I didn't mean to imply he was forum banned, since the ban I had applied was an ingame one. The only reason I replied was to clarify that even though he did receive a ban ingame, it was not for scamming.
This thread is so cancerous. Just stop with the hostility towards each other, because all we can ask from the GMs from this point on is to keep some sort of continuity in judgments (and their effort in all cases). Regardless, we as a community now know what information we need to provide in order to get our scammed items back. Let this be a lesson and stop trying to fight what happened. Live and learn. In this case, look at what Sila did differently and try to follow the template that she provided in order to get your items back. NOW TO END ON A HAPPY NOTE: @lazygoldfish you have until tonight to give me my items back or I'm going to report you <3
This is most likely going to be my last essay here. I've been told to write more concisely (I can't believe anyone has read my long walls of text so far); I can't promise that I'll listen, but I'll bold and/or underline my main points below and try to address everything that's been said. I think @jfkcolateral 's post would be a great place to end the thread (although I don't think it's been hostile, I find that it's been a healthy discussion), but there are two things I'd still like to shed light on: Let me give a more extreme example: Billy has a 30att sock. Billy is bored. Billy sees a random new player and decides to out of nowhere lend his sock to the stranger since he isn't using it as an act of "good deed." He acquires a full/cropped screenshot with ~servertime of the stranger saying "I'll return this sock before I log off." To Billy's surprise, he doesn't get his sock back! Unlucky Dx!!111 He tries to contact the stranger but is ignored. Billy now proceeds to make a thread with all this evidence. Does this not fulfill all the requirements set up for an admin/GM to get his sock back? Does this also not exhibit clear carelessness? I agree Akira, Sila was not being careless in her case, but this precedent allows for others to be careless. Trust is no longer a necessity when lending items out anymore--just get a written statement of the terms of borrowing. Is this okay? Furthermore, I would like to bring @StrickBan 's post back up: I'm stealing these words from another person I talked to: "The reason to why I'm confused with the Sila case is because to my knowledge if you trade over an item you lose the ownership over that item, that's why it's a trust trade if you borrow someone your items." If people are getting the sense that I think einaaarr's case was decided wrongly I'd like to restate that's not true. I think einaaarr's case was decided correctly. Again, ^ That was my main point of contention--regardless of whether or not Sila had enough (legitimate) evidence in her thread. I really didn't want to bring this up. Everyone I've talked to knows that 1) this is a matter I didn't want to talk about, 2) I never wanted to question a specific person, but after reading Sila's recent post I just can't pass over it. This is an abuse of your GM powers. From the get-go I was never upset or wanted change with the refund itself (I was displeased with what it would mean going forward), but now I am very unhappy. As @liomio said, What right did you have to do that? Your evidence of your borrower's ignorance was weak--it did not have to be, if you had provided full screenshots of the borrower actively avoiding you/your friends in-game then this wouldn't be an issue, but you didn't; your evidence of the transaction and agreement I am still not persuaded on--it also did not have to be, if you had a full screenshot I wouldn't be picking apart at this so much, but you didn't, and as @CupOfJoe brings up, those scammed of leech often provide timestamps when missing evidence but admins/GMs don't find that to be enough to look into logs (keep in mind again that ~50 million mesos of leech may be worth just as much as a billion mesos to another player) (and on a side note, I doubt that admins/GMs dig up logs of those participating in account sharing, real-world trading, etc. with a specific timestamp, so I don't see why einaaarr clearly didn't qualify for an investigation while you did); so you decided to take advantage of your GM powers to get more evidence? That is not okay. Please honestly answer whether you would have checked for new alternate forum account creations for another person (and don't imagine a friend). And this was a (full) screenshot I didn't want to post initially, but I think is worth discussing now. Spoiler: The part of importance Spoiler: Typical Saleh "uh / they [the staff] were already talking about it [Sila's case] behind the scenes / the just made the thread publicly so people would be aware of him [the borrower] / f3" So basically, the staff discussed Sila's case before she even made a thread and only had her publicize it so the "scammer" would be ousted? Uhhhhhhh, lol. To the Admins and GMs, I'd appreciate it if you don't remove/edit posts. I know my second point is taking the thread in a different direction, but I posted this in General Discussion rather than somewhere more strict like Feedback because I wanted a general discussion (there is also nothing wrong with a thread having multiple topics). Also, I don't understand why a post was removed in which @Nicko tagged @Succubus because Nick remembered that Succubus once lost lent out items but didn't get them returned even with evidence, and I would like to see if he wants to comment. (I'm not saying that whoever removed the post is trying to hide that case, but again, I posted this thread where it is because I didn't want posts removed for "being off-topic," "not contributing to the discussion," etc. and I don't see why Nick's tag needed to be removed.) Edit to underline and bold another sentence.
Disclaimer: I dont't know Sila she is probably a very nice player but i just think this refund should not be refunded. To repeat what Jiwoo and others have said, it doesn't matter whether Sila had enough evidence or not, it should not be considered a scam when someone loses items they willingly lend out. Shouldn't this post be enough to basically the whole thread? Not to mention this thread: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/reporting-murker-for-extortion-and-fraud.19347/ Tl;dr : She got scammed on a 16 att glove, didn't have enough evidence, community helped her get enough evidence, but there was still no refund even tho she had enough evidence, just as much as Sila if not more. Ok i will now use cropped screenshots from now on, let's make Jiwoos example about Billy even more extreme, like Sila, Billy only has a cropped screenshot and not even ~servertime, but an estimate of the time of the trade in his report. Is this still okay? Are you guys still going to look in the logs with just this information? Or do we need to do to check the logs ourselves just like Sila? oh wait.. unlucky!!
@Azyrite from what I got from the perspective of the GMs is that this case was solved due to Sila's ability to state the exact time of when the chatting took place so chat logs could be reviewed. To me the cropped screenshot that sila provided is irrelevant, because multiple times the defending party has stated that since the time provided was exact it was easy for Tim to go back and check the logs . Now I understand that the other person also provided a time estimate; however, it was a rather "rough one" that was over a year ago. In the perspective of a GM it would seem a little exhausting and unappealing to go on a "wild-goose hunt" (like they said) because we also have to consider that its not just the chat/trade logs from the victim you have to check, but also the perpetrator's and all his associated accounts. This process would take longer because they would need to track the items/conversations pertaining to the scam across the server over the course of the past year (and who knows maybe some even got sold to legitamate buyers- which was a huge reason why people who got hacked couldn't retrieve their items). I hope this clarifies. PS ILY my fake korean friend Jiwoo <3
@jfkcolateral I have already addressed everything you're talking about in my last post whereas you are completely missing my two points. Spoiler: On a side note 너는 바보야 You tagged Ericka @Azyrite instead of me Also, I still don't believe that you're Korean. You called me "onni" (which I'm assuming you mean "unnie") when I asked you what if I'm younger than you, but "unnie" is what a female calls an older female LOL
sorry Jiwoo I meant to tag the person who tagged me xD and you're older than me........ so I said nooona haha fuck korean into English so hard
If the same thing happened to me and I was a gm, I sure as hell would take matters into my own hands and investigate it first hand. I'd try my hardest to get my items back even if I know it might be against the rule to do so and that it'll be seen as being unfair to the community. And if the same thing happened to another player, I wouldn't want to dedicate my own time nor will I care as much to look into it. That's all I'm going to say.
A hypothetical statement on what you would do in this position doesn't mean anything. What is being analyzed in the aforementioned posts is the difference in treatment and process of these cases. I could offer what I would do, but that doesn't change anything or offer any insight into anything but yourself. All you are showing is you are willing to let your selfishness guide your morals.
I think that decisions made by GMs should be coherent to the ones previously made, just like @talmon18 said: Here's an example of GMs refunding someone who was scammed and also banning the scammer: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/scg-manual-scamming.15514/. The date is October 2014. John replied to that thread saying: However, in my first reply I showed this case (one of many others that can be found), which took place almost a year later in November of 2015: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/reporting-haul-for-scamming-for-2-9billion.44979/ to which John replied again saying: and Tim replied saying: So a year later, Tim and John were contradicting what John said and did a year before. Fast forward to August 2016: We have Tim contradicting, yet again, what he and John said on November of 2015 by refunding Sila and banning the scammer. Doesn't make much sense to me and I think a lot of people agree with me. TL; DR: Timeline: - October 2014: @Bruuh gets scammed -> John bans scammer for 3 days and refunds Bruuh - November 2015: @anewhope gets scammed -> John says scamming isn't considered a banworthy offense and Tim says they don't offer refunds to people scammed in trust trades - August 2016: Sila gets scammed -> Tim bans scammer for 7 days and refunds Sila Why are responses from GMs contradicting each other's previous responses? I think from now on all scamming issues should be resolved in the same way as Sila's case. If not it would just be unfair to everyone else.
What I'm trying to say is we're all humans and most humans think alike in that they place themselves over others, I don't think that's an unfair assumption to make. When we get pushed to a limit we go against our rationale and choose what we want instead of what's right. We can all sit here and say we'll never do so and so because it's wrong but none of that actually matters when a difficult situation arises. You're right that I'm just sharing what I would do in this particular situation but really, it's not insane to think that other people will do the same. We're easy creatures to read.
me reading this thread lol Anyways, I'm relatively new to this server and don't know any of you (and frankly don't understand this game well enough to give a crap about whatever a "SCG" is). But I'm sure y'all are wonderful and intelligent people, and wanted to chime in with some of my thoughts, based on a couple of semesters of shitty philosophy, legal ethics, and social justice classes: 1. What is the larger issue at stake? I know we're scrutinizing very minute details , but let's take a step back and look at the big picture. Details aside, there is an underlying narrative that defines the unhappiness in this thread, which seems to be: A well-known player was given preferential treatment over a lesser-known player. We'll probably never know if that is true, based on the limited information at hand. But whether this is true or not honestly doesn't matter, as long as we don't approach this issue with blame and shame. What matters is where we take this issue, and where we go next. I've played on enough private servers to know preferential treatment happens literally all the time. And even outside of this specific situation, the crux of this issue is clearly a significant enough a problem when this many people are complaining about it. People should pursue equal and equitable treatment for all members of the community, regardless of context. Saying "you're naive for expecting equal and equitable treatment" is not only rude to the individual, but more importantly, it's also dangerous to the community. 2. How do we define scamming, and is it really an issue? So reading from the thread, it seems that there are different opinions regarding what constitutes scamming. More importantly, whether scamming should be punishable by the law(s of this server). I encourage y'all to think deeply about how intent factors into this discussion. Yes, I understand that whenever a person is scammed out of their good faith, they could /and should/ have known better. But why are we so focused on victim blaming, and not thinking about the malicious intent of the perpetrator? The person knew full well that they were given an item with the expectation and trust that it would be returned. And they refused to comply. So then why are we saying "Don't trust bad people" rather than saying "Don't be a bad person"? Why are we placing culpability on the victim? I get it. People should be more careful with their items. And this incident would only encourage more carelessness (except it wouldn't, because who wants to deal with this sort of headache?). But would you really want to play in a server that would then implicitly encourage malicious scamming, because everyone should be more careful of their stuff? What kind of community would that be? 3. How do we set the rules that govern this server? Laws change. Always have, and always will. Precedents serve as guidelines, not as behavioral absolutes. In the words of renowned law professor Patricia Leary, "Law is made by humans... Like the humans who make it, law is biased, noble, aspirational, short-sighted, flawed, messy, unclear, brilliant, and constantly changing. If you think that the law is merely a set of rules to be taught and learned, you are missing the beauty of the law." In what seems to be a tense and emotional time between players amongst this server, it is necessary to maintain a civil and respectful discussion, and understand that you are all involved in a crucial process of bringing about great change--for the better.
What an interesting post. I got "scammed" some months ago: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/lost-mesos-in-trade-with-condors.49081/#post-264785 The user Condors got banned for scam, but I didn't recieve a refund because "No refund unless the reported person wants to make things right." (In this case, the guy with the stolen att 16 SCG didn't want to make things right, so why Sila got refund and not me?) I think GMs don't have (or didn't have) a exactly protocol to proceed in these cases. I do not want problems, I just want to try to to collaborate with this topic.
Whoa okay I have said multiple times I'm not home this weekend and I can barely follow this conversation on my slow tablet. To clarify I didn't actively use my gm powers to look up any alts, it was brought to my attention by another staff member who was uninvolved and only saw my profile post on the main forum account's profile. I was able to confirm and also have someone handle the issue of breaking the rule of not being allowed more than a single forum account. Honestly this entire situation is depressing. I'm away for a rl convention until Monday morning, and I can't even properly try to help clarify anything much more. We have tried, over time, to enforce rules to a greater amount and help more players with it. Personally I'm sorry for anything and I'm going to butt out completely now before this kills my for the rest of this convention this weekend. I want to help clarify and set up a clear definition and such for scamming reports. As it is to my understanding scamming is determined on a case by case basis under the rule of "objectionable or discourteous behavior". But we are working on revising the rules overall and this will be one of several things to be clarified
Also : " Please honestly answer whether you would have checked for new alternate forum account creations for another person (and don't imagine a friend)." Yes I would have and I have before when it's relevant information. Although I explained above I wasn't the one to look up the information, another staff member found it by dealing with n unrelated issue and mentioned it to me, so I passed the along "So basically, the staff discussed Sila's case before she even made a thread and only had her publicize it so the "scammer" would be ousted?" No. No one told me to make the thread. I originally contacted an admin in Ims as a question for advice about the situation. Said admin was offline when I found out about the alt accounts and since I knew I had to leave for my convention that morning I made the thread "just in case". No one told me to and if staff were talking about it I was unaware as I wasn't home. Also I know that the resolution on how things get handled is contradictory and it isn't the first time so all I can say for now is staff as a whole are working in making rules and punishmentd more uniform.
Me and a lot of people on this thread are sorry that this whole situation happened to you. At least you and the other GMs and moderators are trying to make the rules more uniform for everybody, which is for the better of Royals. Try not to think about this thread too much and enjoy the rest of your convention. At any rate, maybe we should let this thread close and sleep because I can't think of any other bases to touch regarding situations like this. Is that fine with everybody?
So nobody makes a thread about this comparison when the guy who gets his SCG returned to him, but the second it involves a GM getting an item back, people start losing their shit, again, exactly like the last numerous times a GM is refunded an item. Now, you can say/think i am being very biased towards Sila's favour, which i am going to say that i am not. Because honestly i have only spoken to her once or twice in the chat box, although it was in a positive manner and i don't mean to be rude towards her in anyway, but i don't consider her a friend at all(this could change in the future of course), and im sure she would say the same (i think :|) as i have never interacted with her in any manner that was on a personal level. Firstly, this is yet another completely hypothetical situation that is completely different from silas case which is being discussed. You're talking about giving a sock to a RANDOM person that you have never talked to before, from what the original thread states, the 2 were friends, but somebody's greed got the better of them, and they thought they could start fresh with an item that was lent to them "in good faith- (it seems we are calling it this these days)", when it was told to be returned in a set deadline. The person then "avoided all contact for days" and was found to have made a new account and transferred the item numerous times (which was probably to make it harder to track, unless anyone wants to add another reason why). Now this was all found by Tim looking into it because either the admins had agreed to look into it as a favour for a friend/gm OR the gm's had enough evidence to look into the situation. I don't see this case being looked at in any other way but those 2 situations right now. Elaborate on how einaaarr's case has evidence that qualifies ? How naive would staff be to trust an out of game resource ( in this case a skype conversation) for evidence? How do you know it was einaaarr even talking to the person that "took" her gear on skype? Einaaarr was told the person had quit it says , i would hardly consider it a scam when he was "lent gear" and quit during an 8month-1year period of the person who gave the gears absence, he was never even given the chance to actually give it back when she asked for it because, apparently he quit. For all we know he has done the same thing as the person who tried to scam sila, right? For all we know the guy died, or just simply doesn't play anymore and couldn't return the gear because the person he lent it from in the first place hasn't played for so long it probably felt like they are never coming back in the first place. The same thing applies for all those attempted RWT'ers that claim they will even show bank accounts/paypals as evidence, how do you know they don't have more than one account? I say this because i thought this type of "outside game" evidence was a good source months back also, and i questioned GM judgement on certain bans , but i quickly changed my mind when i saw that it was i who was the one being naive about it and not the staff. Can i ask you what you thought the staff have to gain by putting this case in the open to the public? They let the server know someone scammed a GM's legit account and tried to create a new identity to start over, and tried to "cover it up" by having Sila post a thread that they knew they were already going to refund to her? If you actually look at the bigger picture you would see that they had EVERYTHING TO LOSE by making this case public, especially Sila. As for the attached screenshot im assuming the reason you posted it is because you thought that because it was being discussed "behind the scenes" you were under the impression that Sila was also playing a part in the discussion of the issue, other than being the victim whose evidence was being looked at by the other staff members who should be handling her case. All the cases that are being presented in this thread all vary in so many ways that comparing them shouldn't even be done, unless the same exact type of evidence was provided for 2 same cases, not "similar" (they are 2 different things) but had a different outcome. This has turned into a witch hunt, its not even a discussion anymore, anyone can see that. And this happens in every single discussion thread these days it seems, because "one person 12month's ago's (or however long back you want to go or that matter) case was similar to a recent one but the outcome was different" and someone feels the need to question GM's for god knows what fucking reason these days, it looks like people just do it for fun now though honestly. The rules are subject to change, what WE were allowed to do yesterday and what we are allowed to do today are two completely different things. Seeing as half the people here love to link points from the T&C all the time, why don't you go and actually re-read the part that covers "Game Use & Restriction's", and get over this whole situation. It's obvious that the decision is final, by the fact Sila was returned the item. They are not going to take it off her now just because you made a thread about it which showed cases that weren't even remotely close to being comparable. Removing an item that has been returned to ANY player just because someone made a QQ thread about it would undermine everything the GM's on this and any server would stand for and frankly, wouldn't be seen as professional. edit: god, not go
The fact that Sila admitted she submitted her request not expecting the result to be favourable indicates that the policies are currently unclear. Why do you assume that this thread is for demanding staff to reverse a decision, as opposed to requesting clarification, which serves us for making better, informative reports in the future (which makes it less work for the staff too). In the time that the first thread was made, and until we get clarification, you don't know the number of players who have seen the decision and thought "oh I guess my report doesn't qualify for a refund". Telling the players to get over this whole situation is not in the spirit of the management if they wanted to take feedback -- this thread is important, clarifying the policies is important. Ignoring a glaring piece of the rules that needs clarifying is frankly, unprofessional. P.S. Why don't you go have a nice chat with GM Sybe when he had issues getting his items refunded? I'm sure that would be insightful for you.
