Shattered Kingdoms

Wow.

Has anyone stopped to think that you're taking yourselves way too seriously?

What is this crap? "an unpleasant hint or suggestion of something bad; a usually bad or insulting remark that is said in an indirect way; the act of saying something bad or insulting in an indirect way" is now the gold standard on the forums? You actually expect people to go through an appeals process to counter a post that gets reported, and you think that, of all things, is a decent way to spend time? If someone's trolling, then warn them, suspend them, or ban them (especially if they're targeting new players). If they're not trolling, then let them be. You didn't have to turn things into Peewee's playground. This game is meant to be played by people who don't need their hands held, and if someone was bothering you on the forums or harassing you before, all you had to do was use the foe feature, and/or just stop reading their posts.

This seems like a ridiculous overreaction to something. Apparently Syn was going nuts on the forums, so maybe that has something to do with it. Either way, words fail me as to the absurdity of this, unless your main goal was to drive many players to another forum for pretty much all of their communication about their true feelings about the nature of the game.

We expect people to discuss and debate game-related issues and ideas without resorting to argumentum ad hominem.

For instance, just above, you stated that you think the idea of this rule is absurd rather than that the staff is absurd (or some other colorful term) for implementing it. That's exactly what we're talking about.

It's not about taking ourselves too seriously; it's about taking the concept of building a more friendly game community seriously enough to take steps to make it so. I honestly don't understand why there is such a negative reaction to the expectation of civility. There's really no more reason to spend time attacking other people than there is to spend it appealing forum post deletions.

Well, most of the negative reaction you're receiving is account of the fact that there's no wording like what you just said in the post about the new forum rules: It's instead a description of how not only are "attacks" not allowed, but also insinuations and condescension, with great detail given to the latter two.

Now attacks, that makes sense: In fact, when I say that an "idea" is dumb, or bad, or whatever, that's not meant to be as you stated an attack on the player. However, to a LOT of people, there's not much disconnection between what they suggest or what they do, and who they are: If someone suggests an idea on the forums and I say "That's a dumb idea" much like I've just said that I think the new rules changes were a dumb idea, then I can understand someone taking that as an insinuation that -they're- dumb, even if I never said or meant that. In my eyes then, this change makes it feel like I can't disagree with someone's view of something without feeling like I'm walking on pins and needles.

To sum up, I'm really glad to hear your point of view as to the spirit of the change, but the spirit of the change really isn't clearly stated: It looks just as much like "Don't disagree with anything ever or say anything negative or you're out" to a long-timer user of the forums. I know that the staff has to deal with a lot of troublemakers who don't see an issue with breaking the spirit of the law without breaking the letter of it, but don't forget, all of the other players who would like to see the spirit of the law are here also, and they're concerned and confused.

Perhaps adding in the statement that "We expect people to discuss and debate game-related issues and ideas without resorting to argumentum ad hominem, taking up issue with an idea or stance is acceptable, but taking up issue with a player is not" to the post of the change would be a nice way to at least let the players know the real reasoning and motivation behind the change. As it stands, the change has a post which says "Here is the new environment that we want to be SK's official environment" but then doesn't go into any detail to outline what that new environment should actually look like in spirit, besides the specific rules themselves.

That's cool, Edoras. Thanks for your opinion on what wasn't clear. Hopefully this is another chance to make it clear.

For my part, I thought it was clear, but as always, opinions differ. And you are the first person that I've seen actually express this type of confusion. A lot of people have gone on posting without missing a beat (and since they never caused a problem, that was clearly correct). Everyone else that has questioned the policy did it by objecting to the violation of their first amendment rights or obliquely referring to thoughtcrimes.

So, I think that most people actually understood what was intended from the beginning. But here's what I believe: some forum members that enjoyed the public ability to display tantrums, belittle others or troll got upset that they can no longer do so. And in reaction, they blew it out of proportion to others about what the policy really means. And now you've rolled into the forums fresh from reading a wave of hysteria and are full of righteous indignation.

Again, thanks for bringing it up. But hopefully this will show your concerns are not warranted.

It's really quite simple. Each forum has a purpose. If you want to go to Gameplay and bring up an idea and then have a debate with the staff about whether it's a good idea, that's awesome. That's the major purpose of Gameplay - nothing has changed regarding what topics you can bring up there. You just have to be civil and courteous and refer to the merits and arguments about the topic in question. You can't attack the people presenting the idea (or be attacked for presenting an idea) in any way.

For example: Do not refer to an idea as 'stupid' (which almost universally implies that the person with the idea is stupid). Instead explain why an idea would not work or would be harmful to an aspect of the game environment that you care about.

And also, after reading the policy, which you clearly have done by your description, do you really object to people getting warnings and having a recourse to appeal? Those were added for fairness and transparency. Without having them, there would be more justification to criticize the staff for this policy. I find it ironic that you are now criticizing us for developing those rules.

Ultimately, no one should be afraid of posting on these forums. If you make a few mistakes, the worst that can happen is that your post gets taken down and you get a warning. Not a big deal. The warnings are a teaching moment and the only danger is if you don't want to learn from your mistakes. Even after three strikes, we won't throw you off the board entirely - we will default you to teaching mode instead of letting you post willy nilly.

Despite all the noise, only a few warning have been handed out and only one appeal demanded, which is currently in process (and is unfortunately delayed due to one of the chosen reviewers having a family emergency). The important message to take away from the policy is that the tone of the forums has been changed, and that as moderators, we won't allow it to slide back to how it used to be.

That's certainly good to hear, especially from you. From my outsiders' perspective, I definitely didn't get that feel initially at all upon reading the announcement, but I'm also in the niche of "old user of the forums that's revisiting out of curiosity." Even then, I still think that a new user could read some of those clarifications on what an insinuation is and feel like it's basically a blanket statement that is there to prevent any sort of mildly heated debate which doesn't consist of each side constantly pooping rainbows in a disingenuous fashion. A short mission statement as to what you want to be the "official atmosphere of the SK environment" to be would serve the announcement post better in my eyes, just because having to dig into the third page of a thread that is asking that question is not going to be as helpful, especially to a new user. The primary concern that I've seen of this thread is the (now clearly incorrect) assumption that we're basically not allowed to disagree with people on these forums anymore, which given the extremely broad wording in the announcement ("an unpleasant hint or suggestion of something bad" for example), doesn't require many, if at all, logical gaps in thinking.

I wasn't trying to criticize the idea of having an appeals process, I was mainly saying that if I'm going to get my posts deleted because I disagree with someone and that causes them to feel something bad, there's no real point in going through an appeals process so that I can continue to not disagree with them.

I like Meissa's succinct statement of "We expect people to discuss and debate game-related issues and ideas without resorting to argumentum ad hominem." Something to that effect on the announcement post would much more clearly outline the spirit of the change.