Clearer chat rules

[Berris 592]

Some days Freedom chat gets beyond a joke - because some staff interpret the rules in the broadest possible terms and others are more liberal ... so players have very little way to know what to expect and often get quite bitter when told not to talk about what seem like reasonable topics if one reads the rules in a liberal light by one of the stricter mods.

Almost ANYTHING can be seem as 'politics' and what is illegal varies wildly from country to country ... with the best will in the world, vague rules like that invite trouble by putting the mods on weak ground when trying to explain them.  I'm sure we can all be sensible and polite, and I'm sure we need some moderation for those who can't ... but the rules as written seem to place both the players and staff in an impossible position.  And it doesn't always create a great impression for new players either.

So my suggestion is that someone at least gives a bit of thought to what the rules are supposed to achieve and why we have them - and then takes a long hard look at whether they are really achieving those goals.  Sadly I have no idea what they are supposed to achieve, so I can't makea clearer suggestion myself.

[Alyeska 2,621]

i think removing mute powers from CA's would help alot. Especially now that playermutes are in, if someone really is breaking rules and being disruptive they can mute the culprit. I feel that just CM's and GM's should be able to mute players; after all, getting CA position isn't  a very difficult task.

Sure, they're a great addition and they're good at answering questions from new players, but the ability to mute players should not be put in the hands of CA's. Going back to the system of CM's and PA's would be much better.

[Protunia 735]

I don't agree  I think the more chat moderators the better with the amount of trash talk and staff bashing going on lately.

If a player cannot read and understand the rules of the chat rooms that is entirely their fault.

In many cases they don't even care about the chat rules and just spam away regardless.

Wasting the GM's time to monitor chat constantly would be a big negative on more important matters in game.

More or less I would like to see the chat agreement come each time you logged in and you would have to accept the rules before ever being able to speak. At least this way players cannot toss out the 'oh I didn't know' excuse that's commonly used.

Anyhow the rules are pretty clear and if a CA, CM, or GM sees the chat heading in a direction or going over board against the rules they have every right to squelch, ban, and mute those players who refuse to listen.

[Hordern 2,177]

i think removing mute powers from CA's would help alot.

CM no longer exists in game - CA's are the chat moderators.

[Wossoo 1,915]

Interesting suggestion. The first thing I will say is that no set of rules will be so comprehensive that interpretation is totally eliminated. In fact, I believe there is some good in having the rules slightly open to interpretation so that we can use a little bit of common sense in what each rule intends to cover. Since I wrote these chat rules (except rule 9 which was added later) I will suggest the intention behind them.

Chat Rules

The following chat rules apply to everyone, which includes all players and wurm staff members.

1 ) You may never purposefully or willingly attempt to disrupt or troll any chat.

Quite clear - you may not try to make yourself a problem by coming into chat and causing disruption ie. causing arguments, upsetting people, causing mass arguments etc.

2 ) You must not spam chat in any way, and this includes the use of capital letters, or graphics.

Also quite clear - we don't want pointless messages in chat which don't provide any meaning and just seem like a waste of time. One line of caps in surprise at something for example is not intended to be against this rule, but something like several lines of caps spam or things like "APOSDPAOKJDSPOAJDPOJ" (ie. spam) are unacceptable.

3 ) You may not harass (sexually or otherwise), verbally abuse, threaten, berate or cause unwanted distress to anyone.

This one seems very clear - don't cause problems for other people in chat.

4 ) You may not use sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language. This includes workarounds, symbols, links, misspelling, or graphical substitutes.

An extesion of rule 3 which provides some examples of what methods you cannot employ to attempt to cause problems for other people in chat.

5 ) You may not discuss topics which are likely to cause conflict. These include but are not limited to politics, religion, race, gender or sexual orientation.

This is intended to cover real life things which do not have any bearing on the game, which are prone to cause arguments in Wurm chat. There is no need for arguments or 'heated discussions' in public Wurm Online chats about topics that simply are not about the game and are therefore not appropriate to discuss especially if people get upset over it.

6 ) You may not discuss illegal activities both in the physical and virtual world. This includes but is not limited to drugs, drug usage, ‘warez’ (including illegal torrents), game exploit usage, macros and all other disallowed game practices as per the game rules.

We don't allow people to talk about things that are illegal in the real world because crimes have victims and those victims could be distressed by seeing discussion about these activities in Wurm chat. We don't want people talking about exploits, cheating, hacking etc. in Wurm because that could drum up interest in those activities by others who currently are not involved in anything like that.

7 ) You must use English if possible when speaking in public chats, like Kingdom chat, CA Help and when making support calls. If you cannot use English, a translator may be a good option.

Quite simple, it could be very confusing having several conversations in chat in several different languages. Also, if there's rulebreaking in a different langauge we could miss it because we cant have moderators on at all time who speak most major languages.

8 ) You may never impersonate any member of Wurm Online staff.

Doesnt need explanation.

9 )  The CA chat channel is for players that have game questions for the CA team to answer. CA control that channel and players will abide by any directive issued by a CA as to the use and conduct on that channel. Failure to abide by any such directive may result in a penalty being issued.

Again, quite simple to understand.

[KaiH 1,126]

Anyhow the rules are pretty clear and if a CA, CM, or GM sees the chat heading in a direction or going over board against the rules they have every right to squelch, ban, and mute those players who refuse to listen.

On one half i agree with you, but with power (to mute someone) comes responsibility - and a CA that lacks this responsibility should be removed regardless.

Wurm doesn't need powerhungry and immature CAs and their behaviour needs to be looked at even more than a regular player because of the power they have.

Of course this isn't a thing to be jugded by us regulars, but common sense is a thing our CAs and GMs need to do a good job - if they lack that they shouldn't be CA or even GM.

I agree with Wossoo that our rules are quite clear, but stretching them can be fatal in the long run - be it from a regular or a CA/GM.

[Berris 592]

Wossoo - the rules probably are 'clear' to you; they are 'clear' to me too and probably to most people.  Sadly it is also 'clear' that what they 'clearly' mean in one player's mind is not what they 'clearly' mean in another's.  Often that is the problem - everyone things it is 'clear' what the rules mean, but in fact there is vast scope for interpretation and some CAs have very different 'clear' meanings for them than others.

It's only a suggestion, but really Freedom is a community-based server and we do seem to get a lot of community disruption caused by the rules and their enforcement.  Hence my thought that someone review them and checkl that they are working as intended.

Also - what Kaih said!

[Wossoo 1,915]

Another thing is that we take queries about staff very seriously. If you see any CA or even GM who you believe is punishing further than the rules allow then please send a PM to Oracle because you could be right and that sort of behaviour we like to nip in the bud. We discuss all complaints against staff on an individual basis.

[Berris 592]

Wossoo - I wouldn't ever complain about anyone for anything but really serious abuse, and thankfully I have never seen that!  I have no doubt that those who are most strict honestly believe that the rules are 'clear' and they are only doing what is right and required by the rules ... but it does often seem disruptive and heavy-handed.

[Wossoo 1,915]

Wossoo - the rules probably are 'clear' to you; they are 'clear' to me too and probably to most people.  Sadly it is also 'clear' that what they 'clearly' mean in one player's mind is not what they 'clearly' mean in another's.  Often that is the problem - everyone things it is 'clear' what the rules mean, but in fact there is vast scope for interpretation and some CAs have very different 'clear' meanings for them than others.

It's only a suggestion, but really Freedom is a community-based server and we do seem to get a lot of community disruption caused by the rules and their enforcement.  Hence my thought that someone review them and checkl that they are working as intended.

Also - what Kaih said!

I think there's a slight bit of exaggeration there but yes not everyone has the same interpretation of the rules. We have been expanding our internal guidelines though to try to bring CA / GM rule enforcement into more uniformity.

If you have any particular suggestions about the rules please let us know.

[Alyeska 2,621]

i think removing mute powers from CA's would help alot.

CM no longer exists in game - CA's are the chat moderators.

Yes- I know. I think a big problem lies there. I suggested going back to the old system, dedicated CMS that are a harder position to get, and PAs that everyone and their dog that has played the game long enough can become.

[Berris 592]

Honestly my main suggestion would be to lighten up on what 'real world' topics are allowed or else ban real world topics totally.  

More internal guidance can only be a good step though - consistency is the issue here, not the need for moderation or the intent of the mods themselves.

Also, what Aly said.

[Enki 6,940]

Thread truncated due to trolling.  Please remain on topic. 

Thank you.

[Berris 592]

Erm .. where did Othob's posts go?  There were some important contributions in those.

The key one being: the problem might be resolved by returning to the old system of seperate CMs with tigher 'qualifications' as to who is recruited.  That way the interpretation elements of the rules might be less of an issue.  (apologies if that's not what you were driving at Othob!)

[VicToMeyeZR 0]

Thread truncated due to trolling.  Please remain on topic. 

Thank you.

Sir I had some VERY on topic relevant post about this subject.  I can't believe you remove VALID posts?

[Oracle 318]

So how about suggestions supplied with your complaints.

Which rule isnt clear, and how do you suggest to make it clearer ?

What other new rule do you suggest will help make chat better ?

[VicToMeyeZR 0]

So how about suggestions supplied with your complaints.

Which rule isnt clear, and how do you suggest to make it clearer ?

What other new rule do you suggest will help make chat better ?

2 ) You must not spam chat in any way, and this includes the use of capital letters, or graphics.

Capital letters?  As in one or more?  Is one occasional word in caps really that big of a deal?  Some people use that to bold out a specific word as part of the convo...  I believe the idea being the caps rules in forums/chat rooms was the use of all caps, not an occasional word.

I personally think the rest of rules are fine, as I understand them.  Some of the CA's on the other hand do not.

If one warn/mutes for a questionable reason, but others don't even say anything, then there is some sort of misunderstanding.

Personally I think removing the MUTE from CA's until they reach a certain amount of time of being a CA(they have proven to be trustworthy), would make a big difference.  Maybe they just need training, I don't know.

[Berris 592]

The issues seem to mostly arise in the moderation of what 'real world' topics are or are not allowed.

For example, is discussing humourous/wierd/stupid laws in different countries/states prohibitted becuase it is a discussion of 'illegal activities'?  Some CMs might think so, others not.  Plus the wording of the rule naturally causes a lot of people to point out that illegal activity varies wildly from one country to another.

'Guidance notes' of some kind might be nice; less variation between CMs might be nice.

Personally I think that the goal of the rules is probably to prevent offence, and therefore the guiding rule should be that something is warnable/muteable if it is likely to or intended to reasonably cause such offence - warn if it is likely to and mute if it is intended to sort of thing.  Rather than, say, a strict enforcement by some people of what they see as the letter of the current rules which doesn't always seem to really benefit the community.

[KyleBooze 451]

Personally I think that the goal of the rules is probably to prevent offence, and therefore the guiding rule should be that something is warnable/muteable if it is likely to or intended to reasonably cause such offence - warn if it is likely to and mute if it is intended to sort of thing.  Rather than, say, a strict enforcement by some people of what they see as the letter of the current rules which doesn't always seem to really benefit the community.

If someone finds a topic offensive they should speak up and say so.

[Pashka 707]

Problem with that is I have seen people say this offends me (and it was a subject that would offend some people) and they were made fun of or whatever.  So besides the topic that they found offensive then they were subject to the abuse for finding it so.

[VicToMeyeZR 0]

I also believe the the "mute" should have certain levels.  No volunteer should be able to issue a FULL mute for any amount of time.  You can talk at all.  no village, no PM, no local, no GM reports, no ca help, nothing.  That's a little extreme and to much power for a volunteer.  Muting from local chat and kchat is one thing, but the way it is now, is way to open for abuse..

[itistricky 0]

chat rules seem to be 'mute them if you feel like it'

for many CMs/GMs/CAs that seems to be 'always', for others 'a warning when it gets out of hand'

and under the category of always that means, when someone tells a joke. when someone is sarcastic. when someone articulates an opinion they don't agree with. when someone speaks on freedom kchat. when someone says bake sale, stuff like that.

[Aeris 3,752]

Is the forum buggy today or did someone just remove a lot of posts without showing the reason why they did it? Because if this isn't a bug I'd like to know why posts that broke no rules were removed.

[Forever Skys 1]

I've seen in Kchat "Selling horses and foals at Sxxxxxxxxx Sxxxx PM me " or something like that, every 15 minutes or so will pop up, very predictable. I logged in for less than one hour today and seen it 3 times, and I'm sure I've seen it yesterday too which I didn't count. Is this not a spam? Or is that person a favourite or something?

Yet I've seen new players ask for a village to join were told to use the forum. So I guess Selling horses is a different story? or is it that Person has a different story?

[Wulfgar 1,121]

I resent very much that my post was cleared from this topic. I now have no respect what so ever of the volunteer moderators in this game.