Reduce severity of RDM rules

Discussion in 'Rules and Protocol' started by Nevodka, Jun 14, 2018.

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Should RDM rules be changed back to 1 slay per RDM, ban for mass only?

  1. Yes

    9 vote(s)
    25.7%
  2. No

    26 vote(s)
    74.3%
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  1. Nevodka

    Nevodka Active Member

    1st offense a slay, 2nd offense 2 slays, 3rd offense 24hr ban, 4th offense 5 day ban.

    Really? And the length of time these offenses are considered stackable is the duration you play with a particular mod? Not even map independent?

    Plenty of people play for hours at a time, so three/four accidental kills over the span of possibly many hours is fair game to ban a player for up to a week?

    For a server that only gives 1 month bans to certified cheaters this seems to want to punish honest regulars that make occasional mistakes.

    What incentive is there to play after the 2nd offense if you know you can be banned for your next mistake, even if it is hours later? Or to not lie in a report because the consequence of the slay is greater?

    Furthermore, this "discretionary" enforcement of these new rules enables mod favoritism to occur:

    Thoughts?
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2018
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  2. Scotty

    Scotty Heroes come and go, but legends are forever. VIP Bronze

    It depends on the staff member on, most have a reset within 2 maps if you dont RDM within then. Some have it stack throughout, just gotta ask by the staff member.
     
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  3. Lordyhgm

    Lordyhgm Spiteful smells Lead Admin VIP

    Recently got a mass rdm x3 ban or two from just playing for so long, but tbh that was just tiredness rather than stacking. The rule seems a compromise between not punishing honest regulars too harshly, and giving intentional rdmers more deterring repercussions.

    I'd say, "just don't rdm" but that'd be unhelpful and unrealistic, so imma just go with, accept that the rule is there to make sure you can still play after a few accidents (mass rdm is still only local) and 'hopefully' free of the malicious intent of others.

    i'm too tired finna goodnight hoes probs spelt everything wrong if it even makes sense
     
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  4. It is made that way to be vague on purpose so mods can meet their ban quota or some shit. That way mods can basically decide if they want to ban someone based on how they feel about that person, which is painfully obviously done by about 95% of staff. Only solution is to just change servers after 2 rdms to avoid having a toxic staff member ban you for accidentally killing 3 people in 2 and a half hours.
     
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  5. Smusha

    Smusha Meme Marine & Staffin' Machine VIP

    Staff members can choose to "reset" a player's RDM counter at their own discretion.
    While it still depends on the staff member in question at the end of the day nobody is going to be banned for RDM-ing once on one map and then twice three maps later.

    If the player is honest then there is nothing to fear. A staff member might not want to reset a player's RDM streak if he seems to do it just to be a dick. For example if a player RDM's only once or twice every map or so but his every response is "lolololo" or "u mad xd" then the staff member(s) on at the time might choose not to reset his streak and punish him even if the RDM's were spread across several different maps/a slightly longer period of time.

    Already clarified above that nobody will be banned for RDM ing once "hours later" on top of 2 other counts of RDM. That just does not happen.
    Regarding the incentive, a player might want to take it easy and give that trigger finger a rest if he notices that he keeps getting punished for RDM over and over again. The slays are not there to make you feel shitty and fear playing any longer in order to not get banned. The first couple of slays are meant to be more of a slap on the wrist on order to get you to adjust your game style to the current ruleset and people on the server. Since no two sessions play out the same way it might take a little bit to shift yourself into the correct gear and adapt to the rest of the players currently on the server (i.e. their mannerisms, playstyle etc.)

    Generally speaking the consequence or lying in a report is much harsher than just taking a slay or even a 24hr ban. Like the slays, it's better not to build a reputation of constantly lying in reports in order to save your skin. Not only could it earn you a much harshes punishment for something like loopholing but the staff on at the time might be less inclined to believe your motives when you are known as a liar. Don't become the boy who cried wolf.

    Perhaps most important of all, you should know that staff can choose to forgive accidental RDM if it is obviously unintentional. The criteria that must be met in order for a staff member to forgive a piece of rdm is:

    1. The damage must be unintentional, pretty self explanatory
    2. The victim must forgive you
    3. Your RDM did not cause and RDM chain.

    Overall I think you got the whole system a little wrong on account of the fact that you seem to not be aware of the fact that RDM streaks do reset at the discretion of the staff member(s) on at the time and that unintentional RDM can be forgiven altogether and thus it will not count towards an eventual Mass RDM ban.

    My suggestion would be to play it safe and take some precautions:

    A.
    Learn what the players on at the time with you tend to do when they are in fact traitors( little changes in behaviour that might give away their role) (you CANNOT kill anyone on this alone but it will give you some help in deciding when to play judge jury and executioner when someone does commit a T act.)

    B.
    Be wary of an itchy trigger finger. If you start noticing that you keep getting in trouble for RDM-ing then maybe it's best that you think twice before deciding to lethal up.

    C.
    Ask the staff member(s) on at the time what their policy regarding RDM streak resetting is. Some choose to do it on every map change, others do it every hour, others just do it whenever they feel like enough time has passed. Communication is your friend.

    D.
    Never think about lying in your reports just to save face, chances are that the staff member(s) on at the time already have it figured out. If you didn't intentionally kill someone then your skin is already somewhat saved. Just keep it clean and honest and it's all good.​

    That should be everything you need to know regarding RDM stacking. You can refer to this thread in the future as some kind of a field manual if you wish. If a newer staff member isn't aware of the information listed here (they shouldn't but you never know) point them here as well and unless the ruleset changes in the meantime chances are that they will then ask their supervisor if what I've written here is true and then move on to applying it in the future. You not only save your ass but everyone else's, staff and player alike.

    That about covers everything, keep on rocking.
     
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  6. veL

    veL VIP

    Why is this even being debated... if you know the rules and know how to play, then the new RDM rules shouldn't affect you. This is my first time hearing about the new RDM rules because I rarely even have to face RDM slays.
     
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  7. Grimoire+

    Grimoire+ Sigillum diaboli VIP

    You are entirely mistaken, There is no ban quota and if you felt like a staff member is going out of there way to punish you then really you should just report them as that isn't how we handle things here and i'm sure you're aware of this.
     
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  8. Nevodka

    Nevodka Active Member

    Here's another example, it is not up to a mod's discretion to remove a valid slay unless the victim requests it. If it weren't like this, a mod could choose to not slay people they consider their friends and that's something we can all agree is wrong.

    Now take this scenario and apply it to the new system; mods are now allowed to choose between 1 slay or 2 slays/a ban for a consecutive offender, fully discretionary. Do you think their friends will be receiving extended punishment? What about people they generally dislike?

    It doesn't really matter what anyone's opinion on the morality of every current mod is, the fact that we've technically allowed favoritism to occur seems not alright to me.
     
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  9. neutral

    neutral Banned VIP

    Do you have an examples of favoritism/evidence of this going on?

    All of our moderators are constantly evaluated. If you see someone playing favorites- let us know. To be fair- there are so many instances where favoritism can occur. If this is actually an issue- then let us know because that is absolutely not allowed. Smusha pretty much hit everything on this specific topic however. (Also new RDM rules? huh? nothing changed?)
     
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  10. Nevodka

    Nevodka Active Member

    I think we both know how tedious and basically impossible it would be to build a case against someone for favoritism in this manner. Imagine carefully documenting every mod's slays for months to post a report and simply receive a "we'll talk to them about this" in response. Why even give mods the opportunity to abuse such a feature?

    The bottom line is there will almost always be a significant imbalance in the reporting player's efforts vs. a given repercussion for favoritism, so who is going to want to expend the effort to do so? Good and bad mods come and go all the time, it is not a fair deal for regular players to devote the time and energy to such a report when the problem is in the rule itself.

    I don't know how new the rule actually is, or if it has always been this way, and I'd be willing to bet a lot of regulars here didn't even know it stacked this way. I sure didn't until today and I have played 15,000+ rounds, and in that time have witnessed countless raggers and intentional RDMers whom were regulars and they were not once penalized under this.

    Why does this rule even exist then? If it's to punish players intentionally RDMing, then make the rule be "it is within a mod's discretion to give extended punishment to intentionally RDMing/toxic players."

    It's not a perfect solution but surely clarifying what the intention is can only serve to benefit both parties, so you don't end up with a mixed bag of mods each interpreting the discretionary aspect of the rule differently and removing the overly cumbersome solution @Smusha recommended which is asking every single one of them what their outlook is on it.
     
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  11. Daddy Nexxus

    Daddy Nexxus Toxi-Fessional VIP

    Dude wtf are you talking about?

    Shit I mean

    Sir wtf are you talking about?
     
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  12. neutral

    neutral Banned VIP

    It wouldn't be difficult at all actually. It's like Smusha said- if someone's banned for RDM's spreading out over the span of two hours, it'd go noticed, and that moderator would be in some pretty hot water. That's not how we run things. To say that every single slay needs to be documented is a bit of an exaggeration here- in all reality it'd only take 1 fishy ban. If a mod was found to be playing favorites- that's a pretty quick path to not being a mod anymore. Period.

    Like what was said earlier, pretty much every mod follows the whole go two map cycles without RDMing and you're good. This is mainly just because it's easy to track this way since we can see what slays happened between the current map, and the previous map. We actually have a tracker in the future planned on the staff side of things to make it a bit more consistent, but this still needs to be developed.
     
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  13. Togo ✿

    Togo ✿ Nobody Gets it VIP Silver

    just donate money to the server, then staff will never unfairly treat you again
     
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  14. Iuna

    Iuna Goodnight moon VIP

    The ambiguity of the rule is largely due to the fact that like you said, sometimes people make a couple mistakes, three accidental rdms over a couple hours, and the rules can't be so strict that people always get banned for that. At the same time, there are people who might try to rdm once or twice, wait a bit, and keep rdming to avoid an outright ban. The rules can't be so lenient here that it can be abused.

    Is it possible that favoritism is a factor here? Yes. It's also possible for me to ban someone I don't like. Does it happen? Not really, no. The decision to make someone a mod first requires them to show us that they're not only qualified, but trustworthy as well. On top of that we all know what happens if we abuse our positions of power, and really, getting a friend out of a slay isn't worth it. So yes, it's possible for favoritism to happen, but it's really unlikely. The rules are written the way they are so that there can be leniency that won't be abused, and I really don't see the need to complicate the rules anymore than they already are.
     
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  15. Nevodka

    Nevodka Active Member

    I wasn't aware at the beginning of this that the internal guideline for mods is two maps. It is true that it is blatantly obvious a mod breaks this guideline by the hours long timespan you mentioned, that is not the main issue.

    The main issue is that any mod can choose whether to extend punishments to players within this 2 map span, the players are unaware of the measure to which any given mod follows the ruling, and the ruling itself being excessively harsh to innocent and especially nooby players. In this environment it is fully allowable by your guidelines to give the same ban out to a player who RDMed 3 people in a single round and 3 people over 12 rounds (aka two maps.)

    It is a two-edged sword here in that I think it's great that a mod does not have to follow the RDM punishment rules to a tee, because I think they're unnecessarily harsh. On the other hand, not enforcing it to a tee opens a gateway for potential favoritism that may very well be ongoing and yet unnoticed.

    I understand the rule has been this way possibly forever, and this is not a personal attack by any means towards moderators or the community by me starting a discussion regarding it, but I think it is foolish for some to say "if it ain't broke don't fix it" because none of us are truly omnipotent and can say nothing is broken here (nor will be in the future.) I stand by my original point that is 1. the rule on RDM is too harsh and 2. leaving it up to the discretion of many different-minded individuals is a recipe for abuse.



    I think it is a trait of a healthy community to always be open to reevaluation of its guidelines, that's all, as sometimes there are better solutions out there than just the one you are most familiar with.

    And really what I am suggesting as a solution is not even really a change to the current system but a clarification of it. Allowing greater leniency in that the current RDM rules be applied only to those deemed by mods to be intentionally RDMing, and in cases where it is not then do not stack punishments up.

    This would solve one half of this two-edged issue, and rather than being confused about the degree at which a mod enforces the current rule the argument becomes much simpler, i.e. the mod acts on the extended rule because they deemed the player's intention to be malicious. In reality it seems like this is the intention of the current system, but having a proper clarification like this would ease the stress on fair players.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2018
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  16. [​IMG]

    Also:

    Yes it do
    You sweet, sweet, naive angel...
    wait did we get new rdm rules??
    oh wait helix is confused as fuck too
    but keep my name outta your mouth :^)
    smartest thing said in this thread right here
     
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  17. veL

    veL VIP

    Reminder that good ol' Cherious has been "banned for hacking" numerous times and always appeals and gets unbanned the next day due to inconclusive evidence. Just search "Cherious" on the forum search and you'll see his 5+ appeals that got approved after he got "banned for hacking" although he's just good at the game and people get mad.
     
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  18. jshore

    jshore VIP

    Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is RDM Real Hahahaha Nigga Just Follow The Rules Like Nigga Just Play The Game
     
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  19. degolfer222

    degolfer222 I finally changed my title VIP

    Coming from a mod, let me tell you something: I absolutely do not remember every last slay I put on every single person. If you RDM twice and then like 4 maps later RDM again, I will treat it as a first offense because I dont even remember the first 2. With everything going on in a server, dealing with mic spam, a ton of reports a map, explaining why I added a slay here and not here, dealing with delay, etc. etc. there is no way I remember every single person I slayed the entire period Im staffing. When I add a slay, I generally scan through the current and last maps reports, and if I see any valid reports there, then I go on to 2nd or a ban, if thats what theyre at. And even if I do remember, Im gonna follow the same system, because my memory alone shouldnt be the deciding factor if you get banned or not.
     
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  20. Seriously every mass RDM is avoidable. Use brain instead think twice profit.
     
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