TW Dean Results and Future of Trench Wars

[ogron]

Jessup has no business being a mod, but he does correctly strike at one of the major issues that has accelerated the decline of the zone's population and activity:

Qan's policies.

The pathological obsession with treating a 2D videogame run by volunteers into his own personal Lawyer Simulation has been very detrimental to Trench Wars.

If it isn't written in the rules, someone's actions don't perfectly match the language, you don't have logs, video evidence, three supporting witnesses, and an amicus brief from a Supreme Court Justice, sorry! There's nothing we can do.

We've all been banned from this game by a corrupt mod or two, and it's frustrating, but you contact another mod and get it settled quickly, and move on. I've never been a fan of staff, but overall they were okay, and yeah they abused
but there always enough good apples to right the ship, and the nature of everyone knowing each other usually allowed for decent resolution of issues.

Their ability to lay down the law and silence/ban/punish people with some discretion and using their brains was important in curbing trolls, spammers, hate speech, and behaviors that ruined the game for everyone else. Those people
whined to holy hell about it, but at the end of the day they valued playing the game and their behavior improved upon returning, and it was an effective tool at making this game fun to play.

Note: This is not the way to run an actual criminal justice system in a real society where people pay taxes and face potential jail sentences, and where there are hundreds of thousands of professional lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and police to properly execute the law. Something our esteemed Sysop doesn't seem to get.

This is a free game run by volunteers, not a G20 nation.

Under Qan's tenure, all of these trolls have run rampant, and in re-forging the game into his own image he's pushed out the last remaining vestiges of great mods and league runners.

Every pariah in the game knows they can log on at 3am, give a 4 hour sob story to Qan, and he'll buy it and un-ban them. Hell, do it enough times and he'll promote you to staff.

There's immense value in being present and online during normal hours when most events take place, and seeing things firsthand. There's also a lot of value in actually playing the game. Qan has neither of those qualifications. He's a backseat driver with a blindfold on being led astray by bad actors who whisper into his ear in the dead of night when most of the player base has logged off. No one who was online during the first season of TSL would have ever unbanned Cyclone. The entire zone was screaming at the top of their lungs for him to be banned. He had a multi-year history of trolling and ruining leagues across zones. I had to literally follow him around and videotape him for days, and Qan finally banned him 6 weeks into the season. 6 weeks! Absolute insanity. Nobody who plays the game would have ever taken that long.

Olde spammed me during the TWDT-B finals last season on multiple different names like l1kll11l1l1;;1;1l1l so I couldn't ?ignore them (doing ?lines=0 has disadvantages because you want to be able to communicate about whose mines are whose, or a shark saying 0 reps), then blatantly admitted to it, and wasn't even banned. It didn't fit perfectly under one of Qan's 90000 rules and there wasn't a clear punishment laid out a priori. Sorry! Just one of dozens of examples of ineffective leadership and letting cheats run free.

He doesn't get that a group of imperfect mods who are empowered to actually moderate the zone is better than an impotent group of yes-men at his beck and call letting trolls run rampant through TW because only Qan the All-Knowing and All-Wise is trustworthy enough to make such decisions.

I guess when you don't actually play the game, you're not affected by these players. It's more fun to log on at 3am and treat Subspace like your own personal SimCity: Judge and Jury edition. The sorry state of the game's population and the quality of pub/leagues should tell you all you need to know about how effective these policies have been (unless you're really into the Klan rallies that occur in pub, in which case it's been a rousing success.)

Some people just can't see the forest for the trees.

Qan means well and has done some good things for the zone, but the game has never been worse. You're not the personal savior of this zone just because you can code, and you can't be an effective Sysop without being present during normal game hours. I'm sorry, you just can't. And that you refuse to acknowledge this reality has been this game's downfall. It was destined to fail either way, and there are other root causes, but these decisions have accelerated the decline.



P.S.: Why are White Supremacists allowed to congregate and spread racist hate speech in pub? Why is the constant, non-stop anti-LGBTQ harassment of Jessup allowed?

Somehow, Twitter and other companies have figured out that their users are NOT protected by their First Amendment rights, and they can (and do) ban trolls and hate speech from their platforms, but not us?

THIS ISN'T AN ACLU CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE GAME -- BAN THESE MOTHERFUCKERS!

[Falconeer]

Jessup has no business being a mod, but he does correctly strike at one of the major issues that has accelerated the decline of the zone's population and activity:

Qan's policies.

The pathological obsession with treating a 2D videogame run by volunteers into his own personal Lawyer Simulation has been very detrimental to Trench Wars.

If it isn't written in the rules, someone's actions don't perfectly match the language, you don't have logs, video evidence, three supporting witnesses, and an amicus brief from a Supreme Court Justice, sorry! There's nothing we can do.

We've all been banned from this game by a corrupt mod or two, and it's frustrating, but you contact another mod and get it settled quickly, and move on. I've never been a fan of staff, but overall they were okay, and yeah they abused
but there always enough good apples to right the ship, and the nature of everyone knowing each other usually allowed for decent resolution of issues.

Their ability to lay down the law and silence/ban/punish people with some discretion and using their brains was important in curbing trolls, spammers, hate speech, and behaviors that ruined the game for everyone else. Those people
whined to holy hell about it, but at the end of the day they valued playing the game and their behavior improved upon returning, and it was an effective tool at making this game fun to play.

Note: This is not the way to run an actual criminal justice system in a real society where people pay taxes and face potential jail sentences, and where there are hundreds of thousands of professional lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and police to properly execute the law. Something our esteemed Sysop doesn't seem to get.

This is a free game run by volunteers, not a G20 nation.

I don't know what world you are living in where you can generalize whole populations... maybe a biblical one where you are god and know about everyone's experience ever whoever got banned? But the real world doesn't work that way where a few good apples can right the ship while bad apples continue to abuse powers. So many people for example still go to prison for crimes they didn't commit, or their sentences are either too lenient, or way too harsh. You think an online 2D game with even less oversight than the real world will operate better? Get the fuck out tyrant.

Under Qan's tenure, all of these trolls have run rampant, and in re-forging the game into his own image he's pushed out the last remaining vestiges of great mods and league runners.

Qans moderation policies as far as I can tell actually automated the system more which was beneficial to everyone: from requiring mods to prove a rule was broken (similar to real world police who need evidence of a crime to arrest you). to actually having a notification system in slack whenever someone is banned or silenced. All of these features are good things. If QAN had a weakness it would be NOT automating more things. Not moving to an AS3 server where more development would bring about better methods of moderation that avoids human error or human vice.

Qans other weakness, I would argue is not including the community more despite his personal feelings of someone. If people can help, let them help.

Every pariah in the game knows they can log on at 3am, give a 4 hour sob story to Qan, and he'll buy it and un-ban them. Hell, do it enough times and he'll promote you to staff.

Why the fuck is anyone being banned? Bans are reserved for straight up hackers. And even cheaters you don't have to ban on an AS3 server because there is a way to make their cheating ineffective. You also realize you can permanently silence someone and they can't evade it right? They would need to buy a new modem, have a new IP and login from a different PC with a new name to evade it, much like a ban.

There's immense value in being present and online during normal hours when most events take place, and seeing things firsthand. There's also a lot of value in actually playing the game. Qan has neither of those qualifications. He's a backseat driver with a blindfold on being led astray by bad actors who whisper into his ear in the dead of night when most of the player base has logged off. No one who was online during the first season of TSL would have ever unbanned Cyclone. The entire zone was screaming at the top of their lungs for him to be banned. He had a multi-year history of trolling and ruining leagues across zones. I had to literally follow him around and videotape him for days, and Qan finally banned him 6 weeks into the season. 6 weeks! Absolute insanity. Nobody who plays the game would have ever taken that long.

Good for cyclone. If someone acts like a new player not capable of improving, more power to them. You have to prove they are doing it on purpose, and you can't. Which means cyclone probably one too many times saw a noob treated like shit, discarded, trash talked too, made fun of playing bad, and decided to take up his own cause. I would rather have a zone of bad players, than the pro league vets, they are all assholes/trolls themselves, 95% exclude and trash people. More people like cyclone please.

Olde spammed me during the TWDT-B finals last season on multiple different names like l1kll11l1l1;;1;1l1l so I couldn't ?ignore them (doing ?lines=0 has disadvantages because you want to be able to communicate about whose mines are whose, or a shark saying 0 reps), then blatantly admitted to it, and wasn't even banned. It didn't fit perfectly under one of Qan's 90000 rules and there wasn't a clear punishment laid out a priori. Sorry! Just one of dozens of examples of ineffective leadership and letting cheats run free.

Maybe in real life he will harass you and you can shoot him. You seem like the type. WAH HE WASN'T BANNED, I COULDN'T USE A MOD LIKE A TOOL TO DO MY BIDDING, WAHHHHH. Fuck off tyrant. Text offenses earn you text punishments. I dare you take over this zone and ban me and see what happens. Someone out there will drop your zone so fast you'll learn a new definition of power online.

However, you are correct in saying if you can't ?ignore someone, then it becomes harassment, and they should be silenced/punished. But that is ALL you are correct on.

He doesn't get that a group of imperfect mods who are empowered to actually moderate the zone is better than an impotent group of yes-men at his beck and call letting trolls run rampant through TW because only Qan the All-Knowing and All-Wise is trustworthy enough to make such decisions.

I guess when you don't actually play the game, you're not affected by these players. It's more fun to log on at 3am and treat Subspace like your own personal SimCity: Judge and Jury edition. The sorry state of the game's population and the quality of pub/leagues should tell you all you need to know about how effective these policies have been (unless you're really into the Klan rallies that occur in pub, in which case it's been a rousing success.)

Some people just can't see the forest for the trees.

Qan means well and has done some good things for the zone, but the game has never been worse. You're not the personal savior of this zone just because you can code, and you can't be an effective Sysop without being present during normal game hours. I'm sorry, you just can't. And that you refuse to acknowledge this reality has been this game's downfall. It was destined to fail either way, and there are other root causes, but these decisions have accelerated the decline.

Oh my someone is behaving online and treating players online the same way they might treat people in real life? Without abuse, with respect, and with equal consideration? Yeah you're right qan is fucking destroying this zone! make way for the tyrants!

P.S.: Why are White Supremacists allowed to congregate and spread racist hate speech in pub? Why is the constant, non-stop anti-LGBTQ harassment of Jessup allowed?

Somehow, Twitter and other companies have figured out that their users are NOT protected by their First Amendment rights, and they can (and do) ban trolls and hate speech from their platforms, but not us?

THIS ISN'T AN ACLU CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE GAME -- BAN THESE MOTHERFUCKERS

*SILENCE* these fuckers (Had to correct your mistakes, carry on).

[Falconeer]

Jesus, even with the zone dying all you faggots can do is argue semantics about something useless like Jessup being a mod and yet you still wonder why the zone collapsed. 1. It was going to happen no matter what and 2. You let faggotry and liberalism corrupt staff and instead let dick sucking determine power structures over capability. This is always the end result of such a system.

The end result of dick sucking was you. I think we prefer a meritocracy.

[kthx]

I don't even know who this faggot is or why he would be talking to a living legend

[Falconeer]

I don't even know who this faggot is or why he would be talking to a living legend

I'm the troll god, the scourge of death star battle zone, i was locked away there to spare the subspace community otherwise the game would have crumbled a whole decade sooner. I've been netbanned from the game for non-racist/sexist non-rulebreaking text. I've been banned from 4 of the 7 subspace discords for the same reasons. I've been banned from subspace forums and dsb forums countless times. I am the one who defines what trolling is. The one who logs in to an area and watches everyone yell for bans or they will rage quit. I'm the one who can outlast you online, who can sit in front of the computer 24/7 while i get free food from my mom and live in her attic. The one with no job to go to, who doesn't even need to run to the toilet to take a break from typing, i literally just shit all over myself and keep going. You are trash compared to me because I am the best at being trash online. My dead father always said "whatever you are, be a good one." Any more questions?

[kthx]

Nobody cares faggot

[qan]

Olde spammed me during the TWDT-B finals last season on multiple different names like l1kll11l1l1;;1;1l1l so I couldn't ?ignore them (doing ?lines=0 has disadvantages because you want to be able to communicate about whose mines are whose, or a shark saying 0 reps), then blatantly admitted to it, and wasn't even banned. It didn't fit perfectly under one of Qan's 90000 rules and there wasn't a clear punishment laid out a priori. Sorry! Just one of dozens of examples of ineffective leadership and letting cheats run free.

Bit of a day late/dollar short situation, but there's finally a decent way to track this. Basically, just take a succession of screenshots in a row, and once their identity is verified they'll be netbanned:

TW leagues have been the target of extremely petty individuals spamming to try to gain advantage. If you are the target of spammers this season, please take 5+ successive screenshots with the chat fully exposed (the more the better). Submit the screenshots within 1 hour of the last game of the day ending (the faster, the better) on forums or in a link inside a ?help call (which attaches a timestamp). Those who are found guilty of this form of cheating will be immediately disqualified, ineligible from playing in the next TW league, and will receive a significant netban.

Though, it unfortunately doesn't mean a hell of a lot if the person is doing it in finals for the first time, and they aren't afraid of a league ban or net ban. Trying to verify identities across zones before the end of a match is not easy, either.

As for the rest, sure, I'll be your fall guy if it makes you feel better. Everyone's got a different approach, and mine's worse for some situations. Yours is worse for others. I do what I do not because I particularly enjoy it, but more out of a sense of duty. I'm not the best. But I do continue to show up, and I try to listen to what people are saying, even if I'm not able to be around during prime-time.

By the way, TWDT hopefully in the works soon. Need some powerful organizers.

I'd had a thought recently. Might be interesting to splinter off TW Leagues from staff entirely. Let a leagues staff run it all, including hiring/firing their staff, and determining their own policy. Might create some inner turmoil, but as long as everyone stays off one another's turf it could work. Not sure there are enough people interested in leagues who would be willing to put in work though, or if we could find a reliable frontman who could stick around for longer than two weeks.

[mtine]

qan people tell me to kill myself all the time, and then we have qan denying me the ability to help the discord because i was mean to him. *face palm*

okay mtine we can talk about you, i say give mtine staff if he's willing to work with henry saari.

Also people assume when I say "If I was sysop" as me saying I want to be sysop. No, i'm trying to say i'm not a hypocrite with double standards and that I actually believe in what I'm writing here. I'm able to put myself in your shoes and say firmly that I would treat people a certain way. I'm trying to make a point. i honestly could care less about that level of access beyond development abilities that come with it. All my thoughts on moderation, the majority are development ideas, and some require an AS3 server.

Which part of my post don't you understand? The "I" or the "quit"? I'm not coming back, even if Henry sends me 1.000.000 $ paypal right now. Would take the money tho.

[skyforger]

I'd had a thought recently. Might be interesting to splinter off TW Leagues from staff entirely. Let a leagues staff run it all, including hiring/firing their staff, and determining their own policy. Might create some inner turmoil, but as long as everyone stays off one another's turf it could work. Not sure there are enough people interested in leagues who would be willing to put in work though, or if we could find a reliable frontman who could stick around for longer than two weeks.

Zone keeps shrinking but you want more staff organizations when all you need to do is allow ppl who want to help do just that. There seem to be people willing in these threads on reasonable terms. Stop with everything having to go through Henry Saari there is a reason he was regarded as what he is in the first zone he let die of boredom for sake of being in charge.

[ogron]

Bit of a day late/dollar short situation, but there's finally a decent way to track this. Basically, just take a succession of screenshots in a row, and once their identity is verified they'll be netbanned

As for the rest, sure, I'll be your fall guy if it makes you feel better. Everyone's got a different approach, and mine's worse for some situations. Yours is worse for others. I do what I do not because I particularly enjoy it, but more out of a sense of duty. I'm not the best. But I do continue to show up, and I try to listen to what people are saying, even if I'm not able to be around during prime-time.

By the way, TWDT hopefully in the works soon. Need some powerful organizers.

I'm glad there's a measure in place now, but it's still absurd someone trolling like that got away scot-free.

If you were online and played leagues and were constantly matched up with Cyclone, you'd feel differently. If you experienced Jessup's moderating or running non-stop in games and his persecution complex day after day after day in-game, you'd never have re-hired him. I think you would be a much better Sysop if you were there during normal hours, and we would have far fewer disagreements.

I think that relying on feedback from forums is also detrimental if you're not online when most players are, since this is not an accurate representation of the zone and its players, and is badly skewed by trolls and malcontents.

I believe that it is fundamental to the position to play the game, or at the very least be there, and -- given that you're intelligent and mean well -- these sorts of issues are just further proof of that, because many of these decisions are just out of touch.

As I said, the game was doomed either way, but certainly more could have been done in terms of dealing with trolls and keeping talented mods and league-runners. Then again, I suppose someone worse could have become Sysop and it could be in a sorrier state, too.

TWDT signups don't look encouraging, although Zidane, Ease, and others can probably conjure up enough people, especially given the numbers were fine earlier this year.

The season was decent. Certainly not the best, but also far from the worst. Better than 2012-2013, but not as good as 2011, 2014-2017. I would highly discourage any changes to the leagues at this point. Henry made a good decision to just copy pasta the 2014-2017 seasons and I think it was a successful season. The biggest issue was Zidane getting the #1 pick and landing Ease, which kind of made it a race for 2nd place in all three leagues, but that's not the league-runners fault.

TWDT is the last best hope for the zone. So hopefully they can get it running.

[Falconeer]

Nobody cares faggot

I care, that's all that matters to me. I am like Don Quixote. Go read a book, maybe you'll know what that is without google.

Which part of my post don't you understand? The "I" or the "quit"? I'm not coming back, even if Henry sends me 1.000.000 $ paypal right now. Would take the money tho.

This is why you're not really in it to help the zone or be a volunteer. Someone who really cares about something doesn't quit it when things don't go there way. I still help zones despite being banned by them and being told I'm a piece of shit by their staff, or being trolled by players. That's a genuine sign of care.

As for what everyone else wrote, I don't reply when people are having decent discussions, they don't say anything wrong or that I disagree with, they are saying something that is more opinion/personal preference based (since everyone is entitled to preferences) or it involves something I don't know much about (like leagues).

[Jessup]

If you experienced Jessup's moderating or running non-stop in games and his persecution complex day after day after day in-game, you'd never have re-hired him.

LOL Claus .. just stop. I proved to everyone YOU were the abuser who hijacked and killed MY hosted TSL game and lied switching the facts from what you did to me and reversed it to say I did it to you. WAS FOUL FOUL FOUL...I still have those logs.. don't make me pull them out again. Also name what moderation I did that was wrong from your first hand knowledge. You don't have anything on me when it comes to moderation .. all you can do is make up some generalization bs lies when it comes to me and whine about my play style which is really you just being pissy I beat you every time it comes down any games we 1 vs 1 each other on.. such as the 1 vs 1 win I slapped you down in that TSLJ game I won for my team vs you. It was no coincidence that I crushed you right before you blew up and decided to illegally kill me host and slander and frame me as a result of your uncontrollable anger over getting stomped by me in that game.

On the other hand

I can fire back a slew of things you abused your powers with... but you can't name one situation I did improperly..... I showed the logs that happened when you accused me of hijacking your game which proved I had started the game myself and that YOU illegally killed it. I proved you as a liar...so... YOU were a total abuser yourself when in power for TSL and also purposely set stars for both TSL and TWDT to ruin chances of play time for those you disliked which was more FOUL FOUL FOULNESS soooooo just stop dude.

I won't take away your good points you have organizing things and hyping them and the silly comics you spend hours drawing that can be sort of funny. Also your TWL and TWDT past stats you have an unearthly obsessive compulsive fixation with are sort of amazing too but you use it only as a way to back up some hairbrained theory you come up with to support egomaniac arguements to try and make yourself something of a player which you never have been... lol .....the bad far outweighs the good when it comes to you doing stuff dude.. You def do put in energy and create hype but usually it was terribly bad energy in the long run. Dunno why you are such a dick to me but I'll happily return the favor to you if you insist on continuing. You could be decent if you had a handle on your self but you ALWAYS prove you can't muster it....just stop.....

[zidane]

Lol............ these block of texts about things that happened 2 years ago hurt my soul. I'd be interested in helping DT succeed, especially with. Ogron involved. If someone is able to convince him, doesn't take a genius to see when he stepped in last season with content the season got a lot more interesting.

ps. who the hell is falconear ? guy should be banned from forums for spam

[Grasps]

Lol............ these block of texts about things that happened 2 years ago hurt my soul. I'd be interested in helping DT succeed, especially with. Ogron involved. If someone is able to convince him, doesn't take a genius to see when he stepped in last season with content the season got a lot more interesting.

ps. who the hell is falconear ? guy should be banned from forums for spam

I've asked numerous times for this forum to have legit moderation that bans/removes players who thread hijack/spam/harass and are generally annoying/troll like. Qan's response was that like pub, these forums are to be free of rules and that it allows players to be natural or someshit. I'd ban Jess/Falcon/Wii and a couple others that have retarded names that I can't remember at the moment but are equally troll like and annoying.

Also, + 1 to papi claus. Well said and we miss u.

-Ixa

[Falconeer]

LOL Claus .. just stop. I proved to everyone YOU were the abuser who hijacked and killed MY hosted TSL game and lied switching the facts from what you did to me and reversed it to say I did it to you. WAS FOUL FOUL FOUL...I still have those logs.. don't make me pull them out again. Also name what moderation I did that was wrong from your first hand knowledge. You don't have anything on me when it comes to moderation .. all you can do is make up some generalization bs lies when it comes to me and whine about my play style which is really you just being pissy I beat you every time it comes down any games we 1 vs 1 each other on.. such as the 1 vs 1 win I slapped you down in that TSLJ game I won for my team vs you. It was no coincidence that I crushed you right before you blew up and decided to illegally kill me host and slander and frame me as a result of your uncontrollable anger over getting stomped by me in that game.

On the other hand

I can fire back a slew of things you abused your powers with... but you can't name one situation I did improperly..... I showed the logs that happened when you accused me of hijacking your game which proved I had started the game myself and that YOU illegally killed it. I proved you as a liar...so... YOU were a total abuser yourself when in power for TSL and also purposely set stars for both TSL and TWDT to ruin chances of play time for those you disliked which was more FOUL FOUL FOULNESS soooooo just stop dude.

I won't take away your good points you have organizing things and hyping them and the silly comics you spend hours drawing that can be sort of funny. Also your TWL and TWDT past stats you have an unearthly obsessive compulsive fixation with are sort of amazing too but you use it only as a way to back up some hairbrained theory you come up with to support egomaniac arguements to try and make yourself something of a player which you never have been... lol .....the bad far outweighs the good when it comes to you doing stuff dude.. You def do put in energy and create hype but usually it was terribly bad energy in the long run. Dunno why you are such a dick to me but I'll happily return the favor to you if you insist on continuing. You could be decent if you had a handle on your self but you ALWAYS prove you can't muster it....just stop.....

If what you say is true, I always find it funny that people who actually abused moderation, or hurt the zone by deleting files, end up being leaders who run Subspace zones and forums AKA Polix... this guy was bragging to me about how he took out whole zones in the past, and even laughing himself that he made Net-op after netbanning me for text. Why are these people constantly re-accepted and re-tried for staff over and over again or deemed better than me, JUST because my text is harsh and you guys dislike me.

Whatever powers I've had access to in this game for development purposes, I'VE never abused. Never used powers to attack people, text is good enough if I want to say how shitty they are.