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Amata

Add "Politics" to the Content Rules

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On 11/23/2020 at 3:53 AM, TheTrickster said:

I think that the "good reason" that you are looking to be articulated is that it is currently already an unwritten rule, so there is being sought the actual putting of it in writing.

 

Out of curiosity, Trickster, ... how would you give answer to the question of "censorship" ? 

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15 hours ago, Darnok said:

Dedicated to anyone who believes that they can create a perfect system (set of rules) that will solve every problem.

...

No, you cannot create such a system. The only thing you can and try to do is make excuses to restrict people with whom you disagree.

 

I am honestly curious, as a matter of personal view, is this a summary of your philosophy regarding any / all sets of rules

 

As a quick disclaimer - I am musing here beyond the scope of the actual topic being discussed in this thread. 
In America, our nation's founders suggested that one reason to develop a set of rules (laws) was "to promote the general welfare." This, and a few other key phrases that make a nice little schoolhouse song, are written into the US Constitution as the underlying rationale for having any mutually agreed upon laws, at all.  

 

In the current climate, I have actually found myself musing on this, and the other key phrases, and questioning which are personal priorities; which are ideals that might be outdated; which have been emphasised historically; and so on. Other than broadly thinking about what it means to "promote the general welfare" - I  unfortunately have not arrived at any profound revelations or that "perfect system that will solve every problem." Like you, I am ambivalent about whether such a system even exists - and believe that if one does, it is either to be found in the ordered patterns of Nature, or somewhere completely abstracted - like higher mathematics or theoretical physics, or some such place. 

 

In any event - I would like to know more about your thoughts, not only these general thoughts on sets of rules - but also as it pertains to the actual topic I presented for consideration. 

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14 hours ago, Platyna said:

@DarnokCan't agree more. We don't need any extensive content rules. We have moderators, who are to moderate the discussion, and moderation doesn't mean just telling us to shut and go away - this is something that should only happen in extreme cases, a good moderator will turn wild discussion into pleasant one using uber diplomacy and people skills, it doesn't even need to be an official moderator. After Amata did her "catharsis thread" we had a pretty neat and looong discussion on Freedom, with many participants, and hell we were able to even discuss hot topic such as sources of morality without hating each other and getting wild. We were our own moderators. And I loved it. 

 

There was some nice, smart guy named Heinlein, and he said: Free speech includes the right to not listen if not interested. 

 

I adore the way that this reply seems to ring with optimism and goodwill. I really do. I find it uplifting and refreshing! 

 

I find that, as I read this, I want it to be true to life. This is the future I want - not just in Wurm, but basically everywhere. That discussion WAS fantastic and I really loved it too. As much as the reminder of that conversation makes me very happy to think about, I also have one point of consideration that I would like to be considered.... 

 

14 hours ago, Platyna said:

...  We have moderators, who are to moderate the discussion, and moderation doesn't mean just telling us to shut and go away - this is something that should only happen in extreme cases, a good moderator will turn wild discussion into pleasant one using uber diplomacy and people skills ...

 

Is this the type of moderation interaction you have seen & experienced in reality in game? 

 

 

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13 hours ago, Darnok said:

 

14 hours ago, Platyna said:

We were our own moderators. And I loved it. 

 

There was some nice, smart guy named Heinlein, and he said: Free speech includes the right to not listen if not interested. 

 

Exactly. If some mechanism is needed for these less patient players, then being able to ignore the other player for several hours should solve any problem. But it should work in a way that it can be turned on/off by the individual player so as not to centralize the possibility of censorship on any player or any topic.

 

Okay, I'll need to go look this up in greater detail.... but the other day, while looking through the list of commands available in game (for some unrelated reason) ... I came across a command that I had never seen or heard of before... 

 

/snipe

 

And if any older players or mods or GMs or gods want to briefly chime in solely for the purpose of an official explanation of the "/snipe" command - I would appreciate the clarification. 

 

But, as far as I can tell... the /snipe command functioned basically as a "vote-to-mute" for a community channel. If someone was being particularly obnoxious or whatever, individual players could use the snipe command to add to a hidden "mute" tally - once that tally crossed a certain threshold (enough individual community members cast their own snipe commands) - the "sniped" player was muted. Like social sanctions. Self-moderating. 

I don't believe the command works anymore, and I don't know anything else about it. Maybe it was something that Wurm tried for a while and it was a disaster? Maybe it was an idea that could never get the program code to work properly? No idea. 

But I agree that I would much prefer decentralized, context-relative, "power to the people" solutions  instead of rules, regulations, and enforcement. 

 

If anyone else has any ideas that are decentralized, context-relative, and community centered, I would be happy to listen & brainstorm those all day long!! 

 

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1 hour ago, Amata said:

 

Out of curiosity, Trickster, ... how would you give answer to the question of "censorship" ? 

 

I don't mind if there are censorship type rules, as long as they are explicit and enforced consistently.  Civility and acceptable use of language (i.e. no obscenity, profanity, vulgarity) are to me a necessary minimum.  If for a particular forum/platform it is deemed that sex, politics and religion are no-go zones simply because they are the hardest discussions to keep civil then I can understand that - it is purely a judgement call of the management.  I would like to think that adult conversations could be had, but particularly with religion and politics people quickly get personal and also irrational.

 

That said, what I don't like is when moderators say "no politics; stop or get locked" when there is not actually a rule to that effect.  If it is going to be enforced s a rule then fine, but make it a rule.

 

I should point out that I worked the longest part of my career in an environment where the rules and even structure could change day to day, so it was a case of "just tell me how we are doing it today".  I don't have to agree with any of the rules, I just have to accept that they are what they are and work within them.

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I think people should probably note that on a "religion" basis Amata and The Trickster hold views that are mutually antithetical and yet we can converse in quite a civil, friendly even, manner.   Censorship may at times be needed, but it is better to not need it.

 

ps.  it was this topic that prompted me to add a commonsense rule of my own to my signature a couple of weeks back. 

 

pps.  I used to be admin on a wiki with a strong and explicit position, with which probably more than half the editors disagreed.  Civility rules were in place, and we did have to enforce them and almost every time there was controversy not over the discussion or over the civility or its lack but over the enforcement.  On a wiki that welcomed contributors with dissenting views, and allowed them to express and discuss their dissent within a ruleset there was ALWAYS someone who would argue that any enforcement was due to the dissent itself and not due to the manner in which it conveyed.  We were determined NOT to silence such discussion, but boy it would have been humungously easier.  I can understand why some platforms just don't even want controversial topics discussed.  Every time it gets out of hand and some admin/moderator needs to step in, someone accuses them of taking sides.

Edited by TheTrickster

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@AmataTrust me, this is based not on juvenile optimism but experience. I was an administrator and RPG economy developer in a pretty huge (150-200 players online) game, and we never had any problem with moderating the community, we had no mute command (we could kick), but I don't remember ever kicking someone for and I banned maybe one person per yet and it was usually because bots and macros not for speech. I don't approve bans for speech except for things that are usually forbidden by the law - like promotion of totalitarian systems, race supremacy (that comes to ANY race, I don't care, racism is racism), and some mob-like stuff like spreading misinformation about one person to make other players ostracize this player or blackmailing them - stuff that you can go to jail for IRL. But even so, I would prefer first to speak to that person and try to modify their behaviour than just ban them. 

 

Not only new content rules shouldn't be added, but I know at least one that should be removed.

 

Let's face it - real changes in human thinking do not take place at elite media salons, they take place on Facebook, Twitter, online games chats, your house parties and so on. French Revolution started at tennis court, this is why I think it our common responsibility to make the rules of public interaction to ensure we will all enjoy the game but yet we will not quench the free speech because it never brings anything good. 

 

Edited by Platyna

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4 hours ago, Amata said:

 

You are intelligent and willing to interact, and challenge me... I am genuinely curious - If Mr Insane is on the main chat channel for your server every day, spouting off and trying to stir up contention and drama; what methods do you use to maintain interactions with the others on your island, while also avoiding ever using the main chat channel? 

 

 



not to disregard the rest of your post, though im probably only going to respond to this since it's the most concrete and probably easily answered/conversed point i can

my thing is though, i interact with people like this all the time. there's always "insane" people on public chats, probably moreso on pvp servers than on pve servers hence why i don't see much of a big deal. I ignore them- that is, i use the /ignore function so that I can't see their posts anymore.

I'm talking about two types of people here; both the sort that are literally actually crazy and talk by themselves for hours on end, spamming the global/kingdom chat with inane nonsense, and the 'subtle crapstirrers' who go out of their way to skirt the rules in an effort to make others angry and bring up drama.

That's all. I ignored them, because I can identify the type of person they'll be. Because it's easier than trying to bring attention to it from all sides and try to get a moderator involved, and because it solves my issues in a neat, quick, and convenient manner.
Sometimes later in the future they'll come up again for some reason and I might even unblock them and see if they're as bad as I thought, but most of the time- they're just gone, and I never have to think about them again.

 

Quote

And if any older players or mods or GMs or gods want to briefly chime in solely for the purpose of an official explanation of the "/snipe" command - I would appreciate the clarification. 

 

But, as far as I can tell... the /snipe command functioned basically as a "vote-to-mute" for a community channel. If someone was being particularly obnoxious or whatever, individual players could use the snipe command to add to a hidden "mute" tally - once that tally crossed a certain threshold (enough individual community members cast their own snipe commands) - the "sniped" player was muted. Like social sanctions. Self-moderating. 

I don't believe the command works anymore, and I don't know anything else about it. Maybe it was something that Wurm tried for a while and it was a disaster? Maybe it was an idea that could never get the program code to work properly? No idea. 


unfortunately reality is way less interesting. Snipe worked like that; only premium players could snipe, and if enough of the current population of premium players /snipe'd the same person in a short period of time, that person was muted for 24 hours.

But the amount of people needed to /snipe someone was so high (because of the prevalence of alt accounts), that /snipe almost never actually functioned. It was developed by Rolf and the older dev teams and basically entirely forgotten about by years. Then, the newer devs realized it existed and went "woah woah that can be abused way too hard" and disabled it, despite the fact it was extremely hard to use properly, much less abuse.

Edited by RainRain

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I am strongly against of popular votes to persecute someone, this is basically mob dictatorship, we just need nice moderators who will operate within game and common sense rules. 

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There is no such thing as free speech, I don't think we have ever had such a thing.

 

We have the illusions of free speech  but its a very different kettle of fish to true free speech.

 

We also have a large dose of do as I say not as I do in wurm, I have also seen people being reported due to a person not agreeing with someone or losing a debate, its why we have to have a ruleset, in a perfect world I would prefer to see people air all their views, its a great way to get a measure of someone, as its really hard to keep a mask on 24/7 and when speaking with people on "hot topics" there true feelings on subjects always comes to light.

 

Now inside a game is different, we either have to ban these hot topics or change the age rating on the game, very very quickly the chat can turn very adult and this is an escape from real life, people use discord all the time so maybe that's the place for those topics?, so I would go as far as making all current public chat in game "game related only" with an across all worlds and servers Off topic chat that is opt in only and has an age warning and content warning. 

 

 

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No matter what is on the "banned" list, someone will flirt with the limits. It's human nature. It might not be your nature, but it is someone's. That being said, during a time when everything has gone to hell, sometimes you just need to get it off your chest where you feel the safest. Sometimes that place is in a land of pixels with people you have interacted with for months or years. Now if a pleasant discussion devolves into a heated mess, by all means, we should do something about that - no matter what the topic is.

 

Bottom line, I think the real issue comes down to no set moderation rules. We've been guided by the moderators' interpretation a lot more than a hard and fast rule. With the influx of new players, there seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to anything remotely controversial. I'm all for less trolling, but taking the fun/silliness away seems more harmful to me than anything else.

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