[ANNOUNCEMENT] - TRIAL - Discrimination/Racism/Spam Silences to become Zone Bans

[Hookecho]

Hi Everyone,

After feedback we've heard from some players, we're going to trial a change to how we enforce rule violations relating to spamming or racism/discrimination.

Beginning on Friday, March 1st, we will move to issuing Zone Bans instead of Silences. This will allow players to be relieved of the immediate issue and will not require players to play in pub silenced in order to become unsilenced. There will also be a change in the amount of time these bans are for.

Below are the new enforcement guidelines for racism and spamming:

Offense	Enforcement Action
1st Offense	*warn(ing)
2nd Offense	1d BanG
3rd Offense	3d BanG
4th Offense	7d BanG
5th Offense	14d BanG
6th Offense	30d BanG
7th Offense	30d BanG + Report to Ban Operators for Review Additional extension at Ban Operator Discretion

As a reminder, cross-zone spamming (e.g. Idling in Extreme Games and spamming people with private messages in TrenchWars) is also against the rules. If you attempt this after your zone ban, your ban will be copied to the network, which will include all of the SSCU-aligned zones.


The trial period will begin Friday, March 1st, and will go for three months, ending May 31st. At this time we will evaluate how the system is working and adjust if necessary based on feedback received.

Please use this forum post as a place to submit your feedback. If you would like to do so in a private setting, you may PM me here or in game.

Thanks,

Hookecho

[Rab]

Good change.

I think bans could ramp up more aggressively so that repeat offenders can't so easily just come back, and it'll be less work for you in the long run, and might actually improve the quality of the zone by taking out the trash. Something like this gives players the chance to reform, and cracks down on those who don't.
1st - 1 warn
2nd - 1 week
3rd - 1 month
4th - 1 year
5th - 1 lifetime

[dcr]

I was under the impression that this game had an ignore feature built in. Perhaps these players should learn to use it.

[Mossad]

good job on doing this trial.. i do think this can help to minimize the hate. on the same note we might lose those players who dont care and are in game only to abuse other players. in any case its win lose case. meaning our in game base player rate will drop.

[Vys]

Good stuff, can we clarify that everyone is on the same starting line when this is introduced? And any previous offences are reset to run in line with this new enforcement action?

Also, could we have a review of MMR and have a similar table for people leaving games? I still think that is a grey area and subjected to the host and there relationship with the player in question.

I like the direction you guys are going.

[Rab]

If we're going to crack down on MMR leaving, there's a couple of things we have to do first:
- Prevent aliasing, same 1-2 ppl making new names every few days. Bot can't balance if a 2-10 player is 3k rated.
- Fix the drafting algo, every other game there's a team the bot says has 50% win chance that quite obviously has no hope.

[Jessup]

Thumbs up!! I apologize for not responding to this earlier but think this is a good move by staff!

[Dwopple]

If we're going to crack down on MMR leaving, there's a couple of things we have to do first:
- Prevent aliasing, same 1-2 ppl making new names every few days. Bot can't balance if a 2-10 player is 3k rated.

Hopefully this change will resolve the majority of this issue: https://forums.trenchwars.com/tsl/mm...r-registration

[Hookecho]

Good stuff, can we clarify that everyone is on the same starting line when this is introduced? And any previous offences are reset to run in line with this new enforcement action?

Also, could we have a review of MMR and have a similar table for people leaving games? I still think that is a grey area and subjected to the host and there relationship with the player in question.

I like the direction you guys are going.

Infractions here work similarly to drivers license points where they fall off of your account after a certain amount of time. In our case that is 90 days. With that being said, no, nothing is being reset to zero. If you haven't been banned in the last 90 days, you are already effectively at zero. I think this makes sense for 95% of our population. The 5% that may be impacted could avoid it by being on their best behavior for a while.

I also feel like the MMR arena is a grey area at the moment, unfortunately. That's partly due to it being in beta and still having kinks worked out. It is something we've been discussing in the leadership, at least a call to have some more concise rules for MMR hosting. We're hoping some of the more recent improvements Dwop is talking about above will help curb some of the MMR crazy, but we'll still keep working on getting a more structured guideline for the arena/game system. Thanks for your feedback.

[Grasps]

MMR is cancer. If anyone in charge remotely cares about the zone, abolish it sooner than later. Otherwise good work!

[Falconeer]

This looks pretty bad imo, 1st offence = warning for how long? the rest of the year? that same day? And one day ban for spam that is left up to the discretion of the mod. Spam has always been an arbitrary rule in zones with no clear definition or guideline. Literally always has been based on the personal preference of each individual mod and their feelings toward that player. Typically used by abusive mods as an excuse to ban someone they dislike.

Also the game already has a spam filter that disconnects you if you type too fast. And likewise if someone want's to monologue in the zone/spec chat and isn't copying pasting anything it's very hard to declare it spam. This is what ?ignore is for.

You already have a silence system that can't be evaded and acts as a ban, it punishes based on the offense. IE a text offense = text taken away. It was your choice to allow players to lift their silences through play time though. Could have just opted to keep them silenced for 30 days, especially on repeat offences.

You don't need a trial system for a method of moderating we've had for 20 years. I've been netbanned across SCCU 5 times, didn't do anything, and I evaded. And it even lead to one of the reasons Polix quit the game. Bans will just make players smarter and they will learn to unban. And this 20 year trial of bans it didn't prove to make the game less toxic, if anything it's more toxic and less alive as a result. More toxic from the people who want bans, and those who get banned all around.

A ban for discrimination in text is also funny. Discrimination happens every day in trench wars league, the game is so elitist and anti-new player. Start banning your league players for discrimination, they are the most guilty of it. The only clear thing that could actually be moderated without bias is racism.

Hookecho might as well rename to Hoch.

TLDR: If you changed it to bans for racism and silence for everything else I'd still be against it, but at least it would be 100 times better.

[renzi]

This is so stupid lol there is an ignore feature. The fuck? You people need to go outside

[Rab]

This is so stupid lol there is an ignore feature. The fuck? You people need to go outside

bro you evade ignores. you are stupid as fuck.

[Werewolf]

Just ban the assholes. We all know who they are...
There are several toxic players that ruin the game and certainly chase off any new players. They are the ones ruin this game. Ignore doesn't work, they just sign out and sign back in, or switch nicks.

[renzi]

bro you evade ignores. you are stupid as fuck.

It was one time, captain faggot 🙄