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​Discussion about /snipe mechanic

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Retro said

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We will be removing this function simply due to the possibilities of this being misused, and continue to work with active moderation from the CM and GM team. 

 

 

Firstly, I dont understand closing the last thread, I dont even understand closing any threads - its just cutting a discussion. That leads to anything else than frustration and for newbies looks just like censorship - not a best view for a potential new player.

But lets start from beginning. I dont know what Finnn has been writing on GL-Freedom, I dont even care. The thing is, instead of deleting the /snipe function, it better would be just change what the command does - instead of muting every chat, it should mute only GL-Freedom and i think that most of people will agree with me. Ive seen in the past a few trolls on gl-freedom or conversations on topics that shouldnt be mentioned in public - in this cases /snipe works perfectly. I dont ever understand removing the function that was in the game for years, because somebody used it.

So whats wrong about deleting this function? Its the same logic as "Bandit named John killed somebody with a gun. Lets take away all guns from all people." This function was there for years, has been used so many different times in different situations and now its going to be deleted because somebody became a "victim".


 

Btw

Spoiler

 


 

"There’s a new premium only “/snipe playername” command which will mute the player if enough people issue it roughly at the same time. You have only one snipe per time period. The algorithm behind it is deliberately fussy in order to prevent abuse. The command “/ignore playername” has automatic snipe functionality. "

 


 

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It's really bizarre that somehow staff doesn't know it exists?  It's been used legitimately in its 7 years of existence, with no real abuse considering how hard it is to work as I've witnessed first hand as a mod.  More bizarre because there's a staff thread to log snipe cases to watch for abuse, which clearly there hasn't been anything of note or it would have been attended to already.  As far as I also recall in the last 7 years, the player base hasn't forgotten about snipe either.  I've seen it mentioned countless times in global alone.

 

Its use really is for when staff isn't there, considering majority of staff has predominately always been euro based as well as the smaller amount of active staff to go with the smaller playerbase, but even so there can be someone annoying everyone without breaking any chat rules - this is where some power to the player may help.  Also why I wouldn't want it limited to just global, annoying people can exist in server chat too. 

 

Sure, someone might argue /ignore always works - this doesn't solve the problem, just makes an annoying person/rule breaker not your problem anymore, they still exist for everyone else.  If someones spewing hateful stuff or being a total nuisance, it's probably better for the community to be able to stop them if a mod isn't around rather than hope someone sees their ticket soon enough as we probably don't want scenarios like that being seen as appropriate or customary to Wurm

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I can only say that I appreciate that such lynching tool has been removed. I fail to see any point for. Admittedly, I am not seldom annoyed from all the pointless and sometimes disgusting babble on GL, and switch it off once I feel it too much depending on my actual mood. But I don't see why a crowd of anonymously ganging up players should obtain the privileges of a forum or chat moderator. In the recent case it may be that Finn has angered a couple of players by controversial but, to all of my recognition, never rule breaking forum posts. On GL, I did not even ever recognize his presence. So that onslaught has revealed the abusive and exploitative powers of that tool.

 

There are plenty of ways to deal with chat abusers. First of all, /ignore, of course. Next would be to log the abuse and report an abuser, who might then lose the ability to chat for a significantly longer period of time, or even forever.

 

If chat moderation were so much in danger to fail due to absence of GM/CA/CM, the dev/GM could consider to appoint a number of deputy chat moderators who could then take action if noone else were present. Such actions would be logged and the player enacting them would be accountable for. That would be more trustworthy than mobs ganging up and muting arbitrarily. 

Edited by Ekcin
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11 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

I can only say that I appreciate that such lynching tool has been removed. I fail to see any point for. Admittedly, I am not seldom annoyed from all the pointless and sometimes disgusting babble on GL, and switch it off once I feel it too much depending on my actual mood. But I don't see why a crowd of anonymously ganging up players should obtain the privileges of a forum or chat moderator. In the recent case it may be that Finn has angered a couple of players by controversial but, to all of my recognition, never rule breaking forum posts. On GL, I did not even ever recognize his presence. So that onslaught has revealed the abusive and exploitative powers of that tool.

 

There are plenty of ways to deal with chat abusers. First of all, /ignore, of course. Next would be to log the abuse and report an abuser, who might then lose the ability to chat for a significantly longer period of time, or even forever.

 

If chat moderation were so much in danger to fail due to absence of GM/CA/CM, the dev/GM could consider to appoint a number of deputy chat moderators who could then take action if noone else were present. Such actions would be logged and the player enacting them would be accountable for. That would be more trustworthy than mobs ganging up and muting arbitrarily. 

 

I just feel the need to point out again that this tool has been widely known by the community for seven years I think abusive and exploitative powers would have been seen by now

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6 minutes ago, MrGARY said:

I just feel the need to point out again that this tool has been widely known by the community for seven years I think abusive and exploitative powers would have been seen by now

No disagreement about. It is a sign of the maturity and consideration of the community when it has not been widely abused for such a long time. Still we do not know how often the victim of such abuse just kept silent after the fact so we lack exact data, maybe never, maybe more often. Anyway there is no reason to mourn its demise.

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i remember when grifo asked the entire server to snipe him, i think we had like 30+ accounts doing it and it didn't work, crez managed to snipe himself once though

iirc it was something like 5 + 10% of the population in your kingdom sniping

 

23 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

But I don't see why a crowd of anonymously ganging up players should obtain the privileges of a forum or chat moderator

nobody's anonymous to the guy that checks the server logs and sees who's using it 😉

 

 

tfw nobodys spammed alts to snipe me :(

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The new guys having no idea it existed and having to look it up tells you in itself how often it happens

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3 hours ago, MrGARY said:

 

I just feel the need to point out again that this tool has been widely known by the community for seven years I think abusive and exploitative powers would have been seen by now

 

According to the code, it's been in for 5 years. Was there a previous version?

 

As far as how easy it is to abuse, it's been out in WU therefore not hard to code-dive and find out how to abuse.

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39 minutes ago, Keenan said:

According to the code, it's been in for 5 years.

 

It was implemented when I was in the staff, so 5 years or so sounds about right. That being said Finn was the first person i heard of being sniped successfully, maybe it happened now because of the low population on our servers or the fact the system was not built for the current pop. In which case the tools need a rework and not a remove.

 

6 hours ago, Votip said:

But lets start from beginning. I dont know what Finnn has been writing on GL-Freedom, I dont even care. The thing is, instead of deleting the /snipe function, it better would be just change what the command does - instead of muting every chat, it should mute only GL-Freedom and i think that most of people will agree with me. Ive seen in the past a few trolls on gl-freedom or conversations on topics that shouldnt be mentioned in public - in this cases /snipe works perfectly. I dont ever understand removing the function that was in the game for years, because somebody used it.

 

And that, maybe just cut down GL-Freedom / Freedom since those are the main concerned chats, but leave local / alliance / Pms open.

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4 hours ago, Ekcin said:

No disagreement about. It is a sign of the maturity and consideration of the community when it has not been widely abused for such a long time. Still we do not know how often the victim of such abuse just kept silent after the fact so we lack exact data, maybe never, maybe more often. Anyway there is no reason to mourn its demise.

There is evidence in existence that the feature has not been abused.

 

There is absolutely no evidence of the feature abuse.

 

Still you think we should remove it because 'it's possible to abuse even though no one knows how and it has never been abused before"?

 

If my 13 year old is playing the game and suddenly someone starts talking about religion, politics, or sexually mature content but there is no mod present to mute them, I would be glad for a feature such as this. Getting rid of it is irresponsible, especially when there has not been a single recorded instance of its abuse.

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what Retro says is law, if he says its gone, you know its gone.

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I still would like to see the GL-Freedom log that got the guy muted..... #JustSaying

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Just for the record, I locked the thread because:
1) we have decided to remove it
2) it was headed towards personal attacks and a fair amount of moderation
3) this was mass ignores leading to being muted, not the snipe function

Ultimately, moderation tools such as mutes should be in the hands of the moderators; this matter was NOT an instance of abuse. Still, we have identified that it has significant potential to be abused and it's not game-play we want. 

The /ignore function will still work and serves any purpose of people wanting to remove others from chatting. 

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1 minute ago, Retrograde said:

 

Just for the record, I locked the thread because:
1) we have decided to remove it
2) it was headed towards personal attacks and a fair amount of moderation
3) this was mass ignores leading to being muted, not the snipe function

Ultimately, moderation tools such as mutes should be in the hands of the moderators; this matter was NOT an instance of abuse. Still, we have identified that it has significant potential to be abused and it's not game-play we want. 

The /ignore function will still work and serves any purpose of people wanting to remove others from chatting. 

 

lies

 

ive been trying to ignore u for years and i just cant get it to work!

 

1 hour ago, Madnath said:

https://pastebin.com/71qVpsGt

 

Since pasting from logs buggers up formatting

 

 

he got sniped.. for that? 🤔

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8 minutes ago, platinumteef said:

he got sniped.. for that? 🤔

 

12 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

this matter was NOT an instance of abuse.

 

Sibr6V9.jpg

 

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If the missing rest of the log is a wogic rant, then it must have been an /ignore storm, given that staff says it wasn't abuse..... a fluke.

 

Hard to tell from ONE MINUTE of logs XD 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

There is evidence in existence that the feature has not been abused.

 

There is absolutely no evidence of the feature abuse.

 

er.... no.

 

There really is no evidence one way or the other whether it has been abused or not.  It is worth noting that the message itself allows the expectation that it would be abused (i.e. not just that abuse was possible, but that it was likely).  A lack of complaint from people who have already been rendered mute once is hardly evidence that they deserved to be rendered mute (which is the required conclusion to the premise that it was not abuse of the function).  It could simply have been operant conditioning at work.

 

In the closed thread, there was a lot of commentary that if it happened it must therefore have necessarily been deserved, which rules out  a priori even the notion that abuse of this kind could exist.  Not only is that not logical, it isn't even wogical. 

 

Given the current player base, if it happens at all it is problem at least an indication of possible abuse.

 

All that said, the functionality is being removed because of the potential for easy abuse.  Everyone still ignore anyone, so there is no loss.  Happy ending all round.

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8 minutes ago, TheTrickster said:

There really is no evidence one way or the other whether it has been abused or not.

you're aware its logged just like everything else in the game right, and there's multiple staff saying they've never seen it used that way?

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6 minutes ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

you're aware its logged just like everything else in the game right, and there's multiple staff saying they've never seen it used that way?

 

Actually, the comment was they had never seen the functionality used at all.  It's obvious from both threads that this has been used in the past, and even the use went unnoticed.   So you have staff saying they've never seen the functionality used, although player commentary is that it was.  How could unnoticed use be analysed for evidence of abuse?   I am not trying to assert that there was abuse, merely pointing out that with being under the radar for so long, from the user side we cannot say anything about evidence one way or another, unless most people who have been muted have spoken up and admitted to deserving it.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, TheTrickster said:

So you have staff saying they've never seen the functionality used, although player commentary is that it was.  How could unnoticed use be analysed for evidence of abuse?

 

Because it was used before the people who haven't seen it used were staff which means it hasn't been used for years, it doesn't mean at all that it was used and went unnoticed as it is very obvious to staff when it is.

Edited by SmeJack
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I'm quite sure we used it on Cele once to mute Kamal during my terrible evil witch hunt times.  He got obnoxious in Freedom trying to ruin fun for an ally.

 

Edit: nvm, I believe enough did /ignore to mute him

Edited by Nomadikhan

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17 hours ago, Keenan said:

According to the code, it's been in for 5 years. Was there a previous version? 

 

Wayback machine (archives) had it listed on wurmpedia's wurm chat commands page  for March 27, 2014 but not on the previously archived date of October 19. 2013.

 

So it looks like a "split the difference" type of thing. Over six years, but just barely.

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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It has been used before. 

It is some thing that old timers knew/know. It doesn't seem to have been passed down to the younger generation.

Damn oldsters! Always hoarding.

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