Posing.

I just want to say I think it is stupid to ban someone for making a joke claiming he/she is breaking the rules without evidence of the person actually breaking a rule.

People should be free to speak and joke around with others and troll them without having to worry about being perma banned.

I personally take a strong stance against banning someone without that person actually breaking a rule.

This way you can get banned for hacking without actually hacking, which I find is wrong.

/Saki

 

Saki, this ruling is to prevent two things happening:

1) People wasting a large amount of staff time by making a believable claim to be someone else, to have hacked their way to level xx, or similar claims that we have to actually investigate;

2) People admitting to an offence and then trying to worm their way out of it by claiming it was a "joke".

If it's completely clear it's a joke, obviously it can be ignored, but if something is said apparently in all seriousness, the onus is now on that person to prove that they are innocent - either that, or they can take the ban.

 

Kat, I did not include the posing as someone else part of the rule for a reason...

The part I quote is about being banned for making a joke. You should not risk getting banned for hacking unless you get caught in the act or if it's in the logs.

Some things shouldn't get simplified just for the sake of it.

I repeat, someone should not risk getting banned for hacking without having hacked!

 

As Kat said,

It is a complete waste of staff time to investigate reports if it is a complete joke. The staff does not have the time to deal with such "jokes" and it's not fair to them to look into something like this.

It's the same as yelling fire in a movie theater and then telling the firemen you were joking. They wasted their time responding to what they thought was an actual fire when one was actually joking and wasn't serious.

 

That would be to SMEGA it, saying something in a conversation is not the same.

It's like telling your friend you have a bomb in your pants and because of that getting arrested for domestic terrorism and shipped over to a non existing facility to rot for the rest of your life for a crime you didn't commit.

Because of this rule you can be perma banned for hacking and exiled without committing any hacking.

You can't cut corners on such serious matters just because some people like to report anything and everyone, not when the sentence is perma ban.

 

As you will have noticed, I did state clearly that this applies specifically to believable claims.

 

Yes but if I'm in the FM joking with some friends, then someone walks in and reports me with no context I'd be banned according to this rule. Is that fair?

 

If you walk into a police station and claim you killed someone you may be punished for making false claims / wasting time / whatever it may be - but you won't be locked up for 25+ years just because you SAID you killed someone.

The police don't go "Oh well, shouldn't have to waste our time investigating the validity of your claim so in you go, 25 to life."

Same situation. Give them a 1-3 day ban and they'll probably learn their lesson and won't do it again. Don't throw them out with the real offenders because of a silly joke.

 

Please note my use of the word "believable". We are not going to permaban someone who hasn't given us good reason to believe that they're guilty.

EDIT: have re-written the rule to make this a lot clearer.

 

Believable to whom?

 

Isn't investigating claims kind of your job as a GM though?

 

That doesn't mean we should make it hard for ourselves. None of these rules are necessarily enforced without valid reason. If a joke is clearly a joke, not a single staff member will be black and white about it and ban people. This is simply to prevent people from purposefully doing things like threatening to DDoS the server, then claiming it was a joke afterwards.

Keep in mind that this rule doesn't prevent you from being able to make jokes at all, it's making jokes about breaking rules, which is completely reasonable.

Exactly. Don't joke about domestic terrorism if you don't want to end up in jail. Is that so hard?

 

That's not an excuse for implementing ridiculous rules.

 

I know GMs are working their best to make the community a safe environment for everyone. But, with all due respect, all these new rules seem to be getting a bit out of hand. You have to consider the age group in MapleRoyals. A lot of these "jokes" can possibly be made by a younger group of players, who just thinks it's funny and means no harm.

I suggest that if anyone makes a joke that breaks the rule, he/she should get one warning (their ign written down in the system) and if they happen to do it again, they will serve their ban.

(Also if someone jokes about domestic terrorism, he/she doesn't serve prison time. The police usually goes under investigation first.)