Some very good feedback and discussion in this topic - and there certainly parts where I agree. Please do realise that it’s very easy on-line to get an impression of someone you don’t know, based on situations you have personal involvement with. You don’t know what the person on the other side is thinking or what the other factors surrounding their decision are.
This is one of the reasons why I don’t like judging people on the forums or in the game without actually getting to know them. To use yourself to make this example, Debarchery, I actually think you’re quite a nice guy. I have no ill feelings, no judgement on you as a person and no feelings of irritation at you voicing your opinion. I might not agree with all of it, but that doesn’t mean your intentions are not positive. As you only see one side of the coin, it’s logical that some of your assumptions are based on missing facts and knowledge which potentially would have altered your opinion.
I can only request that players extend the same courtesy to the team. As Censored mentioned, we’re here because we want to help the community, not hinder it.
I’ve tried to see as much of all sides of the coin as I can from my position, though some aspects of it are kept hidden from my side of it. What I’ve seen in some cases is far less than appropriate: a GM demanding that people treat one another with respect, and that same GM intentionally speaking about people disrespectfully, arguably even baiting normal players into flaming them back. Suffice to say: while I wasn’t the one this behavior was directed at, I really sympathize with the people who have been. I’ve been in that position before - being openly insulted by people in a higher position of power within a community, and if I retaliate, I’ll face consequences; regardless of whether or not I retaliate, they will not face consequences, period - and I know what a horrible, powerless, rage-inducing feeling it is to be in that position where humans can attack you all they want, and you’re not allowed to fight back. You just have to sit back and take it. And when you try talking about it with their higher-ups, they silently look away and do nothing, letting it continue freely. This is not a pleasant feeling. At all.
This example is one where unfortunately your friend broke the chat rules.
Yes - as have roughly 50% of the last 30 or so people I’ve spoken to in global chat, several hours ago. Luckily, not a single one of them were muted. Just to make sure we’re on the same page, I say “luckily” not because I support violating the rules, (I don’t), but because I believe in not punishing people immediately for the smallest possible infractions. I strongly prefer to ask questions about any given situation in order to learn as much as I can about it before forming any judgments in my mind on it. But of course, doing this regularly on a daily basis would be awkward, so I usually only do it where the situation calls for it. For example, when I see people saying, “Man, jericho is kicking [curse word for backside/bottom/derriere],” I typically don’t PM them asking things like, “Are you aware that you just broke a rule,” or, “And how does that make you feel,” or anything at all. But in cases where a situation does call for some things to be clarified, I ask questions. In this situation, if I assume anything, it’s that the player has no idea that they just broke a rule. This now leads me to chime in, “Be careful - some GMs instantly mute people for spamming or swearing in global chat, even if it’s not used as an insult.”
Like CbA pointed out in his last post: blanket statements like this that don’t specifically have any player’s name in it, (Especially if two or more players have recently cursed or arguably spammed a little within a short time of one another), combined with the decision not to mute them for their words, has astonishingly positive results. It lets them know what the rules are, that they shouldn’t repeat those actions, and best of all, it has an extremely low probability of putting them in a foul mood. So far, 0% of the people I’ve said this to have shown any signs of being offended or upset by that statement, and I think that’s great. It has all of the same positive results of muting them - making them aware of the rules, which simultaneously makes them aware that they shouldn’t do it again - but without the negative results that sometimes comes with muting them - giving them a bad impression of the GM who muted them and giving them a bad impression of the community in general for abiding this behavior.
You compare the punishment that was applied with a ‘punch in the face’, but this isn’t really a fair comparison. A punch in the face is a direct attack on another person, and by itself in society considered a punishable offence. Causing any form of bodily harm to another human being is in my book a huge no-no and I’d rather skip that comparison for a more realistic one.
Given the context of the situation, it really is a fair comparison. Yes, you obviously don’t end up with the same physical pain, but the emotional and psychological toll it takes is roughly equivalent, if not even worse. When users are mistreated by GMs whose behavior seems to be silently tolerated by their higher-ups, the victims have no recourse. Period. It’s similar to being assaulted by a police officer, going to a judge about it, and watching as the judge turns their head, starts whistling, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for you to go away. Weeks later, if the officer has received so much as a verbal warning: it was given secretly, and no one but the officer and the judge will ever know about it. Assuming even so much as a light scolding occurred.
On the other hand, you are right: if you have proof of an assault, the laws of almost all modern societies will uphold a punishment for the aggressor. This being the case: my comparison was a little outlandish since, in this community, if you have proof of an aggressor violating the rules of this community, they will be given no punishment, as long as they have a high enough standing within the game. Then again, you could say that this is a mirror image of the special treatment celebrities often receive, (And consequently receive ample media attention due to, after the outrage of how light their punishments sometimes are, compared to the sentences of everyday civilians), but this sentence is getting off-topic.
Causing any form of emotional harm to another human being is, in my book, a huge no-no - especially when the aggressor is in a position with zero or nearly zero accountability, and the victim is made out to be the villain.
In addition to this, please understand that the applied punishment wasn’t what initiated the interaction from the GM in question in this case, it was the swearing (albeit by accident, but let’s get to that in a moment) which initiated it. The response from the GM followed the game rules and restrictions that said GM was asked to operate under. You are absolutely right that a certain degree of common sense and judgement needs to be applied to each scenario and that following the strict letter of the rules can sometimes cause more problems than it solves, and this is something we try to instil in the team as a whole.
I understand what you’re saying in the first sentence, but I disagree with it. The interaction from the GM began when the GM decided to perform interaction. In a situation that had already ended before they even took action. They had the option to choose to say something like, “[name], please don’t use strong language again, or next time, I’ll assume you’ve read this message, and are now intentionally breaking the rules. In that case, I will mute you.” The message could even be kept on their clipboard, ready to be pasted with a ctrl+v at a moment’s notice. Such a message assumes that the player, like the vast majority of players, didn’t use google to find the Star Conflict forums and search those forums to find, read and remember that aspect of the rules - that using any swear words is not permissible in global chat, no matter the context. Such a message assumes that they’re a normal person who means well, or at the very least, did not mean to spread any bad vibes. Ignoring the option to post such a message, instead opting to punish them as instantly as possible, sends the message that they are to be treated as a rule-breaker who knew what they did was wrong, when in reality, it is much more likely that they didn’t. To me, there is a world of difference between negative actions which were knowingly performed with malicious intent, and negative actions which were unknowingly performed, and with positive or neutral intent.
This part is where I believe a certain degree of responsibility of the player comes in. In this case, your friend was aware that he broke the rules, albeit unintentionally.
No. I believe I’ve been pretty clear about this: he was not aware that he broke the rule as he was breaking it. If he was aware that such a rule existed, he would never have broken it; he is not a person who chooses to shoot himself in the foot, so to speak. A GM forced him to become aware afterward by muting him, while comparing him to an immature child who needed to be placed in timeout. That same GM could have made him aware afterward by simply telling him about the rule, rather than punishing him, then verbally kicking him while he was down, so to speak.
It’s simple: when a GM sees a player breaking such a minor rule, they have several options, but the most obvious ones are the following. 1: Punish them immediately with a mute. In fact, the GM may not even have to stop and question their own decision, asking themself why they’re doing this; they may simply do it just to wrap things up as quickly as possible. Or 2: Talk to the user to let them know that they broke a rule and shouldn’t do so again, preferably in as few sentences as possible, to save time.
When it comes to making assumptions, something I’m trying to work on - whenever I remember to is - filling in those blanks with whatever information results in the most positive outcome for everybody. For example, say I went to a library, saw a cute girl and decided to introduce myself. Before long, I ask if she’d like to go out on a date. She looks uncomfortable, says something too quiet for me to hear and walks away before I have a chance for her to please repeat what she said. Now, I could get upset over this. But if I were to remember to fill in the blanks with positive information, I could come to the conclusion, “Whoops, I guess she’s really shy and didn’t know how to respond to someone being so forward,” or, “Oh, she already has a boyfriend and didn’t want to risk hurting my feelings by turning me down.” Similarly, a GM can witness a person use a curse word in global chat and decide, “Oh, they just didn’t know about this rule, or accidentally spoke in global chat instead of private messaging - instead of muting 'em, I’ll just let 'em know about this rule, or remind them to be more careful with where their messages end up in the future.”
Obviously the fact he was punished is unfortunate, but would have been resolved fairly easily by simply sending the GM in question a whisper, along the lines of “Oh dear, I’m sorry that message was intended for a friend of mine and I absolutely did not intent to offend any other users”. The wording isn’t important here - but the meaning of the message behind it is. I know if I would receive this sort of message and believe the player is genuine (and in this situation there is no reason to believe otherwise), I would have lifted the mute, had a brief exchange of some friendly words and seen the player on their merry way.
Prevention of a problem - the problem being that there are a few GMs who are sometimes overly touchy - is better than damage control after it - accepting the fact that they’re touchy, then letting the players who have been punished, most of whom are new and unfamiliar with the rules, sort out what to do, when they feel they’ve been unjustly punished, and almost always believe they have no options whatsoever. “How am I supposed to talk about this when I’ve been muted,” the might wonder. I’ve been playing on and off since March, and only learned in this month, August, that muted players can still send private messages. Now, if I was confronted and punished by someone who is extremely unreasonable and punishes people at the drop of a hat, the last thing I’d want to do is try reasoning with them. What’s the point, when they’ve already proved that they’re unreasonable people who punish first, ask questions later never? As a victim in this hypothetical situation who either believes or knows for a fact that I did nothing wrong, anything I say would, logically, only make the situation worse - I would continue saying things I either believe or know for a fact are the truth and not morally wrong in any way.
It’s like the slang definition of insanity: doing the same thing again and again and again, but expecting different results every time. Step 1: Be yourself in a normal, polite way. Step 2: Be punished for it, because you used a swear word, even though it wasn’t in a cursing context, but a polite one. Step 3, as you are recommending: Be yourself in a normal, polite way. You’re asking someone to be reasonable, when being reasonable is what got them punished in the first place.
In your most recent lines of text that I’ve quoted, let’s say that, hypothetically speaking, you’re the person who muted my friend - and yes, like you said far above all this, the GM who performed this mute was well within the rules’ parameters to do so; I agree with that. (Though the mute itself isn’t a question of breaking any currently existing rules; the mute itself is indicative of trigger-happy GMs, and while the mute itself doesn’t break any rules, it’s an unsavory stain on the reputation GMs can expect to have as a whole.) In this example, even if my friend had known that they could PM you, the GM who hypothetically muted them, it’s unreasonable to expect that they would want to. Forget the insult of being muted at the drop of a hat: the hypocrisy of how GMs are expected to be respectful at all times, and demanding that others be respectful at all times, while getting away with making fun of the people they mute is downright sickening. This is one particular case where this occurred, sadly. As common sense tells all of us: it’s no surprise that my friend did not PM this GM who, in the past few seconds of that moment, had been rude to him. And what purpose did it serve? Only to reveal a little sliver of that GM’s true colors - to get it off their chest, so to speak - which is confirmed by the fact that that GM immediately said afterward, “always wanted to say that”
Furthermore: I did. The part about what my friend should have done? Again: I did. I said it on his behalf. I’ve seen how trigger happy some GMs are; that’s why I knew to speak up immediately , and did so. But my following this advice of yours turned out to be pointless. The GM didn’t listen to me, an objective 3rd party who had not just been muted under the assumption that I was a bad guy. My friend, on the other hand, had just been muted under the assumption that he was a bad guy. Since that GM refused to listen to me, what chance did my friend have, even if this was a bizarro universe where GMs unfairly insulting him and muting him at the drop of a hat put him in a good enough mood to want to talk to his attacker about this in a civil manner, rather than a bad mood?
In this specific case I’d probably even have offered to help in said PvE mission - I do this frequently with players who have similar sentiments. Why? Because I feel if the player is shown how to beat the mission in a consistent manner, it will reduce their frustration with the game, it shows we care and it makes them feel more attached to the game as a whole.
Going back to citing you in place of the hypothetical GM who did this to my friend, as if I’m speaking directly to the GM who did it: Would’ve, but chose not to. You know, you could have also taken the time to PM my friend to let him know these things. After all, you’re the one who has implied on multiple occasions that you’re the height of civility and maturity. Therefore, doesn’t responsibility lie with you to be the one who takes the first step to reach out to the rule-breaker, to talk to them civilly about their offense, rather than “firing and forgetting,” so to speak - muting, and then literally forgetting about them as quickly as possible, while they have no recourse but to silently accept their immense frustrations toward the injustice of the situation?
In this example, if this GM feels the same way you do, why would they say one thing but do another? Why say, “I could have treated them in a way that reduces their frustration,” while leaving the rest unspoken? " but I chose to do the exact opposite. I chose to frustrate them so much, I permanently drove them away from this game. And this, for me, is typical behavior; this wasn’t even the keynote of my day. Are you kidding? I can’t even tell you if the number of players I did this to on that day alone is in the single digits or double digits. I forcibly increased their frustration, not toward the game itself, but toward the community, and the fact that people like me are elected to positions of power, where we then use it with wanton disregard for others. I proved to them that I care only about my own peace of mind - appearing as if I’m doing a good job by overzealously punishing the slightest infraction, while simultaneously breaking rules too, but not punishing myself for it, partly to stroke my own ego, partly to look cool and perhaps witty in the way I chose to insult this person as I muted them. I made them feel so unattached to the game as a whole that they are now permanently repelled by it. This is who I am. My actions toward countless people in the past few months alone speak far more honestly than my words ever will."
In this specific case, you mention the player quit the game over this incident. I’m surprised by this, especially as you say that you explained to said person that swearing in the chat isn’t allowed.
For the 2nd time: no, I have not said that. If I have, I was most definitely mistaken, as I did not tell my friend directly that swearing in chat isn’t allowed. Please quote me saying this, so that I may edit my post and remove that, and also update screenshots I’ve taken of what’s been written by taking more screenshots, but with the proper, updated text. If you’re correct, I must have gotten mixed up in my wording between referring to his situation, and referring to recent situations several hours ago where I’ve repeatedly stated that I’ve been explaining to people that swearing in global chat isn’t allowed. Or perhaps you misunderstood me when I said on the forums, that I said in-game, “It’s alright, he meant to say that in a whisper to me,” and, “He wasn’t saying that to you folks, carry on,” after I saw that he accidentally cursed in global chat, instead of in a private message to me.
[The maximum number of quote blocks is about to be exceeded; switching to manually quoting within quotation marks.]
“As annoying as it is to be muted, it doesn’t prevent a player from playing the game or continuing to communicate in private message. It just disables them from speaking in global chat for an hour - in many cases to protect a user from themselves if nothing else. (I personally really hate having to punish anyone, especially when it comes to longer or harsher measures and will always try to steer a user back on the right path before having to take such steps)”
You could tell me that my post traumatic stress disorder doesn’t prevent me from performing all the same actions as normal people, but you would be incorrect. As any psychologist, psychiatrist or even counselor will tell you, a person’s behaviors and mood will not only strongly influence their decisions, but can even go as far as to have physiological impacts on their bodies. Whenever I have flashbacks of traumatic events, I can usually distract myself quickly enough so that the only physical sign is either a consistent, barely noticeable shaking, (Well, barely noticeable to outsiders if they were to stare, but blatantly apparent to me, the person feeling it), usually centered around my torso, or a more evident, abrupt, punctuated spasm of an arm or a leg. In rarer, more severe cases, the majority of my body starts tingling and going numb, my vision starts closing in and it becomes difficult to breathe.
Some people might want to argue that the way my friend felt wasn’t as bad as this, but what would it matter? Again: the greater ordeals of some do not invalidate the lesser ordeals of others. Just because I have to put up with these problems sometimes does not completely negate the fact that my friend was, in this case, experiencing strongly negative emotions that were so severe, they have permanently driven him away from this game. This is clearly a bad thing, and obviously could have been avoided in multiple ways.
Once again, continuing to speak to you hypothetically as if you’re the one who did this to my friend: so your words say. But your actions scream - no, prove - the exact opposite of what you’re saying. You say it tears you up inside when you have to choose to punish someone. Yet you rejoice in it by adding insult to injury when you do it. You say “have to” punish them, when it’s a simple case of you choosing to go overboard by punishing them when, like you’ve said, simply talking to them about it is by far the more preferable solution - the one that tears neither you nor them up on the inside. The one that makes everyone happy, results in a more positive environment and results in another player remaining as a part of the ever-dwindling playerbase, and now as someone who’s a little wiser in the ways of how they should behave around these parts. And finally, you say you “will always try to steer a user back on the right path before having to take such steps.” To that, I say, the actions you perform publicly for everyone to see prove that you’re not telling the truth. You say you “will always try to steer a user back on the right path before having to take such steps,” while doing the exact opposite of that - literally making no attempt whatsoever to steer a user back on the right path, and only taking such steps - muting them. Well, not only taking such steps - that’s being too generous toward the example-GM. In addition to this, you also chose to insult them as you were punishing them.
This is how I feel toward the hypothetical GM that I’m using as an example, based on the facts that they’ve proven. Then again, “hypothetical” isn’t exactly the right word since this actually happened, but you know what I mean. “example-GM” would be much closer to it, when I’m speaking to you as if you’re the one who did it.
“This is a great example and in an absolutely ideal world, you would be 100% correct. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases it doesn’t end up like this. First, most players who get muted swear in a bit more serious a manner than the example provided. Of course there are exceptions to this, but for this we have a process both for players to appeal or report such actions, but also pro-active monitoring to ensure players receive fair treatment. I know this is a point which some of you don’t believe or otherwise are sceptic about but understand that similar to the fact we cannot communicate about punishment on individual players we can also not comment on what does and doesn’t happen within the team.”
GMs can work to make it closer to an absolutely ideal world by creating that same outcome. They can’t get there in exactly the same way - for example, as you say, there will inevitably be cases on a regular basis in which players will curse in objectively more severe cases than that, which call to mind the option to mute them - but they can choose for it to have the same ending. Instead of immediately muting them, then adding insult to injury by making them of them at the same time, the example-GM could decide to do what I did about 15 times several hours ago: state, “Be careful - some GMs instantly mute people for spamming or swearing in global chat, even if it’s not used as an insult.” But in their own words, of course. Letting the player know that they’re breaking the rules, in the most objective, least provocative manner possible, intentionally, carefully choosing their words so that they don’t make the conversation into an abrupt stand-off of egos, but a gentle approach to let them know, hey, everything will be okay, don’t worry about it, and hey, while you’re at it, please don’t swear in global chat, alright?
I’ve already addressed the second half of that paragraph 2 times now - once above in this post, once in a previous post in this thread - but for this 3rd time, I’ll explain the same concept in a different way. This reminds me of a quote I recently read. “When revealing a crime is treated the same as committing a crime: you’re surrounded/being judged by criminals.” Of course, the situation of what happened between you, (example-GM, using the word “you” as an example), and my friend is a little different, but I’m pretty sure you can see my point here. My friend felt as if he did nothing wrong, (He didn’t literally reveal a crime, but the basis of this part of the quote is: doing nothing wrong), but was treated as if he had committed a crime. Then made the decision to insult him at the same time. Naturally, he wasn’t about to shout, “It’s opposite day!” put on a smile and start gladly, happily chatting away with you, example-GM, and how much he loves this game, the community and how its GMs treat him.
The middle of that paragraph is one of those cases I mentioned above where, if I believe I don’t have enough information to reasonably discuss a subject, either I won’t speak about it at all or I’ll ask questions about it, in order to learn more about it. Without going into too much detail, are you allowed to elaborate on what you mean by “proactive monitoring to ensure players receive fair treatment?” Is it the players that are monitored, or the GMs who punished them? Is it their private messages or public messages, and in-game or on the forums, (Or both and both respectively), that are monitored? And so on. If you’re not allowed to answer any of these questions: it’s alright; I understand.
“All I can say is that all your concerns are looked at in their own merit and GMs are not ‘free agents’ to do as they please. There’s a set of rules of boundaries, as well as the need for both guidance and coaching. Some of the incidents the players such as yourself report are used as examples to how such situations can be dealt with more positively in the future, so please do report them in the manners suggested already in this topic by Error, ZEIK, myself and other members of the team. Please do remember that GMs are only human and they are not faultless - sometimes they are under a lot of pressure. Your might see a situation where you believe the punishment seemed a little harsh, but you don’t know if the user in question had a history, or if you joined the channel recently whether or not there had been a big set of swearing/spam in the channel a moment before, in which case the people involved might have been warning to ‘keep things clean’.”
Having seen only proof to support what I’m saying, and literally zero evidence when you say that GMs don’t get away with rule-breaking: I flat out do not believe you, and I would be an idiot if I, against 100% of all logic and proof, did so. You may as well tell me that the sky is primarily red, when I’ve only seen proof to support that it’s primarily blue, and literally zero evidence to support that it’s primarily red. I would be an idiot if I, against 100% of all logic and proof, believed you if you told me that the sky is primarily red.
However, I understand that things may be different on your end. What with being a GM, you’re in their presence far more often than non-GM players. Since you’ve had a much larger pool of times that you’ve witnessed GMs breaking rules, it stands to reason that you’ve seen a larger number of GMs punished for breaking them, either formally or informally, and either openly for everyone to see, or in private.
However. As a non-GM player, I don’t live in a world where I see your red sky. I see the blue sky that the majority of us - the non-GM players - see.
In this case, I know for an undeniable fact that this user did not have a history of rule-breaking. He hadn’t even played for 5 hours, and for 100% of the time he was online: so was I. He broke one rule, one time, purely by accident. At the time of the event, I was online in global chat before he was, so I know there wasn’t some secret event that I showed up late to where he was cursing up a storm. He broke one rule without even knowing it, so I immediately jumped to his defense, following your exact advice, saying in his place that he made a genuine mistake, and that what he was saying was meant to be addressed privately to me, not in global chat. But you, example-GM, chose to completely disregard me - and by proxy, chose to completely disregard your own advice - when I followed it.
Well, you’re right about one implication - the punishment did not seem a little harsh.
It was more than a little harsh, and downright inappropriate - especially the part where you, example-GM, added insult to injury, by literally adding an insult as you unnecessarily, immediately muted him before he could say another word.
Where was the normal GM you claim to be, example-GM, when you say"(I personally really hate having to punish anyone, especially when it comes to longer or harsher measures and will always try to steer a user back on the right path before having to take such steps)?" Where was that guy, huh? Nowhere to be found. In his place: only someone who should never have been made a GM in the first place, based on how they treat others.
Example-GM, (Still taking an opportunity to speak to you as if you’re the one who unnecessarily punished and insulted my friend), don’t talk to me about, “we GMs might be under a lot of stress,” when you refuse to acknowledge, “the user who cursed might be under a lot of stress.” It’s weird to hear you say, “we GMs are humans too; we aren’t faultless,” when you treat others as if you don’t think, “the user I’m about to let my pent-up frustrations on is a human too; he isn’t faultless, and instead of instantly muting him first, maybe I should try being respectful to him and letting him know that swearing in public chat isn’t okay. That way, he stops cursing, (Even though the cursing situation was over, since it was literally a one time thing, and while I was typing my 2 sentences in global chat explaining that it was an accident, my friend proved it was over by not continuing to say a single word on the matter), but without me choosing to force negative vibes on him by forcibly gagging him.”
“Please understand also that in most cases there are multiple GMs online, they communicate with one another and often even try to reach a consensus before taking action.”
Argument ad populum. Assuming the best of the example-GM in this situation - that he secretly had another GM online at the time who refused to speak in global chat, but told him, the example-GM, that he agreed with example-GM’s inquiry as to whether or not he should instantly mute and insult my friend - it would be irrelevant anyway. 100,000,000,000 living beings agree that we should all eat feces; they can’t be wrong, right? I mean, there’s 100,000,000,000 of them; maybe they’re onto something…! The only problems being that this is a logical fallacy, most of those supporters are insects and almost all human taste buds are strongly opposed to doing such a thing. Just because 2 or more people agree on something - or even the majority of people; for example, that the world is flat - doesn’t mean that what they’ve decided on is the most positive choice.
“In the above example, a ‘public’ warning might seem like a good idea and in many cases for players such as yourself, this works brilliantly. But equally, there are many situations in which such a statement can make the situation worse - both from the recipient and other users who jump in to join the situation.”
It’s possible, yes - and frankly, inevitable, if I continued doing this infinitely. However, if I stopped now, I would have a perfect streak of roughly 15 out of 15 people where, in 100% of the cases, this worked just fine. Now that’s something I can live with. Now, before I receive a reply of, “Hey, you’re being a hypocrite! You said 100 billion living beings agreeing on something doesn’t make it true, so why does something happening 15 times make it true,” the difference here is important: cold, hard statistics - what actually works in practice, not 15 out of 15 flies’ opinions being that people should eat feces. For example: it’s the difference between humans testing and proving that, in 15 out of 15 test cases, lions kill gazelles, so maybe it’s reasonable to expect this to happen in the majority of cases. Compared to 100 billion flies saying that gazelles usually killing lions, without having any proof to back up what they’re saying, though I hasten to add that it’s inevitable for there to be exceptions where, in some cases, gazelles rarely kill lions.
“But you can warn them in private, you’d say - and with this I would strongly agree.”
Same here. If you or other GMs aren’t comfortable with public warnings, or are sometimes, but not all the time, I would strongly recommend issuing a private warning instead, rather than issuing no public warning, no private warning and going straight for the throat - issuing a mute - instead.
“In any case where a transgression is either mild, in the grey zone or otherwise not clear cut and grounds for immediate punishment, I believe that a friendly word to the individual in question does more good than direct punishment.”
I almost completely agree with this, but not quite, for two reasons. 1: The GMs themselves don’t agree with this. In the case where you, example-GM, punished my friend, thus permanently driving him to log out and never return within mere minutes of that event, the transgression was clearly mild and did not require a mute, as he had no intention of speaking in global chat again as evidenced by his silence immediately afterward, and in fact, never had one to begin with, as evidenced by a friend immediately clarifying this in global chat. The situation itself, just seconds before the mute, was further softened by this 3rd party who knew the rules, whereas the person who swore did not, coming to his aid to explain that “he knew not what he did,” metaphorically - almost literally - speaking. But this still wasn’t good enough for the GM, and the GM still ended up pushing him away.
2: Like I mentioned before, I’ve moderated, administrated and owned various game servers. In my early years, when I was a young teenager, yeah, I had a problem with acting exactly the same way the GMs in Star Conflict are behaving. ‘Someone broke a rule?’ They could expect a mute or a kick. They would log out/never log back in? ‘Lol, not my problem!’ But as time went by, I grew out of that mindset. If there’s one positive note I can attribute to apathy, it’s that those who have it tend not to care too much about people breaking rules, with emphasis being placed on " too much." If a good person can tap into that apathy solely for the sake of going easy on rule-breakers and other people who seem to be having a hard time, then they’re onto something. Yes, there are obviously cases where a person shouldn’t just turn their head, start whistling, twiddling their thumbs and wait for the petitioners to just go away - there are times when mods, admins and server owners need to say, “Enough is enough,” and draw a hard line. But if someone is punishing someone else in a situation where the person doing the punishing is not justified in saying, “Enough is enough,” maybe the person doing the punishing should review how quickly it is that they’re punishing people. In all likelihood: it’s far too quickly, if they’re not tolerating any rulebreaking for more than an instant.
Furthermore, again, addressing you as example-GM, for example, as if you’re the actual GM who punished my friend at the drop of a hat, then insulted him: you say that that’s what you believe, but then you prove that it’s not, via your actions. You say one thing, but you do the opposite. You say you should give the individual in question a friendly word instead of punishing them. But what you do is punish them, instead of giving them a single friendly word. The icing on the cake is that you then kick them while they’re down: insulting them. Intentionally being disrespectful toward them simultaneously.
"There are players who don’t respond well to any form of communication of this type, but this would help the GM in question decide that punishment is actually in order.
Example;
Player A responds positively to a friendly reminder and either apologises or explains that their transgression was definitely not ill intended.
Player B starts swearing to the GM and telling him to ‘be quiet’. (insert more colourful language yourself)
These responses alone help the GM in question decide whether or not punishment is in order - as it indicates whether or not the person was indeed being abuse or merely a player being frustrated or simply making a mistake."
This is similar to your previous statement on this matter, but it has a jarringly important difference which I must point out for those who haven’t noticed it. In this case, the GM is doing the right thing by sending a friendly PM to the offender before deciding to mute them, then using their intentionally rude language as the grounds to mute them. Action -> logical reaction. In your previous example, the GM was behaving inappropriately by punishing someone, then sending them a PM, getting a rude PM back, and using that rude response from them in the future as the basis for their original mute in the past. Actions cannot travel backward in time to have consequences in the past, even if we try to attribute reasoning as such. And before I forget: your example sounds like exactly what might have been going through example-GM’s mind at the time when they mistreated my friend.
But there are 3 major inconsistencies between that mindset and reality. 1: The GM didn’t act like a shining beacon of morality, the way he’s implied or expected to be. He acted inappropriately by insulting my friend for no good reason, while he was muting him. 2: The GM made no attempt whatsoever to contact my friend, to talk about this situation, as you repeatedly said you think he should. As a wise person has told me, “Think all you want. Until you act on those thoughts, they’re not you. Yes, they’re inside you, but if you’re not acting on them, and they’re having no impact on your decisions, then they’re not who you are. For example: you can think bad thoughts about wanting to get revenge on someone all you want. You can think them every single day! But if you never, ever act on those thoughts, then you’re not a person who actually tries getting revenge on others. So stop being so hard on yourself. And conversely, you can think about doing good things all you want. But until you act on those thoughts: you’re just a good-intentioned person who stands by and watches bad things happening without doing the right thing and intervening. So start acting on those good thoughts.”
Any GM can say, “A GM should’ve been - or would be, or usually is, or hey, I’m a GM, and I ALWAYS am - friendly, reaching out to people I mute or may potentially mute in a PM.” But where you see aaaaalllll the times where they only thought about doing such a thing, all you have are words without actions to back them up. 3: The GM thought, “I did the right thing, so long as I get a PM from the offender where he insults me. That proves he was a bad person, and retroactively justifies my actions!” Too bad this never happened; the offender never stooped to example-GM’s level. The offender never ended up doing such a thing, thus never even sort of justifying the GM in an awkward, time-traveling sense.
“In addition to the above, the history of said player should be taken into account - someone with no history of poor behaviour is far more likely to not have meant any harm than someone who is a repeat offender.”
Once again: these words are wind. Example-GM, you’re saying, “If he had 0 history of poor behavior, he’s far less likely to be mistreated/will not be mistreated!” But you’re living in a fantasy world. You, example-GM, have proven the exact opposite to be the truth. You’ve proven that you’ll punish people with 0 history, and will gladly insult them at the same time, and will make no attempt to politely establish contact with them. Example-GM: you do not deserve to be a GM. When people think bad things about power abusers: you are the type of GM that comes to mind.
"The real life sentiment is understood, but I don’t think being muted for an hour in global chat, whilst still being able to partake in all other aspects of the game is quite comparable to being punched in the face out of the blue. The recipient in question initiated the interaction by breaking the rules (intentionally or unintentionally, but we covered the appropriate response to that earlier) and the response is that his ability to repeat this is taken away for a period of time.
This works out for most pilots as a few matches and doesn’t have any lasting effect to their lives. It is meant to educate, not inconvenience. Again, see my comments earlier on whether or not this is or should be a justified response to a situation as that is a seperate matter. My point here is that this specific method of punishment cannot be compared to an out-of-the-blue attack causing bodily harm to another person."
As someone who’s personally experienced both of these things - being randomly, physically attacked out of the blue, (Worse still, by people I’d known for months who I thought were my friends), and someone who’s been punished for the tiniest offenses out of the blue, even when I have proven for a fact that I did not break the rule in question, (But those are entirely separate stories) - I can assure you that the impression they leave you with are almost exactly the same.
You feel wronged. You feel rage. You feel bitter. You feel singled out. You feel personally attacked as an individual. You feel a deep sense of mistrust toward the person or people responsible for these things. For some, events like these may well follow them for days, weeks, months, years or even the rest of their life as lessons learned, fodder for unnecessary flashbacks that a person doesn’t want or both.
Given the context of the situation, it really is a fair comparison. Yes, in the case of this muting you obviously don’t end up with the same physical pain, but the emotional and psychological toll it takes is roughly equivalent, if not even worse. When users are mistreated by GMs whose behavior seems to be silently tolerated by their higher-ups, the victims have no recourse. Period. It’s similar to being assaulted by a police officer, going to a judge about it, and watching as the judge turns their head, starts whistling, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for you to go away. Weeks later, if the officer has received so much as a verbal warning: it was given secretly, and no one but the officer and the judge will ever know about it. Assuming even so much as a light scolding occurred.
On the other hand, you are right: if you have proof of an assault, the laws of almost all modern societies will uphold a punishment for the aggressor. This being the case: my comparison was a little outlandish since, in this community, if you have proof of an aggressor violating the rules of this community, they will be given no punishment, as long as they have a high enough standing within the game. Then again, you could say that this is a mirror image of the special treatment celebrities often receive, (And consequently receive ample media attention due to, after the outrage of how light their punishments sometimes are, compared to the sentences of everyday civilians), but this sentence is getting off-topic.
Causing any form of emotional harm to another human being is, in my book, a huge no-no - especially when the aggressor is in a position with zero or nearly zero accountability, and the victim is made out to be the villain.
I understand what you’re saying about initiation of interaction, but I disagree with it. The interaction from the GM began when the GM decided to perform interaction. Quite simply: the GM made a conscious decision to reach out to my friend, though only in an objectively negative manner. If not for this GM’s decision: my friend never would have had interaction with the GM, and would never have known of their existence. Therefore, it is common sense that the GM who quite literally initiated the interaction, is the one who initiated the interaction.
In a situation that had already ended before they even took action. They had the option to choose to say something like, “[name], please don’t use strong language again, or next time, I’ll assume you’ve read this message, and are now intentionally breaking the rules. In that case, I will mute you.” The message could even be kept on their clipboard, ready to be pasted with a ctrl+v at a moment’s notice. Such a message assumes that the player, like the vast majority of players, didn’t use google to find the Star Conflict forums and search those forums to find, read and remember that aspect of the rules - that using any swear words is not permissible in global chat, no matter the context. Such a message assumes that they’re a normal person who means well, or at the very least, did not mean to spread any bad vibes. Ignoring the option to post such a message, instead opting to punish them as instantly as possible, sends the message that they are to be treated as a rule-breaker who knew what they did was wrong, when in reality, it is much more likely that they didn’t. To me, there is a world of difference between negative actions which were knowingly performed with malicious intent, and negative actions which were unknowingly performed, and with positive or neutral intent.
"The only issue I have with this specific example is that it is assumed that the GM in question is the aggressor. This isn’t the case - the person breaking the rules is the aggressor, the community is the recipient. The GM is merely a third party tasked with the protection of said community against abusive behaviour. Sometimes the punishment might seem harsh or overzaelous, but the recipient can always request clarification.
Again note my earlier comments on warning someone privately and dealing with minor transgressions or grey areas. I am not advocating willy nilly punishment whatsoever, I am merely explaining that it is unfair to cast the GMs in the role of ‘aggressors’. This couldn’t be futher from the case and this would definitely not be tolerated from someone who has to act in a professional and objective manner to these cases."
Example-GM, I have the potential to agree with you. But doing so would make me a liar.
Micro-event 1: A friend accidentally said 2 rude words in global chat. Either completely unaware of the fact that he said it in global chat and unaware that this was against the rules, or only unaware that this was against the rules, he didn’t bother saying anything else. Whatever the case: those 2 words aside, he had nothing more to say, since he didn’t intend to speak in global chat in the first place. Both before and after this, he did not speak in global chat, but either in squad chat or private messages to me. Since he and I were the only ones in the squad, our squad chat was functioning equivalently to private chat, though the purple and orange text did get mixed up a bit as we kept switching back and forth.
Micro-event 2: Upon noticing his mistake, I, a 3rd party, immediately jumped to his defense, because I rightfully assumed that, if there was a GM on the scene, they might overzealously punish my friend for this mere mistake, under the impression that he was intentionally insulting people in global chat, when in reality, this was not the case at all. I followed the exact advice the Evil outlined above multiple times: explaining, albeit hastily, that it was not my friend’s intention to insult anybody, and to please carry on as if it hadn’t happened, as it was only a mistake.
Micro-event 3: Advice following: rejected. Friend is immediately muted anyway. The community isn’t protected by some white knight in shining armor; it’s oppressed by someone with thin skin and a banhammer. This is further proved by the thin skinned GM’s intentional insult as he banned my friend. (Haha, but look at me, I’m hardly one to talk about thin skin when I’m clearly getting worked up. But at least it’s over injustice, rather than feeling overly dutiful toward strictly enforcing rules to the exact letter… Then throwing in insults while enforcing them. Also: at least, even while offended, I choose to maintain composure.)
Still speaking to you as if you’re speaking on behalf of/as if you are the example-GM who wronged my friend: why is it that when my friend accidentally, possibly offends people, (But with literally zero people speaking up and saying they were offended by his 2 accidental words), he’s the aggressor? But when you, example-GM, intentionally, definitely offended people, (My friend who you personally wronged, myself for a multitude of reasons and others for many, if not all the same reasons as I, all of which can be summed up with 1 word: injustice), you, example-GM, claim that you’re a knight in shining armor?
You’re right. You’re not advocating willy-nilly punishment. You’re factually choosing to enforce it, and while doing so, throwing in insults. The only unfairness here is that you, example-GM, get away with it on a daily basis, though I admit you aren’t entirely to blame, here; this is partly due your higher-ups silently doing nothing about it, when they’re the only ones who have the ultimate ability to do so. “We look at your - the community’s - feedback…!” Yeah. So they say.
Which is meaningless when they refuse to act on it.
“I can only agree with the sentiment behind what your saying, but bear in mind that this isn’t a perfect world where we all have the same ideologies.”
This isn’t a complicated situation that’s difficult to grasp, example-GM. Stop choosing to be unnecessarily rude to people. Stop factually being the exact, literal definition of a hypocrite by demanding that players be respectful toward one another, then choosing to be disrespectful toward them at the moment you mute them. If you can’t do this: you should do the right thing by stepping down and making room for those who can.
"The game is international and caters for people of many different age groups and nationalities. What may be acceptable public behaviour in one location, isn’t in another. What one person considers swearing, is normal every day language for another. What someone might find normal, another finds highly offensive.
For reasons such as those, there are rules against swearing. Whether or not you, another player or even I agree to the exact rules, is neither here nor there; ultimately they are there and we’ve all agreed to abide by them."
You have, quite ironically, touched upon the heart of the matter. You’re absolutely right, example-GM; whether or not you agree to the exact rules is neither here nor there. Ultimately, regardless of the fact that you’ve agreed to abide by them: you’ve decided that sometimes you will, sometimes you won’t, and since the highest staff of this game has decided to enforce a strict policy of no accountability when there is concrete proof that GMs are intentionally mistreating players, this is a problem which will perpetually continue until either you experience a massive, life-alerting change that deeply influences who you are as a person, or your higher-ups finally decide that enough is enough - that maybe you should take a hiatus from wrongfully abusing moderating members of the community.
“None of the rules are there to inconvenience players, they have been carefully written and created for a reason, even if we in our area of the world might not fully understand why.”
I do not envy anyone who lacks the mental faculties necessary to comprehend the reasoning behind the existence of these rules. “Straightforward” does not even begin to describe them.
“To really help with these things, the rules in question could do with being as clear about various situations as possible. I agree that some of the rules can be ambiguous and this is something that is actively being looked at.”
As someone who’s just finished reading every single in-game rule for the 2nd time in the past 32 hours: in my opinion, nah, not really. I disagree that some of the rules are ambiguous. In my opinion, they’re about as simple and to-the-point as they can get.
"Meanwhile, your feedback and opinion is highly appreciated as this helps build an understand in which areas are unclear, which areas people have an issue with and which areas are missing or need expanding.
–
A very long post, which hopefully shows that your opinion has just been noted but is taken seriously. I apologise if I missed anything and hope it helps you understand that there is no ill intention in the team whatsoever."
“I sure hope so” to most of that, “I sure hope not” to the “ill intention in the team” part.
"The very short version is that I agree with some of your points and that common sense and judgment need to be carefully applied, and not willy nilly punishment for the most minor transgressions. That said, we don’t live in a perfect world and among the hundreds of cases that occur on a daily basis there might ocassionally be a situation where the recipient simply doesn’t agree.
In such a case, respect and understanding is a 2-way street. As much as the GMs need to understand players, their frustrations and the fact that they are humans who sometimes make a mistake - equally the players need to understand that a GM is also human and can misread the intention of another person. The exact same sentence coming from 2 different people can have wildly different intentions, and unfortunately text-based messages do not convey emotions well.
In addition - remember that we are dealing with a vast number of different cultures. Something which you might not find offensive can be deemed incredibly offensive in another culture and as such its important to somewhat tone down the use of swearing or abusive language compared to what you might be used to in your local area."
Someone needs to tell this to example-GM - the one that I personally witnessed mistreat my friend. Me bleating about this event aside, I’ll finally also say: this mistreatment toward my friend is the 2nd time, not the 1st, that I’ve personally witnessed example-GM being blatantly, unnecessarily rude toward other people, after seeing him demand that players be respectful toward one another. The hypocrisy was - and still is - overwhelming.
"In closing I want to add, come pop on Teamspeak sometime and speak to some of us in person. You’ll see we’re actually pretty nice people. Some of us donate a huge quantity of personal time and resources to the community and it’s nice to engage with users in situations which don’t involve the game rules.
Heck, I like flying soem casual PvE with people just to say hi and have a random chat. :)"
I have before. 
We’ll probably meet again - though when we do, it’ll most likely be in global chat, or PvE as a more distant possibility. While I do acknowledge the tactical advantage of utilizing that third party program, Teamspeak, during gameplay: I have no interest in doing so.
I was - and still am - surprised by how well those blanket statements worked! Every single person I saw took them extremely well; didn’t say a single word against them and didn’t say a single curse word afterward.