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Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 21:21
by Sar
Was the ban really fucking necessary? What rule did Sandman break?

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 22:23
by Lasty
Split from other thread for being off-topic.

Yes, it was. Every time this topic comes up, Sandman25 flies off the handle and starts throwing around abuse and misrepresentation like beads at Mardi Gras:
Sandman25 wrote:That would be awesome to stop hypocrisy.

Sandman25 wrote:There are some narrow-minded or stubborn or evil actions of devs (all these words are ok, right?).

Sandman25 wrote:It is especially angering me because they recognized the problems and improved description of player ghosts, added AC/EV bars but no, they don't want to make life of players too easy.

Sandman25 wrote:Garbage is when devs are hiding that Ettin can do 116 damage per attack . . . You have already confessed that you enjoy new players dying, please stop talking about caring about new players.

Sandman25 wrote:1) devs want to punish players for playing offline without internet connection.
2) devs enjoy watching big number of players in #crawl
3) devs want to create some elite club of players who play better because they use sequel and don't die to unknown monsters ("Caustik Shrike? It should be weak, it's only Depths 2 but let's check it in sequel anyway").
4) devs hate players and enjoy that they must use alt-tab and type unnecessary commands

And this isn't the first time Sandman25 has been warned about this behavior, particularly when this topic comes up.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 22:27
by Sar
I don't think he was particularly offensive, certainly not to the extent some people can be here. He wasn't throwing personal insults, he wasn't even saying any profanities. He's gotten emotional because well, we invest lots of time about Crawl and get too attached to it for all the wrong reasons. You could've just not respond if you think his questions don't deserve a response. Throwing in a 24h ban seems really rude to me. "lol cool down kiddo"

Edit: I mean we get people saying that devs are always stupid remove perfectionists in every thread they post in and that's okay (and that's okay), but when somebody says something like that while actually having some point beyond that it's ban-worthy?

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 22:44
by Lasty
I am not of the opinion that profanities are in need of moderation. We certainly have no policy about it on this forum. But we do have a written policy about personal insults, and calling a specific set of community members "evil," and "narrow-minded" does qualify as a personal insult. Lesser insults have been moderated in the past; others probably haven't, probably because they weren't reported.

Chronically intentionally misrepresenting others isn't against written policy, but it has been moderated in the past, and it is definitely bad behavior.

As for why a ban, if someone has been warned about a specific behavior and then persists in it, a temporary ban is the next escalation option mods have to indicate that we are serious.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 22:47
by bcadren
I've been warned once. That was...to put it in general terms; someone was reporting gameplay experiences that were so opposite my own that I believed them to be lying on purpose in a serious thread. Called them a liar and quoted some of their online deaths. I'd lost my head a bit, but that was pretty fair, I suppose.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 23:34
by tedric
I'm not second-guessing the decision, because I do think Sandman25 is irrationally stubborn about the numbers thing and was pretty literally asking for a reprimand in-thread. But when a moderator who is also a dev bans somebody for provoking the devs...it doesn't look great.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 23:37
by byrel
tedric wrote:I'm not second-guessing the decision, because I do think Sandman25 is irrationally stubborn about the numbers thing and was pretty literally asking for a reprimand in-thread. But when a moderator who is also a dev bans somebody for provoking the devs...it doesn't look great.


I dunno; it was blatantly bad behavior. I tried calling him out on it in thread, and he ended up basically saying he was angry and out-of-control (my interpretation; his words are somewhat different). I don't think this is one of those grey cases. Imputing false and heinous motives to someone is a huge breech of etiquette, and basically toxifies the remainder of the discussion between you. It's not acceptable.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 23:40
by Berder
Lasty wrote:But we do have a written policy about personal insults, and calling a specific set of community members "evil," and "narrow-minded" does qualify as a personal insult.

No, a personal insult is an insult against a particular person. That's why it's called a personal insult. If you're talking about a group, it's another kind of insult - you could call it a group insult, or a stereotype.

The difference matters because personal insults are extremely toxic to discussion. They make the insulted party feel personally attacked and upset, which makes them want to escalate and retaliate in some way, and makes it hard to stay neutral and reasonable. If you're instead going after a nebulous group without naming individuals, then nobody in particular is being personally attacked and doesn't (or in most cases, shouldn't) have the same reason to get mad and retaliate.

Of course, it may vary based on the group insulted. Racial insults are extremely toxic, but complaints about politicians in general (or lawyers, plumbers, contractors, billionaires, etc.) are fine. The Crawl dev team is closer to the latter category.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 23:48
by byrel
Berder wrote:
Lasty wrote:But we do have a written policy about personal insults, and calling a specific set of community members "evil," and "narrow-minded" does qualify as a personal insult.

The difference matters because personal insults are extremely toxic to discussion. They make the insulted party feel personally attacked and upset, which makes them want to escalate and retaliate in some way, and makes it hard to stay neutral and reasonable. If you're instead going after a nebulous group without naming individuals, then nobody in particular is being personally attacked and doesn't (or in most cases, shouldn't) have the same reason to get mad and retaliate.


Yes, but when you're arguing with a specific member of that group and make a broad insult to their group without excluding them in any way, it's still effectively a personal insult. It still makes them feel personally attacked. It's at best a transparent evasion of the letter of the law. Of course, evading this wasn't sandman's intent; he even admitted his behavior was bad in that thread. He was intending it quite personally to the devs who are adamantly refusing his ideas for the game without giving sufficient cause (from his perspective). That's a very small group of people, including dpeg who he was arguing with in thread.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 23:55
by Berder
byrel wrote:Yes, but when you're arguing with a specific member of that group and make a broad insult to their group without excluding them in any way, it's still effectively a personal insult. It still makes them feel personally attacked. It's at best a transparent evasion of the letter of the law. Of course, evading this wasn't sandman's intent; he even admitted his behavior was bad in that thread. He was intending it quite personally to the devs who are adamantly refusing his ideas for the game without giving sufficient cause (from his perspective). That's a very small group of people, including dpeg who he was arguing with in thread.

Well, that's reasonable, but let's not call it a personal insult when it isn't. I mean, someone said to me recently that tenpercenters suck at crawl. I am a tenpercenter. Did that make me personally upset? No. It's a harmless comment. But if he had said that I personally suck at crawl - then I would be upset.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 2nd September 2015, 23:58
by all before
If someone is making a reasonable argument for something in an angry manner, and you ban them for their anger, you are also effectively shutting down their argument. It's one thing if a post is substanceless, or its hostility overwhelms whatever point it was trying to make. That wasn't the case here. I don't think the ban helped to create a better environment for discussion on this board; I think it shows that players can't discuss issues with devs the way they do with one another.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 00:05
by gammafunk
A personal insult can be one like "all current crawl developers are childish fools." That's simply being personally insulting to each person in that group. It's somehow different if someone makes a bullet list with every name in that group next to text of "childish fool"? It's certainly not nebulous and less toxic to discussion if a poster insults a specific set of people using a label.

And regarding a user saying things like "devs are stupid perfectionists" in every thread, that's not something we're going to allow to continue to allow. We help run the infrastructure that allows crawl to be played online (including Tavern) and do the work to make the game itself, so if someone can't be reasonably polite and informative in making complaints, we don't have any compelling reason to allow them to continue posting on Tavern. There's always places like reddit and 4chan if you want discussion with less or no moderation.

There's only so many people who can spend the time doing moderation, and it's time consuming, so we tend to prioritize the most problematic posts and posters.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 00:07
by gammafunk
Mod Note: Moved to S&C since that is the relevant place for this discussion.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 00:19
by Berder
gammafunk wrote:A personal insult can be one like "all current crawl developers are childish fools." That's simply being personally insulting to each person in that group. It's somehow different if someone makes a bullet list with every name in that group next to text of "childish fool"? It's certainly not nebulous and less toxic to discussion if a poster insults a specific set of people using a label.

Sandman never said all devs. It doesn't mean that every single dev has all of the properties he asserted. It's like if I say cats have four legs, that doesn't mean I'm denying the possibility of a three legged cat.

Anyway, even if someone does say "all," that's still a lot less personal than if they name the individual. If someone had said to me, "all tenpercenters suck at crawl" - even if they accompanied it with a bulleted list of all tenpercenters - I still wouldn't be upset or take it personally. There's a world of difference between that, and saying "you suck at crawl."

I wouldn't say I think Sandman was being reasonable, as he himself acknowledged. Just, let's not say something is a personal insult when it's not.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 00:53
by triorph
So can we just out and say that group attacks are bad? Especially/specifically when the group is not a hate group and people who you are discussing with could be expected to be a part of the group.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 01:12
by WalkerBoh
I am all for moderating posts that are essentially just flame-baiting. There's enough threads around here that devolve into worthless bullshit blathering as it is, and nipping some of that in the bud by warning users who are consistent instigators seems pretty desirable to me. Multiple warnings elevate into a temp ban.

Also, do we have to make a fucking parade to complain about other users (often moderators) all the time? If you have a problem with what a person does, at least try to handle it in private like an adult first. Literally nothing productive comes out of making threads like this.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 01:18
by duvessa
wow a crawl dev using tone argument at the slightest provocation, that's never happened before!

if you aren't okay with getting concern trolled at every corner, and not being allowed to do it yourself, you probably shouldn't post on tavern at all TBH, because that is something that will 100% happen and it's been that way from the start

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 08:31
by Sar
So now "evil" is an insult when applied to Crawl devs? I thought it was a prerequisite for the job!

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 12:02
by bel
On a procedural note, I don't want to invoke Wikipedia because it is really fucked up, but one good rule they have (which they don't always follow) is that blocks are supposed to be preventative, not punitive, and "cooldown blocks" are discouraged. The "cooldown blocks" are usually anything but "cooldown" in terms of behaviour. If anything, it makes the person angrier.

Re: Why was a temporary ban necessary?

PostPosted: Thursday, 3rd September 2015, 14:05
by Kate
If you feel it's important to discuss further please take it to PM with one of the mods, thanks. As WalkerBoh said, discussing every moderation action in depth without trying to resolve issues via PM first isn't productive.