Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Threads from before the Dec 15, 2023 migration.

Re: Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Postby Rogue » Wed Dec 05, 2018 10:40 pm

Holding a public consultation isn't the same as holding a referendum on changes, even if all the feedback you had received had been negative, you would still have been free to implement the changes but you would at least have known in advance that the wording was unclear and that players had concerns. It seems to me that the part of this reply that I have bolded is the exact reason why we hold public consultations. Even with three Moderators considering a change, you might still miss some issue that a member of the community can quickly point out and then we can resolved prior to unilaterally implementing changes.


I totally agree this could have been done differently. And well keep this experience in mind when something like this occurs again.
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Re: Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Postby Aquinas » Fri Dec 14, 2018 9:30 am

I am sympathetic to most of the points other players have made here. A few points to add from me:

(i) We were informed less than a month ago that Wouter is planning to encode a visibility penalty for reactivated parties. Presumably this would go at least part of the way towards resolving the issues these rules reforms are designed to address. This raises the question of whether there is a case for waiting until we have seen how the new "visibility penalty" affects things, before rushing to change the rules.

(ii) In my judgement, it is not necessary or desirable to explicitly state in the rules that an account which has been used to multi or proxy three times will not be reactivated again. I would remove this part altogether. It is enough to state elsewhere in the rules document that multiing and using proxies is forbidden, and is taken seriously. Moderators should use their discretion when it comes to dealing with specific cases of multiing or proxying. I know from my own experience in Moderation that these cases can be very different. Without wanting to go into great detail here, some cases (the majority, in fact) are accidental/inadvertent and relatively "innocent", whereas others most definitely are not and are far more serious.

I will add, though, that saying to a player "Moderation won't reactivate your account, but you are free to create a new account and rejoin the game" strikes me as an unusual sanction to impose. Would a warning or even a temporary suspension be more appropriate? During my time, the only occasions I can recall where players were told "We won't reactivate your account, but you can create another one..." were when account-sharing was involved. ie. It was discovered that more than one player was accessing an in-game account, which is against the rules. In those cases I would not reactivate the account, because I could not be certain both individuals would not continue to be able to access it. Those cases, though, were very, very rare.

Another issue is that if saying to a player "Moderation won't reactivate your account, but you are free to create a new account and rejoin the game" is enshrined in the rules as a specific punishment for specific offences then it will make it more likely that players will feel offended, and take it personally, if their reactivation request is denied due to alleged "inactivity". The risk is it will feel like a personal punishment, even if it is not really intended to be one, only a general procedure to encourage active account use. This is especially so given that, presumably, some of the players affected by these new rules will not have had their reactivation requests denied on these grounds before.

Soyiz (Wu Coup)Today at 21:49
Ok, can I ask for clarification then?
I have a party that has been inactivated three times for inactivity. Is it possible for me to reactivate it?
Mr.GodToday at 21:50
no
not if the reason for your inactivation was just u being inactive
without giving moderation prior notice


I was a bit concerned by Mr God's suggestion that players deemed to be inactive/"party-sitting" might evade having their reactivation requests denied if they have given Moderation prior notice of the situation. This could get Moderators into some messy situations. For example, the player who, when denied his reactivation request, swears blind to you that he told you he wasn't going to be active eight months ago, and you can't remember whether he did or not. Or the player who accuses you of trying to "protect" a friend who keeps "party-sitting". ..

(iii) I am not keen on the suggestion of a blanket ban on accounts being reactivated whenever multiing or proxying has been involved. This is 2018. People are not always fully aware of the details of the internet connection they are using, particularly if they are using a public wifi, or a wifi at work/university/friend's house/wherever. Many players will find themselves using a proxy, or sharing a wifi connection with another player, without even being aware it has happened. Even some browser software has proxy settings people are not aware about. As examples, there is an issue with the Opera browser sometimes being on VPN mode (shameful confession: this one happened to me!), and there used to be an issue with Google Chrome sometimes doing something similar. So to sum up, Moderators need to take a strong line against multiing and proxying, but they also need to exercise commonsense and take reasonable account the realities surrounding how people access in 2018. Each particular incident needs looking at on its own merits.

*

That's a few points made, there are a few more I might make in a bit.
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Re: Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Postby cm9777 » Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:10 am

(i) I am of the opinion that we can still push ahead with rule changes however we can ofc leave the door open to reverse this if the visibility penalty does do all the work on its own. I'm of the opinion that it won't however we can leave the door open to it.

(ii) The main issue here is dealing with repeat offenders. Often the first time is an innocent mistake however some will use that and try to multi again and again. I agree that a warning or suspension is more appropriate and perhaps thats a change we can consider.

As well as this, Mr God has asked me to clarify that he retracted his comments later in that conversation with Soy.
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Re: Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Postby Aquinas » Mon Dec 17, 2018 3:32 pm

cm9777 wrote:(i) I am of the opinion that we can still push ahead with rule changes however we can ofc leave the door open to reverse this if the visibility penalty does do all the work on its own. I'm of the opinion that it won't however we can leave the door open to it.


Respectfully, it seems to me that the truth of the matter is that you do not know what the impact of the awaited visibility penalty for reactivated parties will be, but that despite this, Moderation has rushed ahead to change the rules without any consultation with players. We have been told this was urgently necessary in order to "deal with inactive players".

Talking of inactive players, I wonder if you could spare a few moments of your time to examine the circumstances surrounding this one...

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This player has not logged in for 5 days and has missed 13 bill votes (possibly soon to be 14) over a period of 6 in-game years/12 real-life days. The player meets the grounds for inactivation, having not logged in for more than 4 days, but I am also quite sure some would interpret the inactivity pattern as party sitting.

Under the current rules, should this player be inactivated and be informed that in future he will not be permitted to reactivate this account? If not, should he at least be sent a Moderation message explaining to him that his pattern of inactivity came close to party sitting, and that if this happens in future, he could be inactivated and/or barred from reactivating this account?

For reference, a reminder, again, of what the Game Rules currently say in regards to inactivation and reactivation...

An inactive user can request to be reactivated using the Reactivation Requests Thread, however they will not be reactivated if any of the following apply:

I. they have the log-in-bug;
II. are in breach of the rules;
III. they have been inactivated as either a “party-sitter”, a multi or for using proxy IP addresses three or more times total;
IV. if they have been inactivated on the grounds of rules 5.c.ii to 5.c.iii three or more times in total.
V. if they have been inactive without clear intent of being active in the past


Users can request the early inactivation of another party in their nation, using the Party Inactivation Requests Thread on the following conditions:

i. They have not logged on for 3 days (72 hours)
ii. They have not logged on for 2 days (48 hours) and have not filled out their party description, changed the name of their party or voted on more than one bill.
iii. They are “Party-Sitting,” which involves logging on occasionally but not voting on bills. A user will generally be considered party sitting if this behaviour lasts for at least 5 days.
iv. They only log in or vote on bills every 3 days without giving a reason for any behaviour, usually attempting to dodge inactivation due to the above rules.
v. Similar offence not covered by the above rules, but do not contribute to the gameplay to the satisfaction of other players. Communication must be attempted with the player before discussing with the Moderation over this.
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Re: Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Postby cm9777 » Tue Dec 18, 2018 1:55 am

Indeed, the player has been inactivated as per this post. That party has been inactive for quite a while and this is why the changes are needed. With the visibility penalty it seems the party would need to do quite a bit of work to build up again but that’s more than understandable if that user has missed 13 bill votes.

You seem to have overlooked the section which bars re activation after three inactivations so the process here is to send a message to the account explaining that if the behaviour is repeated, they would be bared from reactivating though with the visibility as low as it is, I imagine it’d be more productive to make a new one. Same with the last section about not having an intent to be active in the past, it is moderations view that there has most definitely been an intent.

Should we change over to a more player based system, then I imagine an amnesty might or might not be enacted and the new rules would be made clear especially since under such a system there would be much further reaching consequences. However whether or not we will go ahead with such a change will be decided when phase 1 of the rule changes goes public.
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Re: Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Postby Aquinas » Tue Dec 18, 2018 4:42 am

cm9777 wrote:Indeed, the player has been inactivated as per this post. That party has been inactive for quite a while and this is why the changes are needed.


Could you explain what you mean here? The inactivation rules have not been changed. There has been a recent rewording of the reactivation rules, but I do not see how they would have made any difference in terms of getting this account inactivated.

cm9777 wrote:You seem to have overlooked the section which bars re activation after three inactivations


I misread that, thinking the "three or more times" thing was only about using proxies.

cm9777 wrote:so the process here is to send a message to the account explaining that if the behaviour is repeated, they would be bared from reactivating


To be clear, is this being treated as a "party sitting" case and not just as a routine inactivation?

cm9777 wrote:Should we change over to a more player based system, then I imagine an amnesty might or might not be enacted and the new rules would be made clear especially since under such a system there would be much further reaching consequences. However whether or not we will go ahead with such a change will be decided when phase 1 of the rule changes goes public.


I failed to follow this...do you suppose you could try explaining again what you mean?
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Re: Questions re: rule changes made Dec 5 2018

Postby cm9777 » Tue Dec 18, 2018 9:34 am

Aquinas wrote:
cm9777 wrote:Indeed, the player has been inactivated as per this post. That party has been inactive for quite a while and this is why the changes are needed.


Could you explain what you mean here? The inactivation rules have not been changed. There has been a recent rewording of the reactivation rules, but I do not see how they would have made any difference in terms of getting this account inactivated.

cm9777 wrote:You seem to have overlooked the section which bars re activation after three inactivations


I misread that, thinking the "three or more times" thing was only about using proxies.

cm9777 wrote:so the process here is to send a message to the account explaining that if the behaviour is repeated, they would be bared from reactivating


To be clear, is this being treated as a "party sitting" case and not just as a routine inactivation?

cm9777 wrote:Should we change over to a more player based system, then I imagine an amnesty might or might not be enacted and the new rules would be made clear especially since under such a system there would be much further reaching consequences. However whether or not we will go ahead with such a change will be decided when phase 1 of the rule changes goes public.


I failed to follow this...do you suppose you could try explaining again what you mean?


I was just saying that as of when I had written the post, that I had inactivated the party. Since the party was inactive for 5 days, it was treated as a routine inactivation. We only look at party sitting when the party was last active less than 72 hours ago as this is often when they go under the radar. Now the message in this case was sent was based on 5C V. in that if the behaviour continues it would be apparent that the account went inactive without clear intent of being active in the past. Now as I mentioned before, at the moment there is clear intent of being active however if this party were to be reactivated and go inactive more times, the opinion of moderation would change.

As for the last bit I was simply following up on your suggestion of not just simply barring an account from reactivating but rather suspending the user. In our first phase of rule changes we may implement this suggestion and I was thinking out loud there about some sort of amnesty to carry over to a new system.
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