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Original Post
Rule Change in Private/Public Rooms
Hi,

We’ve recently updated the rules regarding private space and public space. I’m writing this semi-brief note to send the message along. Below will be a few points on why we made the change, what was actually changed, and finally, how it affects everyone going forward. You can find the rules in the FAQ.

Why

With the implementation of in-game reports, private v. public rooms were always a hot topic when looking at the reports. Tori-Agents look through game chat logs and replays to come to their verdict(s). “Was this a private room?” “What can we do about it?” were frequently asked questions among the team. The staff team discussed this and came to the conclusion to amend the rules. We felt that, through means of technicalities, “allowing” members to break rules because they’re in their own custom server, isn’t right. We’re not trying to shaft people from having fun, rather, keeping everything fun and friendly for everyone. If something is reported, in-game reports, or our traditional methods of sending a screenshot in, we deal with it.

What

For everyone, these guidelines should be common sense behavior, typical to everyday interactions with real people. Here’s the new rules paired by the old rules. Please take the time to read.

Originally Posted by New

- Harassment

Harassing (by insulting, name-calling, slurs, bandwagoning, flaming, trolling, and so on) other members of the game for any reason is not allowed. We wish to maintain a friendly environment, and any flaming or harassment may result in a ban. This includes any homophobic or racial slurs in any public space in the community

"Public space" is defined as:
Game - Any room that is not protected by a password.
Forum - The entire forum with the exception of Wibbles and clan PRIVATE boards.
If it's brought to moderator's attention and found that your language disrupts the integrity of the environment we're setting; warnings, infractions, or bans will take place. Try to solve issues yourself if you can. We can't possibly be there for every single instance. Asking to politely stop is a start.

Originally Posted by Old
Harassing (by insulting, name-calling, slurs, bandwagoning, flaming, trolling, and so on) other members of the game for any reason is not allowed. We wish to maintain a friendly environment, and any flaming or harassment may result in a ban. This includes any homophobic or racial slurs in any public space in the community - for more information read here.

And if you follow the link in the Old rules, this part, I'll put that in a spoiler

Addition






Going Forward

This isn’t to get rid of private rooms, you’re free to have your fun. Just be mindful of the others joining in. We strive to keep all platforms of Toribash a fun and friendly environment to want to be in. If you see behavior that clearly breaks the rules, report it. After that, ignore them using the ignore feature ingame. If you have feedback, you’re free to post, we’d love to hear it with the intentions of trying to improve.
Last edited by ed; Jan 21, 2020 at 08:36 AM. Reason: clarity


بسم الله الرحمان الرحيم


Originally Posted by Divine View Post
As a note; These rules have been in effect for a good while now, even if this post was only made just recently. So in a sense nothing has really changed.

Originally Posted by skizz View Post
no


tell us before you ban someone for a rule that hasn't been announced i think that's the part that pisses me off the most

ed already apologized for announcing it late so just own up for it buddy

Originally Posted by Divine View Post
What exactly would you like me to own up to? I’m a little confused.

I think I can clear this up.
OK, so imagine that you're skipping along the street one day and a policeman throws you in jail for skipping. New law, nobody's allowed to skip;

"But I didn't know it was illegal to skip, nobody announced anything", you say nervously, noticing your new cell-mate Jerome, staring at you like he's hungry.
"Doesn't matter b r o, these rules have been in effect for a good while now - They were unspoken", the policeman scoffs.
"That's not fair", you retort, growing increasingly irate.
"I can't believe people are complaining", says the head cop, smiling smugly.

Thank-you for reading my story. The morale is 'Don't punish people for shit that ain't announced'.

In fact, ya'll should reverse any infraction/ban points you gave to people for this offense during the time it wasn't announced. It's only right.
Last edited by Ele; Jan 22, 2020 at 05:30 AM. Reason: clarified
Originally Posted by Ele View Post
I think I can clear this up.
OK, so imagine that you're skipping along the street one day and a policeman throws you in jail for skipping. New law, nobody's allowed to skip;

"But I didn't know it was illegal to skip, nobody announced anything", you say nervously, noticing your new cell-mate Jerome, staring at you like he's hungry.
"Doesn't matter b r o, these rules have been in effect for a good while now - They were unspoken", the policeman scoffs.
"That's not fair", you retort, growing increasingly irate.
"I can't believe people are complaining", says the head cop, smiling smugly.

Thank-you for reading my story. The morale is 'Don't punish people for shit that isn't in the rules'.

In fact, ya'll should reverse any infraction/ban points you gave to people for this offense during the time it wasn't announced. It's only right.

I completely agree with all of this, but technically if I'm not mistaken Divine never said that the rules were unspoken, he said that they had been in effect for awhile now. I'm assuming this also means that they were in the rule book, sticky, or whatever, but I could be wrong.
Yeah, 2WC (not staff, I know) quasi-justified no announcement by saying they were unspoken, so that's why I included that 'defense' in the story.

And yeah, regardless of whether they're in the global rules in FAQ or not (glancing at it, looks like they were last updated 3 weeks ago), the fact nothing was announced while it came 'into effect', is wrong. It's not reasonable to expect people to check the global rules every week for changes to the rules - Rule changes ought to be accompanied with announcements.
Well a couple people have already said that they were banned via these rules before the rules were announced. The police analogy I'm not sure on though, they always say "ignorance isn't an excuse" in America. And we all know America has the best justice system in the world, right? Guys right? Guys? :<
Hey, so while again, I wasn't part of the decision due to me not being smod+ (or even staff at the time I believe) I can shed some transparency as to what TAs do and what actually goes on behind the scenes to hopefully ease some concerns.


So, as I said, the new rules have actually been in effect for a while now, as long as I've been TA at least so these numbers were obtained while I was following the guidelines stated in the op by ed. If anyone has any specific concerns with a previous infraction I placed and believes they obtained it as a result of not knowing the rules changed they are certainly allowed to bring it up with me and we can attempt to come to an understanding. I have personally tried to be very lenient when dealing with cases in non-static rooms because I know not everyone was aware of the rules.


Here are my numbers (and only my numbers) since I became a TA the second week of November 2018 (I counted these by hand so there might be some mistakes). These numbers just deal with reports but TAs also assist with general and technical support.


Closed Reports (reports where no action was taken): 153
Infractions given: 33
Warnings given: 18 (54.5 percent of all infractions I gave were warnings. This includes one day bans and permanent bans due to racist usernames etc.)
Non-permanent bans longer than a day: 4 (12.12% of total infractions. 2% of total reports handled achieved this result)


This is to say, this rule change does not place you at great risk of being banned if you behave more or less normally. Now, if you are in a non-static, non-password protected server and you decided to be explicitly racist, bigoted, homophobic, etc, or are unreasonably toxic to the point of excess, that is when action will be taken. We understand mistakes happen and not everyone can recite the rules by heart, we aren't out to get you. Are goal is simply to maintain a friendly and competitive environment that encourages players to come back rather than driving them away. If you are behaving in a way that will prevent players from enjoying the game or that will drive them away, then you run the risk of being infracted.


You can still of course hang out in password protected rooms where the rules are much more lenient. I hope this sheds some light on how we handle reports.
Last edited by Divine; Jan 24, 2020 at 03:02 AM.

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إد هو العاهرة
idk who it was that said "what are the slurs we can't say and we can say" and i cant remember how to format a forum post bc its been years so i'll just say this

theres a website called RSDB.org, which stands for racial slur database. take a look and, if anything is like too out there or you'd never hear it, then it's probably fine
EX-Mod Squad '18 | I'M BACK, BABY! | #1 Under The Sun
got harrassed in one of these public spaces around 2018 ish for being trans and reported them and an admin said something about it being a private server glad this has changed
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#freeskizzify
this is literally nothing but a good thing for the community. i trust the choice of a staff team that's kept an old, niche game community like this chugging along for years.

it's not that hard to stop being a dickhead
all is as all should be