Are you looking forward to Forum reforms?

I'm a bit thrown by "opinionated and controversial", as I don't think that means poor behavior.
Well, it's not pertinant that I get it.

As I said before, the relationship between in-world behavior and forum behavior isn't the point anyway. The consequence is there only to make bad forum behavior less attractive. That doesn't require the two to be tied together, any more than the privelege of watching a favorite television program is tied to the bahavior of a child in a restaurant.

So that gives LL twice as much work. If someone can't control themselves on the Forum, I don't want to have them in-world and vice-versa. Someone could harass one and then go to the next.

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A proud member of PIC = Pudding Inner Core
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In general Aimee, I see your point. But I think the forums and the world are sufficiently discrete that they could support differing punishments. After all the most famous case still has access to part of the forums. In my mind it is easier to ban someone from the forums and review thier conduct in the game than it is to ban someone entirely. Sort of the the old notion of better to let a guilty man free than let an innocent man hang.

Frankly though, my take on banning is that if you are unpopular enough, you will be banned for "incitment." And that simple fact is what scares me.

I also think punishment should be by avatar and not by player, thus protecting the right to roleplay.

Yes. Just a couple days ago I had the almost overwhelming urge to point out to someone what a twat they were. I had it typed out and everything. Then I thought to myself, "Is this worth getting myself and my husband banned from the game and the forums, or even suspended? Naw..." So instead I just yelled to my husband, "That guy is an utter twat!" Less satisfying, because he already knew that, but probably better for the forums overall.

I don't give a crap about being suspended from the forums. I can go 3 to 7 days without reading them anyway. I do care about not being able to log in and create things, or say hello to friends, or keep up on my business.

It is a deterent, and it works.

Let me ask another question.

We are assuming here that the problem is IN an INDIVIDUAL - that one individual, separate from everyone else and all provocation, is simply acting up . . . just for the fun of acting up.

What about when a number of posters gang up on one poster, driving him or her to finally react? As one example. Or if a number of posters - disliking a certain individual - report his or her posts at every conceivable opportunity, unbeknownst to that unpopular poster, who may not be reporting anyone him- or herself.

Now, with the new rule, that number of posters can not only succeed - through incessant badgering as well as reporting of posts - in getting the poster removed from the forums, but from the game as well.

I daresay a number of you can think of at least one person who, if he or she were gone, you would consider that to be an improvement on the forums. And you might not care whether that person were allowed to keep playing the game or not. In fact, you might consider the game itself better off without such a person.

Remember, the forums have not suddenly become a wonderful place for everyone here. And we all here do count.

As for me, I've seen no decline whatsoever in the number of personal attacks made.

coco

P.S. I wrote this before reading Jake's post directly above.

Perhaps, although I doubt very much that number of people banned really has a huge impact on the LL workload. Your position would judge them guilty automatically of poor ingame conduct. I don't think that is necessarily the case. I firmly beleive that one is innocent until proven guilty. It is entirely possible to be guilty of a crime such as sodomy in georgia, and be innocent by way of the very same acts in California. I do not want to be jailed in california for doing soemthing that is illegal only in georgia. thats why we have state to state extradition. (yeah ok so its not the best analogy-i just fail to see how conduct in the forums is necessarily related to conduct in the world.

I doubt very much you are going to say soething that would get you banned, Ms. Noir. You have always displayed a cool head, and you would not likely push things beyond limits. I appreciate the notion, but really and truly, would pointing out what a twat someone is get you banned?

I know several people have already pointed this out to you several times, so I don't know why I'm bothering, but...

No, they cannot succeed in getting the poster removed. Only the poster can succeed in getting themselves removed. I cannot force someone to go off on a cursing, insulting tangent. Each of us makes that decision on our own.

If we aren't adult enough to use the delete or backspace key before we furiously hit Post, then maybe we shouldn't be here anyway.

The mods are not going to ban or suspend someone who hasn't earned it, regardless of how many people report their harmless posts. It's not an automated system, and the Mods aren't gulliable idiots incapable of looking at things in context.

One more thing. Everyone seems so certain that whoever got banned from the game as a result of this new policy would richly deserve it anyway.

That is just so wrong on so many levels.

But, what's even worse - you have no idea who it is going to be! It could very well be someone you absolutely do not wish to see lose their ability to play the game with you, regardless of what insanity had taken place on the forums.

If so, the rule is then going to seem very, very unfair.

coco

With some of the tight-asses around here just itching to scream Personal Attack! Mommy! and hit the AR button...? It'd certainly get me closer to a ban.

I couldn't disagree more. This is a terrible, terrible idea in my opinion. Players act like asses, not avatars. Avatars are harmless unless controlled by a player. "Roleplaying" is not something that should be protected if your doing stuff that is going to get you banned/suspended.

Fundamentally, that person can choose to do something other than post an attack. The choice still lies with the poster. The one greatest tool available to someone being dogpiled is the ignore button.
The poster also should be ARing the posts of those who are attacking - mind you, the rule about attacks is for everyone.

Exactly my point Ms. Noir. except that i trust the Mods to fashion a solution that can take inot account a persons' forum behavior vs. thier in world behavior and not automatically ban someone in game for a forum abuse (for some reason banning someon from the forums who is banned in game sits better with me-may conduct on the grid seems more significant that coduct on the forums to me).

Can you name an example that has gotten banned, from forums or game, that didn't deserve it?



No. I don't make judgement calls on behaivor based on friendship. That would be, to use your term, unfair.

If a person is reported for no reason, nothing will happen.

There is no such thing as being "made to act" on the forums. If you acted like an ass, you acted like an ass - "But mommy, he started it!" is not a valid excuse for your own behaivor.



You keep making this un-substantiated claim. Why?



Sure. But have they actually done anything to deserve it, regardless of if I like them or not?



To quote spock, the good of the many outweighs the needs of the individual.

That said, lets not go down this road.



Then you haven't been looking.

Sorry, I can't sugar coat that one any more than that. If you honestly have noticed no difference, you haven't really been looking.

the problem is that when a lot of posters attack a single poster, then the single poster is taken as the divisive one, cause the others agree. Then the single poster is banned for conduct and the personal attacks made by the group of posters tend to be ignored. Really I think part of the problem is that in some ways the forums are a popularity contest, and some people advocate positions that are unpopular and fear being run out of the forums on the whim of your "dogpile." I agree that the ignore button is a very effective wepoan, but too often silence is ignored in favor of "scoring points" "winning the arguement" or "self defense." Whgat is funny to me is seeing people attacked because they refuse to conceed when they are "beaten."

Its like ther eis this rule that if enough people disagree with you, you are supposed to admit to being wrong. If you don't do that, then they will brand you and inciter and you risk being banned.

Look, it wouldn't matter WHO it happened to, it would still be unfair, in my opinion.

UNFAIR.

But can you imagine the can of worms it will open up when somebody gets banned from the game because of being banned from the forums?

That person - I don't care who they are - is going to have friends, and those friends may just point out that the person has a perfectly clean record in game. That's going to be a lot of unhappy people right there.

And if it's your friend, who you thought was just being clever and witty and winning verbal battles - while you might be able to assimilate and accept his being banned from the forums (while being nervously grateful it wasn't you), you're not going to be happy with his being banned from the game. It is going to not seem fair to you.

And the reason it won't seem fair is because it won't BE fair.

coco

I don't see the need to give people the green light to be a jackass in-world or in the forums. A jackass is a jackass is a jackass. They aren't wanted here. Not by me, anyway.

Actually it will be perfectly fair.

Doesn't mean I will like it, maybe, but it will be fair.

By my way of thinking, what happens to one of us happens to all of us. We are no stronger than our weakest one. If the rights of each one are not upheld, then all of us lose our rights collectively.

coco

P.S. Jonquille, one person's jackass is another person's beacon of sanity and sense. Anyway, if you got rid of all the jackasses on these forums, a whole bunch of us would bite the dust.

Except that the things that get you banned and suspended are not always things you would think should get you banned and suspended. If I roleplay an avatar with turets (sp?) sydrome and mistakenly say f**K in a PG sime I can be suspened. Does that mean I made a bad choice as a player and all my accounts should be suspended, or is it an honest mistake tied to a particular character.

How would you solve the problem of someone who is very outspoken and controversial on the forums, but who says nothing to anyone in game?

But we aren't giving them the green light to be a jackass, we are simply saying that coduct is tied to the punishment.

First of all, you wouldn't get suspended for it. At most you would get warned.

Second, if you want to roleplay an avatar like that, it behooves you to be careful where you roleplay - ignorance or carelessness is no excuse to be permitted to break the rules. No different than a mafia character 'accidently' orbiting someone with a push gun, or a BDSM couple 'accidently' acting out a sex scene in public.

And the mistake is tied to you, as a player, for choosing to go down that path. The avatar didn't make you swear.



Red herring. Outspoken and controversial is not the same thing as acting like an asshole.

As for the assholes, ban 'em. Simple, clean, no remorse, ban 'em.

Really? Is that how we're all going to feel?

No, it isn't, but thanks anyway.

If one of my friends gets themselves banned for being a jackass, I'm probably going to say, "See what happens when you're a jackass? You couldn't read the 10 or so warnings you got before this? The suspencions didn't clue you in?"
I don't hold my friends to lower standards than anyone else, and I don't expect them to be able to act like assholes without consequences, and I don't cry UNFAIR! when they get a well deserved smack in the gob.

Your IDIC badge, you have not earned

That is not what that philosophy means at all. What it means is that for the good of the whole, individual units must sometimes be sacrificed. The weakest-link-is-the-strongest-link theory is in fact as close to exactly the opposite way of thinking as I can imagine..