Deletion of Party Organizations

[Zongxian]

I realize there have been new rules implemented for party organizations. This came without any forewarning and, as far as I'm aware, without any input from the players. As a result of these absurd new rules, every Gao-Showa related organization is now gone. All the contained information, gone. Some of those, admittedly, were not something I paid much attention to, however, others were closely related to RP organizations. In particular, the Seodongyo organization. Yes, it had two members, but it was nonetheless something that existed to represent the religious organization internationally and it also contained information about the religion and its list of leaders. I'm sure that there are other organizations which have now been deleted which were also directly RP-related (beyond just simply being some kind of ideological alliance) in some way.

Why was this decision made; couldn't a clean-up have been accomplished without going so far as to implement yet another rule?
I am extremely disappointed with the way Moderation has unexpectedly handled this issue...

[Aquinas]

I am sorry for your disappointment, but I would point out that Party Organisations are not - and never have been - a secure way of storing important information for the long-term. They have always been liable either to be deleted or to have their descriptions amended by other organisation leaders.

Deleted organisations can of course be re-created anew, although you will have to start from scratch and build up a new membership list.

The minimum requirements for preventing an organisation from being deleted are a little stiffer than before, but remain modest and are far from unreasonable.

As previously stated, we believe the game will benefit from having fewer organisations, but more relevant organisations. The current list of organisations is markedly shorter and more workable than the previous one.

[CCP]

Aquinas, you have got to change this rule. You are disrupting RP by deleting all these orgs. I started an org with an inactive account to build an in-game coalition to pressure a ruling party into changing a law. Not six hours after I created the org, you deleted it and didn't so much as send me a note explaining what happened. Now you're gonna come back and quote your rules to me, but you didn't even give me a A DAY to comply with your rule because you deleted the org before I had a chance to recruit active parties to it.

Here's another example: one org I'm part of elected an inactive account player as head of the org. We demoted everyone to full member so that our elected player would be the only leadership. But then the inactive account player reminded us that your rule says you'll delete an org just for having no LEADERSHIP with an inactive account even though we have multiple active accounts at full membership level. We had a very specific reason for assigning roles that way and the player in question is a major player who simply decided to dial down their game activity for a while for real life reasons. But your rule is more concerned with how organized the organizations page looks than how it actually contributes to players' use and enjoyment of the game.

Please review this rule and please solicit player input before creating new ones. This rule is absurd.

[Aquinas]

Not got time to reply now, but moved thread from Moderation to General Discussion.

Aquinas, you have got to change this rule. You are disrupting RP by deleting all these orgs. I started an org with an inactive account to build an in-game coalition to pressure a ruling party into changing a law. Not six hours after I created the org, you deleted it and didn't so much as send me a note explaining what happened. Now you're gonna come back and quote your rules to me, but you didn't even give me a A DAY to comply with your rule because you deleted the org before I had a chance to recruit active parties to it.

Here's another example: one org I'm part of elected an inactive account player as head of the org. We demoted everyone to full member so that our elected player would be the only leadership. But then the inactive account player reminded us that your rule says you'll delete an org just for having no LEADERSHIP with an inactive account even though we have multiple active accounts at full membership level. We had a very specific reason for assigning roles that way and the player in question is a major player who simply decided to dial down their game activity for a while for real life reasons. But your rule is more concerned with how organized the organizations page looks than how it actually contributes to players' use and enjoyment of the game.

Please review this rule and please solicit player input before creating new ones. This rule is absurd.

[Aquinas]

Now I have a little more time to write...

(Although to be honest I was hoping I might be permitted to enjoy the rest of my hard-earned holiday without having to face yet another negative, hectoring post like this - but I appreciate that was probably hoping too much...)

Aquinas, you have got to change this rule.

Respectfully, please do not try to dictate to me what to do.

You are disrupting RP by deleting all these orgs.

I do not go around arbitrarily trying to disrupt RP by deleting organisations. It is purely the actions of players which determines whether or not organisations meet the criteria for deletion outlined under section 12 of the Game Rules.

What does disrupt the playing experience for some players is when they can't achieve prominence for their organisations because they are pushed well down the list, behind other organisations which are not serving any real purpose (and perhaps have not done so for years). This is partly why it was made easier to cull organisations, the idea being we would have fewer organisations, but the organisations we were left with would be more relevant. To give you the other side of the argument here: if an organisation has been neglected by players to the point where it has no active leaders and/or members, then what point is it serving?

I started an org with an inactive account to build an in-game coalition to pressure a ruling party into changing a law. Not six hours after I created the org, you deleted it

There have been past Moderators who would have treated that as a form of multiple accounting, and also as a blatant attempt to bypass the one-organisation-per-party convention, and punished you accordingly. Fortunately for you, I do not penalise players for doing this, but you ought to be aware that what you did there was arguably on the more controversial side of what is acceptable.

and didn't so much as send me a note explaining what happened. Now you're gonna come back and quote your rules to me, but you didn't even give me a DAY to comply with your rule because you deleted the org before I had a chance to recruit active parties to it.

Since it is not my habit to personally consult with you before following through on every rules procedure, I am puzzled as to why this should surprise you. I am also puzzled as to why you should expect me to send consultation messages to members of organisations who are inactive (ie. not even in the game at the present time).

Or is that you are expecting me to hold a public consultation and await your personal approval every single time I spot a dead organisation that qualifies for deletion?

Please review this rule and please solicit player input before creating new ones. This rule is absurd.

I am very open to taking on board the views of players when it comes to rules reform issue, but here's the thing: you don't exactly make it easy to do that when you repeatedly resort to personal hectoring of Moderators instead of providing respectful, constructive feedback.

Only a few months ago you demanded special treatment for creating a Cultural Protocol and then, when you didn't get your way, criticised the Moderators and threatened you and your co-players would all leave. Ever since then, its been a drip-drip-drip of negative comments from you, whilst largely shying away from suggesting anything constructive.

Only yesterday, the requirements for creating Cultural Protocols in Culturally Open nations were relaxed, and that was largely in response to feedback from players. Including from you.

Let me tell you something: I was privately strongly urged not to introduce any changes, and warned that if I did so, certain players would think they could treat Moderators like doormats, demanding from them whatever they want and treating them however they want. That was not advice I decided to take, but after reading your post above, I can't help but wonder whether there was more truth in it than I at first appreciated. To be totally frank with you, the attitude you have been displaying over quite some time now is precisely the kind of thing that will sap the desire of almost any Moderator in this game to want to carry on.

Even with the rules for creating Cultural Protocols made easier, at some point, we will still have a player (or players) complaining they are too tough. And even if the rules on organisations gave them greater protection against deletion, at some point, we would still have a player (or players) complaining because some organisation or other was deleted. My point? However we frame the rules, there will still be those occasions when not everything will go the way you want it. If certain players could be more reasonable and realistic about recognising that, then we would all be a lot happier.

If anybody wants to discuss the rules surrounding Party Organisations in a positive and constructive way, then please do that. In fact, I strongly welcome it - I don't mind saying here that I was considering reform of these rules in the run-up to the close of the last Cultural Era.

However, if anyone wants to launch into another general "campaign" against Moderation...fine, but please do me a favour, put it off a few days and let me enjoy the rest of my holiday in peace. I'll be back home by the 25th.

[Siggon Kristov]

I am sorry for your disappointment, but I would point out that Party Organisations are not - and never have been - a secure way of storing important information for the long-term.

Interesting that you would say this, because I used to go through the Party Organisations page and just link all the ones that had 0 active members. IIRC, Moderation once said that they wouldn't delete a particular organisation - even though it had zero active members - because it had some historical RP significance and some information was backed up in it (maybe in messages? I don't know...) or something like that.

Would you say that treaties are a secure way of storing important information? Because you deleted mine even when it had a decent number of ratifications.

[CCP]

Now I have a little more time to write...

(Although to be honest I was hoping I might be permitted to enjoy the rest of my hard-earned holiday without having to face yet another negative, hectoring post like this - but I appreciate that was probably hoping too much...)

Aquinas, your decision to attend to managing this game during a vacation is your decision. If you were seriously concerned that addressing player concerns now would distract from your personal activities, you could've left this and other posts unattended til your return, you could've informed players that you would not be available for some or all moderation for a certain period, or you could've arranged for someone else to cover your role while away. That you're trying to use your personal choices as a cover to characterize my game feedback as inconsiderate of your personal time is attention-seeking and petty. I have not come to expect either of those things from you. To this point, you have consistently conducted yourself as an adult in interactions with me, and I have addressed you in plain, direct terms in kind.

Aquinas, you have got to change this rule.

Respectfully, please do not try to dictate to me what to do.

Aquinas, if I were dictating to you, I wouldn't have to bother registering feedback and requests here. This is another reaching mischaracterization that I am genuinely surprised to read from you.

You are disrupting RP by deleting all these orgs.

I do not go around arbitrarily trying to disrupt RP by deleting organisations. It is purely the actions of players which determines whether or not organisations meet the criteria for deletion outlined under section 12 of the Game Rules.

Aquinas, are you intentionally trying to evade the point? As I said in another thread, to the extent that your policy doesn't fully account for how various players use the game, it is disruptive to gameplay. This is a simple, clear, and obvious point that has nothing to do with arbitrariness. Why are you trying to shift the discussion to an unrelated matter?

What does disrupt the playing experience for some players is when they can't achieve prominence for their organisations because they are pushed well down the list, behind other organisations which are not serving any real purpose (and perhaps have not done so for years). This is partly why it was made easier to cull organisations, the idea being we would have fewer organisations, but the organisations we were left with would be more relevant.

The organization I referred to above had been so recently created with an inactive account that it was at the bottom of the list on the organizations page. I appreciate you sharing your rationale for creating your organization deletion rule, but it is not a scenario that applies here.

To give you the other side of the argument here: if an organisation has been neglected by players to the point where it has no active leaders and/or members, then what point is it serving?

Yes, that is clearly a substantive and important concern. But given your recent allowance for active use of inactive accounts, that important argument will need to consider implications of your expansions and modifications to the game rules. In other words, if players are allowed to play the game with inactive accounts, then it can't be credibly determined that an organization created with an inactive account is being neglected and serving no purpose some six hours after its been created and before its founder has had adequate time to recruit active account users and demonstrate the purpose of the organization. I said this above. So why are you replying to me as if you are unacquainted with the specific case that gave rise to this rules feedback post? Again, I personally appreciate you sharing the rationale that underlied your rules decision in this case, but it evades the point. Why are you avoiding responding to the point I actually raised?

I started an org with an inactive account to build an in-game coalition to pressure a ruling party into changing a law. Not six hours after I created the org, you deleted it

There have been past Moderators who would have treated that as a form of multiple accounting, and also as a blatant attempt to bypass the one-organisation-per-party convention, and punished you accordingly. Fortunately for you, I do not penalise players for doing this, but you ought to be aware that what you did there was arguably on the more controversial side of what is acceptable.

I didn't know there was a one org per party rule (you called it a 'convention' here, so I'm still not sure whether it's a rule or not). If there is, that's all the more reason to send players a short note informing them of the reasons for deleting an organization rather than leaving players to wonder what the problem was.

I'm sensing from your writing that the one org per player rule (? convention?) has been in force since before your current time as game moderator. If that's the case, it would be another instance where the rules need to be reconciled for conformity with your recent rules updates, specifically your recent change allowing gameplay use of inactive accounts.

and didn't so much as send me a note explaining what happened. Now you're gonna come back and quote your rules to me, but you didn't even give me a DAY to comply with your rule because you deleted the org before I had a chance to recruit active parties to it.

Since it is not my habit to personally consult with you before following through on every rules procedure, I am puzzled as to why this should surprise you. I am also puzzled as to why you should expect me to send consultation messages to members of organisations who are inactive (ie. not even in the game at the present time).

Or is that you are expecting me to hold a public consultation and await your personal approval every single time I spot a dead organisation that qualifies for deletion?

Aquinas, you quoted me specifically telling you my expectations: 'a note explaining what happened,' and 'a DAY to comply with your rule [so] I had a chance to recruit active parties.' Why are you pretending not to know my request after quoting it yourself? And why are you distorting it as a request for public consultation and my personal approval when I specifically told you my request? And why are you pretending that all players using inactive accounts are 'not even in the game at the present time' when you recently created a policy specifically allowing inactive account players to be in the game?

Please review this rule and please solicit player input before creating new ones. This rule is absurd.

I am very open to taking on board the views of players when it comes to rules reform issue, but here's the thing: you don't exactly make it easy to do that when you repeatedly resort to personal hectoring of Moderators instead of providing respectful, constructive feedback.

Only a few months ago you demanded special treatment for creating a Cultural Protocol and then, when you didn't get your way, criticised the Moderators and threatened you and your co-players would all leave. Ever since then, its been a drip-drip-drip of negative comments from you, whilst largely shying away from suggesting anything constructive.

Regarding 'shying away from suggesting anything constructive,' you're again pretending not to have read several extended and substantive rules suggestions raised by me in the last few months. In the cp creation rule thread, you and I corresponded for several days specifically regarding one suggestion I raised. Why are you mischaracterizing my posts? I said above that I've always assumed you to be an adult, and so I've communicated with you in direct, adult terms. I've never read you to be thin-skinned or prone to taking substantive disagreement as a personal slight. In mpog's cp discussion thread, I repeatedly listed characteristics of yours which I find admirable and strong attributes in credit to the game. I wrote those things sincerely, not to blow smoke up your ass or coddle you, because again I took you to be an adult. But here, you are characterizing my use of the terms 'you've got to change this rule,' 'disrupting RP,' and 'this rule is absurd' as personal hectoring.

Aquinas, I do not know you from Joe Schmo. I play this game as a personal diversion in large part because I appreciate what I took as the thoughtfulness and creativity of several regular players here, yourself prominent amongst them. I am not telling you this to curry favor with you or to calm you down. I'm telling you this so that you will know and hopefully accept that I have no personal interest in you, positive or negative, at all. I read in mpog's thread several players characterizing some criticisms of your moderation decisions and style as a personal crusade against you or to hound you out of game moderation. I didn't reply to those comments because they read to me as obviously unrelated and off the mark, and I didn't message you personally seeking to reassure you about my motives or intentions because my consistently direct, sincere, and thoughtful interactions with you gave me confidence that you would not misread my and others' criticisms in the way those commenters did. I do not apologize for what I've written here or in other threads regarding gameplay policy because there's been nothing inappropriate in the content or tone of my posts. I am worried though about how your misreading of my motives and mischaracterization of some of my criticisms as insincere has brought to the game forum and to our interactions a tension that is unhealthy and unwarranted for a leisure activity like this. You are simply reading into my critical comments positions and motives which are not there and not mine, and to get over the apparent discomfort you're feeling with this situation, you need to internalize that reality and read my critical comments in that light.

Regarding special treatment, you linked to a post of mine prefaced with 'please' and an implicit acknowledgement that the exceptional circumstance would butt up against the limits of fairness, but here you mischaracterize my request as a demand. Regarding threaten to leave the game, you're mischaracterizing the post. There wasn't a threat. I didn't need to threaten you or Reddy. I was reminding you of the reality of the sometimes difficulty of maintaining gameplay activity for a month at a stretch in the face of real-time demands. You or Reddy deactivated the account in question near the precise 4-day mark and the player ended up signing in some two hours after being deactivated. As it turned out, the player did indeed end up leaving the game forcing us to scramble for a replacement and restart your 1 month clock. Now why does it bother you more that I reminded you of that potential problem than it does that the problem occurred precisely as feared? You lost an active player due to rigidity. Why did my asking 'please allow as much leeway as you can' bother you more than losing an active player? I took you at face value Aquinas, and this kind of diversion and defensiveness is very surprising to me.

Only yesterday, the requirements for creating Cultural Protocols in Culturally Open nations were relaxed, and that was largely in response to feedback from players. Including from you.

Yes, you're very responsive. You've read me say that elsewhere. I have sometimes thanked you (and Reddy) for favorable outcomes to one or two of my requests. I've stopped doing it so as not to attract further attention to what might be or become contentious discussions. I've also several times thanked you for your responsiveness to a criticism, concern, or request that resulted in a decision by you unfavorable to my request or position. But it reads to me here as if you feel unappreciated for your responsiveness. If so, that's a personal challenge of your own, in part because you have been repeatedly acknowledged and thanked for your contributions and apparent personal attributes by various players including myself.

Let me tell you something: I was privately strongly urged not to introduce any changes, and warned that if I did so, certain players would think they could treat Moderators like doormats, demanding from them whatever they want and treating them however they want. That was not advice I decided to take, but after reading your post above, I can't help but wonder whether there was more truth in it than I at first appreciated. To be totally frank with you, the attitude you have been displaying over quite some time now is precisely the kind of thing that will sap the desire of almost any Moderator in this game to want to carry on.

I haven't in any place here treated you as a doormat. I have been frank and direct about my surprise, concern, and dissatisfaction with various moderation decisions. You remember that I did the same when Reddy joined you as a moderator. I'm not sure if he would attest here, but I can say with certainty that my interactions with Reddy since he decided to leave game moderation have been unfailingly amicable and problem-free. In other words, it wasn't personal. Just like it's not personal with you. You need to stop reading into my comments things that are not there, you need to take both my criticisms and compliments at face value, and you need to stop being so thin-skinned. Anyone who thinks providing a service to 200-sum odd strangers is going to be a walk in the park is deluding themselves. You shouldn't expect it, and if you try to respond to that reality by following the private advice you referred to above, you'll only be hurting the game.

Even with the rules for creating Cultural Protocols made easier, at some point, we will still have a player (or players) complaining they are too tough. And even if the rules on organisations gave them greater protection against deletion, at some point, we would still have a player (or players) complaining because some organisation or other was deleted. My point? However we frame the rules, there will still be those occasions when not everything will go the way you want it. If certain players could be more reasonable and realistic about recognising that, then we would all be a lot happier.

I'm assuming that you're referring to me as one of the 'certain players.' Please correct me if I'm wrong. If so, you're of course correct that people will always disagree about any matter and that players here will rarely be universally content. You have several times decided against a request or position of mine, and you have noticed that I have either thanked you for your attentiveness or left your decision unremarked precisely because I appreciate the competing concerns you're trying to manage and because I have observed that you've done so with consistent courtesy and responsiveness, even when your decisions have been ill-advised or poor. Since I've repeatedly acknowledged both the challenges under which and the admirable character with which you tend to operate, I'm wondering if it is my frank and direct use of language like 'ill-advised' and 'poor decisions' that is upsetting you so much. If so, Aquinas, get over it. Again, I talk to you like an adult because that's how you've conducted yourself til now.

[SelucianCrusader]

Oh. My. God.

I'm not gonna write "ban someone" as I don't want another penalty, but had I been in charge..

It's a very important point you raise Aquinas, players (especially a special kind of them) shouldn't be allowed to think they can use moderators as doormats. When IdioC abolished Pax Cynica he purposely did it to make all further rulings only at the moderator(s) own discretion. Mod's shouldn't be shackled by something they can change as they want, nor prevented from doing what's best for the community.

I'm not going to insinuate that the behaviour some exhibit towards moderation has to do with a psychiatric condition, but whatever it is, it's not the mods job to take care of.