Graveyard of locked abuse threads

[Falconeer]

I stopped before I was almost done actually, and I gave everything I have to BIET (and I think you too)... but I was planning to finish it up. I left it all on my desktop so that I would eventually be forced to get back into it if I wanted to clear out these folders and take 10+ gigs of files off my desktop. So I'd like to say, soon it will happen...

Yep, it takes a lot of talent to condense... have to be a really good writer to do that well.

[qan]

The main issue is that it's 44 pages long. The Ban Ops are working on a condensed rewrite, though.

Ever finish up the SSDLs reordering? I was pretty sure that was the death of the project, when you decided to expand the scope, heh. Should just put up the sorting as-is? Much better than what's currently there.

[Falconeer]

Where is the actual rule book?

I'll write something up or fix the A1 for you if you have something written.

Would only take me a couple of hours, could even write what I think the rules should be, and then pass it on to you to go over with staff for editing/changing.

Like for example... for

Harassment
- persists over time
- unwanted behaviour
- generally you have to be told to stop by the person or it has to be made clear the behaviour is unwanted.

Unwanted Behaviour can include: personal insults, derogatory jokes, racial slurs, expressions of disgust or intolerance toward a person (discrimination).

I know harassment can be a one time thing as well, but I wouldn't moderate that. I prefer moderation that involves a clear indication to stop by the person and the harasser refuses to listen so *then* a moderator has to get involved. Before that happens I feel like it's between two people. If someone doesn't make it clear they dislike what you are doing I can't justify moderation. But of course staff or you could feel differently and just edit that part of the rule that I write.

[qan]

12 –Harassment or otherwise insulting behaviour towards zone staff.

I always disliked rules like this. Basically it guarantees that IF staff abused powers that any retaliation by the player is breaking a rule which prompts them to punish you further and then cite THAT as the original offence as well to cover their tracks. This sort of thing happened all the time in past, not because people were inherently abusive or bad, but only because it was possible to get away with it. You were more likely to get away with it if the zone owner themselves was corrupt or had a bias toward someone or if you were the zone owner. The existence of the rule in the way that it is worded opens up the possibility for abuse; that's all that's needed.

The rule isn't great because it also implies harassment toward anyone else doesn't matter. Instead the rule should take the focus off staff, maybe be reworded to say 'Harassment toward groups or based on discrimination of who a person is 'staff, troll, veteran, noob' or harassment toward *anyone* is not tolerated. As well with a definition of what harassment actually is.

I bet this rule is an antiquated relic from 10 years ago that either got copy and pasted into the new written rules or that those rules are already 10+ years old and were never re-written. Either way, if you're going to keep the same rules, and not apply any thought or consideration into what they are and how they are written, it's not reasonable to expect that staff abuse will magically disappear just because you believe staff is morally uncorruptable or unbiased, or better. Re-write the rules, get rid of rules that existed 10,15,20 years ago. We don't follow 'zone advertising' rule anymore because it's stupid. At least I hope we don't. A lot of rules are written badly from back then.

That hasn't been enforced in a very long time, the rule about staff harassment, for the reasons you mentioned around potential for abuse.

We've been meaning to re-write the A1 to correspond to the actual rulebook for about half a decade or more -- so it goes.

[Falconeer]

12 –Harassment or otherwise insulting behaviour towards zone staff.

I always disliked rules like this. Basically it guarantees that IF staff abused powers that any retaliation by the player is breaking a rule which prompts them to punish you further and then cite THAT as the original offence as well to cover their tracks. This sort of thing happened all the time in past, not because people were inherently abusive or bad, but only because it was possible to get away with it. You were more likely to get away with it if the zone owner themselves was corrupt or had a bias toward someone or if you were the zone owner. The existence of the rule in the way that it is worded opens up the possibility for abuse; that's all that's needed.

The rule isn't great because it also implies harassment toward anyone else doesn't matter. Instead the rule should take the focus off staff, maybe be reworded to say 'Harassment toward groups or based on discrimination of who a person is 'staff, troll, veteran, noob' or harassment toward *anyone* is not tolerated. As well with a definition of what harassment actually is.

I bet this rule is an antiquated relic from 10 years ago that either got copy and pasted into the new written rules or that those rules are already 10+ years old and were never re-written. Either way, if you're going to keep the same rules, and not apply any thought or consideration into what they are and how they are written, it's not reasonable to expect that staff abuse will magically disappear just because you believe staff is morally uncorruptable or unbiased, or better. Re-write the rules, get rid of rules that existed 10,15,20 years ago. We don't follow 'zone advertising' rule anymore because it's stupid. At least I hope we don't. A lot of rules are written badly from back then.

[qan]

It doesn't matter what subject I discuss, Ive been muted for talking science, moon base race, or just normal chit chat,
Right Wing Klan has it out for me, and I see it, staff as their enablers

Every ban made contains a link to trenchwars.org/support to appeal. If you feel you're being treated unfairly, please appeal the ban. This begins a process whereby the ban has to be analyzed to determine if the rules were being followed in applying it. If you're having conversations with people about these topics (and not just monologuing to people who show no interest in what you're saying and just want to play the game), then mods are overstepping their reach and we need to fix that.

If you believe that this is actually a case of mod abuse, such as if you are being targeted for holding certain political beliefs or because of who you are as a person rather than rules broken, send an email to twcomplaints@gmail.com with relevant logs / screenshots, if possible. I'm the primary person responding there, and if it puts you at ease, I'm not a Trump supporter. Some members of staff are, but I'd bet that they're probably a minority (though honestly I don't know -- or particularly care). We do not discriminate on the basis of political belief when enforcing rules or in hiring members of staff.

[SpaceShark]

I'm fairly sure that far more right-wing folks have been silenced by the new spam rule, probably at a ratio of something like 5:1.

Not everything is an ideological battle, no matter how much the news orgs would like you to think it is in order to drive viewership.

Please try to engage people in conversations rather than talking at them. You can still discuss political ideas, whether communist, fascist, libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, mutualist, socialist, neoliberal, primitivist, or exasperated centrist. But the key verb there is discuss. You can't simply sit in pub and monologue anymore. That was annoying too many people.

It doesn't matter what subject I discuss, Ive been muted for talking science, moon base race, or just normal chit chat,
Right Wing Klan has it out for me, and I see it, staff as their enablers

[rothe]

Thanks for the feedback hookecho I got sucked in this convo like a well... Sorry backing out now lol I know when to stfu

[Rab]

Ban sharkdik

[Lizzo]

Can't votemute jesus

[qan]

Its very clear now staff is the problem, have been taken over by trumptards,
ONLY SOLUTION IS TO MOVE THE SERVER AND REPLACE THEM ALL

I'm fairly sure that far more right-wing folks have been silenced by the new spam rule, probably at a ratio of something like 5:1.

Not everything is an ideological battle, no matter how much the news orgs would like you to think it is in order to drive viewership.

Please try to engage people in conversations rather than talking at them. You can still discuss political ideas, whether communist, fascist, libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, mutualist, socialist, neoliberal, primitivist, or exasperated centrist. But the key verb there is discuss. You can't simply sit in pub and monologue anymore. That was annoying too many people.

[SpaceShark]

Its very clear now staff is the problem, have been taken over by trumptards,
ONLY SOLUTION IS TO MOVE THE SERVER AND REPLACE THEM ALL

[SpaceShark]

[QUOTE=Hookecho;n1353501]


You weren't really asking so much as demanding and shouting at the entire pub chat. You couldn't be civil, and there was a group within the community who found your text disruptive. It's no secret who votemuted you, it's put clearly in the chat of pub.

There are protections in place to prevent aliased players from voting twice. Further, a moderator evaluates each request before it is initiated. There was nothing fraudulent going on. In the event you do see fraudulent activity (and you have tangible evidence), https://trenchwars.org/support or twcomplaints@gmail.com are the appropriate venues to register your complaint. Blasting this on the forums just puts the theatrics on full display for the entire community.

Oh KKK its ok for the klan to hold their trumptard rallies in here but when you stand up to them you get muted for asking them what bills have republicans passed that has helped the middle class. This zone has a KKK problem that needs to be addressed , there are about a dozen members lead by Red_X

Yes asking them to tell you what bills republicans have passed to help the middle class is very disrespectful, MY BAD

[Hookecho]

Rothe,

Doing my best here to answer your points:

Ok Hookecho your going to force me to support someone i dont even agree or know but if your going to make a blanket statement like that your going to have to defend it. Explain to me how the bans department is working because your allowing your ban ops to work on alts and not on their official accounts thus players have no clue who to contact or who is on as they have access to the bot how is that not multi-clienting?

While it may of been culture in times past, there are very, very few (SMOD+) members of staff which have additional aliases with access to our core bot infrastructure. No one at the moderator level. All of our moderators are documented on the TrenchWars Staff page. You're right, at one point in time mods were not documented adequately, but this has been corrected. Of course, this doesn't stop people on staff from creating accounts that are not their primary account -- but any fraudulent activity here would be caught almost immediately and would be cause for disciplinary action up to and including termination of duties.

In-game, using ?help or ?cheater calls still works to be able to get in touch with someone from staff if they are available. As soon as your call is taken by a staff member, you get a PM about it from RoboHelp including the staff member who took the call. If you get this PM and no one helps you, absolutely report it.

What does having access to a bot with limited power have to do with mutli-clienting? Multi-clienting involves having multiple clients available to you on your desktop (or several desktops) at once in order to connect to the zone. Bots connect to the zone from their own server, and are only interfaced with by issuing commands via PM.

I mean I can post all the bot commands and how they impact gameplay but it would be more simple just to make a list of every alt of everyone who has access to the bot. Then people might understand wtf is going on and be able to report when they see strange sht going on to twcomplaints@gmail.com
OH the bot was just used. OH this person is on who has access to the bot well maybe I should put in a complaint. That is just logical. I know the commands so I know when sht goes down. I just dont bother anymore because honestly it doesn't bother me after all these years. It does clearly affect gameplay when commands are used to make base smaller or timers are turned off or port is used hell I could go on. I hope you get the point.

Not really sure what you're trying to say here. Access to our environments is highly protected. Mods can't just run around in pub *killing, *warping, or changing the base size (bot does this btw). This stuff gets logged, and it is audited. No, the audit logs aren't public.

"If you see something, say something" is a good general rule for reporting suspicious activity. If you feel the activity is strange enough to report it, use ?cheater and report it. There's a good chance that if it is actually cheating or some form of game manipulation that we were already informed by an automated system (or another player), and we're watching closely.

If you think its staff abuse, then you should put a email into twcomplaints@gmail.com, which ONLY goes to SysOps. No other level of staff member can read that email.

2,6,8,10, and 13 don't seem to be enforced anymore... Yet 4 is enforced in such a way that your staff is going to the point that they are coming up with ways to punish people for not even breaking the official rules set down in the current Bans Department Protocol.

WHY?

The rules you quoted are all still currently enforced. I don't see how racism enforcement (rule 4) has to do with !votemute. !votemute is meant for the community to decide who is being disruptive and who is not. WE are not punishing people for not breaking official rules, the community as a whole (except staff, because we can't vote) is indicating that they'd rather see nothing in chat that allow the disruptive individual to continue.

While I would admit that not every single infraction does have an enforcement action (due to missing a call, etc), it isn't because the rule is being ignored. Like you said, we're volunteer, and we do the best we can to enforce the rules of the community. Also, like BIET mentioned already, you are not entitled to know about enforcement action placed upon other players. Much like anything else these days, personal information (especially in a public game) is not for public consumption. This includes aliases, ban records, warnings received, etc.

Lets get basic shall we?
How many help requests are required to be answered to stay on staff now adays? And not just answered but actually resolved when the ticket comes in then a op checkes off the ticket do you all even still run that way so that you keep staff members that actually want to stay in to help the community and don't just want power? I'll keep away from asking another simple question about the $$$. Don't get me wrong I 100% know staff is fully volunteer and have stuck up for yall more than once. That does not give you carte blanche on how some members are acting.

Yes, being on staff does require a mandatory amount of activity by an individual staff member. These are measured by various activities including calls taken and time played. Are issuing bans a way you can receive credit? No. Is your performance as a staff member reviewed? Yes. Are calls and bans audited? Yes.

I'm not really sure what "$$$" you're referring to, but if you find it, I do like Yamazaki 12 if you're feeling generous. I have never received a paycheck for my time here, not even in pubbux. Any donation money received is used to support our infrastructure and is documented on the website: https://trenchwars.org/donationdetails/. I would much rather see the money go towards things like upgrading our server, or troubleshooting network/lag issues than receive a dime of it.

Don't get me wrong, if you have some specific instances of staff members being disruptive members of the community, or abusing their powers (even for just that tiny advantage), we absolutely want to hear about it. But this wasn't staff abuse, this was the community deciding that a player was disruptive, a moderator reviewing it and carrying out the will of the community.

By the way, while I was writing this, there was another vote mute attempt, which WAS NOT enforced as it seemed to be pre-emptive before the player had even said anything. This kind of stuff is not acceptable, and we're trying to proof the system so things like this aren't allowed to happen. Until we get everything dialed in just so, this system will continue to have a human intervention factor.

Hope this helps answer some of your questions.

[rothe]

Ok Hookecho your going to force me to support someone i dont even agree or know but if your going to make a blanket statement like that your going to have to defend it. Explain to me how the bans department is working because your allowing your ban ops to work on alts and not on their official accounts thus players have no clue who to contact or who is on as they have access to the bot how is that not multi-clienting?
I mean I can post all the bot commands and how they impact gameplay but it would be more simple just to make a list of every alt of everyone who has access to the bot. Then people might understand wtf is going on and be able to report when they see strange sht going on to twcomplaints@gmail.com
OH the bot was just used. OH this person is on who has access to the bot well maybe I should put in a complaint. That is just logical. I know the commands so I know when sht goes down. I just dont bother anymore because honestly it doesn't bother me after all these years. It does clearly affect gameplay when commands are used to make base smaller or timers are turned off or port is used hell I could go on. I hope you get the point.

SECTION 2: ZONE RULES

1 –Cheating, teaching to cheat, or linking to cheats.

2 –Exploiting bugs or glitches in the game.

3 –Deliberate or excessive team–killing. This includes team–killing in revenge.

4 –Racial vilification, derogatory slurs, or pornography. This includes, but is not restricted tonames, squad names, arena names, and banners.

5 –Spamming or excessive verbal harassment in public channels. For other minor instances,please utilize the ?ignore command or toggle public macros off.

6 –The above two rules also apply to the ?help and ?cheater commands. Use ?cheater only forreporting breaches of these rules. Use ?help only for asking subspace related questions.

7 –Manipulating your connection, regardless of how it is done. Refusing to comply withinstructions set by zone staff will result in a forced kick off the zone.

8 –Running multiple clients, or using any of which to hunt people from spectator mode.

9 –Impersonation of staff members or official TW bots, i.e., threatening to ban people, wearing a<ZH> or <ER> tag, mimicking bot responses, or creating similar names to that of zone staff or TW bots.

10 –Violating event rules in hosted arenas or automated events. Rules are usually given inthe form of green arena messages. Pay attention to them.

11 –Linking to malware sites including sites containing data loggers, viruses, Trojans, etc.

12 –Harassment or otherwise insulting behavior towards zone staff.

13 –Being highly disruptive to the game in any other way than listed above.

2,6,8,10, and 13 don't seem to be enforced anymore... Yet 4 is enforced in such a way that your staff is going to the point that they are coming up with ways to punish people for not even breaking the official rules set down in the current Bans Department Protocol.

WHY?

I could post the entire document for everyone to read but i don't really want to stir the pot that much.
Lets be upfront with the community about just want is going on inside staff shall we?

Lets get basic shall we?
How many help requests are required to be answered to stay on staff now adays? And not just answered but actually resolved when the ticket comes in then a op checkes off the ticket do you all even still run that way so that you keep staff members that actually want to stay in to help the community and don't just want power? I'll keep away from asking another simple question about the $$$. Don't get me wrong I 100% know staff is fully volunteer and have stuck up for yall more than once. That does not give you carte blanche on how some members are acting.

These are basic questions the entire community should know about. If you actually want proper feedback.