Thanks. Anti-Cleisthenes deserved an on-list response, and you worded it much better than I could have.
Gaelan > On Sep 12, 2022, at 1:10 AM, Edward Murphy via agora-discussion > <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > Regarding the recent troubles, and in particular Anti-Cleisthenes's > Cantus Cygneus: > > In one sense, nothing new has happened. Rules whose effects clearly > include "Players can be deregistered via proposal" have been on the > books for a long time. The reasons could be anything from "repeal > corporate personhood", to "clean up after an ambiguous deregistration > attempt", to "clean up after something that was intended to trigger > deregistration but a mechanism turned out to be broken", to "execute a > scam that involves the scammer and eir confederates briefly being the > only players". > > In another sense, as far as I remember (having played Agora for most of > its existence), the recent situation is indeed unprecedented. While a > few other players have caused widespread upset, that was due to their > disruptive actions affecting gamestate (e.g. Maud causing the Annabel > Crisis, or Fool repeatedly doing something ambiguously effective and > then intentionally going against the Agoran tradition of minimizing > knock-on ambiguities); Madrid is the first instance of causing such > upset via the discussion fora, with eir discussion pertaining more to > the people playing the game than to the game itself. > > That said, A-C's claim that we jumped from zero to expulsion is > disingenuous. There were some intermediate steps, also via discussion > fora (and/or private e-mails / Discord messages): e was kicked off the > Discord server (though allowed to rejoin); e was informed of the > recurring and upsetting nature of eir actions in the eyes of several > others, and presumably was similarly informed at various points in the > past. Eir complete failure to express concern or attempt compromise, > sticking to "I'm not actually X because Y", is on eir own head. (In > contrast, Maud was clearly apologetic. Also, that particular form of > disruption is basically a solved problem now, anyway.) > > The claim that the Banned switch is only intended for Madrid is also > disingenuous. It's only intended for Madrid /right now/ because Madrid > is the only person /right now/ who (a) is considered to warrant it due > to eir behavior, and (b) would likely continue otherwise. Hopefully that > remains the case, but if a new player joined the game and behaved > similarly, then it would likely be applied to them at some point. Or if > Fool returned and resumed eir previous style of gameplay, then it would > probably at least be sincerely discussed as a hypothetical. > > I spent several years running a different type of game (I've mostly > retired to an advisory role) that had a ban policy from day one (written > by my predecessors, but it seemed sensible to me). It was intentionally > broad (and has been used several times). Here are the high points, > paraphrased, as they may offer useful guidance for an Agoran framework > going forward (combined with a summary of some specific things agreed to > be detrimental, such as R. Lee's recent proto). > > * The person's behavior must be doing the game more harm than good, > and they must be very unlikely to behave differently in the future. > > * Almost always a judgment call. An objective system like "three > strikes" lets a bad-faith person get away with it twice, while > penalizing a good-faith person who makes mistakes. > > * Lesser in-game penalties are ineffective, as are shaming/belittling > the person. > > * Actively hostile people should be told to stop. If they don't, then > they may be temporarily banned to achieve a stop and demonstrate > that this will happen. [The game uses real-time communication, plus > mail/forum systems; standard length of a temporary ban there is > three days.] >
