I'm going to throw out another hot topic. This is one that we discussed in the Senate, and were unable to come to a consensus on. So I thought I'd throw it out to you and see what you all thought.

Three strikes and you're out. That means, if you get three gmnoted warnings from staff for being rude, disruptive, nasty, or for cheating (though some cheating, like hacking, is a one strike offence), you get banned from the game and these boards.

Now, the Senate agreed that this would work for players, since players can defend themselves up the chain of command. What they hung on was whether the same rule should be applicable to staff.

The questions I put to you all are: Is this a good policy? Should it apply to staff as well as players? And what should the nature of the violations be (and their lifespan, i.e., how long do we leave the warnings on the books) that count as strikes?

I really wish I had a more tangible answer to this...but I don't, so I'll put it like this.  I think staff should be allowed to be rude, insofar as it enhances the game experience.  The litmus test being were they rude as characters in a plot, or were they rude as staffers.  So I guess the ruling would have to be based upon a majority of people reporting that their plots weren't fun due to the rudeness of a staffer outside the bounds of the run.  I only throw out the majority rule becuase it would tend to even out the averages.  A staffer having a bad day wouldn't dip too far down, and one player is not capable of ending a staffer on the spot.  Short of asking for some sort of "GM Evaluation" sheet to be filled out after a run, I think our best bet would be to allow more of an average rating, based on satisfied and non-satisfied (dead) characters.

My first thoughts on this, and ones not completely thought out.

I like the Three Strikes idea. ?However, things like MADs warnings wouldn't be a part of this I assume, it'd all be OOC behavior things. ?If things escalate enough that it comes down to a written and gmnoted warning, then boot their butts. Verbal warnings should be a different category, however, as 'Just watch the language on public channel' and such shouldn't be grounds for banning.

With staff... ?Depending on what exactly the warnings are for, could be taken off staff but allowed a player. ?But, chances are they are going to be rude as a player as well and Staff should know to be better behaved when they take the job. ?Or... After the second warning, the Staffer could be booted from staff to a regular player and then the third warning would be an all around banning. ?I like that. ?

So, both of them really depends on the issues that are causing the warnings. ?And staff should be held as accountable as the players, so should be booted. ?

3 strikes seems like a good general rule, since gmnoted warnings aren't really a first-offense kind of thing.  You get them after being verbally warned enough that you should have got the point, or for really serious offenses that anyone would have known better than to do (and you can't justify your actions at all).

For staff, there doesn't need to be a rule.  Cheating, rude, disruptive people should not be staff, ever.  A MUX lives and dies by its staff, and there are certain qualifications you have to fulfill to have staff powers- you have to be fair, level headed, and courteous.  Of course everyone's human and there is always leeway for bad moods and dumb decisions.  But whether to keep a staff shouldn't be based on any number, it should be based on the headwiz's own observations- are any incidents of theirs a recurring pattern or isolated incidents?  No headwiz is perfect either, but I just can't see anything working better than an autocratic system for staff discipline.  He'd better be a wise and fair autocrat though, because a bad headwiz has its own consequences *coughdenvercough* 

I suggest wording the rule to allow each strike to lapse after a long period, say a year or so.

In general I am a fan of 3 strike rules. But there needs to be a forum of some sort for players to talk to staffers about a staffers actions as well. Sometimes a staffer can be abusive just as easily as any player, by implanting ware into the person that they don't want or severely messes with how they see their character or the like and sometimes in the past it's been done without consulting the player first. This can be very bad.

As for players, I am a big fan of three strikes rules as long as they aren't getting a 'strike' for violating a 'rule' that is posted on April Fools Day as has happened in the past to people. A strike should have a 1 year duration or so, I agree with Kenji on that. However a truly disruptive player I feel should get the boot as they just cause to many problems. If the 3 strikes rule is posted up as policy that people have to read in order to play then there is no ignorance about it (at least can't use it as a real excuse) and it -should- in theory make people think before they type, one can hope.

I am in complete agreement with Tear and GreenKeeb. The only thing I would add is that cheating of any kind should not only be a one strike offense but cheaters should be named and shamed. Hell, I wouldn't even mind getting their email, or home address (kidding)....what a sad bastard you are if you have to cheat on a mush. Sad, sad, sad.

And now to Bed.

Peace.

Dealing with staff rudeness/abrasiveness is a very difficult issue to come up with a cut and dry policy. Yes, everyone should try to be polite and get along on an OOC level, but... well, after a while even the friendliest players start sounding whiney and demanding. Staff are, for all intents and purposes, Customer Service Representatives in an industry where the staff member is almost always right, not the customer. There are players that you need to be able to tell them to smeg off before they get a clue, and these tend to be the same people who go, "If you'd only asked politely..."

Somehow, they always forget about the twelve decreasingly polite responses prior to the actual chewing out.

In any case, my first rambling point is this: I don't think the three strikes rule should apply to staff.

Now for the second point: in all other standards of behavior, a staff member has a higher moral duty to uphold. If a staff member engages in cheating, they should be fired and quite possibly banned. If a staff member engages in highly abusive behavior, they should be fired and quite possibly banned. If a staff member engages in criminally harrassing activities towards a player, they should be fired and definitely banned.

And for the third point: Because of this higher moral duty, chiefs and the director need to be careful in evaluating staff behavior. I have seen players try to get even for something that didn't go their way by trying to destroy a staffer's reputation and get them fired.

In any case, back to work.

Your post is subjective. One person's view is anothers anti-view. Who will define cheating, abusive behavior, and criminally harrassing activities? The chiefs? The director? If so then who is watching the watchers?

I feel that if such a system is to be used that it must be applied equally to all, otherwise, you will create one group versus the other group. Which has apparently always been a problem here.

Absinthe, it's that kind of view which makes Denver into such a crappy mux when it comes to their staff policies.  The headwiz believes that nobody, not even the headwiz, is capable of objective fairness, so he writes endless rules and policies which become the arbiters of justice.  The problem?  The rules are no better than the guy who writes them, so if they suck, they don't solve anything.  All it does is allow him to point at his own rule and say "See? It's the rule.  Nothing I can do."

Who defines cheating, abusive behavior?  The guy who's in charge of all the staff.  If he's a good staffer, then there should be nothing to worry about.  A good headwiz will always try to be fair, will always try to be flexible, and will always try to listen to the opinions of others before he makes decisions.  But in order for a mux to function, he MUST make decisions.  And some of them might not be great, but that's the breaks.  Hurt feelings, grudges, and all that crap are just part of MUXing, because they're just part of life.  If anyone thinks that we can make rules which absolve us from responsibility for our actions, they're wrong.  The headwiz will not and cannot act inappropriately, if he does then what happened to Seattle before will happen again- it will die.

As for what happened on Seattle in the past- everything I've seen on these forums indicates that all bets are off.  We have some very cool, capable people in charge, the old guard is for the most part out on their ass.  New Seattle is a new mux, effectively.  And if it isn't, we just won't play and it won't even get out of beta.  So the people who are making it happen have a strong incentive not only to be better than the last bunch, but to make sure everyone can see it plainly 

For an example of how the three strikes rule would work, see http://www.dlaom.org/smurf/, the DLAOM site. In particular, look at the Global Game Announcements. They show that players who are removed from the game (and I'd assume staff as well) are noted to the general PB, and reasoning provided for their removal.

Look, Absinthe, our Seattle MUX had a fair number of players who demanded special privileges, tried to get around rulings and equally applied policy, and just generally tried to become a nuisance. This is the exact same type of player who, if they actually push a staff member to the breaking point, will happily try to get that staff member fired. Part of the impermanence of staffing levels also encourages players to try to work the system since, from their perspective, if they manage to oust one person, the next person might be more agreeable.

Further to this, on the MU staff and players are _not_ equal when it comes to the game itself. From an OOC perspective, yes, we're all human beings. When it comes to the IC operation of the game, though, staff has access to more information and higher security levels than a player will ever have. What a player can do to cheat is far, far different than what a staff member can do to cheat. Your basic definition of cheating may be the same, but there's different levels of trust as well - if someone entrusted with the power and responsibility of being staff abuses that power for their own in-game benefit, why on earth should they get three strikes as well? I mean, sure, we continually let politicians abuse their power and get re-elected...

You should also note that I am advocating _HARSHER_ penalties for staff on most issues.

On a side note, you also appear to have interpreted what I posted as wanting no control at all for staff members. I agree that there are going to be common definitions for cheating and criminally harassing activities. How could there not be?

When it comes to being rude and abrasive, however, there are a few things to bear in mind. First, staffing is stressful; staffing is more like a job than playing a game. Even if it starts out being nothing but fun, the stress hits - why do you think staffers burn out? Secondly, a player may only have to deal with one abusive staff member - a single staff member has to deal with many players who have mastered the art of being politely abusive and manipulative, those who have mastered the art of what is less politely known as "Entitlement Bastardy/Bitchery." To reiterate a previous point, staff functions and player functions are not equal. When you have this level of discrepancy, how can you try applying a blanket policy to both? (Please note - I advocate leniency on this towards both players and staff) I mean, if a player actually requires a "F*** off" before they actually get the point that it is a topic not open for discussion...

Regarding group v. other group. This is a MUX. Staff provides the antagonists and the plotline. They try to provide challenges for characters. Their very function is an adversarial role and, as such, even when they are acting as mediators in PvP their actions are still construed as adversarial towards the losing character. I'm a firm believer that the reason that this has become such a negative problem is because of a lack of acknowledgement of this power difference, and by the eternal clich?, "The Customer is Always Right". Players are not the judges and the arbitrators - they are the players, responsible for their own characters actions. They do not have an equal say in how a scene is run, they do not have an equal say in how the NPCs react, and they do not have an equal say when it even comes to what modifiers should be applied to rolls. When this fact is brought up, of _course_ it seems adversarial. And if a player believes that what they say should override the GM on anything except for their own character's actions, then of _course_ this is going to create a group versus group situation.

And the watchers watch themselves. Unless you're meaning to imply that all higher-level staff functions are held by extremely corrupt individuals who want nothing more than to pick on and single out certain players. Further to this, nobody on this MUX is truly objective - every player may have a grudge against a particular staff member, or may even have their own ideas of how things should be done. Any court would be a kangeroo court. If you don't trust that the chiefs and the director are watching out for the best interest of the MU, why would you play here?

And, to draw things out even further, who watchers the watchers who watch the watchers who watch the watchers who watch the watchers who watch the watchers? And in what order? (And if anyone cares to punctuate that properly...)

To summarize my ramblings:

1) Staff and Player Group not equal in power and responsibility
2) Blanket application potentially too leniant and too harsh in some respects.
3) Incidents relating to rudeness and abruptness need to be looked at contextually for both staff and players, making blanket policy application impossible.
4) Group v. group mentality encouraged by belief in equal say and equal treatment.
5) IC incidences should not be construed as harassment or abuse because of the very nature of the game, barring unusual circumstances. This statement should not be applied to OOC interaction.
6) Staff should have harsher penalties because of the increased trust that they are supposed to have.
7) Staff are their own police.

So, here we go, in attempts to do something that I think is useful.  Outline some ideas that make for a good system of rules.
In the making of these rules, which I have never formalized before, I try and stick to a particularly important guideline:  If it is vague, clear it up, if it is too specific than you've gone too far.

1.  Cheaters, without regard, ought to be banned.  It should not be a question of how many strikes, it should be how long?  All factors of the person being staff/player/etc, we'll let the headwiz along with other staff debate over length, but upon finding out about cheaters they shall be removed from the game.  Their PCs will be destroyed, and after their banning they can come back and re-chargen (even as their old character if they like, but from the beginning again without any of their stuff/karma/etc).

2.  Never punish anyone about something to which there are no facts.  This is really important when someone (staff or player) says the other person was being abusive.  If they were being abusive, than show me?  Did they call you a donkey fucking duck balls?  If so, than banned.  Banning length should be from the IC grid, not from the MUX, remove their Approved flag for instance to accomplish this, and home them to OOC grid room.  If they continue to be problematic OOCly, than boot them off the MUX.  If they continue on the forums than boot them off the game, banning them.  And like before, banning ought to include removal of PC, and allowance at the end of the term of banning (decided by staff) to re-chargen their PC as a beginning character.

These rules are it.  I don't really know of something that doesn't get covered by them.  If I am presenting myself as being 'subtlely' abusive as many could claim, than walk away from the situation.  YES! This does mean that a staffer running a plot may have to make a break, telling the players that at this time they feel like they can not continue and will start up again when next available.  This will cause players to be upset, assuredly, however it is the best thing anyone can do when a situation arises where a game is making them upset.  Whether that game is based on Text or Images... it IS a game.  If you are so emotionally attached at this point that your emotions are becoming so far outside your control that you are getting stressed out, than you need a break.  Maybe a few minutes, a couple hours, or weeks.  Who knows?  If you can't staff longer than a week without getting stressed out and needing to take breaks like this, perhaps the position in staff you have isn't a good position for you to be in and you ought to start thinking about changing positions (if some are available) or departing from staff.

The second rule is the most important rule.  That's another thing you gotta remember.  The first rule is more like a duh.  Cheaters ought not be playing on our game without some immediate and serious responses.  The second rule is not only a good way of being self-governing, and in general a pretty good guildeline in life, but it also is a first line of defense for the lack of emotions conveyed in text.  I can say, "Page 234 says X is this rule, I was wondering why you are using a different modifier?"  The staffer or player in question may instantly respond that you are being a conceded book-bible-thumping-know-it-all.  And you were just curious.  Granted its possible that you are also being a bible-thumping-know-it-all, but the staff and players running scenes have some really good responses, "I am using my discretion to utilize a more appropriate modifier for these OOC/IC circumstances".  I'd warn against doing something like that in PVP of course, but in a staff plot or even a player plot you are at these people's table.  It is okay to remind them about the rules, but if they tell you plainly that they are doing something for some reason (even arbitrarily) than you need to back down.  Do not, and I stress, try and get into an argument with a person over it.  They say, "But, you get -5 dice when you add up all these modifiers" and you say, "Well you also are getting -2 for distraction and -3 for running through a crowd of people" and they go "But crowds of people aren't a modifier and I've been paying attention to this guy solely for hours!"  And you say "Your poses didn't illustrate that."  And then they go "But they did, and here's potentially vague pose number 1"  And you go, "That's not clear enough you also posed all these after that."  And they go... and so on. 

If you don't want to argue, than don't.  Don't give reasons, though.  That is not your responsibility.  You just say, "I'm using the most appropriate modifiers in this situation.  Roll please."  And be done with it.  Now if we find out that you were single handedly setting up a coup to kill off this character by altering system rules.  Than guess what?  Cheater.  Banned, blam and bango.  However, that requires facts... second rule.  Ya see?  They are glorious rules.

Anywho.  The idea behind these rules is that they are specific enough to give people guidelines as to what is okay and what is not, since we all pretty much understand the ideas.  Don't harass others on this game, don't be a jackass, get your head out of your toejam, and above and beyond all, be reasonable human beings.  Life gets in the way sometimes, take steps back.  The game gets stressful sometimes, take some deep breaths.  And if you find someone being a fucktard boot their sorry asses off the game.  Harsh?  Or blunt.  I believe in being Friendly, Firm and Final in all my actions.  I think its a good way to rule a MUX too.

My view:

 A three strikes rule is a good way to go about it. Obviously that's how I think as that's how my game runs its things. That having been said, getting to a full strike 1 takes MORE time than to go from 1 to 2 which, in turn, takes more time to get to than from 2 to 3.  The reason for this is that we know that if someone gets to two, they normally will get to three ... but if they get to one, it doens't necessarily mean anything other than that they need to be smacked.

 The staff on DL have an entire board dedicated to player discussions where logs of /every/ discussion with a player go when it could be used in the future.  Have a discussion with a player about etiquette? Post it. Ask a player to stop saying something on a board or channel? Post it along with what was said. It allows us to go back and see what was said and done.

- X

I'm with Erlkonig for the most part, here.  The whole notion seems a bit... unnecessary.

We don't need a cushion of 'three strikes' for offenses like cheating, harassing, etc.  Further, we don't need much more than clear, posted articles of conduct, and the very clear promise that If you break these rules, bad things will happen.

Of course, the rules of conduct should be the same across the board, Player, or Staff member.  And, as mentioned: Staff, we as players will expect you to hold the moral high ground, and set a standard for us lemming players to follow.  I don't believe any of us need 'Three Strikes' to let us know if we're out of line.  It's fairly clear who the bad players are, and who the good ones are.  And further, the same goes for staff.

We rely on Staff members to purge undesirable elements from both our playerbase, and our staff base.  And staff relies on us to keep playing on their site, so they don't end up creating policy for an empty room, and policing each other.

-CM