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Moderation to Reduce the "Hate Breeding Pool"


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  1. 1. Should P&W discord servers be seen as an "Extension" of the community for moderation?

    • Yes
      29
    • No
      54
    • This is not an issue that affects me
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5 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

There should be a crossover between the game, the official Discord, and the official forum in some capacity. If someone is banned from any platform for OOC, hate speech, basically any extreme violation of that sort, so should they be banned from the other platforms to root it from the game as much as reasonably possible, since moderating other unofficial servers is too delicate. The punishments for these violations, would also need to be revisited, because a 1/9 warn on the forums for hate speech is frankly not enough.

But who defines what is hate speech? There is no clear definition that everyone would agree on.

Another point, if they are immediately removed from all communications then they have no way to defend themselves, which is hardly fair. If they do something on the forum and get a ban, then they can open a ticket in the discord to talk about it. What you are suggesting, just like the OP, sounds cool in theory but will end up backfiring in everyone's face.

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9 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

There should be a crossover between the game, the official Discord, and the official forum in some capacity. If someone is banned from any platform for OOC, hate speech, basically any extreme violation of that sort, so should they be banned from the other platforms to root it from the game as much as reasonably possible, since moderating other unofficial servers is too delicate. The punishments for these violations, would also need to be revisited, because a 1/9 warn on the forums for hate speech is frankly not enough.

Why. I am against Hate Speech as much as the next person but you can't blanket ban people for stuff because each form of communication has its own ToS and rules. If a kid gets suspended from school for fighting, he shouldnt also be suspended from his private tutor his parents pay for.

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7 minutes ago, Corpsman said:

But who defines what is hate speech? There is no clear definition that everyone would agree on.

Another point, if they are immediately removed from all communications then they have no way to defend themselves, which is hardly fair. If they do something on the forum and get a ban, then they can open a ticket in the discord to talk about it. What you are suggesting, just like the OP, sounds cool in theory but will end up backfiring in everyone's face.

First point is a straw man, you should not need to ask what defines hate speech because it is pretty apparent and well defined by virtually every Discord, game, workplace, etc.

They can defend themselves to Alex and the moderators in direct messages, the ban merely prevents them from participating with the rest of the community on its official jurisdictions, not even unofficial alliance servers, news servers, etc.

9 minutes ago, Vice said:

Why. I am against Hate Speech as much as the next person but you can't blanket ban people for stuff because each form of communication has its own ToS and rules. If a kid gets suspended from school for fighting, he shouldnt also be suspended from his private tutor his parents pay for.

The game, Discord, and forums all share rules on hate speech, OOC harassment, etc. In my post I tried to make it explicitly clear that it should not apply to all bans, instead only to bans for the more egregious actions, which are mutually enforced between all platforms. This is different than someone being banned from the game for having multis and then being barred from the Discord and OWF, which is not what I am advocating.

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11 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

First point is a straw man, you should not need to ask what defines hate speech because it is pretty apparent and well defined by virtually every Discord, game, workplace, etc.

They can defend themselves to Alex and the moderators in direct messages, the ban merely prevents them from participating with the rest of the community on its official jurisdictions, not even unofficial alliance servers, news servers, etc.

In the forum if you are banned you can't use PMs, and if you are not their friend in discord you can't message them either (provided you are banned from the server).
Also its not a straw man. In many servers making a joke about traps is not hate speech, but as Thalmor noted, someone like you may disagree with that. It isn't apparent because even "hate" isn't properly defined yet. Does hate speech have to make someone upset for it to be hate speech? Or does any speech that makes someone upset qualify as hate speech? Or is it just speech that a majority of people disagree with? While a black guy can say "wassup my [insert n-word]", would a white guy saying it back be hate speech? Or is saying you don't like the LGBT community hate speech? But then, in that same vain, is saying you hate fascists hate speech? The whole "hate speech" thing is bullshit when you look at it with a clear lens. But you, in your almighty wisdom, will now look at this message with contempt and think of me as something to the effect of a nazi or fascist. But, considering the fact that I'm jewish and my grandfather is a holocaust survivor, would that be hate thinking? Nevermind the people that do call me a nazi. Is that not hate speech? Oh but if I call someone retarded, or any other derogatory term, is that hate speech? Screw you and your "apparent hate speech."

In my circles the rules are clear, don't be overly mean or go out of your way to make someone upset. I never say "hate speech" is banned, because speech that I think is hateful is just that. Speech that I think is hateful. 
Anyways, sorry about that rant. I'm just kinda over people saying "oh thats hate speech" or anything to that effect.

Edited by Corpsman
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15 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

munity on its official jurisdictions, not even unofficial alliance servers, news servers, etc.

The game, Discord, and forums all share rules on hate speech, OOC harassment, etc. In my post I tried to make it explicitly clear that it should not apply to all bans, instead only to bans for the more egregious actions, which are mutually enforced between all platforms. This is different than someone being banned from the game for having multis and then being barred from the Discord and OWF, which is not what I am advocating.

The thing is though, they dont all share the same rules. While both platforms may not accept hate speech, what defines it for each channel is different as is the punishments. As much as I would like there to be, there isnt a universal rule for hate speech because it cant be measured and there also isnt a universal punishment. I want everyone to feel welcome in all places but sometimes thats not how the world works and clicking the mute or leave server button is the best option.

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41 minutes ago, Hime-sama said:

There should be a crossover between the game, the official Discord, and the official forum in some capacity. If someone is banned from any platform for OOC, hate speech, basically any extreme violation of that sort, so should they be banned from the other platforms to root it from the game as much as reasonably possible, since moderating other unofficial servers is too delicate. The punishments for these violations, would also need to be revisited, because a 1/9 warn on the forums for hate speech is frankly not enough.

This is the concern.

I know several people here will look at this and push it aside because they fear that "Step A" will lead to "Step B" which will lead to "Step C" and now everyone's discord is moderated by Alex. Those that do this are not looking at what's being said.

 

This is not to moderate NSFW channels.
This is not to moderate edgy jokes in general chat.
This is not to moderate and take away the control of server owners.

This is for those that need it.

This gives someone the ability to report a player for OOC attacks. That's it. Please note the REPORT. Just as in other game moderation posts, such as multis, the accused has every right to, and should provide counter evidence. Maybe someone was trying to bait them into saying something. Maybe it's only 1 snippet of a larger picture. There has been (to my knowledge) no game report that simply went off a single sentence snippet that resulted in someone being banned.

 

One thing I can think of to close this is "If a player is found abusing this system (as can happen even in the Game Report section) he/she can receive nation strikes or bans." Now if you're found faking that Alex wanted to sell Rose's API key you can pick up some strikes.

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Don't hate on the communities trying to grow.
Eat them instead.

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7 minutes ago, Young Guilo said:

This is the concern.

I know several people here will look at this and push it aside because they fear that "Step A" will lead to "Step B" which will lead to "Step C" and now everyone's discord is moderated by Alex. Those that do this are not looking at what's being said.

 

This is not to moderate NSFW channels.
This is not to moderate edgy jokes in general chat.
This is not to moderate and take away the control of server owners.

This is for those that need it.

This gives someone the ability to report a player for OOC attacks. That's it. Please note the REPORT. Just as in other game moderation posts, such as multis, the accused has every right to, and should provide counter evidence. Maybe someone was trying to bait them into saying something. Maybe it's only 1 snippet of a larger picture. There has been (to my knowledge) no game report that simply went off a single sentence snippet that resulted in someone being banned.

 

One thing I can think of to close this is "If a player is found abusing this system (as can happen even in the Game Report section) he/she can receive nation strikes or bans." Now if you're found faking that Alex wanted to sell Rose's API key you can pick up some strikes.

That's a fairer point, but then what may happen is a bogging down of Alex's moderation abilities. Considering he is hardly active enough to handle the important issues, having him swamped with discord reports would do nothing but stress his already fragile authority.

And, I should add, I personally wouldn't trust any newly added moderators. At least we all know something about what Alex deems is tolerable and not, and I personally think his rulings are fair more than half the time. New moderators would be an unwelcome chance that I don't think anyone would want.

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2 minutes ago, Corpsman said:

That's a fairer point, but then what may happen is a bogging down of Alex's moderation abilities. Considering he is hardly active enough to handle the important issues, having him swamped with discord reports would do nothing but stress [his work load]

This is by far the only issue that I could think of. Reviewing reports are sporadic and usually done all at once. This could mean bringing someone on as a "Reports Mod" to flag material deemed "Dangerous/damaging". 

For those of you wondering "Dangerous/damaging" is for death threats, Ddosing and Hate Speech. Multis and removing nazi themed nations while not crippling a player's want to play the game should still be followed through but not flagged for immediate action.

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Eat them instead.

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2 minutes ago, Young Guilo said:

This is by far the only issue that I could think of. Reviewing reports are sporadic and usually done all at once. This could mean bringing someone on as a "Reports Mod" to flag material deemed "Dangerous/damaging". 

For those of you wondering "Dangerous/damaging" is for death threats, Ddosing and Hate Speech. Multis and removing nazi themed nations while not crippling a player's want to play the game should still be followed through but not flagged for immediate action.

Indeed? Death threats and doxing are already universally frowned upon. And doxing will get Interpol on your ass. But, again, "hate speech" is not something that I think can be enforced.

On another note, what would a death threat count as? In recent terms, is what Aku said a death threat? I don't think so, just very crude. But someone else may consider it one. In my personal life, I have said stuff to the effect of "if [insert person here] keeps this up, im gonna [insert explicit] kill them." I was almost arrested for it, because it is technically a death threat. But, with no intent behind it and considering it was said in a moment of passion, it was easily defendable. Where would the line be? And who determines where said line would be? 

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1 minute ago, Corpsman said:

On another note, what would a death threat count as?

I had a death threat from a former player of this game that told me (paraphrasing as I don't have access to the old discord account):

"I will go to New York and shoot you if you talk to [Player Name] again. Your last breaths will mean nothing."


That's a death threat.

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Don't hate on the communities trying to grow.
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1 minute ago, Young Guilo said:

I had a death threat from a former player of this game that told me (paraphrasing as I don't have access to the old discord account):

"I will go to New York and shoot you if you talk to [Player Name] again. Your last breaths will mean nothing."


That's a death threat.

Daymnnnn. Yes, that's a death threat. And, upon reading that, you report that to discord. Not Alex. Cuz wtf is Alex gonna do? 

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<--- I hardly use the forums anymore, add me on discord.

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5 hours ago, BelgiumFury said:

So i have tought a bit more.
I think proposal one should only be used in very explicit circumstances.

Let's say I doxx someone, i think that should deserve a moderation strike. 
But if we do rule nr.1, we need to make absolutly sure that it is very limited in scope to a few very specific issues.

Doxxing is egregious enough that it goes against Discord's ToS, and can result in legal action in some cases, so if it occurs you should be making a note to them via Discord Trust and Safety team, even if it happens on the PnW server.

1 minute ago, Corpsman said:

Daymnnnn. Yes, that's a death threat. And, upon reading that, you report that to discord. Not Alex. Cuz wtf is Alex gonna do? 

Alex, when possible and applicable, much like Discord, will forward it to the authorities.

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"It's pretty easy to get abused by Rosey without being a weirdo about it" - Betilius

"Rosey is everything I look for in a fighter" - partisan

"I’m very much not surprised that Lossi has you blocked tbh" - @MCMaster-095

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3 minutes ago, Lossi said:

Alex, when possible and applicable, much like Discord, will forward it to the authorities.

But considering Alex's activity, it's like reporting a murder to a security officer that's off duty. Just call the damn police lol.

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<--- I hardly use the forums anymore, add me on discord.

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37 minutes ago, Young Guilo said:

This is the concern.

I know several people here will look at this and push it aside because they fear that "Step A" will lead to "Step B" which will lead to "Step C" and now everyone's discord is moderated by Alex. Those that do this are not looking at what's being said.

 

This is not to moderate NSFW channels.
This is not to moderate edgy jokes in general chat.
This is not to moderate and take away the control of server owners.

This is for those that need it.

This gives someone the ability to report a player for OOC attacks. That's it. Please note the REPORT. Just as in other game moderation posts, such as multis, the accused has every right to, and should provide counter evidence. Maybe someone was trying to bait them into saying something. Maybe it's only 1 snippet of a larger picture. There has been (to my knowledge) no game report that simply went off a single sentence snippet that resulted in someone being banned.

 

One thing I can think of to close this is "If a player is found abusing this system (as can happen even in the Game Report section) he/she can receive nation strikes or bans." Now if you're found faking that Alex wanted to sell Rose's API key you can pick up some strikes.

I think the problem you're not understanding is that Discord has it's own trust and safety for these disputes, and while your request may mean well, Alex already has a history of not particularly using his existing moderation tools in good faith, I'm sure you can still even find an apology for incidents scattered throughout the forum if you look hard enough.  So you're going to meet stiff resistance, especially from communities who already work alongside Alex anytime he asks questions about an incident in off-servers because it's just not the right way to go about it.

 

That said if issues are popping up, please do make support tickets in the main server and we would be happy to help direct you to Discord Trust and Safety.  It's something the mods do frequently when our jurisdiction doesn't apply to an incident that the user believes needs punishment.

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Former leader of Chocolate Castle 4/1/2021

"It's pretty easy to get abused by Rosey without being a weirdo about it" - Betilius

"Rosey is everything I look for in a fighter" - partisan

"I’m very much not surprised that Lossi has you blocked tbh" - @MCMaster-095

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3 hours ago, Corpsman said:

But who defines what is hate speech? There is no clear definition that everyone would agree on.

Another point, if they are immediately removed from all communications then they have no way to defend themselves, which is hardly fair. If they do something on the forum and get a ban, then they can open a ticket in the discord to talk about it. What you are suggesting, just like the OP, sounds cool in theory but will end up backfiring in everyone's face.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech 18 June SYNOPSIS.pdf

Cry harder

Wanted dead or alive for the following crimes:

Thoughts of attempting rebellion, leaking, being a femboy, being a weeb

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9 hours ago, Vero said:

Ahem. This is why I prefer a blue bullseye. 

/s

Also,
"any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language"
cool we are all now indicted. awesome.

Edited by Corpsman
apparently that joke was hard to understand. bullseyes are usually red. UN helmets are blue. Connect the dots smh.

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<--- I hardly use the forums anymore, add me on discord.

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6 hours ago, Zephyr said:

Discord has Community Guidelines and a Trust & Safety Team that handle inappropriate user behaviour and content on their platform.
Discord already has robust Community Guidelines and a reporting process that already address a lot of the types of abuse mentioned. Discord's staff are more capable of accessing reported content than Alex, who would presumably have a lot of difficulty infiltrating every P&W related Discord, channel, group chat and direct message. Additionally Discord's staffing is more sizeable and faster at responding to moderation requests.

I can't emphasize the importance of this enough. Discord really does have a very good reporting system and I would definitely recommend using it if you need it. Zephyr's given the reporting link above but this site here gives you a breakdown of what information you need and how to get it so that your report gets handled quickly and effectively: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000291932-How-to-Properly-Report-Issues-to-Trust-Safety.

If it's something that's a persistent issue and blocking/reporting to Discord isn't enough, the other option is to talk to your alliance gov and ask for their help. They manage your discord, which may help improve things in at least one space, and they may have an easier time than you talking to other alliance leaders if it comes to that and filling them in on what's going on.

As for the PnW discord, the biggest way you can help there is by reporting it to us/making us aware of things when they're going down. There are only so many mods so there's a limit to what we can see and our availability but we do the best we can. I would assume the same goes for the forums mods. Filing reports so that they know when things are going on really does help a lot.

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9 hours ago, Akuryo said:

If you doxx someone you should be outright banned, in terms of OOC that's an immediate and direct risk to their safety. That's not a slap on the wrist kinda thing, that's a smite with hellfire kinda thing 

I mean sure, but i already said this 2 posts later didn't I?
:/

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8 hours ago, Young Guilo said:

This is for those that need it.

This gives someone the ability to report a player for OOC attacks. That's it. Please note the REPORT. Just as in other game moderation posts, such as multis, the accused has every right to, and should provide counter evidence. Maybe someone was trying to bait them into saying something. Maybe it's only 1 snippet of a larger picture. There has been (to my knowledge) no game report that simply went off a single sentence snippet that resulted in someone being banned.

We shouldn't gloss over the problems with this line of thinking, even if limiting it to 'OOC attacks'. The document Vero linked, for example, gives a definition for hate speech as...

Quote

...any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.

This is extremely broad and perhaps unlimited in its arguable reach given the final inclusion of 'other identity factor'. Obviously Alex doesn't have to use this definition, but we can already see that Alex's forum guidelines already get almost equally as broad if we actually bother to read them (name calling makes the final inclusion of simply 'group')...

Quote

Flaming, Baiting, Trolling, Racism, Sexism, and Name Calling

  • Flaming - posts targeted at a player in an effort to anger, hurt, insult, harass, or provoke.
    • Example: Lashing out a player of an action they made in respect to the game and attacking the personally with insults, hatred, or comments that are OOC and do not pertain to the discussion at hand - bullying. Keep it clean and relating to the discussion.
  • Baiting - coercing a player into breaking the rules.
    • Example: Intentionally making a comment or action that would force another player to break the rules in reply. This means, keep it clean and IC. There is no need to start problems and promote fighting within a discussion.
  • Trolling - deliberately provocative posting with the aim of inciting an angry response.
    • Example: See baiting - additionally, not following proper posting etiquette in the forum with the intention on inciting further flame, troll, and bait posts.
  • Name Calling - abusive or insulting language referring to a person or group.
    • Example: Names associated with a person or persons lifestyle, race, religion - etc. Strictly prohibited.
    • We understand that Roleplay forums are different than most IC Forums - therefore as long as posts are not intended to flame, bait, troll, or hurt another roleplayer - these types of posts are allowed. 
  • Racism and Sexism - having or showing the belief that a particular race or gender is superior to another.
    • Use common sense. We come from all walks of life - all over the world. What may not seem offensive to you may be offensive to someone else in another walk of life.
    • Example: Using someones race against them to turn or attempt to turn a tide in your favor in any IC or OOC discussion. Likewise, commenting on someone's sexuality, sex, or lifestyle choice and using that information against them with the intention to belittle, demean, or hurt that person or group.
    • As we allow open discussions and debates, we will allow discussions that are constructive and produce fruitful response within the parameters of the rules and guidelines of the forum or sub-forum you are positing in. Please see the above rules; flaming, baiting, trolling, name calling BEFORE posting your discussion or debate.

OoC Threats and Personal Information

Revealing another player's personal information or making threats against them is grounds for an immediate ban.

From observation, these rules don't actually seem to be enforced to the extent the guidelines themselves would suggest possible but even so we don't actually know that will remain the case or that it isn't just a product of inconsistent moderation.

Let's also consider that the last rule on OOC content would raise ridiculous complications considering that many players use Discords as social hubs too, so personal information is naturally being (respectfully) shared between players within their own private trusted Discords without any type of abuse occurring (but may apparently become a reportable offence under the game's approach to handling personal information). That is the information players choose to share in-game/on the forum may be quite different to what is practiced on private Discords amongst friends, making it highly inappropriate to attempt to apply Alex's standards to these private social spaces, not to mention a violation of privacy by supposing Alex entitled to access these spaces in order to investigate abuses.

Additionally we could argue the merits of the definitions themselves and their impact on freedom of discussion in private spaces that Alex is not actually entitled to moderate. For example, the UN hate speech definition protects religion, though religion is not actually an inherent quality of a person but an activity voluntarily participated in and arguably should not be considered above criticism. Similarly common political descriptors are arguably also 'identity factors' by the extremely vague meaning of this term itself, therefore implying that similarly criticism of political identities themselves are above criticism. Perhaps these seem like good rules to impose in-game or on the forum to ensure civility, but suggesting extending these to private Discord spaces is a ridiculous overreach and trampling of free expression in private spaces.

8 hours ago, Young Guilo said:

One thing I can think of to close this is "If a player is found abusing this system (as can happen even in the Game Report section) he/she can receive nation strikes or bans." Now if you're found faking that Alex wanted to sell Rose's API key you can pick up some strikes.

I'm not entirely sure what this refers to, does it only concern doctored evidence or are you suggesting players should be punished if their report does not yield a favourable verdict from Alex or that they report offences more often than apathetic players?

On the first point, as far as I'm aware Alex never accepts screenshots as evidence and directly verifies information himself. It is true that many game reports, such as those on message abuse, contain screenshots illustrating the offence, however the reporting guidelines for these types of offence actually ask players to give a link to the message itself so that Alex can confirm the content on his server. Another major example is NPO's enormous illegal farming operation, I was actually one of the players in the group that compiled the report presented to Alex on this issue. Within the report were many screenshots regarding Discord activity corroborating our assertions, however Alex did not accept these as evidence and in fact directly observed NPO's coordination server himself and its content in order to verify the claims (presumably because he is quite aware of how easy it is to fabricate screenshots).

In order to moderate Discord activity, it is necessary for Alex to observe the offending content directly or he can be fooled by doctored images. It would be irresponsible to accept screenshots/videos as evidence and potentially subject other players to abuse via manipulation of moderation.

If you are also suggesting that making frequent, unsuccessful or unpopular reports should result in punitive action against the player reporting violations, I think this will actually discourage reporting which is counterproductive and may also be weaponised by other players. For example after I reported a number of Rose nations for violating game rules on disruptive page content, they proceeded to interrogate me on their Discord and attempted to intimidate me into backing off with threats of reporting me for reporting them on the mistaken belief that reporting rule violations against Rose was itself somehow a rule violation. This in fact resulted in one of their members unironically enquiring about it on the forum here: Unclear Rule - Moderation Support - Politics & War Forum (politicsandwar.com). That is, the largest alliance in the game had hoped to weaponise the game rules in order to prevent themselves being reported for violating the game rules. Can you imagine if Alex had to deal with these types of reports from players insisting players can't report them when they violate the rules because they don't like being reported and/or believe themselves above the rules? What a mess.

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1 minute ago, Zephyr said:

We shouldn't gloss over the problems with this line of thinking, even if limiting it to 'OOC attacks'. The document Vero linked, for example, gives a definition for hate speech as...

This is extremely broad and perhaps unlimited in its arguable reach given the final inclusion of 'other identity factor'. Obviously Alex doesn't have to use this definition, but we can already see that Alex's forum guidelines already get almost equally as broad if we actually bother to read them (name calling makes the final inclusion of simply 'group')...

From observation, these rules don't actually seem to be enforced to the extent the guidelines themselves would suggest possible but even so we don't actually know that will remain the case or that it isn't just a product of inconsistent moderation.

Let's also consider that the last rule on OOC content would raise ridiculous complications considering that many players use Discords as social hubs too, so personal information is naturally being (respectfully) shared between players within their own private trusted Discords without any type of abuse occurring (but may apparently become a reportable offence under the game's approach to handling personal information). That is the information players choose to share in-game/on the forum may be quite different to what is practiced on private Discords amongst friends, making it highly inappropriate to attempt to apply Alex's standards to these private social spaces, not to mention a violation of privacy by supposing Alex entitled to access these spaces in order to investigate abuses.

Additionally we could argue the merits of the definitions themselves and their impact on freedom of discussion in private spaces that Alex is not actually entitled to moderate. For example, the UN hate speech definition protects religion, though religion is not actually an inherent quality of a person but an activity voluntarily participated in and arguably should not be considered above criticism. Similarly common political descriptors are arguably also 'identity factors' by the extremely vague meaning of this term itself, therefore implying that similarly criticism of political identities themselves are above criticism. Perhaps these seem like good rules to impose in-game or on the forum to ensure civility, but suggesting extending these to private Discord spaces is a ridiculous overreach and trampling of free expression in private spaces.

I'm not entirely sure what this refers to, does it only concern doctored evidence or are you suggesting players should be punished if their report does not yield a favourable verdict from Alex or that they report offences more often than apathetic players?

On the first point, as far as I'm aware Alex never accepts screenshots as evidence and directly verifies information himself. It is true that many game reports, such as those on message abuse, contain screenshots illustrating the offence, however the reporting guidelines for these types of offence actually ask players to give a link to the message itself so that Alex can confirm the content on his server. Another major example is NPO's enormous illegal farming operation, I was actually one of the players in the group that compiled the report presented to Alex on this issue. Within the report were many screenshots regarding Discord activity corroborating our assertions, however Alex did not accept these as evidence and in fact directly observed NPO's coordination server himself and its content in order to verify the claims (presumably because he is quite aware of how easy it is to fabricate screenshots).

In order to moderate Discord activity, it is necessary for Alex to observe the offending content directly or he can be fooled by doctored images. It would be irresponsible to accept screenshots/videos as evidence and potentially subject other players to abuse via manipulation of moderation.

If you are also suggesting that making frequent, unsuccessful or unpopular reports should result in punitive action against the player reporting violations, I think this will actually discourage reporting which is counterproductive and may also be weaponised by other players. For example after I reported a number of Rose nations for violating game rules on disruptive page content, they proceeded to interrogate me on their Discord and attempted to intimidate me into backing off with threats of reporting me for reporting them on the mistaken belief that reporting rule violations against Rose was itself somehow a rule violation. This in fact resulted in one of their members unironically enquiring about it on the forum here: Unclear Rule - Moderation Support - Politics & War Forum (politicsandwar.com). That is, the largest alliance in the game had hoped to weaponise the game rules in order to prevent themselves being reported for violating the game rules. Can you imagine if Alex had to deal with these types of reports from players insisting players can't report them when they violate the rules because they don't like being reported and/or believe themselves above the rules? What a mess.

T3zj6Jl.png

I don't think you are going to get the due amount of respect for typing all that, but bravo.
And I don't think anyone could have said it any better.
👏

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To whom it may concern, I do not represent The Immortals unless explicitly stated (ergo, never.)
<--- I hardly use the forums anymore, add me on discord.

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5 hours ago, Zephyr said:

I'm not entirely sure what this refers to, does it only concern doctored evidence or are you suggesting players should be punished if their report does not yield a favorable verdict from Alex or that they report offences more often than apathetic players?

If you are also suggesting that making frequent, unsuccessful or unpopular reports should result in punitive action against the player reporting violations...

I'm talking about abuse of the system itself. That may include multiple reports but only if the reports are superfluous. 

What defines abuse of the system:

1.) Sending single cropped screenshots, cherry picking information to attempt to get a verdict you want.
2.) Multiple reports on a person that aren't abusive/egregious. (Someone saying to me "You're stupid" is much more different that someone saying I should go hang myself)
3.) Reports that have been doctored, edited.

 

Now how do you prove something was doctored or edited? For some reason there seems to be this thing in P&W where you hand over your email and password and allow other random people in the community to access your account and verify screenshots of in-game messages. I am 100% against this practice as it is completely against my code of internet safety and security. However, if I'm sending screenshots of a conversation in a public forum I have no problem hopping onto Discord and allowing Alex, other Mods, or other players direct access to see what is in DMs via screen-sharing.

 

I'm more than confused as to how systems like this are completely overlooked. We have simple solutions to these simple problems.

12 hours ago, Adrienne said:

As for the PnW discord, the biggest way you can help there is by reporting it to us/making us aware of things when they're going down. There are only so many mods so there's a limit to what we can see and our availability but we do the best we can. I would assume the same goes for the forums mods. Filing reports so that they know when things are going on really does help a lot.

Several reports have been made about the players in the P&W discord for verbal abuse and even the sending of child pornography. Taking a look I see that two people are still active in the P&W community discord server. If we were to allow the rule of "Abusing a player on discord can have you muted/removed from the community discord" then these people would not be attacking others.

By allowing discord community server evidence many of the most toxic people in this game could be removed, or at the very least, silenced from continuing their hate.

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A game dies without a community.
Don't hate on the communities trying to grow.
Eat them instead.

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Simply put you're simply advocating for protection of weak people via overly intrusive measures.

 

Police speech how the US government polices speech - allow all but explicit threats, gore, and porn (disallow porn unless we want to be classified as a rated R service). I should be able to attack you personally in any way I want, whether it's for your height, your lack of engineering knowledge, or your religious practices. Grow a backbone and stand up for yourself.

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If I wanted people to tell me what to say or think, I'd just go to Facebook. Maybe I'd call my mother and start an argument, idk.
But if you are playing a video game and thinking that thoughts and speech should be policed not only inside of the game but also on private servers outside of the game, then perhaps you should focus on a bit more on your own coping skills. It sounds like more of a personal problem.

 

 

 

yikes.jpg

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