Moderation, Discretion, and How It's Enforced

I'm going to go ahead and post this, because quite frankly, there's some serious issues in the fundamental philosophy behind how moderation is handled in this game. I don't really post here, and don't have much of a stake in all this, but I felt obligated to post this, as I'm not the only one who feels this way.

In order to present my argument, I'm going to use a recent example from a ban appeal:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/all-of-my-accounts-are-blocked.141103/

I'd highly recommend reading through it yourself for the context behind my argument. Essentially, someone started playing on the account of their friend who passed away, mentioned it on the forums somewhere, and got banned for account sharing. Said like this, I'm sure literally 99% of the people reading this will respond with "welp, that's against the rules, so he got banned". And if you think that, you are strictly, 100% correct. He broke the rules, and was banned for them. However, I think this approach to moderation is fundamentally flawed.

My argument, thus, is this: While this player certainly broke the letter of the rules (he played on an account that wasn't his; account sharing), he did not break the spirit of the rules. Rules don't exist in a void, they exist for a reason. In this case, (people can correct me if I'm wrong), but the reason account sharing is against the rules is because if it is allowed, it gives an advantage to players who abuse it. This advantage then encourages people to account share, because if they don't, they will be disadvantaged. Obviously, staff don't want this, because account sharing causes tons of problems (prime example: "I got hacked", when in reality, they gave their account info to someone they shouldn't have, people selling accounts and saying they just gave it to a friend, etc.). So, to prevent people from abusing it for an advantage and preventing the problems that come with rampant account sharing, it isn't allowed. Simple enough.

So, let's go back: Has this player gained an advantage from account sharing? I'd say no, not really. Assuming everything he's said is true, it's not really even account sharing at this point, since at this point, the account only has one "owner". You could argue maybe he's lying and he bought the account or something, but based on what information is publicly available, that seems extremely unlikely. So, with this, I could say that while he certainly violated the letter of the rules, he didn't violate the spirit of them, and that's what I'm here to argue.

I understand why the staff are going for this approach to moderation, but I really think a good dose of discretion would improve interactions for the better. Ultimately, I think treating players this way with regards to the rules breeds toxicity on both sides. Ultimately, the admins in the appeal thread were fairly respectful in terms of what they actually said and how they said it. If they were adamant on their decision to uphold the ban, the way they handled the delivery of that ban is ultimately adequate, even if the way they reached that conclusion is, imo, fundamentally flawed.

However, I cannot say the same for everyone involved in moderation for this game. Earlier today, some fuss was kicked up on the MapleRoyals discord about this, as the player who was banned was frustrated and lashing out, understandably so. Eventually, this back and forth ended, as staff stopped replying, and the banned player posted a decently long rant. 20 minutes after everything seemed to have been settled, this exchange occurred:


I want you all to internalize the messages present in this screenshot, and the context of the fact that a moderator said this. These messages aren't an act of moderation or resolution, it's borderline harassment of someone for something that was already over. It's disgusting, and I strongly believe that the only reason attitudes like this can propagate within moderation is due to a severe emphasis on following the letter of the rules exactly. It takes a remarkable lack of empathy to be able to post something like this, and internally justify it by saying "they played on account that isn't there's". Frankly, even if you believe that this ban falls within the spirit of the rules, I'd be hard pressed to believe you could think a response like this is even remotely acceptable, especially from a moderator.

At the end of the day, I'm absolutely certain this thread will get flooded with posts about how this guy deserves to be banned, we don't know the specifics of everything that occurred with that account, the staff probably made their decision with more info, etc.; I get it, right, this isn't lost on me. However, this isn't about this single, particular instance of a ban, I'm talking about the underlying philosophy behind this decision, and why and how it was made. I don't expect that decision to be revised in any way, nor do I expect people to care about it. However, I do think that the systems that resulted in this decision are worth discussing, if nothing else.

tl;dr: empathy, empathy, put yourself in the place of me.

 

I'm going to make the argument that the banned user has benefitted from this "account sharing", in so that they even broke the spirit of the rules. The banned player has taken over a level 61 character, they were able to skip all the content and levels from 1-61. Now given that this is a private server, it probably doesn't take too long for someone to get to level 61, you may argue that instead maybe they didn't benefit greatly as would someone account sharing with a level 200 account with full equips. Where can we draw the line to where how much someone can benefit from account sharing? It makes it a whole a lot simpler just to not allow account sharing period, which is exactly one of the rules the banned user agreed to when he signed up for the game.

 

It's fascinating to me that you can reply like this, since you gave effectively the exact same response that I called out as the kneejerk reaction in my post. I understand you want to defend yourself, but at least put in an honest effort into internalizing the criticisms being leveled, instead of being primarily concerned with people's perception of you.

As for the context, yup, he did say those things. You are 100% correct. With that being said, he had already stopped posting, and your response isn't appropriate either way. Even if you weren't a moderator, your comments are unacceptable. However, the fact that you are a discord moderator makes it even more inappropriate. The fact that someone else said something does not mean that you have free reign to reply with whatever you want to them. This is something that shouldn't be lost on you, as this very thing has been said before in ban appeals; "Someone else harassing you does not mean it's allowed to harass them back", which very much applies here.

I really, legitimately, truly want you to consider as to why your first priority is to respond like this, and not try to understand what was wrong with what you said, but rather to defend why it was okay for you to say it.

Sure, I'll give you that. Strictly speaking, it is a benefit, although it is a minor one. Unless that character had significant wealth on it, I think you'll agree skipping the first 60 levels as a priest is basically irrelevant, since it is almost trivial. By that logic, it would still be a 30 day ban as a first offense, if we're going by that logic. Unless you believe that a ~61 Priest with a probably negligible amount of wealth is a significant advantage?

I get the "it's a lot simpler" argument, but I don't think it's good one. The answer as to where you draw the line is something that has to be considered, you're right. It's a good thing that the fact it has to be considered by staff is literally written in the rules, and was employed in this specific circumstance:

1. Account Sharing - The act of sharing the use your account, sharing account information with any other individual, or the act of logging into or otherwise using an account owned by another person, with or without permission, regardless of whether or not the information was directly or indirectly shared. Punishment: First offense - 30 day ban, Second offense - Permanent ban. Please be aware that, in cases of severe abuse as per discretion of staff, we reserve the right to respond with a permanent ban regardless of if it is your first offense. See appendix for more information.
   

So saying it's simpler to not use discretion isn't a very good argument, since discretion is literally a part of this rule and was used in the judgment.

 

I’m usually zero tolerance for rule breaking but I’m entirely on your side here.

If the staff can apply “their discretion” to allow the name analthunder while disallowing strictlyanal then they can apply that same discretion to allow a dude to play on the level 60 cleric formerly owned by his deceased friend while disallowing all of the real account sharing and having it continue being punished.

This isn’t like giving people a second chance for making mistakes. This is being a compassionate human being and making an exception to a rule that wasn’t even implemented to prevent this type of stuff from occurring in the first place. I would be hard pressed to believe that the person who created the account sharing rule intended for it to apply in as far as to the second job character of somebody who no longer exists on this Earth, and instead to account sharing involving to two or more living people.

We aren’t going to see an influx of “it was my dead friends level 60 account” on account sharing ban appeals the same way we would if we were to allow somebody who shared their account with a living friend to keep playing. These exceptions are one in a million and they are the real reason discretion should exist to a small degree.

 

Petty

 

Then it becomes an issue of every person and their brother saying "Oh it's my friends account, they died".

People will use any excuse to get back in game/break rules and this would be precedent for something we have almost no way of proving.

 

Err "We aren’t going to see an influx of “it was my dead friends level 60 account” on account sharing ban appeals the same way we would if we were to allow somebody who shared their account with a living friend to keep playing. These exceptions are one in a million and they are the real reason discretion should exist to a small degree"

Require the dude to prove his friend died then, whatever, and deny others if their deceased friends accounts are too high leveled or if their story doesn't add up. That's the point of using discretion the same way you guys allow anal to be used one way but not another even though from a visual perspective it is identical. You guys do have the ability to say "hey, this dude is a one in a million exception and that's that". How many "my friend killed himself and I knew his account info from a life long friendship" ban appeals do we have to date? One, right? That's how rare this occurrence is. People aren't going to be popping out of the woodwork weekly with dead friend excuses on account ban appeals because you guys allowed this dude to slide through, and if they occasionally do, you simply deny them because you have the power to do so and have no obligation to provide such an exception ever again (you guys can use your discretion the same way you would be by making this dude an exception). Again, this is *such* a rare occurrence and the impact on staff resources from spending time dealing with "my dead friend" account sharing ban appeals is going to be negligible at best (especially compared to the amount of time we waste just telling the person what they're banned for in the first place).

 

Yup, they certainly could. Which is why there would be discretion involved, like there already is, in those situations. Assuming it even happens, of course. Frankly, the situations in which they could plausibly even use that excuse are pretty limited. Even if they do, if it's something that's obviously a massive advantage, it could still easily be denied on the basis of it being a major abuse, like exactly what happened here.

If someone suddenly claims an account with high level, relatively wealthy characters, then it's understandable, if sad. It'd be an obvious defense for someone who bought an account, and even if it were true that it was a friend's account, it's still a pretty major abuse so it wouldn't be allowed. Fair enough.

This case stands out as a notable example, because based on the information we have here, this really isn't serious abuse. Even if this guy is 100% lying about everything, the impact of him getting a level 61 priest instead of just making a new one from scratch is so woefully small that I don't see the issue. If allowing an exception in situations such as this means a few cheaters get some 2nd job mages and a couple of mesos, I really don't see it as a big deal.

okay, good talk.

You shouldn't have. I don't understand what you're going for here. Are you saying harassing someone was warranted because you didn't have anything else to say but that? Or are you arguing that what you said wasn't at all inappropriate? I legitimately do not understand the purpose of this post.

 

yes

 

Asking the broader questions: why do GMs exist in this game?

Is it really about “enforcing rules”? Or rather, is it about giving players a better game experience by removing hackers, RWTers etc from the game environment?

What have we actually achieved by banning this person?

Is the act of enforcing rules mutually exclusive from being compassionate?

————————————————————————
Regardless, “he started this game when he was alive” is unacceptable irrespective of context. At the very least I think an apology is warranted, if nothing else for the sheer disrespect that has been displayed.

./2c

 

Yes.

At best, you should have banned him or given him a warning or something. That would be reasonable, as you are a moderator, after all; With that being said, a staff member had already told him his posts had no place in the gm assistance channel, and that he should appeal his forum ban like everyone else, and all posts in that channel had already stopped for a good while. You really didn't need to be involved at all, and if you did, your response was far from the way to go about it. Not as player, and certainly not as a moderator.

 

Unfortunately, you won't get that here if that's what you are looking for.

However I do agree that a moderator shouldn't have replied like that, or even replied.
Yes, degenerate was being insensitive and rude but he has also lost a dear friend. The reply was just disrespectful and it's really not unreasonable to just let it slip.

 

I agree that we don't know everything about what happened in the account. Hence, why I'm using this as an example. It is entirely possible there is more suspicious activity related to the account that isn't public knowledge. This is why I'm using this case as an example to convey my argument, it's entirely possible there's more to this than we know. However, based on what we do know, I doubt there's that much more shady activity going on here, and it doesn't really change my overarching point.

As for treating cases unbiasedly, I'm uncertain what you mean by this. Do you mean there shouldn't be discretion? Discretion is already involved in decisions.

 

having been forum banned before, i can see why the guy lashed out
not that it is acceptable but when you get banned, lose access to all your shit and then get routinely ignored*, you can feel very wronged

you feel like you're talking to a wall after you got banned because no one is talking with you most of the time
that's why the staff needs a staff member who is just in charge of communicating (like in a community-facing role)
because let's face it the staff can be quite bad in communicating with players

*there are literally some staff who ignore messages *cough, E wink wink wink*

 

(This is a response to the initial post only, not what has been said later in the thread)

It's not like I don't feel bad about denying that guy's appeal. Before making any final decisions, situations like this are always discussed with other members of staff to gain multiple viewpoints. In all types of bans, whatever the reasoning, if the player can't provide solid proof that they didn't break the rules, then their appeals are denied. For this particular case, the person had used an account that wasn't originally theirs and trained on the character it contained. The loss of the original owner of the account shouldn't justify using the account afterward. If it were just me, I wouldn't have kept it permanent. But, according to the rules outlined and other staff members' input, this was the final decision for that appeal. I understand that you want staff members to take into account special situations when it comes to players breaking the word of the rules and not necessarily the "spirit" of them. Maybe one day we will be able to trust people's stories, but for the moment, there have been too many who have abused the trust of staff to be let off because of special circumstances. If you have any other concerns regarding this issue, feel free to pm me about it, as this will be the only reply I will be adding to this thread.

 

Showing empathy isn't about "well how should I respond to [this situation]". The centre of empathy is not about you.

Ask yourself some of these questions, you might understand what we are trying to get across:
"How would he have felt when he read what I'd written?"
"What would someone's, anyone's response be if they were put in his situation?"
"If something different was said to him, how would that have changed situation?"
"What are some things that could be done to try and rectify the situation?"
"Is there something that could be done differently to prevent incidents of this nature to happen again?"

Have a think - I'm not trying to have a go at you. I'm trying to make this situation a learning experience for you, for me, for all of us. I can't even begin to understand what he's going through right now, but I know when I feel like crap because of some external incident the last thing I would want is to feel like the whole world is antagonising me. It's a time when we as humans need the support and compassion from our family, friends and genuine compassion from others to pull through. You might have a completely different coping mechanism for these negative emotions and that's fine, but familiarise yourself with them and appreciate those are what many others in this world might be experiencing right now.

If you're still stuck for ideas, how about starting with an apology to him? Tell them with your sincerity that you're sorry for what you said, for the consequences of your words, whatever they may be. How about asking him how he's doing? Listen to the things he wants to talk about.

The centre of empathy is not about you. It's not about any of us in this thread, to be honest. Just for this particular incident, it's about him.