Shattered Kingdoms

And thus, the Us vs Them saga continues.
I want to type out a long message about how it isn't every ban that were against. It's the ones that were banned unjustly. The Take command incident is the biggest example.
This all sucks. It really does. We come out here and express our sincere concern about the way things have been handled, and it's all in one ear and out the other. "Find another game. Best of luck in your future endevours."
One side has to start the peace treaty. And it doesn't look like the imms want to be that one side. An inability to admit that some things that have done were wrong.
This thread has turned back into the conflict before the hard drive crash.
It sucks.

Do you have any interest in increasing the game's playercount? I'm wondering if you have a plan for the game, or if you just have accepted that it's dead. You're still very stubborn about rules for the game, but if you don't care about whether anyone plays, what is the point? Have you convinced yourself that the game being dead is just a conspiracy theory and really it's doing just fine?

I've had thoughts that dulrik is secretly tired of SK and wants it to die.
All of the bans were perfect in his eyes. The low player comforts him in knowing that the deed is almost done.
Who was that god? Zynor? "He was there in the beginning and he will
Be there in the end."
I think that Thuban was the profocized Zynor. And their plan is almost complete.
#ConspiricyTheories. Lol

But honestly? If I take a moment and think about it? This conspiracy theory just goes to show how bad things were. I mean, I'm an idiot for thinking that it could possibly be true. But the fact that, through the bans and arguments and disrespect on both sides of us vs them, I actually thought this was a plausible true scenario?
I dunno. It sucks to watch a game this great die due to conflict on the outside.

I'll say it again. If you want this game to live on, reach out to banned players and players that have left. Make it a party again.

Random rant /end.

We had about 16 people on at once yesterday, lots of of fun. I hope that players feel welcomed back by algorabs invitation. In my experience he's perfectly amicable and reasonable to deal with and I hope any banned players that want to play ask, and I hope our associated community of friends can play and see that things are going well.

We've had a lot of returning players from long ago, not so long ago, truly new people. Start grinding that character today.

I can speak personally and say that isn't all I use it for either, I also use it to know who to keep a closer eye on. One of the reasons people who were previously punished for something get punished more frequently isn't just that they are repeat offenders, but because they are generally watched a bit closer. Only so many hours in the day, and while it is one of my primary roles here I would rather spend my sometimes limited time taking care of other things that are more enjoyable. I don't think anyone should have guilt determined by their previous actions, however, I think it's a perfectly rational action to prioritize those more likely to break rules when checking to see if rules are being broken.



This is where I start to have a problem with your thought process. Yes, someone who hasn't ever done anything wrong before could receive a lighter punishment, depending on the violation, but even if it only amounts to a warning it didn't change the guilt/innocence of the person. "A good player making an isolated mistake" is a perfectly acceptable factor to consider when deciding a punishment, but just because the punishment is a warning doesn't mean the person wasn't guilty, it just means their punishment was more lenient. I'm not Thuban, and I'm not speaking for him, but from this paragraph it seems more like he was describing his denial of leniency than absolving other people of guilt altogether, and the phrase "benefit of the doubt" was just a turn of phrase a bit out of place with the rest of the thought.



Of course, however this isn't a criminal court nor a criminal case, and the more broad civil standard of "preponderance of evidence" is the better analogy. If it's more likely than not that something happened a certain way, that's enough. I know this game is important to you, and to everyone, and believe me I would rather get it right every time then have someone in trouble unfairly, but if all evidence points to someone breaking the rules, and their defense is lacking or non-existent then a punishment MAY need to take place, or may not. Again, every situation is different as the people involved and the actions taken.



We also have a tendency to snoop everyone now and then and look for people to reward, or RP to conduct. I think I did some weird RP with a random player involving some pets at a portal stone a few months back just because I was bored and there weren't a whole lot of other people online at the time. I'm not saying Thuban, or myself, don't prioritize who we monitor in some way. I can say that, because I will say right here with no regrets that I do this myself. It's less important that we're spending more of our time monitoring certain players, and more important how we handle what we find. If I find someone abusing a bug while looking for someone to reward, or looking for someone breaking a rule, it doesn't really matter because I still have to deal with what I found. Same is true for looking for someone to reward or RP with, meaning if I snoop you and find you trying to do something positive, no matter if the snoop was a rules check, I should be engaging with you just the same.



I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time defending or attacking Thuban, but these kinds of posts do help me as long as they stay constructive.

From what I can tell, you seem to be upset because you feel Thuban used past actions to ascertain guilt for current actions. I personally don't think that happened, I just think his valuation of some of the infractions that seem to be causing the most headache are very different than yours, and some others, but that's just my personal read. Me and Thuban sometimes differ on the severity of the infraction, and the level of punishment, but it's not always in a direction that makes me the good person. I can also say that if I felt I had my past actions used to solely determine my current guilt I'd be just as upset, if not more so.

I can tell you I'll personally be striving to only determine guilt using currently available evidence. I can tell you I have felt profiled and punished based on heresay in the past, and I hated it. I can also tell you that I later found out in my specific situation, I couldn't have been more wrong, and the person who punished me didn't even know who I was. Lastly, I can tell you that I at least have a passing understanding of how negative it feels to be judged for something you had nothing to do with and then have people jumping to conclusions based on that judgement. I'm kind of living it in these forums right now, for better and for worse.



I just wanted to touch on this, because I think it is important. I am being very sincere when I say I want people to find happiness elsewhere if they can't find it here. Believe it or not, not everything is a resolvable issue. Sometimes trust can be too broken to even communicate in a way that seems logical, and everything is too infused with emotion to step outside ourselves to really look at the situation. There isn't any blame to be placed for that kind of thing, it just happens when people care strongly about something. I don't harbor a single ounce of ill-will to anyone who just doesn't feel capable of playing here for whatever reason, but frankly I would rather someone exorcise those demons elsewhere and maybe come back someday then continue to basically suffer by their association. Would it be better if they were able to play through it? Absolutely, but as I said, sometimes that isn't an immediate option.

I truly don't know you that well, but reading your posts makes me think you do put thought into the situation, and you do regret the way things are. When you talk about believing the conspiracy theory regarding a server issue, and to paraphrase, how that belief was a symptom of a larger problem, I can't agree more. But, Thuban isn't the rules manager anymore regardless of how you feel about the time he was, and while there ARE some people who won't ever be unbanned for various reasons, it's a minuscule number, and everyone else who actually wants to return just needs to reach out to me and start the process to figure out where things stand.

TLDR: Sometimes both people are wrong to an outsider, sometimes everyone is right from their own viewpoint, but if you run into a situation where both sides are sure they are right, it may just be that both sides are judging different things.

Edit: Apologies for the delayed responses, to everyone. Been mostly without computer access the past few days, and my walls of text aren't very compatible with mobile technology.

We can debate all day as to whether Thuban used past behavior as a determining factor for guilt, that's going to ultimately turn into wordplay and semantics. I think the fact that Thuban gave harsh punishments for infractions that even he admitted would have garnered warnings for other players stands on its own, and that is fundamentally wrong and unfair.

I'm not here to ask you to take a dump on Thuban, though. I'm here trying to give my advice on a better course of action.
That's very good to hear, although I would hope it goes without saying. I'd add a separate request to your thought process.

If someone breaks a rule in a way that would result in a warning for most players, then give them a warning regardless of whether or not they're a 'repeat offender' and then post the warning publicly so that other players will know not to do the same thing. If you're not willing to give warnings to 'repeat offenders' under the same circumstances as you would give them to others, then you're setting yourself up for an unfair system, because even according to your own logic you snoop 'repeat offenders' more than others. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to snoop people who have broken rules in the past, in fact I think it makes perfect sense: But if you do, you should keep in mind that they should deserve the same benefit of the doubt as all other players do, or else you're going to exhibit behavior that's indistinguishable from player-targeting.

I can mostly agree with all of this, but I will point out that the circumstances ARE fundamentally different with most people you or I would consider average players and 'repeat offenders'. One of the circumstances that is important is whether or not the person has violated the rule before, violated similar rules, or been involved in other similar issues in the past(e.g.: previous instances of harassment against a specific player). If two 'repeat offenders" did the same thing? Absolutely, the punishment should generally be similar, and the same for two people who are not. However, if they fall in different categories, it becomes more difficult to say they should always be the same, and may more often be determined in part by the prior history of the player, and the severity of the infraction. Someone with a history of bug abuse could be different than someone with a history of harassment, and while both can be serious infractions, if the bug abuse guy gets upset and harasses someone for the first time, it could be looked at a little differently than the harassment guy having yet another harassment issue. I just don't think things are that black and white all the time, but the worse the rules infraction is the more I agree with you that they should trend towards being the same punishment, regardless of pretend categories.

Somewhat in the spirit of what you're saying, I think if a player is having a severe penalty placed on them, like deletion/banning/large curses, it should be clear whether it is an action taken due to that singular infraction, or if it's more of a "culmination" type punishment. Sometimes we do a good job of saying it's a "history of X" or "repeated violations of X", and sometimes we don't, and I think it might make decisions a bit more clear to other players when they ask why one punishment was different than the other.

In other words, I want any punishments that have to be given out to be fair, not just equal. I do understand that's the harder way to do it because it's much harder to judge relative fairness, but my general guideline is a punishment should be designed to improve behavior. If a small curse and a warning are the options, I would much rather go with a warning if I feel like it will have an impact. Why? Because people are much less likely to get salty over a quick warning to correct the behavior, and then often end up doing other things which require more intervention. On the flip side, if I've already provided you a warning, it's hard for me to imagine a second one is going to have more impact than the first. I'll also be honest and say, the less hateful and spiteful the person is over what is already an annoying task, the less likely I am to remember that person at all, which if you're trying to stay off the "check on me more frequently list" is probably for the best.

I know I might not be the model of what you want in rules enforcement, but I hope through this conversation you can at least see that I want what is best for the game, and more importantly the people that play it.