The "Single RDM" reporting rule

Staff will not always be this full. Your argument that staff have lots of resources is based on something temporary for all we know. Rules and protocol should be enforced regardless of the situation.

The reason there is a grey area is because staff don't want players continuously reporting single offenses over and over, which WOULD take up a ton of time.
The reason they're not allowed entirely is because staff still handle these reports when they can, but they shouldn't drown out offenses like Mass RDM, Hacking, Ghosting, and literally any other major offense

They grey area is fine the way it is. Many times, yes, rules need clarification, but I don't believe this is one of those times

 

Why is that needed? Single RDM reports are legit reports but they take too much time for what its worth so people should be encouraged to not do it. Even Aarow's current report would had been waste of staff's time if Janppa did not agree that it was RDM, the video on its own is not even close enough to showing Janppa RDMed(could had been unid from some time before etc). Just because something is grey area does not mean it needs to be fixed.

Its still waste of staff resources timewise, why does it matter how many staff there is? Nobody should have to waste their time going through old logs, looking at video evidence, asking other persons side etc(often times 15+ minutes all together) just for 1 slay.

One of the problems is also double punishing someone for 1 offense. As with Aarows case, if a mod came online and slayed Janppa based on the report ingame, it would had been completely possible they missed the forum report and now 2nd moderator who sees forum report later puts a new slay on janppas ID and he gets double punished as 2nd moderator has no way to confirm if Janppa got punished ingame with 1 slay or not. Likewise a report with 2 RDMs should just be handled ingame as theres no way for moderator who is handling forum report to know if the person was already correctly slain or not from ingame reports.

TL;DR Collecting and checking evidence for 1 RDM takes up way too much time for whats it worth so I too think people should be encouraged not to report 1 RDM.

 

Hence RDM should be punished regardless of the situation.

If the person who reported someone had such a nasty experience (what ever it may be) with them and the RDM is the issue to be reported they want to feel like they're not being gypped by their nasty experience and have some kind of hope from it. In any case this can then stem into what @Zyp said about what other things has this person done that was found looking through the evidence that the server collects.

Spoiler

This sums up nicely why it shouldn't be so grey. Even the admin (granted, new but just as easily likely to have done so as a mod) was confused by it and was told to handle the report. Now your wording of the rule is very interesting because it would've prevented this from happening, but in the end the discouragement of reporting for single offenses leads to what? More discouraging? People won't be discouraged unless punishment is the deterrent and not a recommendation. They're just as free to continue without being discouraged at all making me think why even tell people if you'll take care of it anyway?

Zyp's argument can show it may lead to more punishment, how often idk, but I'll say "WHAT IF" it leads to more punishment? Something people like to do with these suggestions is predict what can happen as opposed to what is actually happening which I think is stupid so there's a what if for you people who like them. Besides people take that much time anyway to do forum reports in-game and sit in-game doing those reports it's not a waste of time if they're handling a report like that. Also why does it suddenly become a much bigger deal if it's 2 RDM offenses. Is this where the "What if they've done more" comes into play?

As for double punishing, if they're not taught well enough to avoid that then they'll learn from the experience. Staff will always make mistakes we've seen that in countless valid reports with their admins going like "they'll be given a stern talking" so it's nothing new if they do something wrong.

In any case Im arguing both sides here because Im aiming for less grey area.

 

To be honest, I think 2 RDM offense is just as pointless to report for reasons I gave above.

If done on purpose then its technically a Mass RDM report though(Reporting someone for 1 RDM on you and then saying "he potentially RDMed others at X and X point") which is fine. I really do not think you are going to get a lot of reports of single RDM leading to bigger offenses, its already hard enough to prove the single RDM on you was actually RDM.
Thats why I think Mass RDM reports are the only legit RDM related reports because it becomes easier and easier to prove someone is breaking the rules as they break more rules(and its severe enough where it isnt that much of a time waste assuming it actually happened). And obviously the easier it is to prove someone broke rules, the less time staff has to waste on it.

 

Which begs the question where is the line actually drawn? If you think of that as I've conjured the thought others could think the same if posed the same question which means there's a need to rephrase at the very least and then it addresses the concern you've listed later in your post. Specify the minimum for mass RDM, which seems to be 3, and then rephrase the current rule for reporting because it's in a useless state that people legitimately refer to this rule and argue with a reporter about. If distributing slays for 1 or 2 RDM offenses is a waste of time, then a ban shouldn't be a waste of time and so in regards to RDM the reports made should only be made if it is mass RDM which solves the grey area issue.

People use the rule to argue with the reporter, the staff refer to the rule to no avail as the single offenses come in, and it's a rule that was formerly strict as in "No single offenses please" to a now very watered down state.

 

That's a good point, but people that have the evidence all there in the report shouldn't be scolded or chastised like I was. As with reports in-game, the player reporting needs to present evidence if the staff member needs it. If you really don't want that situation, explain that forum reports for single RDM must also have the evidence to be validated. It's an easy fix to prevent those new players or petty players that report and leave it at some vague "RDM" with no evidence or context while still allowing players that really care to be heard without feeling unwanted.

 

Regardless of opinion, it seems best to draw a line. Whether it's against my own beliefs or for them, a line would simplify things.

 

Except you didnt. What if what actually happened was that Janppa saw you by unid earlier into the round? Now you would have to upload your evidence of what happened in round before if you stick to your story which moderator also has to look through. Then it comes out Janppas story matches with what happened ingame as moderator goes through old logs making Janppas story possible.
Now the moderator just wasted loads of time going through video evidence(maybe looking over it multiple times to not miss anything), they had to go through old logs to confirm Janppas story only to find out it was WvW.
By your own rules your own forum report was invalid due to not having enough evidence from the start.

Likewise for most common report reasons (unids, KoSes, T-baiting) you would have to upload videos of entire round and if you dont have a report response as to why they killed you, its even worse as reported player can claim basically anything . You would have to go to oddly specific if you wanted to draw line.
"If you are reporting a single case of RDM you must include report response from who killed you and video of the situation. If the report response is something that can happen during any point of a round (unID, KoS etc) the video must include the entire round upto the RDM."
Obviously not a final thing I would like in the rules, just something as an example.

 

I didn't read all of it, just scanned, so I am going to be soundboarding a little, but just in favor of allowing people to report single cases, not from a wording standpoint, but a practical one:
1. Petty reports can still be treated as petty. Make enough of them, and you lose your ability to create any more.
2. There are plenty of people and situations centered around RDM where the victim(s) could only really report a single case of RDM, with the rest being speculation or without evidence/personal involvement. Individually, these reports would amount to next to nothing, but when you compare them to all the other reports that would potentially be made about this individual, but aren't because of the 'single RDM=No report', you would find them to be a highly toxic player.
3. Just in general, there are plenty of staff. Even if some reports are missed because of time erasing all evidence, it can't be difficult to create a list of 'valid reports' to complete upon logging onto a server. It might require a little more organization among st the staff, about who will complete which server's reports, but I can't see why that would be a difficult or bad thing.

 

Alrighty, I guess I'll go ahead and give my two cents on the matter.

First, I would like you all to remember that our staff team or at least the majority of it have other things going on in their lives other than this community. Rather that be work, school, both etc they do have other things that take up time. I would hardly say that they are lazy when they are so willing to give up a chunk of their freetime after these other priorities to staff the servers, handle forum reports, try to maintain peace in shoutbox etc while still trying not to burn themselves out and allowing them time to do other things they enjoy. Also, I have been off and on the staff team for the past year and it's always been said to me that we don't encourage single rdm reports but if one happens to get reported you still deal with it. So you have to remember that most staff currently did not even have a say in how we say we encourage people to not report cases of single rdm- it's something that's been pushed on them and they've been trained knowing. It's not lazy, it's the result of a decision that was made back before most people can clearly remember as you so pointed out when han solo corrected you and brought insight onto how this "rule" , if you want to even call it that, was created.

Furthermore, it's been stated that this was created during a time we didn't have many staff resources to spare and it's been argued now that since we really aren't lacking too much in staff resources that it should be changed. What you have to realize is that this is a constantly changing variable- it's not hard to have a nearly full staff team one day and have a nearly empty one by the end of the month. We have to think about situations like when school starts when we typically don't have many moderators and people tend to not stay long on the staff team due to not being able to properly balance staffing and their other responsibilities. If we change it just due to our current "abundance" of resources- it will soon need to be changed back once again when those resources are back to being limited.

Most forum reports can take maybe 10+ minutes, honestly, i've never timed anyone when they pick up a forum report so I'm just spitballing that number. Moving on. Time may vary due to how long ago the incident occurred, If players need to respond to the report, and just the general time it takes to look at the evidence and put the pieces together to figure out what exactly happened and who needs to be punished for what or if no action even needs to be taken. If you add single rdm cases onto that you could very well end up with more drama being caused between people who simply do not like one another and will do anything to get the other in trouble. Or to put it bluntly- you have people being petty over minor situations. I'm not saying people who report single rdms are all petty, but there are some cases where it's really just not needed and it is a waste of staff time as well as the reporters time. Call it laziness if you wish- but staff are not slaves. We have other responsibilities outside of this community.

I feel no reason for why this even needs to be changed. People still do report single rdms at times and although it may not be as frequent as other types of reports they do still happen because, as I usually seem to notice, nobody tends to read that thread prior to filing the report.
All in all, I see no reason why this needs to be changed. People still get reported for single rdms, those reports do still get handled. There's no need to change the wording.

I took the liberty of going through reports to find cases of single rdm, here's what I found:

Spoiler: Accepted Reports

https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-yess.45846/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-failederino.44924/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-dude85632.43735/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/tejayfoxs-report.43483/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-frog.43192/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-tuff-kitten.42871/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-habibi12029.42447/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-tbonetermanator.42423/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-spud.42419/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-rixguin.42396/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-pr.41931/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-clm1203.41293/
https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-sorventa.41257/

Those were all the single rdm reports I found from now (1/3/18) to the bottom of page 90 of the reported staff/players (6/30/2017). Of course, I was doing this by eye and so there's the chance I missed some, but I was unable to find any single rdm cases that were denied due to be single rdm cases.

All in all, I see no reason why this needs to be changed. People still get reported for single rdms, those reports do still get handled. There's no need to change the wording.

 

Lets look at this from a different angle: Janppa, or some theoretical player, has an extensive history for toxic behavior or gameplay. This theoretical player kills someone for what is fairly clearly a bullshit reason, at least in the eye's of the victim. They happen to have recorded the round. They upload the relevant section of the video, and the toxic player tries to wriggle out of it. Now, if that report was never made, the toxic player would have gotten away with it, and would still be able to do things that are a detriment to the server as a whole, without the staff even knowing, and their offenses would continue to build, and more and more people would be affected as it took staff longer to realize the issue. Now, with the report, they have clear evidence of this toxicity, and even though it might not warrant enough by itself to do anything but slay them once, not even a warning, it just builds the evidence against them.

 

There's several time specific staff groups available to take over. The main area of activity that the staff handles is the morning to evening otherwise nothing else and there's how many groups? 7 Day groups, 2 night, 3 EU. That's more than enough to cover the availability of the staff members who are busy during their period of staffing. That's why we have multiple groups with this many people to cover the dead times.

Ok so the rule is useless. Again, you tell the people not to do it but if there's no punishment they'll continue to do it.

The "lazy" use I have is more or less me stating that you have rules against RDM, you want to discourage single offenses b/c it's a waste of time, and instead of calling yourselves lazy you label it as a waste of time when it's literally something that should be enforced by you as stated by the rules. So if you want to call lazy a waste of time you're free to do so.

There's several periods to think about this and I'll list them.

Prior to having 3 lead admins: clearly a much smaller staff team. A lead has 4 admins which lead 4 groups. Likely as my memory is bad even a smaller amount back then. The max you'd have on staff is 43. Add the lead, now you have 54 max. That's a lot of personnel to handle these reports and we're short by like 5 people to reach max. I believe only one occurrence in the past led to the groups being maxed out if not it ended at 42 but it was never as empty as...

After 1/11: 3 Leads 1 Owner, you lost about 20 staff members and the groups weren't at their near full potential during that time about half of the max potential of staff remained. This is a reason why I would see a "limited resources" argument in play.

Today: We see the staff today, we see how it was a year ago. Big changes. Lots of people here now. Yes, there's volatility in the staff group but to be reasonable not all of them leave for school, some do, and it won't be to the severe degree that 1/11 caused.

It's a job more so than volunteer work you're expected to do a certain amount of hours, you are allowed to quit if you wish, or you could be fired. But at the end of the day you're expected to do the job properly. If people are being petty, take a page from the lead's hand book of responding to the pettiness. If they're reporting RDM, deal with the RDM as you would any other. Any other report will take just as long if not longer, but now you're saying the pay-out for dealing punishment as 1 slay is not worth the trouble? Since when is valuing a punishment compared to the time you spend on the report worth the effort? The punishment for the rule break is set in stone for the punishment it's addressed to and should only be compared to it as so.

Yea no one reads it, but people reference that rule. I've seen it referenced a lot. If you say "I haven't" then you just haven't been in SB as much as I have.

Spoiler

It has happened, and unless you have it in a gold plaque somewhere in the staff threads it'll happen again. If it can happen, it will happen. Murphy's law baby

 

Except I did. I even included the in-game report and response in the video for a reason lol

 

Admittedly I'm quite tired so my clarity may be lacking at this moment, but uhh...
This is mainly an issue because it causes undue arguing over the technicality that single RDM reports are discouraged, right?

It's less so a rule and more a guideline, so let's not call it a rule.

You'll notice it says:

Not:

If someone is indeed filing a large number of minor RDM reports on the forums, an admin could intervene using the guideline as ammunition.
We provide the addendum to conclusions to discourage by verbal reprimand.

There's not much good reason to forum-report someone for the 18 damage they did to you when they accidentally shot in that one round.
I'm more sympathetic toward cases where you're actually shot and killed, but in both cases, it's not the end of the world.
I've forum reported for single RDM in the past.
Admittedly I also filed one of them as a means to 'get back at them' because they put a boo-boo on my feelings.
I stopped doing these reports as I - after a holy pilgrimage and long hours of meditation - realized that a single case of RDM is really not that bad.

Point being:
Single-RDM offenses are minor - and may be reported for petty reasons (extrapolating from myself).
I don't really mind either way, if you feel like a case of RDM absolutely needs handling, you may report it.
You just shouldn't be making a habit of filing forum reports for single instances.

Forum reports are mainly reserved for larger offenses as those are hugely disruptive to the server environment.
A single RDM really won't hugely impact the game.
But if someone is hacking, cheating by ghosting, or shooting everyone without reason, then the game is being ruined.
We want to punish those players who ruin the game.
Which is why we have a report section to ensure such behaviour is punished, even if staff wasn't online at the time.

In short: my opinion is that it is fine as is.
I disagree with the proposed change in either direction.

WoT colour-coded by popular demand.

 

say please

 

It is a rule. What you're looking at now is a watered down version of a rule. The original rule being: Absolutely not allowed to do this. So honestly, yea you can call it a suggestion or what have you considering the fangs were removed from the rule. However, this suggestion/rule what ever it is does spark arguments between people especially those who are reported and the reporter because that's what they tend to drive towards if they're a regular within the community they're aware of it.

Anyway yes the quotes you mention brings up a point I've been reiterating. The staff constantly leave at the end of these reports "Please do not make reports for single RDM offenses." What's to stop them from doing it again? They've got every right and way to do it again. You saying stop won't get them to stop. It's wasting time telling them to do that.

If they're filing a large number of minor offenses, then they'll be punished for reporting what is against the rules? Or in better words, they could be. Which is where we start getting into a grey area. Could, would, should. Where's the end goal? What's the purpose of this to have at all? I've only ever seen it spark arguments in SB whenever the reporter or the reported come on to complain about the report and refer to this point.

Which is what I specified earlier as seen here

And again which argues the pettiness about this and is an argument as to why it should be completely unallowed instead of discouraged.

The issue is not so much a habit, but the fact it can be done again after you're told not to. Would you consider a person doing it twice after the first time a habit? It's really a just a muddy mess of where the ruler stops.

Please

 

I didn't read this whole thread but the rule was created back when I first joined the community and I was making 10-12 single rdm reports a day. Sorry everyone

 

1a:
It's not a rule.
It may have started as a rule, but at present, it is not presented as a rule with tangible punishment.
If you want, we can rephrase it, as every mod typically does at the end of those reports:
"Please do not (forum) report for single RDM offenses"
There's no rule against these reports, but they aren't what the report thread is primarily for, which is major offenses.

Hence we ask that single RDM offenses not be reported here.

2a:
Nothing is to stop them from doing it again because they have every right to.
It doesn't say stop, it says please don't.
Because, again, the forum reports are primarily for major rulebreakers, not minor offenses.

3a: The admin intervention is an assumption on my part, I have no clue how such would pan out in practice.
I may have worded what I was trying to convey poorly, but the point was:
If you feel like a case of RDM absolutely needs handling, you may report it.
But we ask that you don't make numerous single RDM forum reports, because it's not the intended purpose of the forum reports.

4a: You can do it again because it's not prohibited, it's discouraged.
Ideally, you shouldn't be making them, but I'm repeating myself at this point.

Regarding regulars getting upset over it and arguing: you shouldn't.
A legitimate report is fair even if it's over a minor instance.
You don't need to fight over the technicality that we discourage it.
The guideline is in place to put emphasis on what the forum reports are intended for.

 

You don't turn them away, but you discourage people from doing them because it's not the primary use of the thread. That screams to me confusion in that you could have it just simply be "we don't want these reports" or "we'll do them with no issues" but instead you say "we'll do them begrudgingly and tell you please dont make us do these again it's unnecessary"

If they have every right to why discourage them from exercising that right? Just let them or tell them no.

He who may have been reported could be a trouble maker as stated by the reports section to "report trouble makers" which was confusingly worded in a recent report as to not report these kinds of trouble makers for single offenses.

But they do because this exists as a grey area.

Which means it should be allowed without that grey area or discouragement.

But it's that exact technicality that is the stem of the arguments because it gives those who refer to that technicality a reason for saying "the staff clearly dont want these reports"


Edit: and so to inks point if this is truly a hindrance make it a definite than grey and say we wont accept these reports

 

Hey can you guys stop using colors on text without purpose? It's annoying.
Also, I think it's fair to allow staff to crack down on people who make excessive single instance RDM reports. These reports don't necessarily help the gameplay or allow the punished player to know what happened at all since usually, tons of people RDM once in a while it doesn't really help keep the servers clean to punish these players 10 hours down the line. Forum reports take a lot of time and should be used for severe cases only.