Suggestions for Updates to the Game Terms and Conditions / Forum Rules and Regulations

All the thanks to @Joez for getting this thread started! As per his request I have taken over this thread for the time being.

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Starting a master list to keep things tidy and to keep things moving, though ideally if one of the forum moderators could take over ownership of this thread it would be much appreciated.

Please keep things civil and respectful.

Staff responses in this thread to be assumed as their individual feedback rather than on behalf of MapleRoyals Staff, unless being specified as such.

 

Legit question why is there a 48 hour statute of limitations on harassment?

 

I'll start with a rather unorthodox suggestion.

I'd like to suggest a formal complaints and disputes resolution pathway to be incorporated into the current terms and conditions.

Obviously this will need a lot of hashing out, however, ideas would include
- a platform for players who feel harassed, insulted or otherwise negatively targeted by another member present their evidence via a private forum post to which the alleged offender is then invited to present their evidence otherwise
- a member of staff will act in the role of mediator. Ideally this should be a forum moderator rather than a GM/admin.

- a formal complaints pathway for when the conduct of a staff member is being questioned.
- it is my belief that individual members of MapleRoyals Staff are held accountable for their actions and should be able to justify their reasoning behind what's being done
- individual players should not feel like they're forced to post a feedback thread to address their concerns with particular members of staff.

Yes, this is a public and open attempt to disempower staff and ensure they're able to justify what they're doing, and it is my attitude towards a multitude of events that have happened in recent months. However, you may see it as an attempt to make the community feel more connected to staff as a whole.

Feel free to suggest otherwise, this is a very preliminary idea. I would like to see however that harassment / offensive type reports be dealt with in a more professional and empathic manner than what is currently being done.

 

I definitely do not agree with a 48 hour statute of limitations on harassment, especially when a lot of the people doing the harassing try to bully and intimidate users into not reporting them by threatening them. I know this has happened before to some of my friends who then spent some time deliberating with putting up bullying in hopes that it stops or feeling very scared of future repercussions for reporting, especially when immediately submitting a report can single them out as to who did the reporting. Really puts a dent in providing anonymous reporting and protecting victims.

I think the requirement of asking for more background information is enough to filter out people reporting others for harassment with malicious intentions rather than to protect themselves from abuse. Staff should look into that and the reporter's previous report history to look at intent. If there's going to be a statute of limitations for harassment, it needs need to be a lot lot more than 48 hours. If someone reports someone for harassment they did long ago and it's clear the offender has improved their behavior since then, I think the better course of action is to leave some subjectivity towards being forgiving for those ill actions rather than outright saying to the reporter "well too bad, you waited a day too long, can't help you."

I say all this because I've had friends experience some really REALLY VILE things on this server that made me sick to my stomach when the whole doxxing / cyberbullying discord server was a thing, and they all spent a lot of time thinking about the consequences of coming forward with the abuse they dealt with.

 

Why even put 48 hours limit? What is the point in that?

We have people getting actions taken against them from offense done months ago like vote abuse prior to realizing what had happen.

Also, there can be instances of harassments where the incident can be drawn out for multiple days/weeks, or something that seems minor which turns into something bigger down the line.

 

Some of the people yeah do say stuff like "I will report you for -some made up nonsense-" or I'm friends with x,y,z in your guild/bossing group/whatever we won't invite you to anything anymore since you're so 'sensitive/emotional' " and put the blame on the victim for being harassed, but that's just the beginning of what I've seen.
I've actually seen them say stuff like "well I know where you live / what school you go to / your social media, you will see what happens if you report me" those people who made those threats are mostly perma-banned now for good reason. And guess what they actually carried through with their threats. You can see why people would think twice about reporting, it's not easy as "well just report them to make them stop."

Anyone who knows me closely, actually knows that I REFUSE to use social media or even give out my name since I've been stalked in person before (not from people in this server, but from another game where I was a developer). Which is why I found TimK's "well just set everything to private" comment pretty insane, because I was found through a friend posting vague details about me meeting them, nothing through me so even if you set things to private, people with bad intentions will still follow through with their perverted plans.

Ideally I would like there to be no time limit, because people get scared or they think they don't have enough evidence and want some time to think or even discuss it with other potential victims. I think the new rule just hurts victims.

 

I'm going to begin sharing some of my personal opinions more openly and publicly in Feedback threads instead of just the internal Staff chat (and thus mediating between the two) moving forward. Partly because transparency yada yada, but mostly because I firmly believe that Staff as a whole need to be held more accountable with how they manage their relationship with the community. I will say that the original statute of limitations was supported by majority of the Staff (including myself), although its implementation was hurriedly pushed as you all may have noticed. I would personally support a revision of how this statute of limitations ought to be best applied in light of this discussion. To answer the questions regarding why this was implemented in the first place, it was to reduce the amount of petty revenge reports that people were submitting as a way to "weaponize the rules" (I take full credit for coining this term btw) and maliciously stack disparate Harassment or Hate Speech bans against players that took place within a single instance. Although this rule was implemented concurrently with the decision to unban Raony, it was actually brought up in internal discussion much earlier.

I still believe that some sort of mechanism needs to exist to prevent this sort of abuse. And I'm conflicted because while this new rule is probably one of the most efficient ways to combat this, I also personally firmly believe and agree with many of you that victims of Harassment deserve an equitable pathway to justice. At the minimum, I agree that 48 hours is too short. Another idea that comes to mind is establishing clear distinctions between various "levels" of Harassment, in which only minor forms of Harassment would be subject to this rule. For example, keep in mind that as the current rules stand, Information Harvesting (doxxing) is considered a moderate offense that would not be subject to the new state of limitations. But given the discretionary nature of Harassment bans, this seems like a logistic nightmare. Anyways, as Dave said, I encourage everyone to provide your opinions, experiences, and detailed thoughts of how this rule would ultimately affect this server because it is really important.

On that note, another suggestion that I was planning on bringing up internally but will now thus speak into existence externally is the opportunity for the community to make public comments on our proposed draft to the Terms & Conditions. Since y'all love throwing legal terminology around in the forums (no shade!), I should mention that administrative agencies of the federal government are actually mandated by law to announce any proposed changes to the substance or enforcement of their rules for what are called "public comments"--opportunity by The People to provide their commentary on such proposed changes. Clearly this insight could have been used with the most recent implementation of the "48 Hour" Rule, and the opportunity for community involvement in shaping the rules that define their time in this server is a hill that I will die on.

I would be happy to take up this mantle in the future, but like I've said elsewhere earlier I'm currently taking minimal involvement with my official role as Staff. Hopefully productive change can arise from this thread, and thank you for taking the initiative to begin this dialogue.

 

In light of recent discussion, I personally advocate for the following changes to the "statute of limitations" rule recently implemented:

To maintain the requirement of ~servertime, but to abolish altogether the requirement that Harassment reports be submitted within 48 hours of the reported action.​

I believe that the requirement of ~servertime will still provide Staff with important logistical information that will ultimately prevent players from maliciously "weaponizing the rules" to manipulate single instances of Harassment into disparate "stack-bans" against other players. I also believe that the requirement of ~servertime alone will encourage players to take proper initiative in documenting interactions with other players that they genuinely deem vulgar or offensive. This renders the purpose of the requirement that Harassment reports be submitted within 48 hours of the reported action moot. Additionally, given the discretionary nature of Harassment reports, Staff members are still free to ask players filing a Harassment report why they chose to wait a particular amount of time before doing so. This will allow Staff to exercise their judgment in weighing any evidence and intent to each particular situation, without being forced to categorically dismiss all Harassment reports that simply fail to meet this arbitrary requirement. As such, the current statute of limitations will ultimately only serve as an obstacle that unduly burdens victims of Harassment without providing much benefits.

Additionally, I also believe that other solutions such as establishing further distinctions in the realm of our "Harassment" rule such as sexual harassment that would be enforced in a different manner than general harassment--especially in light of our earlier discussion regarding the distinction between Harassment and Hate Speech--will only further muddle the enforcement of a rule by Staff that the community already perceives to be too opaque.

Given the expediency with which this rule was originally implemented through the institutional authority of the Admins, I sincerely hope that any and all necessary reforms to this rule progress just as swiftly.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

 

Hello! Sorry for adding my 2 cents here as a wash up, but I still care very much for this server, its success, and the well-being of the community. I was wondering if more information could be provided as to the rationale behind the 48 hours? I understand the deeper reason behind it (deterring petty reports), but where did this number come from? Why not 72? 36? And so on so forth. Knowing this reasoning could help inform feedback. Many apologies if this was addressed elsewhere already. Thanks!

 

Take away permanent bans for profane language, this should be reserved for more extreme offences

 

I think leech scamming, and APR scamming should be added to the T&C. First offense could be a 30-day ban, and then a permanent ban. It is discouraging to have lost most of one's wealth to scammers, just because they're new and naive, maybe don't use the forum or know about the blacklist thread, and know that the scammers are still out there just because you didn't have enough evidence. If the person who was scammed have something to start an investigation (maybe an IGN), wouldn't a GM/admin be able to check that IGN, and their main's inventory based on MAC/IP? At least have something in the T&C, and we can modify it as it goes to fit the server better.

 

Requiring servertime at all hurts the low information players who are victims of harassment or hate speech. If I'm not on the forums a lot or am a new player and I'm harassed, I might take a screenshot and by the time I go to report after processing it, even if it's within an hour or so, I might have already logged off to prevent further whispers or game scrollback might have expired already.

If the goal is to prevent people from saving up evidence and reporting all at once, or using old evidence, and that part of any ban punishment is to allow time for the banned party to reflect on their actions and reform themselves then I would propose the following be incorporated into the rules:

1) All reports happening before a ban is issued is treated as the same level of offense, but with consecutive bans.
2) Any reports after the offender's first ban that come in without a timestamp showing it took place after the offender's first bans at the strike level is remedied by a ban of the previous offense's severity and does not add a strike to the offender's official record. Excepting if the offender has no ban history, then they will get their first strike.

So as an example, if someone were to say something objectionable twice or harass two people in two days before they were banned, they would have a single strike but serve a 6 day ban for two offenses. And then if they were reported a third time without a timestamp, it's unknown if it was before they had time to reflect and reform or after their ban, so they would server another 3 day ban. Then if someone did have a timestamped screenshot after their original bans, that offender would then serve a 7 day ban and have the second strike applied.

This is because even if it has been a while since whatever actions took place, the offender did break the rules and should have to serve the punishment. However, the it also allows room for reform after their initial bans so one won't get three strikes (or however many) for things that happened in a short period of time. And then if it's shown that the player has not reformed after their punishments, then they will have to face harsher consequences.

 

Moderate Infractions:

Solicitation - The act of advertising or soliciting any sort of commercial opportunities of any nature, including chain letters, pyramid schemes, investment opportunities or commercial advertising, or additionally providing access to any location that does the above. Punishment: First offense - 7 day ban, Second offense - Permanent ban.
I think RWT solicitation should fall into this umbrella rather than an appendix of RWT under major infractions. Most permanent bans pertaining to RWT solicitation appear to be in game smegas of individuals under the influence of drugs and alcohol based on what's publicly visible in ban appeals and appear to rarely reflect true malevolent RWT activity (which is grossly underreported anyway).

Information Harvesting (Stalking) - The act of collecting any information about the game or any individual associated with the game, including players, ownership or any involved third-parties, without their expressed consent, regardless of the location of the act. Punishment: First offense - 7 day ban, Second offense - Permanent ban.
This seems to be classified as a less severe infraction compared to others in this category looking at the ban durations - would suggest making them consistent.
"Regardless of the location of the act" is an important part of this rule for those of you who seem to think that doxxing evidence from discord does not qualify under this

Glitch Abuse - The act of exploiting any errors in game design or any features or bugs, documented or otherwise, that are not meant to be available in order to gain any sort of competitive advantage. Punishment: First offense - 14 day ban, Second offense- Permanent ban.
There is considerable ambiguity on this infraction's implementation and whilst I have a personal vendetta against hurricane glitching it's beyond my hands. There are hundreds of players who use known bugs to their advantage whether knowingly or not and I think if this rule is not going to be consistently applied then it should be moved to Minor, rather than Moderate Infractions.

Robotic Play - The act of engaging in robotic or automatic play which allows any character you own to function autonomously or affect any portion of the game without your presence. Punishment: First offense - 7 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.
Given the more severe macro ban goes under Major Infraction - Game Hacking I think this realistically can be moved to Minor Infractions also.

Vote Abuse - The act of attempting to, or successfully, bypassing the restrictions of voting no more than once per 24 hours. Punishment: First offense - 14 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.
This is really hard. One option is to have any vote abuse with associated links to real word trade qualified as a permanent ban under Major Infraction - RWT.
Vote abuse for personal gain could be offered a temporary ban with duration dependent on volume of abuse. This is unfortunately time consuming for Staff though is one area that could potentially be delegated.

Part of moving some of these infractions to Minor Infractions is that I'm planning to advocate for maximum ban duration on third offence Minor Infractions to be finite (tentative suggestion 30-90 days). It represents a significant disruption of gameplay that is designed to counteract any competitive advantage but does not deny them the opportunity to interact with other friends from this community.

 

Even though vote rule showed in the vote page, showed in red text and we would see it everyday, still can see many, and some famous players be banned because of vote abuse and claimed if we believe they didnt know the rule till now or till past sometime.
Can we assure we would use the same or more effective ways to propaganda the requiring server time rule when being harassed?
If we cant and i guess surely we cant, many people wouldnt even know it despite playing the game for a long time, no need to say the fresh players, and as result, they cant gain justice in this server when facing harassment.
Even more, we may see some bad ppl would harass or use hate speech aimly to the players, most fresh players, who clearly dont know the rule, and evade without any pushiment.
I cant support any reasons to maintain the server time rule based on this huge worry.

 

Also i dont like the way we update the rule, as the new update, it implemented when it announced, why not put a time front it? say it would be impletmeted next month and can have sometime hear the voice of players about it, and may revise it based on the situation, rather than implement it immediately and let the all players accept it with no doubt.
Definitely we will have doubt with any of the updates of the rule. Its the basement of how we play this game.