Hi. Recently, I've felt that our current rules do not fit the current meta and playerbase, and are outdated in many aspects. I've been thinking about rewriting them in full, but I figured that a more open approach would allow for everyone to be more content if such a thing happened. I want to use this thread to talk about discrepancies in the system and how to appropriately fix or address them. I believe that the rules are not accessible enough based on website design alone and how they are handled. This leads to a lot of complaints that could be thinned down if people came together and defined the rules in such a way that can make everyone (mostly) happy. I want to use this thread as a placeholder and for people to be critical as much as they please with aspects of the report system also, and how we as a team could possibly improve it or get lucid to notice that it is in need of an overhaul. It's a very daunting task, but I want to believe that the people who spend their time in the complaints section, constantly riding on mods or problems with the site, finally will put their money with their mouth is.
The goal of this thread is to hopefully allow new and old users thoroughly understand the rules more clearly so the amount of reports diminishes and people have a more enjoyable experience.
deletedover 9 years
i had a feeling skrapper was u @mist
deletedover 9 years
someone resurrect billstickers already
deletedover 9 years
Can we have a 'Doxers Don't Prosper' vio? Abolish these heathens.
deletedover 9 years
Well, the problem that lies in this is that if mods were to ban someone on discretion, even if they were visibly showing behavior unsuitable and obnoxious, they would go to the report system and find a way to say that it was unjust. The problem I see with modding on this website is that the rules itself come before the mods, not the other way around. It creates an environment where people don't respect mods because they are made to enforce the rules, and nothing more. They have no control over the community besides handling complaints in the fashion of the report tab and finding cheaters at a time. Any instance of a mod doing anything else is considered unruly. I'm not saying mods should have such ability to delete or ban who they please, but for the most part, Moderators should be respected enough in their decisions as and people shouldn't go running to the report system to fight their battles.
deletedover 9 years
the "trolling" violation either needs to be expanded to encompass several other site areas or eliminated entirely as it is a vague and dated construction. users who see "trolling" listed may mistake it for something that is applicable beyond games and that could be a big problem.
we kinda take for granted how much we've internalized the rules. they're way too verbose and frankly boring for a totally new player to grasp in one sitting. most of them are common sense, but some of them like ISP and OGI cannot be explained to someone who has never played a game of mafia yet. so that kinda begs the question, when exactly are players supposed to learn about these rules?
as it is now, they only learn rules by a) getting punished themselves, which although to us violations don't mean anything, getting punished is not a very inviting gesture, and b) report everything they think is bad and seeing what sticks, which floods the reports section.
there's also c) players just straight up teaching each other, which i think is great that our community is (was) so welcoming, but it's not guaranteed, and imo that kind of friendly mentoring has petered out with the death of red/unranked games
thanks man, badposting on mist was some of the most fun i had on the forums tbh. the official story is that i joined in december of 2014 by the way.
i do a lot of posting on random secret alts actually. most recently Skrapper.
deletedover 9 years
I accept my vio.
deletedover 9 years
i think modding & playing mafia just turns people into spiteful people, maybe everyone should just quit both and stick to forum posting and we would enjoy each other :^)
deletedover 9 years
oh, idk i only knew u on mist i'm assuming u joined this site in the last year or 12 - 17 months, i enjoyed you on mist though a lot of your posts made me lol
deletedover 9 years
what do you suggest regarding repeat instances of user conduct falling just short of something that is vio-worthy/casually taking advantage of loopholes and shortcomings though their behavior is visibly vitriolic and undesirable?
we actually did discuss forum toxicity a bit before the whole old mod team implosion but yeah it didn't get very far. personally i wanted there to be a vio for someone who wasn't technically being hateful or harassing someone in particular, but who was instigating fights left and right and just generally being a toxic person.
deletedover 9 years
i think my issue was more because of something happening irl which was also why i was on the site a lot more and more toxic, it wasn't intentional & i was like reading reports and games trying to clear my mind. Now that i'm good with all of that and i've stopped playing games seriously my posts should be a lot less aggressive.
deletedover 9 years
To add on to this, we also decided that most people come to EpicMafia to play Mafia, not talk on the forums. The forums serve a niche as I've said a million times and there isn't really much EpicMafia talk that would interest any newcomer as the taffic is mostly comprised of veterans and trolls like Betrayal.
i mean i guess it's possible i became more jaded over time but i think there's a way simpler explanation. mist was originally a secret-alt gimmick account. by the time i got modded i was pretty much sick of that gimmick and i had been outted anyway.
deletedover 9 years
The same thing happened to you though, and you didn't even become a moderator. Comp lobby Devante was far more of a lad.
deletedover 9 years
Elaborate.
deletedover 9 years
FWIW, I tried this with Jasper. We inducted a poll and everything and tried to overhaul the forums to make it much more open and inviting to newcomers. The consensus we reached is that nobody wanted their freedoms taken away and people didn't want to give up on the drama. It was then scrapped and never discussed again.
deletedover 9 years
Also lets clarify more about notes and how they work
deletedover 9 years
u know, no one has said it but before when you were just mist and not a mod you seemed like a ray of sunshine in threads poop posting and bad posting like no other, then you become a mod and it's like you lost that glow u had even in the aftermath, why is that?
deletedover 9 years
i'm not going to speak for anyone else but i think it's a necessary move and i appreciate the initiative!
deletedover 9 years
I was being facetious dude. I don't give a crap. Especially when you consider that the moderator team consists of 21 people. Good luck finding consistent results throughout every single report.
deletedover 9 years
My idea was to make this thread and see what people said, and go from there. I didn't want to be like, "Okay mods, the rules kinda suck. Let's change 'em based on my picture-perfect idea of what they should be changed to." I wanted to get feedback from the community.
