The rule was introduced because players were abusing the cropped images, hiding information and lying via it. Sure, shops can happen either way but since the introduction of that rule the number of lies/attempts of cheating/presenting yourself in a better light dropped noticeably.
I also use gyazo, pretty useful tool, and it really isn't too much of an effort to mark a bit larger area for a ss, large enough to show the whole tb client.
As for the chat problems and a ss of said chat, I personally would take a look at it and potentially deal with it if the chat was extended and everything was clearly visible but I'd strongly advise to take 'full' screenshot anyway - still, in-game chat moderation is not my area anymore so it's up to smods.
In general, having that rule in place made my work as a squid easier and I see no real reason to remove or change it.

So you got the short end of the stick, once, as you didn't know about that rule. Ignorantia iuris nocet.
The number of relatively 'valid' reports that get disregarded like that is low or nearly non-existent. Different people react to certain cases in a different way. Without seeing proper evidence (screenshots, logs, all that stuff) it's hard to judge and I really wouldn't like to do so anyway as that stuff goes to 'complaints about staff', nor to play around with 'what if' scenarios. Here comes the main issue - do you have a problem with the rule itself or the way certain smods dealt with your case, not being understanding enough, unprofessional? If it's the latter, you should've made a thread in forementioned board.
About the rule being hard, the line for it must be very visible so it doesn't go back to semi-cropped screens, funny business and all that. Ultimately, it's still up to whoever's dealing with it.
As for the future, I reckon that as long as you take a full screenshot (which will take you around 0,01 longer to move the cursor a bit further up), there'll be no problem. It's not that hard. You can always doublecheck yourself and press F5 to save a tb screenshot.

As I've said, it's up to whoever's dealing with the report. If you want to discuss mine, first one I'd consider 'full' - got chat, server name, nicks of players, timer and score.
Second could've been disregarded but I decided not to as other evidence checked out and the guy was found guilty of different scams as well, which helped as well. Case by case basis.

I do it by case by case basis (and so I operate with all the cases I handle).
Anyhow, since you linked that thread, I'll quote it.


'May not be handled' not 'won't be handled'.
Your point is?

I didn't ignore your line, I provided one that lets me handle the case if I find the screenshot good enough.
You might want to take a look at what 'may' indicates.
As for 'not acceptable', sure, that's a strong term but combine it that with the line I posted and you get some wiggle room. Also, you keep going back to 'your' case. I haven't seen it. I know nothing about it except what you told me here, haven't heard the other side, haven't seen the evidence, logs, screenshots. I cannot relate to that and how it was handled. If you wish to discuss 'general' matters, don't nitpick only certain quotes from that rule thread and read it as a whole. Projecting your case/situation on others might simply not work (unless you want to tell me you've seen every case with screenshots posted since the introduction of this rule and all the other staff memebers always ignore cropped ones).

I don't see much contradictions there. The idea is to post 'full screenshots', always. That's the ideal state. If you want to get your cases handled for sure, you should post a full screenshot. If your screen is, due to some reason, not full, you cannot expect it to be handled, you can hope someone will find it 'good enough' or that the other evidence beside the screen will help your case. The line is there for purpose so sometimes cropped screenshot cases get handled, sometimes not (again, case by case basis, depends on who deals with it).

That screenshot of irc you added also gives me nothing - that's what'd call a 'cropped' screenshot, no context, one statement, no discussion about it.
Anyhow, since I feel like we're going in circles and I guess my position on the whole thing is pretty clear, I'll excuse myself out of this thread. If you want to talk to me specifically about it, feel free to catch me via IRC, should be there for another 30 minutes or so, or simply via PMs. You have my permission to post here my responses if you decide to talk to me there.

I assume you're referring to this line:

You missed out a key part of that phrase and possibly forgotten one of the possible outcomes of a report.

When we get a report, it gets [Handled] if it has something to act on. If it doesn't, it gets [Closed].

[Closed] is the tag & outcome that is referred to when the line says "or at all". Since the report was looked at, and one or more staff members involved decided that there wasn't enough/valid proof to act on.

When a report is tagged as [Handled], it's because one a decision was made that there was something to act on, and it was acted on. If the person reporting expected a ban to be placed on the offender, but all I did was send them a warning, that would be the "may not be handled to your satisfaction" part of the line.
(Granted, the [Closed] tag could also fall under the "may not be handled to your satisfaction" line if you read it that way but that's just a comprehension difference)

I also go on a case by case basis, and in doing so go by my own little rules in regards to what I feel is needed to make sure I don't mess up and do anything wrong.

(personally, I feel the absolute minimum is to have the room name and in it. With the queue being a very close second too.)


The rule became firmer when the grey areas involved in duel + private servers were clarified to have a more "free speech" orientated setting. (i.e. People calling eachother some unsavoury names and using some other phrases which might not be looked on kindly) and we had a few people being classless and idiotic by trying to get others in trouble via some interesting ways involving servers and their different rules.

In short, the rule is there to help you guys as well as us. If it needs rewording, that can be done. But it is highly unlikely that it will just be abolished.

As I see it, the purpose of this rule is not to avoid the falsification of evidence.

I would think it'd be fair to define the minimum for evidence as:

Cropped screenshots cannot present a clear narrative in all but a couple of extremely egregious cases.

The line:

Is taken to mean that your case may be handled regardless of the quality and nature of your report, or even possibly regardless of whether or not you report at all. An incomplete report is unactionable in and of itself, but it may not actually be incomplete when compared with information we already have. If we discover as such, and it forms a complete case, we may at our discretion decide to take action based on that completed case. In short, there are some cases in which your report could be "so and so is an idiot", and we may be able to collect enough evidence ourselves to do so without additional input and we may then decide to act on such evidence. In short, your report being shit does not mean that we definitely won't ban the person anyways.

However, if your report is shit, we may also completely ignore it. That's really what the line is getting at.

Having cropped images means, in the vast majority of cases, that your report will not actually have enough context. It is not the place of the user to decide what information is unimportant enough that it can be discarded entirely. If you decide to discard some information and it turns out to be important to us, we may not be able to act on your report. You are not expected to know what information is important as such, except insomuch as that it is almost always some subset of "all of the information on the Toribash screen". I would generally not require that your screenshots include your desktop, or anything not Toribash-related.

Asking people not to submit cropped screenshots requires people to avoid accidentally leaving out information that may be critical. In some cases it may not seem like this information is critical, if for example you're just taking a screenshot of somebody spamming something offensive in a server. However, it is still good practice to include the entire Toribash window in that case: there have occasionally been instances where people could potentially be impersonated by other users through certain clever tricks. There are ways to identify these tricks, but if you crop only to the offending lines, there is no longer enough information to even examine the problem.

Furthermore, allegorical evidence from other team members suggests that this rule also decreases the rate at which reports are egregiously falsified, which is generally a good thing.

For the minor inconvenience that this rule poses, it seems reasonable to request that screenshots not be cropped.

As a catchall, however, if your evidence is insufficient in any way, your report might not be handled. As a further catchall, if your evidence is insufficient but the user you're reporting is utterly horrible, we might ban them anyways.

Since uploading cropped screenshots is unacceptable, we might give you a warning or infraction for doing so, or we might ignore your report. In some cases, we might not do any of these things.

If you upload uncropped screenshots, your report will generally be taken seriously, unless those screenshots turn out to be falsified in some other manner. By taking your part seriously, it becomes easier to handle the situation in a timely and reasonable fashion.