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

[Dierienow]

Great points I'd also like to add, if we are moderating discriminatory speech are we nodding discriminatory behaviour as well? Plus there's a difference between someone with poor impulse control responding to a perceived unfair situation in a bad way and someone who is trying to disturb the peace, saying racist shit in earnest at every mode of being etc. Both are punishable but in the one case, which is what I'm trying to do here, there is room for improvement both within the player and the game itself. I agree with others and I enjoyed the chat before it was abused and taken too far, but now it seems to have taken a nasty turn and people who are nasty at every mode of being are using it as a jump-off point for the shit they wanted to do anyways.

[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

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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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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

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JorisToday at 1:31 PM
lol what

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FalconeerToday at 1:31 PM
and ban topics of conversation

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

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

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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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JorisToday at 1:34 PM
yea

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

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

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FalconeerToday at 1:34 PM
to compare with

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

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

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

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

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

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

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JorisToday at 1:35 PM
yeah

You want to troll? go earn it by playing, and risk that the lines you earned will be moderated for racism/sexism and you'll lose line privileges.

[Jessup]

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.

I was not trolling players as a staffer. I was a ban mod who had to make numerous decisions about who and what players to implement warns and actions on. I was in a position where ?ignoring players should never be required. There is a clear rule listed for staffers to protect fellow staffers even more than normal players when it comes to trolling /harassing abuse from players in the game because you are right, staffers do get it much worse often due to their position of power that they hold. I never randomly or actively trolled players. In fact I only took calls and did my best to help them. The issue that happened was there was a contingent of like 8 players who decided to make my life a living hell with hateful speech and harassment towards me on a daily basis for months. I did everything I should have done to stop this. I started by asking staffers above me to deal with it and help me while I produced screenshots, logs and proof as to why action needed to be taken to quell them. I fulfilled showing a context that was clearly harassment to upper staff. Upper staff completely failed me and ignored my requests saying that LGBTQ issues were not defined as hate speech and how players in their(staffs) mind had a right to be prejudiced and bigoted in text towards me and my community. There were staffers who supported my concerns and requests for help but mostly upper staff only made very short and minor attempts at resolving the issue. They failed to stop it and it got worse and worse. They did not follow through in their duties and allowed me as a fellow staffer and the zone at large to perpetuate trolling by saying to them(the trolls) the new standard of moderation was going to be to tell players to just do ?ignores. That was totally stupid and just bad staffing. I as a ban mod should never have had to do ?ignore for any player in the game if I was to do my job correctly. They left me in a crippled state where I could not do my job. I asked others to warn.. they usually refused.. if I or anyone else warned them and took action I had S-mods going behind me removing and lifting the bans very often too saying it was not hate speech or harassment which was BS. The furthest it would go on a lucky day was some little bogus silences that trolls would just laugh at and wait out only to start again with the zone or outright evade by changing names.

This was not only involving my own personal issues either. It has been a common theme for going on two years now. Often legit ban mod actions I and others took on players numerous times were overturned and lifted by people like henry and raizin. Somehow I became the one who was yelled at and told to stop doing my job by these idiots in charge.. I was doing my f-in job!!! but they tied my hands and refused to act. Look back in forums history of my posts if you want to read about many issues I faced. My only resort was to do ignore in the end which both qan and henry said was the best course of action for the zone and myself (it wasn't). Mind you ,, many of the trolls who trolled me were doing it to numerous other players and disrupting pub chat on a daily bases. They also made aliases to avoid my ?ignores. I also started having issues doing ?ignore and capping my squad Paladen/ getting games and communicating became a hassle as players I needed to talk to to get games going also often were involved in doing challenges. I was put in an impossible situation by staff as a result. I am going to fight back a troll who harasses me after it becomes abuse if staff refuses to help me.. which was the case.. a clear clear case I made over and over. Had upper staff acted properly at the start of this, much grief to the zone as a whole and myself could have been avoided..

It was seriously damaging me in real life the things people were allowed to say. I, like all players deserve to log in , have fun and do my job as staff and not be trolled.

I would still be a great staffer helping the zone out if it was dealt with in a proper manner. Instead they booted me illegally (not by staff removal rules). I did not have an issue with my calls or duties at the time of my release but rather was told by Henry and qan that they perceived me defending myself towards my incessant trolls as bad behavior and that was used as the excuse to release me from staff.......The whole thing could have been resolved easily but poor incompetent staffing and leadership sabotaged a good final result both for myself and the zone.

[Falconeer]

I don't know the details of what happened, but if i was on staff as a mod, or even further if i were an SMOD in charge of staff a few things would happen if i were in your shoes, and by saying this i'm not saying you failed to do these things, or anything like that.

1. If I'm being trolled with clearly defined rules being broken and the person was warned, then i would moderate them.
2. If someone is just saying i'm a bad staffer all day without being racist/sexist or making threats (which are listed as being against rules), then i would ignore them, and i dont mean ?ignore. i mean just not reply, because it wouldn't bother me.
3. If people are spamming me, and evading ignores to spam me, that's harassment and a silence-able offense. if they continue from another zone, that's now become net-bannable.

My question is why did they decide to target you in the first place, it is no easy feat for 8 people to join together against someone else. Unless they all did it independent of each other? which again means they all had similar conclusions about you? Were they attacking something specifically? sex? race? or power abuse?

Like it's no secret, I will definitely go after mods I think are abusing powers. And again not even to get them fired, i'm not vengeful or personal in that nature, but i do it just to be a sort of news reporter, to let everyone know the mod is doing a bad job, and create public pressure so that their behaviour is corrected.

To that end if someone joins mod staff, it means they agreed to their rules and way of handling things, if someone can't follow the rules of staff then i find it highly hypocritical for that staffer to expect players to follow rules either.

Really, though this is why having automated systems is better than mods, clearly there was some versus thing going on, and some rivalry, and people didn't like you so they targeted you.

[Falconeer]

Personally, i believe the mentality of "you attacked me, harassed me, insulted me and i'm staff so i should be able to do something to you" is a personal argument and not a moral one. I noticed over my 20 years in subspace that staff never thought it necessary to justify their actions or have total transparency (another issue). This lack of accountability, the idea that "I'm all powerful" and don't need a moral argument for my actions, is what makes dictatorships. And this isn't the correct attitude especially in a game that is supposed to be for the people, and not for yourself.

Whether we agree with the decision qan or henry made or not, some things are clear; mainly that you stopped being objective. Now maybe qan or henry could have better tried to explain why things are the way they are, and maybe that's the mistake they made. But overall, I don't disagree with the idea that staff shouldn't insult people, even if those people are insulting them. I've known henry 15+ years, and i can say a few things for sure about him. Given our experiences with moderation, staff, tyrants and trolls, he's seen over a span of 15 years that banning for text is a disproportional punishment to the offense, particularly and especially because there are very workable alternatives like a silence. So minimally i think he believes in proportional punishment to the offense; text violations are punished by text silences... bans are not required anymore.


It seems like qan/henry realize that objectivity is important in staff and so they decided to let you go. Objectivity is important because if you can't be objective then your moderation is personal and becomes bias or skewed. A good moderator is always objective, they just have one job, to follow the rules that are in place. Does this clearly break a rule? It's not ambiguous? there is no room at all for error or debate? then i'm sorry i have to silence you because a rule was broken. It doesn't matter if you are my best friend, my wife, a person i've known for 20 years, or a troll insulting me, all of that is irrelevant to the question. My emotional feelings are not apart of the equation here, just the rules.

Do i disagree with a rule? Okay, i must convince the zone and the staff that the rule is bad and formulate an alternative. I don't just go around doing shit freely because I can.

Do i see someone doing something that i think should be illegal and it isn't? okay, i won't even tell this player that, in fact i wont moderate them at all because currently what they are doing is not against the rules or not clearly defined in the rules for me to make a proper determination and WIN the moral argument. In that case, I will document what they are doing and bring it up with a panel of staff. Staff will decide IF it's a problem and I will present my case as to why this bothered me. After which staff may make a new rule for this specific case and define it clearly as well as define ways to handle similar situations in the future. This may or may not happen, and it definitely would include player input. If a majority of people dont find what I found to be a problem, then it's not my job to make this zone into my "personal clubhouse"... and why is that case? Because i don't own this game, i don't own the zone, i don't own the content even, and i don't own people. I am a fucking volunteer, my job is to provide a service for the community and if the community decides something is okay, then that's where i stand. Otherwise I am not suited to be a moderator.

[Rab]

I am not suited to be a moderator.

True

[schope]

turning tw into china you faggots.

we need more population and less bans

[Falconeer]

True

I wish minority report was real sometimes, you would see my thoughts the moment i wrote that message and the word representing them would be 'predicted'.

I knew someone would jump on that, just didn't know who. Left it there anyway, to make you look bad when you post it.

[Mootland Farmer]

I'm not sure how you would even Moderate such a ruling, and if enforced, it would probably cause more problems down the line.

[Guest]

"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."

-Jessup

"Staffers should know when people have crossed the line. Where that line is that is obvious spam and attacking other players"

-rothe

this is exactly what i have been saying...USE COMMON SENSE.

examples:

https://imgur.com/9Mz56mH.png

https://imgur.com/i6IqDDj.png

https://imgur.com/rnlCrfW.png

qan/any other confused staff, look at those if you are so perplexed by how this can be handled without a bot and without threatening to freakin quit the zone and leave with NO SYSOP other than yourself...i mean, that that doesnt show that it was a poor decision it was to make you sysop of TW in the first place? i'm sure the person who left you in charge wouldn't have expected that, right?

qan do you really want to quit if hate speech gets banned/silenced/wont be allowed? wtf is that? A1 is pretty clear. that's all anyone here is saying--stop the obvious trolling/hatespeech...unfortunately it seems that its not obvious to the highest level staffer we have...he seems to think this is a very mentally perplexing issue that has so much to consider in what to punish...its not complicated...if its hateful speech or context (not just limited to literal words in racism for example), PER A1, then do something about it and silence..if it continues, ban.

its not.that.hard. again:

https://imgur.com/9Mz56mH.png

https://imgur.com/i6IqDDj.png

https://imgur.com/rnlCrfW.png

edit: why not at least try to focus from 4pm-12am EST? where is staff at these times? do we have enough available in pub?

see the reason for these times in the population during the day here (22:00-6:00=4pm-12am EST): https://imgur.com/9biXAJK.png and https://imgur.com/0hd3JCQ.png

[Falconeer]

Honestly i probably wouldn't moderate this.

https://imgur.com/i6IqDDj.png

In this case I don't see anything racist or sexist; instead it's just a sort of vulgar sex conversation about preferences. Though i'm not an expert on sexism, so maybe it's promoting a bad culture?

Sometimes you have to weigh if something is worth moderation too. If it's something not racist or sexist and it lasts a minute or two in pub and it's already over, would it do any good to warn the player? If it ended who cares, warning them after starts to seem more like hunting them down to make them pay for what they did.

If i was a mod in TW between 4pm and 12am, admittedly i would not actively moderate the chats. i would only moderate if i received a complaint, and if i was in the game playing.

I also am largely against doing anything against someone who types really fast but all the text is different. That's not spam to me, i don't care if it fills the whole screen. If it's not racist or sexist, and they are fighting with someone, i'm going to let the players fight and tell everyone else to ?ignore them. That's what ignore is for. I'd crack down heavily on ?ignore evaders though.

90% of what you can do in most cases, is engage the player too in a different conversation. If i was running the mod staff i would select anonymous people to be apart of a conversation team. When pub convo is going in the wrong direction. Someone would begin a new convo that is more acceptable, and they would have a second or third person on the conversation team who engages that convo, thus the whole pub would just change gears to the new convo. You could also engage the player directly in a PM but not even let them know you are moderating them. Just ask them a question, say you need their advice on something you're working on for the zone, etc, they will get distracted long enough to stop talking about banging men.

You could actually work out what convos people can start, and develop tactics for engaging others in it.

[Guest]

"Honestly i probably wouldn't moderate this."

...Oh, yea? Really? No shit you wouldn't moderate it.

people like Falconeer, Lrim, Tower, Manco, Tantalus, and a few others, have destroyed this games environment. all of you constantly want to start triggering other players into getting into useless debates for over 1 hour at a time most of the time--even though no one was talking to you to begin with..

you few extremely racist/sexist/bigoted players cast your trolling lines FOR HOURS A DAY and wait for someone to bite...

get rid of them. this isn't the fucking US government. some of you, including qan, are OBSESSING over "free speech" in this game....HOW ABOUT SOME COMMON SENSE/COMMON DECENCY in the game, and we move onto free speech if everyone is able to freakin handle that?...why don't we allow other players to call each other the n word? BECAUSE ITS JUST TOO MUCH. it wasn't welcomed in the zone. free speech was NOT THE CONCERN.

it's NOT a "free speech" zone and IT NEVER HAS BEEN. all anyone here is saying is HAVE COMMON SENSE. PUT A STOP to this. https://i.imgur.com/i6IqDDj.png

yea, there is no BLATANT use of any specific word that is racist or sexist--but again if you can't see a reason for not allowing this https://i.imgur.com/i6IqDDj.png or https://i.imgur.com/9Mz56mH.png or https://i.imgur.com/rnlCrfW.png , then that is probably the first thing the zone needs to fix...

and stop thinking about this as POLITICAL ISSUE involving free speech and think of it like preserving the steady amount of players we have left enjoying the actual game...

wtf are you so worried about? that you can't be a hateful POS that logs in to give other players trouble? THATS HOW THE ZONE USED TO BE--we prevented that from happening continuously. that's what we want back.

not seeing any racism or sexism in this https://i.imgur.com/i6IqDDj.png IS JUST BEING WILLFULLY IGNORANT.

talking about fucking Thai transsexuals (by stereotyping that there are a lot of transsexuals in that country), and raping men? as i said just a few seconds ago...if you don't see the problem with that in this game as a staff member, then that would be the biggest problem...this won't stop if staff doesn't understand what racism and sexism are...sorry for being so repetitive...

this https://i.imgur.com/i6IqDDj.png or https://i.imgur.com/9Mz56mH.png or https://i.imgur.com/rnlCrfW.png ..all good examples of moderating the zone...

[Rab]

people like Falconeer, Lrim, Tower, Manco, Tantalus, and a few others, have destroyed this games environment. all of you constantly want to start triggering other players into getting into useless debates for over 1 hour at a time most of the time--even though no one was talking to you to begin with..

Quoted For Truth

[rothe]

Trance looking over some of your links I see some old time players talking trash to others and just some spam artist doing what he always does. Like someone else said why isnt there anyone standing up changing the topic of the convo? None of you will stand up and talk back to them? Yes of course they want the attention thats the entire point so change the topic. Thats the whole point or omg just play the game then you dont have to read the text and you can focus on the gameplay. Dont take what I said out of context. What i'm trying to say is it is already hard as shit on staff. Why are we already all of a sudden caring so much about this or acting like its a thing? TW has always had people talking like this for as far back as I remember. We are down to a base that has known one another forever. Seriously people do you think banning or silencing one another is going to help the problem? No it will just create more vendettas. I dont know what happened while I was gone but damn. Leave the staff alone this is nothing new and you all know it. Use your common sense are people trying to be intentionally disruptive hateful hell maybe hateful but still funny lol.. Shit when someone goes off on flat earth shit tell me that isnt funny.. Just even listening to hate mongering all they are doing is showing their own ignorance if you cant see that well.. Maybe thats your own problem.. If you are being personally attacked yes that is absolute grounds for ban and or some action but if someone is fucking around meh tell them to tone it down. You all dont think I get shit? Let it roll off your back like water or stand up for yourself. Change the topic you have many options other than silencing another player because in the end that only causes more problems. We all have been playing this for so long... Come on people.. Think of a FPS where trash talk doesnt happen? Shouldnt the focus be more on keeping the teams balanced and new players coming in? If you have a personal problem yes report it. Change the topic like I said. This sounds more like some personal shit rather than an actual thing. Again I remind everyone staff isnt paid they run this stuff for all of you. Maybe show some thanks rather than think its some conspiracy against something. Have the players changed or the topics of discussion?

[Rab]

It's a 2d spaceship game, not a compete with trolls for a clean chat game. Trolls should be nuked from orbit so we can get back to meeting people and killing them.