[NEW] Rule Revisions Upcoming & SPAM Rule Revised NOW!

[Rab]

In a bar 2 people having a conversation are quiet / drowned out by distance and other noise.
In ss the 2 people drown everything else out.

[Falconeer]

lesson here is that only losers go to bars. stay home kids and post 'faggot' threads to be cool.

[Voth]

I will give credit where it's due - they've done a really cute job teaming up privately to make sure they reciprocate each other's nonsense when they have the ability to do so.

Funny part is, they think that they "win" by doing that, when really... pub cancer chat has taken a dramatic nosedive since implementation of this rule, and we have barely punished for it (2-4 times if memory serves).

Now basically they sit there all day waiting to see if mods are online or active and unless they have a mentally ill comrade to "engage" them in reciprocal conversation, they stay quiet.

This took care of 75% of it assuming active mod overwatch. Maybe more brainstorming to take care of the rest.

[Rab]

or like... ban 5 guys... then it's solved. :P

[Voth]

or like... ban 5 guys... then it's solved. :P

You are probably right. But banning people for things that aren't against the rules is outside my pay grade. And I don't see those above me blessing it. Hence why I've agonized over changing rules to give myself and mods more flexibility.

[Lizzo]

[Falconeer]

why ban anyone? people playing the game don't care about reading text... it might be hard to fathom this concept but it's true. i don't read 90% of the chat when i'm playing, and if i'm reading chat i'm not really playing seriously or attentively at all.

for example when I played in hockey zone league matches tons of people tried to provoke me into responses when i made mistakes or tried to distract me and our goalie, we tuned them out, nobody was ignored, there is no blueout there, we we're just focused on the game so the chat wasn't noticeable at all, no time to read it.

if two people want to talk, or one person wants to have a monologue they should not be banned or gagged under a spam rule. like i said this is moderator abuse and it's classic abuse from ten years ago. the only difference is this time you guys bothered to write out an actual rule that basically explains everything can be spam and it's moderation discretion... whereas in the past the spam rule was more technical and moderators were just being discretionary with it regardless.

why do you care what people are saying if it's not harmful.

the more important thing is to make rules on racism, maybe harassment, clearly define hate speech, etc. and then just moderate that. if someone wants to monologue about their cat, cool. if they want to monologue about incels, now you can ban them for hate speech.... way better than getting them for "spam"... same concept different methods. this method is better imo.

[skyforger]

powertripping corrupt cunts. Lol at qan trying to imply staff is competent enough to be given a carte blanche to tackle a (non existing) problem

[Voth]

powertripping corrupt cunts. Lol at qan trying to imply staff is competent enough to be given a carte blanche to tackle a (non existing) problem

Maybe if we hire you, we would be halfway to reaching competency!

[Falconeer]

Change the culture of trolling and what is acceptable or not acceptable. You do this by actually having values and morals you support that will apply evenly to everyone. For example, If you never take a stand on racism and define what it is then you're complicit in it's use. As far as I'm aware most zones in this game don't have written rules against racism or hate speech. You want PG14 chats but you don't explicitly have a rule stating the chat must be PG14 with specific examples of what is not acceptable. If the chats are PG14 there should be announcements in game that state this as well.

I find that saying "we don't have enough moderators" is an excuse for a lot of things. Either an excuse to cut corners, which opens up the door for moderator abuse or not to have rules at all. The job isn't to moderate 24/7 and get everyone, the job is report based, you wont get them the very second they are breaking rule. You get a report, you follow up, and get them 2 days later. Or you get the rule breakers when/if the moderator is online, that's good enough and that's how it works.

If you have a report system that gives a log, and the time, and all the moderator has to do is read the log and it takes 1 minute then you have a good reporting system in place. IF not, then maybe you need to work on a better reporting system so it becomes easier. Once a report is filed, a log of the conversation in the last few minutes is uploaded somewhere by the bot or something. Players make the reports, the logs are auto generated, the moderator just needs to log on and read it.

Moderation is good, but it's like an afterthought. A bandage to the problems in the game and the zone. The problems are bigger than bad apples. These problems exist because more development is needed, new players are needed, other areas are more vital and need to be focused on if you actually want to solve or reduce the need for moderation. I bet if I was moderator for a day I could find all sorts of ways you could develop the system to make it easier and better. But then you still need someone to program it. And therein lies the problem for the whole game.

When I say change the culture of trolling, I mean that being a troll doesn't mean you don't or can't have values. Trolls don't have to be racist to troll for example. Even if I was joking, I don't want to spread racism on the internet, all of this has negative social effects. And frankly it's easy and unskilled to throw some racist slurs around and offend people. This isn't trolling. Trolls cross lines that nobody knows exists, we get banned for not crossing lines in other words. If you think you are trolling by being racist? think again, you are just being racist. I'm guilty of this sometimes, but probably because the zone policies are so lax on everything. Add rules. Even if you can't enforce them all the time.

[Vehicle]

Falconeer What you're wall of text is asking for is exactly what this rule and further forthcoming changes attempts to address. Useless spam and racism are clearly our two biggest issues as a zone when it comes to chat specifically. The spam rule, and the community silence program, seeks to address the former.

Racism/bigotry is an issue that sometimes gets lumped into this discussion, but it is really separate. We, as a community, on staff are seeking a better enforcement structure around racism, so let's set that aside for a moment.

It's inarguable that a small minority of players often dominate pub chat with pointless messages that aren't directed at anyone in particular or part of any larger conversation. This updated rule is designed to address that and, from my experience the past couple of weeks, it has been working. This is a good thing.

The goal is not entirely punitive, although that is part of it. The goal is to create a more-welcoming pub chat for all players. And it's been working.

Despite all the calls of "overreach" and "abuse" and "Stalinism" or whatever, there has yet to be a single valid complaint of someone being silenced or warned for this rule spuriously. It's good for the players to be critical of staff, but at a certain point I think you're just complaining for the sake of it.

[Falconeer]

Falconeer

It's inarguable that a small minority of players often dominate pub chat with pointless messages that aren't directed at anyone in particular or part of any larger conversation. This updated rule is designed to address that and, from my experience the past couple of weeks, it has been working. This is a good thing.

Again, why do you care if someone monologues in a chat? This type of behaviour is less about what is being said and more about who is saying it. I'm on the recieving end of this type of discrimination all the time. People who absolutely hate me. Who can't stand that I even have the ability to type etc. So I could be saying anything, the cure of cancer for example, and they would still want me to shut up because they feel entitled to the public chat. They feel a sense of ownership, like my contributions to the game don't matter as much as there's even though we both played the game for 20 years. To deny or ignore that this is about that is just a lie.

Chat in pub can be technically spam, if it exceeds a certain rate limit or if it's copy and pasted over and over. Then by all means rate limit or mute the person. But you didn't define the rule technically, you defined it so you can decide who abuses the rule and then punish them. Define it technically (a certain amount of lines in a certain amount of time) and then maybe people can believe what you claim.

My position is that you shouldn't care if someone is chatting unless the text they are using is offensive. If you want a better chat, then do what other games do and ask that the chats are only used for on topic conversation; ie you can only chat about the game; no politics, nothing controversial allowed, nothing unrelated to the game. Table top simulator does this and they mute anyone who doesn't comply, and there in game chat is nice and "clean" like you described.

It's not like you have new players to impress either.

Just so we're clear, we agree that excessive trolling/hate speech/racism, offensive language/insulting is a problem. That there should be rules for this and it should be moderated.

But wanting to end non-offensive monologues - begs the question why does it bother you? why does it matter? if it matters because it's taking up too much of the chat then that means you have a technical definition of what spam is. so why not define spam technically? However, if nobody is typing for 1 hour and just 1 person is typing then even if their monologue takes up the whole chat that is only because of the absence of other people typing, to be spam it would have to dominate the chat despite numerous other people typing. All of this can easily be defined technically.

The only reason non-offensive monologues bother people from my experience is because those people who are bothered feel entitled to a public chat, like the chat is somehow "there's" meant there for them and their group of friends, and this outsider or person they dislike is just interfering with *their* conversations they are trying to have. this is about ownership, about ego, about hate. it's not about cleaner chats otherwise the spam rule would have been defined way different and you would target those trouble makers by actually targeting the troubling text rather than attacking text itself regardless of what is said. nobody here has affirmed there will be rules on the content of text or what those rules will be yet.

no one is entitled to the chat. public chat is public for a reason, anyone can enter a conversation, or write something related or unrelated to anything if they want. i've often commented in a public chat and people said nobody is talking to you, and my response was..."yo if you don't want random people to reply or offer input why are you having this conversation in fucking public" if i can read it, i will reply. it's not a squad chat. you aren't more deserving of a chat space... yes we agree technical spam should be rate limited, but beyond that the person you want to "shut up" played the game 20 years like you. you're not better than them.

plenty of monologues are actually mute worthy, but it's because of the content of the text, not because the person is talking to themselves... to mute for the later sends the wrong message. it entirely sends the wrong message about what is wrong with what they did, and that only amplifies the problem. Imagine someone like manco having a monologue about incels and being muted for spam. do you get what kind of message that sends? these people aren't al capone, you don't need to get them on tax evasion, you can get them on murder. i suggest the rules should follow that.

[Vehicle]

Falconeer There is a difference between "monologues" and "chatting," and if the rules were steadfastly defined for spam as x lines in x minutes we would have players deliberately hugging the line as closely as they can. I'm sure you've seen the players who literally copy/paste Wikipedia into chat for literally no reason.

If working properly this rule will actually encourage conversation, not diminish it. By clearing chat of useless text, the idea is that more of the other stuff gets read by players.

I get it, you're a pariah. But as long as you're engaging with other players (about the game, politics, what you had for dinner, whatever), you have nothing to worry about.

[Falconeer]

Falconeer There is a difference between "monologues" and "chatting," and if the rules were steadfastly defined for spam as x lines in x minutes we would have players deliberately hugging the line as closely as they can. I'm sure you've seen the players who literally copy/paste Wikipedia into chat for literally no reason.

If working properly this rule will actually encourage conversation, not diminish it. By clearing chat of useless text, the idea is that more of the other stuff gets read by players.

I get it, you're a pariah. But as long as you're engaging with other players (about the game, politics, what you had for dinner, whatever), you have nothing to worry about.

So make a good line? They can hug the line that makes all their dialogue the same like everyone elses. haha.

Better yet a bot could identify when people are typing text and breaking a set rate limit, and then rate limit that person so they can only type once a minute. So many better ways to deal with this. IF it's truly not about the person, then having them type once a minute would not be a problem at all, it would be a welcome change. If it is about the content of what is said make rules about content not spam, and then mute for that.

the problem with trench wars is other than extremely overt racism, or death threats, there hasn't been a line at all. people can do and say anything practically. only time i was banned was when i played the game with the name Hitler's Oven and people didn't like it said 'you were killed by Hitlers Oven'

BTW, copy and paste can be part of a technical spam definition, so can abuse of macros

[rothe]

Maybe if we hire you, we would be halfway to reaching competency!