Thanks to this sanction, is this a general ruling by the admin team that the player list is an out of character and/or metagaming tool?
I would like to remind people that it is a tool, freely available for use ingame, and that without its presence, nothing would be possible in terms of player interaction. I'm not one to stand up for Jayce but it seems exceedingly unfair to highlight the use of the player list as a contributory factor to a sanction. More so, when there's free acknowledgement that both sides were using it and that both sides were therefore even in terms of information leading to the (subpar) interaction.
I have never treated the chat list as an OORP tool. If it is judged to be as such, I will modify my behaviour accordingly.
2.
My understanding is that official factions should be beacons of exemplar when it comes to roleplay, fairness and general conduct on this server.
If this is the case, why are faction leaders who are constantly sanctioned and/or banned permitted to continue leading their faction? Not only is the leader not living up to the expectations of normal players or official factions that the admins have set, they are also potentially leading the people in their faction down the same path.
Of course, if this isn't the case and no such expectations of official factions or their leaders exist, I will modify my understanding of discovery to take that into account. I just want to clarify what your stance is on this matter.
3.
Official factions generally seem to be weaker than ever, possibly related to point 2. above and the possible recognition of their weakness.
How does sinking your claws into a faction and attempting to micromanage it help official factions in the long run? It makes them less flexible, less proactive and ultimately, less interesting both to interact with and play. It was already true years ago that official factions had little reason to exist, but now it seems to me that you're actually trying to starve them of reasons to exist.
What you should be pushing for is leaders you can trust to make decisions that make sense. If you find that you can't trust them, the solution is to remove them and bar them from participating in any way with that faction, not to restrict what the people you don't trust can and cannot do. Some people will always push the envelope, no matter how small you make that envelope.
Do try not to punish people who happen to be members of official factions, simply because their leader isn't acting how you want them to. You're not endearing yourself to anybody by tarring a whole bunch of people with the same brush. Discovery is an oligarchy with admins at the top, but the fact that I recognise barely any of you tells me that your staff turnover is far too high to be sustainable. Being distrusted, suspected or outright hated wont help you retain the stability you need.
4.
Ignoring the RP consequences of RP actions ingame seems to be as endemic as ever. There are many high profile examples of this happening right now, such as but not limited to, the recent actions in Omicron Delta where just about half the factions on the server got involved for no real RP reason at all.
Are there any plans to change this? If there are, have you considered enforcing consequences on factions involved, rather than restrictions on all official factions, so you can punish those involved rather than all factions everywhere (see point 4.)
If not, what is the limit of what you will tolerate? Forgive me if I've missed it, but I've seen no change at all to areas that have been subjected to major upheaval events.
Bear in mind that the reason why people whine so much about decisions in an OORP manner, is because this whining evidently works. If you show people that it doesn't anymore, they will change their behaviour.
5.
You have actually censored the word for sodium chloride.
Are you aware that this is the internet, and not carebear land?
Are you aware that sodium is a required part of your diet?
Are you aware just how ridiculous banning that word is, regardless of how inappropriately it is used? Please tell me that you can get a grip on your senses and realise just how poorly this reflects upon the people responsible for the censorship of this word.
1. The player list is a necessary good and evil. Everybody uses it and before it existed we just used the ingame list instead. I wasn't involved in the processing of this sanction, but it's pretty easy to tell the reason he was sanctioned wasn't for using the player list, it was due to the poor judgement displayed.
Quote:Logging off, waiting for the guy to appear in system, immediately logging back in to catch him, and then /l one sentence declaring your hostility. There was no RP interaction there at all, really. All it was, was a metagamed encounter intended to win at any costs by both parties.
Sasapinjic is equally guilty of it in my eyes, but that's my personal opinion.
2. Admins never dwelled into internal faction matters. If one day we were to forcefully replace a faction leader, where does it end?
3. Not all admins agreed to this, and especially not the initial proposal, that's how you got this instead of what was initially planned. We're not a hivemind unlike what some people believe. I personally don't see the problem with the current version unlike the previous one, especially if later on we can get rid of the current FR5 system and merge it with a system as simple as this thread.
4. Don't think anyone expected things like CR throwing their caps in Delta, especially not the staff. Past the initial events in Delta, the staff isn't able to be ingame 24/7 and for most of these cases we found out about it after it happened.
5. It's stupid. What was equally stupid at the time was these guys using this word in every single post of theirs, absolutely everywhere. Come on the english vocabulary isn't composed of 5 words. I agree the filter should go though.
6. ok
I should probably add I find your OP a bit demanding in the way it's written. Things like "Of course, if this isn't the case and no such expectations of official factions or their leaders exist, I will modify my understanding of discovery to take that into account." aren't really necessary and read as a bit pretentious. I mean come on we were in the same faction for a few years and I know you're better than that.
Sorry, I didn't see what you wrote under the response that you gave. Thanks to the line, I skipped over it thinking it was a signature.
About the way I wrote it, as well as what is below.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to come off that way. It's a matter of fact way of typing that I have developed. It's not threatening anything and I don't intend to sound as if I am looking down. I mean, what can I really do to you or anyone else?
My aim is to state simply that my understanding is XYZ, and if that is not correct, based upon your responses I will change it. Like, a formal way of saying that I don't want to progress with a misunderstanding. That's all I want to convey.
Actually let me just rewrite my post, keeping the first one in a spoiler box. Writing in progress...
1.
From what was written, I thought the use of the chat list was a contributing factor to the sanction.
As this is not the case, all is well!
But that makes me ask the question in my head, "why mention it at all?"
Essentially, I didn't want to be at risk of being sanctioned or looked upon unfavourably for using the chat list. As that doesn't seem to be the case, we're good.
2.
If it's certain folks leading their faction astray, maybe it's something to consider doing in the future?
If the problem is certain people, then surely it's just a cleaner way of solving the cause of the problem?
3.
I dunno, I feel like adding more restrictions to official factions, where they already have very little power or responsibility already, is self-defeating.
Surely official factions should be trusted to make these decisions? If they can't be trusted, then maybe they shouldn't be official or they need some drastic changes?
4.
Factions should be trusted to make decisions like this. However, my feeling is that there should be consequences for their actions.
Can you imagine if the Liberty Security Force or Liberty Navy just decided to sling a fleet up there, side with the Core and shoot the Zoners?
Quite a few factions did, are doing or will do something like this in the future. Consequences dont need to be wholly negative - a gain in one area, a loss in another perhaps. Sometimes a good move will be mostly or entirely positive, a bad mood mostly or entirely negative.
Just some kind of guidance by the admins about what is good and what is not good, outside of rule changes, would be really nice.
5.
Come on, we all need some sodium in our lives.
But more seriously, as an internet meme, it seems harmless enough. What's the harm in letting people have their fun?
If they're trolling with it though, then sanction them. Don't take away my nerve fibre electrolytes.
A lot of the sanction description in question was dedicated to the use of the player list. This leads me to believe that the use of this list contributed to the sanction. If this is not the case, why does the player list need to be mentioned at all?
You're right, it is obvious that he got sanctioned for one-line set message engaging. My query was more, why does the player list need to be mentioned, if it didn't contribute to the sanction? Alternatively, it was my fear that the sanction was influenced by use of the player list.
Seems like that's not the case though, so thank you.
As an additional point, if sanctions are supposed to be the means by which the admin team can influence the behaviour of players who get sanctioned, do you really think the system is working as intended right now? I see an awful lot of the same people not learning their lesson.
2.
Where does it end? Certainly not at further restricting what they can do, it seems.
Now seems to be as good a time as any to start getting involved in "internal faction matters". Lets face it, admins are already doing this by restricting their diplomacy by the new control on diplomacy. The only difference is that you're doing it at arms length and applying the new rule globally, so you can still stay out of the nitty gritty.
At least if you forcefully eject those causing the most harm (from something they have probably invested an awful lot of time in...), you can send a message that you can and will ruin people's discovery careers if they do not act in a way you feel is acceptable. Hurting things that people care about can be more effective than hurting people directly. Maybe I'm just a sadist though.
That said, if nothing will happen when faction leaders behave badly and lead their faction members astray, that's fine I guess. I will modify my expectations of official factions accordingly. It's just a shame it has to be left like this. I always thought that official factions should be held up as examples of how to play, not how not to play.
3.
My problem with the new rule is that it restricts spontaneous, but well conducted, shifts in RP.
Lets be honest, starting a war over some tobacco isn't the greatest of roleplay, but to choke it all off because some people can't control themselves does seem just slightly unfair.
I personally don't think you're a hive mind or that you're unanimous about everything. The issue for me is the impact that yet another restriction will have, especially for the majority of factions that did nothing to deserve being slapped with this.
4.
Again, my problem isn't with the fact that random factions threw their stuff into Omicron Delta, or if the case were to be, anywhere else for that matter. They're free to do it, and official factions should retain the autonomy to make good decisions as well as bad decisions as they see fit. People, governments and nations have done this throughout history.
My problem is with the fact that factions doing this do not suffer any roleplay consequences for doing so. Unless consequences for rash actions are enforced by the admins, those who might suffer negatively simply stick their collective heads in the sand and refuse to play. This leads to the other side getting annoyed at what was a pointless interaction, and a general depreciation of roleplay value of the event.
I don't expect you or anybody else to scry a crystal ball, using your powers of clairvoyance to prepare for every possible outcome. That's not possible, and would be an unfair expectation. What frustrates me is that factions can throw their weight around wherever they want, simply because there's no negative consequences for doing so.
5.
Surely people can debauch the language they speak as they wish? If it's insulting, sanction them.
At the end of the day though, it's an internet meme. It's not harmful unless you make it.
I get where you're coming from on a few points. BUT, you're countering yourself. You say we admins need to remove bad faction leaders. That the actions of the leaders shouldn't affect the whole faction, and they should just be removed. But you THEN go and say that the actions of one or two ships that went to Delta, should carry roleplay consequences for the faction. Not the one or two who showed up but the factions.
You can't tell us to punish a few instead of the whole faction, then tell us to punish the faction for actions of a few. Doesn't work like that I'm afraid.
(05-16-2016, 09:31 AM)Drrobe Wrote: I'm half asleep, so will edit/add more tomorrow.
I get where you're coming from on a few points. BUT, you're countering yourself. You say we admins need to remove bad faction leaders. That the actions of the leaders shouldn't affect the whole faction, and they should just be removed. But you THEN go and say that the actions of one or two ships that went to Delta, should carry roleplay consequences for the faction. Not the one or two who showed up but the factions.
You can't tell us to punish a few instead of the whole faction, then tell us to punish the faction for actions of a few. Doesn't work like that I'm afraid.
Sorry, what I meant wasn't quite that although you do bring up a fair point.
What I wanted to convey was that you should punish those who are the problem, rather than lumping everyone in the same. These are OORP punishments designed to shape the behaviour of those who want to stay, and expel those who do not. The problem here is the OORP conduct and behaviour of the individual(s) leading the faction. Why is a faction leader allowed to lead a faction when they are constantly banned because they can't control themselves? Why are they allowed to continue to negatively influence their member base? The solution is to get rid of them and create a power void. If nobody steps up, the faction dies - but if that faction was so reliant on a person you've judged to be of negative enough influence to be repeatedly sanctioned and/or banned, is the loss of the faction that big of a deal?
For the roleplay consequences, that's different. RP consequences should not be seen exclusively as a punishment. Smart decisions should be rewarded, poor ones punished. This is entirely subjective but the admins are really the only people who can judge this due to your position as arbiters of server conduct. The decision by the Core to shell Freeport 11 might have been a good one, if their plan was to seize it. The decision by the Order to act as a White Knight on behalf of the Zoners is also good, because they gain karma in the eyes of the general public and continue to do what they've always done, which is shoot the Core.
The decision by other factions from every other corner of Sirius to send an expeditionary force because they have nothing better to do in their own ZoI's is not good. Sending a couple of people to look and see what they might be able to gain from the chaos of that situation? Yes. Sending fleets of cruisers and battleships and all manner of lovely large ships? No. Deploying significant forces away from your main area of interest should have negative consequences for your main area of interest.
The idea that you can harm the leader but not the faction, or the faction but not the leader, is not what I was trying to convey. These can't be exclusive from each other, as they are linked closely enough that changing one will invariably change the other. I was trying to convey my feelings that not enough is being done to maintain a high quality of both OORP conduct, and inRP actions, of official factions, their leaders and their members. As a result, those official factions which do strive to do both are being punished unfairly, in my view. The current progression of events seems to be removing the motivation to be a good example, because there's no reward or recognition of this.
EDIT: Replying to post below:
(05-16-2016, 10:21 AM)Thyrzul Wrote:
(05-16-2016, 10:12 AM)Sonja Wrote: Deploying significant forces away from your main area of interest should have negative consequences for your main area of interest.
Reminds me when Bretonia lost LD-14 to GRN and Rhienland lost Westfalen to LN because they did a quick mini-war over I already forgot what in the Omegas while each had their own lore war to fight.
Yes, exactly this. We need more of this, much more of this and my view is that it should be applied more readily. In the instance you bring up, I distinctly remember that conflict between Bretonia and Rheinland stopping immediately when both sides were reminded, by RP consequences, that what they were doing was ridiculous.
(05-16-2016, 10:12 AM)Sonja Wrote: Deploying significant forces away from your main area of interest should have negative consequences for your main area of interest.
Reminds me when Bretonia lost LD-14 to GRN and Rhienland lost Westfalen to LN because they did a quick mini-war over I already forgot what in the Omegas while each had their own lore war to fight.