisToday at 1:34 PM
on subgame you need a bot

---

FalconeerToday at 1:34 PM
to compare with

---

JorisToday at 1:35 PM
on asss it could be the server or a bot

---

FalconeerToday at 1:35 PM
okay
so its not some major change at back end level
it can be done with a bot/module

---

JorisToday at 1:35 PM
yea all the infrastructure to do this is there

---

FalconeerToday at 1:35 PM
so like wtf, these are the changes we need, not some b.s moderation

---

JorisToday at 1:35 PM
in TW, they would have to make a bot

---

FalconeerToday at 1:35 PM
can i post this convo?

---

JorisToday at 1:35 PM
yeah