Banning Bad, Actually?
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@Trashcan said in Empire Discussion Thread:
I don’t know, man. The last game I was on, somebody was rude to staff and got banned for it right away, right after the game opened. That game went on to have over 4000 scenes, so it seemed to work out to me, and everyone was pretty chill in their dealings with staff after that, at least to my knowledge.
LOL I REMEMBER THIS PERSON.
For what it’s worth, this wasn’t a ‘first offense’ kind of banning, this person had been a nightmare to deal with in CG and been given a ‘second chance’ after they finally managed to take some feedback and get themselves in shape for approval.
That’s a case where it actually might’ve been better to just show this person the door before they got out of CG because that’s often less of a headache and waste of time for everyone involved if someone is giving off ‘bad fit’ signals, but you make your choices.
I think this is what a lot of these bannings for what appears to be ‘borderline’ behavior actually are. Staff take a lot of shit the player populace never sees.
I want something else to get me through this
Semi-charmed kinda life, baby, baby
I want something else, I'm not listening when you say good-byeShe/Her or They/Them
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This is implying we lack all ability to exercise grace and understanding when it’s clear someone is having an off day. Do you think most people can’t recognize when someone is someone is just in a shitty situation and truly, deeply confused? And I say this as someone that initially asked their friends, baffled, why they were on Ada’s “side” when it looked like Ada went for the nuclear option.
Guys we’re talking about someone that was banned from a game for using chatGPT to RP his girlfriend in event scenes to also get extra equipment to share between accounts.
To Third Eye’s point, how often is this the “first offense”?
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@Third-Eye To quote a scholar (@Tat), CG can be as much an interview period to feel out a player and how they navigate your system, hearing the word no, etc.
I’ve banned someone during CG for being generally disruptive, becoming increasingly agitated with the system and insisting thematic areas that were explicitly not allowed should be plausible for them because they could talk in circles real good.
@Yam There is a distinction between lacking the ability to offer grace and choosing not to offer grace. I understand that you qualify some sort of moral superiority to being forgiving, but forgiveness isn’t something owed. In our hobby, admin are going to make judgment calls. If those judgment calls don’t align with your world view to this level where you’re still chewing on it, that’s when you as a player should consider playing on a different game. (This is theoretical. I don’t know if you play there. I don’t play there.)
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@Yam i’m not on either side. i literally care nothing for either of these people. in my opinion, some of the people pushing back are not pushing back on this specific instance, just on the idea that its actually a good thing to go nuclear as soon as someone is rude.
it’s an option, and i don’t think it is a bad option. i don’t think it’s a good option, either. i think it’s just an option and i think you are going to miss some people and moments, that’s all.
my example? it wasn’t a bad day for me. i was just rude, not paying attention to my tone. for weeks, at least, before staff talked to me.
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@Meg said in Empire Discussion Thread:
@Yam i’m not on either side. i literally care nothing for either of these people. in my opinion, some of the people pushing back are not pushing back on this specific instance, just on the idea that its actually a good thing to go nuclear as soon as someone is rude.
I think it’s a mistake to treat this as a generic case rather than a specific one.
she/they
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@Tez I need you to split this convo off into a topic called Is Banning Bad, Actually?
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@Tez said in Empire Discussion Thread:
I think it’s a mistake to treat this as a generic case rather than a specific one.
Why? The convo has long since spun off from WS/Ada into a more generic discussion about whether it’s best to tow a hard line on banning people for “being rude” (which is an incredibly vague line that I’d be willing to bet WE HAVE ALL CROSSED, intentionally or not, at one point or another).
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@Yam said in Empire Discussion Thread:
@Tez I need you to split this convo off into a topic called Is Banning Bad, Actually?
Get fucked.
@Faraday said in Empire Discussion Thread:
@Tez said in Empire Discussion Thread:
I think it’s a mistake to treat this as a generic case rather than a specific one.
Why? The convo has long since spun off from WS/Ada into a more generic discussion about whether it’s best to tow a hard line on banning people for “being rude” (which is an incredibly vague line that I’d be willing to bet WE HAVE ALL CROSSED, intentionally or not, at one point or another).
I don’t think it’s true that people are actually all treating it as such. I think – and I say this with GENTLE SARCASM ONLY because TONE IS HARD IN TEXT – that we might all be coming into this from different perspectives based on our own experiences with the people involved and the situation at large. I don’t think it’s really a pure abstract thought exercise here. This is coming from a very specific example.
she/they
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T Tez referenced this topic
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HAVE WE GONE TOO FAR WITH BANNING??
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@Yam we don’t ban enough. Coming off a recent game where I had vibes that another player was a notorious creeper and was doing Weird Shit that maybe wasn’t “bannable” per policy but definitely would’ve gotten them booted if it was my game, I think we should ban liberally and often.
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After 25 years of MUing, I’m of the opinion that people try to give others way too many chances.
I think the sweet spot for me as a staffer is 1. You get 1 screw up that I don’t ban you for, and I will let you know when you have spent your 1. When you screw up the second time, pack your bags.
Even then, there are exceptions. Particularly awful behavior will result in an instant ban with no discussion.
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Having recently played on a game where banning/asking to leave was applied in what I would describe as a fairly liberal manner and for many years on games where it was, in fact, almost impossible to get banned, the experience was dramatically more positive on the game that was relatively zero-tolerance for bad behavior. It was a smaller game than the other ones but, and I cannot overstate this, that was a small price to pay.
Everyone has a bad day sometimes. Sometimes people are bad at regulating how that affects the people they interact with. It does happen. But as the philosopher G.W.Bush once said, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me- you can’t get fooled again.
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Like that whole PVP thing… I think people are fresh off of many years of “well they’re just being a little rude, no need to slam them into oblivion-- oh no. Oh no, they’ve spun out. They’re unpleasant to staff for, and now my players wont ask on the LFRP channel for fear of dealing with this person, but I cannot ban them now, we’re kind of friends :/”
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@Yam Is this in reference to WoD culture? If so, does not apply.
I can only speak for myself in that… being admin on a game is not a customer service position and if you take out your bullshit on admin like it is one even a little bit, you run the risk of being invited to leave. That might be a difficult metric, but so is being a little asshole.
PSA: Don’t treat customer service workers poorly, either.
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@Tez said in Banning Bad, Actually?:
that we might all be coming into this from different perspectives based on our own experiences with the people involved and the situation at large. I don’t think it’s really a pure abstract thought exercise here. This is coming from a very specific example.
Can’t speak for anyone else obviously, but I have been approaching it as a purely abstract thought exercise. I don’t know the game in question or anyone involved in the original situation, and the log we saw alluded to some degree of prior history that we have no context for. Maybe there was just a bad vibe. I have no idea.
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@Faraday said in Banning Bad, Actually?:
@Tez said in Banning Bad, Actually?:
that we might all be coming into this from different perspectives based on our own experiences with the people involved and the situation at large. I don’t think it’s really a pure abstract thought exercise here. This is coming from a very specific example.
Can’t speak for anyone else obviously, but I have been approaching it as a purely abstract thought exercise. I don’t know the game in question or anyone involved in the original situation, and the log we saw alluded to some degree of prior history that we have no context for. Maybe there was just a bad vibe. I have no idea.
Same.
For those who are on the side of ban early and ban often, might I suggest running private, whitelist server for just your friends? Or maybe have a rigorous review process requiring an interview between staff and an applicant before they can CG?
Anyways, I am all for banning someone when they’re being a shit. I just didn’t think Warma Sheen was being a shit in the text provided.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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People offer public games because sometimes you get some really cool randos that turn out to be awesome. The tradeoff is that you may have to be firm with some of the bad randos.
I’ve seen folk get kindly shown the door during the CG process, so that is indeed a thing that can work, if the process is long enough for them to display their overall… vibes in public, I guess.
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@Ominous said in Banning Bad, Actually?:
For those who are on the side of ban early and ban often, might I suggest running private, whitelist server for just your friends? Or maybe have a rigorous review process requiring an interview between staff and an applicant before they can CG?
respectfully, no. The amount of time it would take to “rigorously review” applicants sounds like work, and there are plenty of good people out there that want to play games. If there’s trash in the pile, I’ll just throw it out. But I am upfront about my stance and no one has to play with me if they don’t like it.
Besides, more often than not, the real trash that needs to get shown the door doesn’t show themselves as trash until they’ve wiggled into their skin well enough and ‘established’ themselves so you feel obligated to keep them around.
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I can’t really get behind this concern that all the people will leave if their friend is banned. Maybe they will, but maybe that’s just the price you pay to save yourself months of headache.
Maybe their friends are also kind of problematic too.
Sometimes games are small. That’s okay. I have a similar banning policy on CC as Ada does. I am one GM. I work more than full time. I parent. Unfortunately, this means I’m not in the position to uplift people who aren’t able to play nicely with others.
But I want to tell stories, so I will.
