Numerous points to respond to here.
A) I personally don’t believe that doing this in private would hinder accountability. We’re still accountable to Wouter and ultimately can’t do something unjust without the player having a valid recourse to deal with it. In addition, I don’t believe there is much to be accountable for here — ultimately I believe the need for the rules to be clarified would arise without the arguments and lengthy debate taking place here and that the transparency shown here didn’t achieve much that couldn’t have been eachieved quicker and easier in a calm discussion. I think a private discussion is the best way to do this — regardless the door will always be open for a private discussion about potential invalidations if you’d rather deal with it that way than risk getting in a spat.
The above is just my opinion, not representative of cm or Polites. However, speaking as Moderation, since multiple players have raised concerns, we are willing to continue holding such discussions publicly on the condition that
the aggressive atmosphere and harmful remarks seen here in these argumentative debates do not continue. If these discussions happen in public they must be calm and reasonable or the game becomes toxic. In other words we’re giving a blanket warning now that if the kinds of thing that happened here in recent weeks with the hostility return, we will be forced either to apply sanctions or resort to private discussions. Hopefully with that laid down now everyone can have these debates peacefully when they arise again in future without the need to resort to total secrecy.
B) With regards to the accusation that Polites altered the rules to save his own RP, I would like to make it clear that the idea was originally raised by Aquinas, I noted it privately with Polites and Polites agreed and implemented the law. Polites was not acting alone to cover his own back; Moderation agreed as a whole to change the rule due to it being unnecessary and confusing as a short-term solution.
C) As for my use of the word “dick”, I apologise for being unclear. However I was not targeting anyone in particular, more the general ethos of the discussion — “being a dick” was basically just a blanket statement. Again though, that’s on me, should have been more careful.
D) A vast rule redraft is most certainly on the way, and RP Laws clarity is most definitely a high priority added on our list that wasn’t an issue to us before. That’s one positive to come out of this event for sure and Spencer certainly deserves some credit for raising the issues, though we don’t support the way this debate was handled. As is traditional a full consultation will be held. The planned changes affect a great deal of the game and couldn’t possibly be made without consulting everyone on the matter. But this is all still a little further down the lane for now, lots of work to do there!
E) Thanks Aquinas and anyone else for the kind comments — or constructive feedback! — on Moderation
Always appreciated.
F) Finally, while we prefer not to discuss any details of any ongoing issues with players, I feel it’s necessary to inform you all of two things. First, you will probably notice at some stage that House Spencer has been temporarily banned from the forums. This is unrelated to the valid critiques he has raised. For privacy’s sake we can’t detail anything more except to say that it was not without warning.
Second, I would like to personally discourage anyone from trying to make judgements on the entire situation from an outside perspective. Debating this in the court of public opinion always means you will be debating a case without all of the facts. Moderation cannot and will not sacrifice confidentiality to save face, so while you’re free to argue that Moderation has been unjust, I think it’s generally a bad idea if you don’t know the full situation and don’t have the evidence. I’m not saying Moderation has done nothing wrong, nor that I believe we have acted indecently — I do think we have done the right things and am confident in the decisions we made — but just that there are the proper channels for a player who feels unjustly treated to seek a solution through and debating it here or anywhere else is unlikely to reach any helpful conclusions. Moderation doesn’t always get it right, and we accept that. But there are ways to resolve it and they do not involve trying to dissect the events from an outside perspective. We can’t stop you from doing so or believing we’ve acted unfairly, but I think this needs to be said.
Thanks
hopefully we can finally put this mess behind us.
I go by Ashley now and use she/her pronouns. This is a really old account, I don’t play now.
I was a mod in classic for a bit, then I helped make Marcapada and WM there for a while. As of 2020 I’m co-ordinating Pachapay’s development.