Ok, it's time for another incendiary post. This time, I'm revisiting the 3 strikes policy, which we've never codified and entered in as an 'official' MUX policy. We've been using it so far, though, with mixed results. The original discussion is here:

http://forum.newseattle.org/index.php/topic,218.0.html

People get three strikes. They get a number of warnings before the first strike, fewer warnings before the second strike, and no warnings before the third. The third strike is loss of the player's PC and an automatic siteban. Some misconduct, like code abuse or proven cheating, requires no strikes. Such players are automatically sitebanned.

Here's the thing. People have been saying that strikes and/or warnings should expire after one year. I've considered this... and I am deciding against it. If someone has acted up badly enough to merit a strike, which is a serious thing in itself, it should -not- expire. It should remain on the player's PCs throughout his/her relationship with the MUX. It will follow from PC to PC.

This does not mean doom for a long-time player. The Director and Chiefs must agree before a strike, nuking, or siteban will apply. Strikes that have occurred one year+ to any current infractions, or cumulative with current infractions, would be reviewed. If it shows a continuing pattern of behavior, they will be used to caculate a response. If it does not show a continuing pattern of behavior, it will not be used to calculate a response.

Feel free to discuss, but be aware that I'm pretty set on this. I dislike people who try to play loopholes in policy.

Why are you trying to implement a policy that will change the moment you step down and a new director takes your place? Being that you and Melkir have both publicly stated on the mush that you intend to step down from staff after some short period of time, what is there to make the new person keep any decision that you have made?

This is why I am saying this. You have in multiple threads said that you "want people to forget the past and put all of the bad things that have happened behind them." Why are you exhibiting such hypocrisy in saying that karma docks, warning, strikes, sitebans, etc... (that is if they can be enforced from one pc object to the next) are going to carry over forever? Don't you think that if you want everyone to forget all of the "bad things" as well that you should be willing to do the same?

Simple. Because a lot of the problems of the past were because people treated each incident like it was brand new, and had nothing come before it. This led to the same people doing the same crap over and over again, with staff approval.

So, no. I'm not going to address the demons of the past. I'm going to ensure, however, that they don't revisit us in the future.

Would you care to elaborate on how you intend for this to happen?

*points to the post above*

I don't think Noor is asking anyone to forget about bad things that she has done, just other staffers long since passed on...

Also, strikes will start anew with the new game, right?  It sounds like Abby is going on the attack because she's been playing for a long time and throwing poo at staff for so long she's bound to have some.

In Noor's defense she has had to deal with a lot of shit that previous directors and chiefs dumped on her. As for your question, it is the same one that I have. So I point out the hypocrisy. A person cannot ask someone to forget the past etc.. if they are not willing to do it themselves. All of these bad things are supposed to end when the new grid opens, however, I do not see it happening.

This is like saying that a person convicted of a grand theft auto, is building to a commonality of bad actions if in 5 years they steal another car, and 5 years later they steal another one.  Now, if the 3 strikes rules were to be followed, that person goes to jail for life.  In the MUX situation if they do 3 bad things in 10 years of time, you are going to look for a pattern?  Hell, I WISH people abused policy systems like THAT.  Cause most of the time people just go, "Aww hells, I'm jus' gonna blow up now."  And they do it every few weeks.

My complaint with the strikes lasting longer than a year.  A year, first of all, is a long time.  Most of the MUX games would be in bliss if the 'bad folks' only caused problems 3 times per year.  They'd be magnificent actually.  So, presuming that having only one strike this year and even 2 strikes next year should have anything to do with one another is a completely paranoid outlook on not only people but the game.  Certainly strikes should bare against ALL PCs.  If you have PC A and you do something to get a strike and you have PC B that you create later and get another strike, you SHOULD have a total of 2 strikes together.  And a year from strike one that strike should wipe, but strike 2 should remain until a year from its point.

Another complaint.  I am an honest, blunt, truthful person who understands most things in a logical fashion first and ONLY.  I do not see words as harmful, I do not think that asking questions is harassment, and I don't believe in the person too shy/weak-willed/embarassed to say, "Hey, stop on this topic its making me uncomfortable."  Because of this I have hurt people's feelings in the past on MUXs, and have been in some instances talked to scornfully by staffers who have taken something I've said personally or have been affronted by something I've said.  I attempt, with the best of my ability to reconcile their understanding of my words but they just merely think its  more of the same and seek to punish me.

If their assumption of some sort of scorn on my part hurts me for only 1 year I think I could tolerate it.  I could wait it out, I could not post for an entire year, I could RP casually, I could be on and off... but to risk it everyday for an eternity because this Staffer who might not even last a year AS staff decides that I'm not being nice?  It'd be fine if it required a trial to get a strike, or to present to me some form of pure evidence that's not questionable.  Either of those two requirements to make a policy that says all my misconduct (real or imagined) will follow me for the rest of my time on the game, would be necessary for me to stand behind it.

Of course, Noor doesn't want to care about that.  She wants to say, "Hey, that's not going to happen."  But the demons of my past MUXing have nothing to do with my own misconduct and all to do with people placing perceptions of their own onto me.  They have a lot to do with my inability to see how text can 'hurt your feelings' and it has a lot to do with the fact that I think of Shadowrun as a game instead of as an alternate lifestyle.

I can dislike Noor and she can dislike me, and if that disparity of authority at worst lasts a year, then I'd be fine.  I am unwilling to trust that Noor will be friendly with me and fair with me at all times.  That, since we are all most likely humans, is impossible.  And I have no care to allow my future gaming experience on a MUX be left to the ambiguous hope that the next staffers in charge look at my list of crimes and decide not to care that one happened years ago.  I am unwilling to hope that the future staffers will be able to discern enough information from a 'strike' or notation about said strike, to make an informed decision as to its influence on my then current punishment should I ever receive 3 strikes.  And lastly, I am persuaded to believe that future staff members will side on the idea of safety and security in a similarly paranoid fashion as today's staffers who create such policies, and believe that my crimes were equal or worse enough to maintain the strike as a relevant issue years after its occurrence.

So, for my sake, and those of others like me and potentially yourselves when no longer staffers and but mere mundane players... do not allow paranoia of the past walk you so far behind walls that it prevents you to see the importance of forgiveness.  If even with a heavy hand, one year is more than credible time to say someone's changed.  Afterall, if they do something heinous like cheat/etc they will be forced off immediately.  Any other crime possible can't be horrendous enough to leave scars after an entire year.

I'm pretty sure that strikes are not given just for being a pain in the ass.  Otherwise NES you'd have no chance 

Strikes are for actual rules breaking right?  Possibly for being really abusive to staff as well?  From what it sounds like, strikes are not just like a referee holding up a red card.  Someone has to do something really bad, be warned about it a bunch, and then the staff have to agree that that actually deserves a strike.  It seems like ordinary non-cheating people who can refrain from verbally abusing the staff never have to worry about a strike, right?  Or am I mischaracterizing the whole thing?  The way Noor makes it sound, 3 strikes isn't like stealing two cars in three years and going to jail for life.  It's like killing dozens of people and going through rehab again and again before they finally decide to execute you :p

I actually don't disagree with you at all, NES. Here's the problem: we've had players who will wait until such deadlines are past, and then do exactly the same things all over again. Or they destroy one PC object, build another, and do exactly the same things all over again. I'm tired of that.

First of all, it's a lot more than 3 bad things in 10 years. People get multiple warnings between strikes. And the purpose of adding consensual admin discretion into the mix is to keep the system from being abused. If people have done multiple bad things in 10 years, but often seem to be honest errors of judgement, or they are isolated incidents each time, no, it won't be a pattern of behavior.

I'm not sure where the scorn argument comes from. There's a difference between being unpleasant (which is unpleasant, but not a warnable offense) and abusive. I'm not interested in being abused as a staffer. Players aren't interested in being abused by staff. While I'm equally untinerested in people being unpleasant to one another, I realize that life is like that and sometimes people have a bad day. Apples and oranges here.

The upshot is this: this place does have a history. Staff and player abuse alike. I've never denied that, I just can't fix things that happened years ago by people who are long gone. Part of that history is people who play off and on for as long as a decade. They start shit, take off for a year, come back, start shit, take off... lather, rinse, repeat. I'm saying people need to be responsible for their behavior. This is a community, and every community requires a certain amount of common sense and civility.

Here is a problem. One of the above people that you're tired of, takes off a year. Their character gets idle nuked, (if that's still being done), then they start over, perhaps with a new ISP. There is no real way for you to track someone. I know of a staffer who had a PC through a separate ISP. I know of a person who was site banned that came back through a different ISP. I have logs where they admit this.

Yet the people who play the same character for years. (In my case six) get fucked. Punish the people who try to keep the game going. As for you not being able to fix things, well that is true to an extent. You might not have been able to fix everything, however, you could have tried to fix somethings.

The idlenuking situation isn't going to happen. We've already taken that into account. We're setting up the system so that if we decide later to allow alts, people will still need only one login and we can still identify who all the alts of each player are. Same goes for old players who are creating new PCs. We'll know who they are.

I'm sure there are ways to abuse the system. No system is perfect. This is the best I've come up with. I've yet to see anybody provide anything better.

Oh, and if you knew of someone who returned after being sitebanned and didn't report it? Naughty naughty. Not the best way to protect our community, you know.

[edited to add stuff]

Nothing you or I could do when they admitted it years after the fact. These are the things you find out when you discuss the past with others.

Thus, why I said 'naughty, naughty' and nothing else

 
In using this system, there has never been one staffer adding a strike to someone.  A warning, yes, which can (and I believe, has) be revoked on review by other staffers.  One staffer who has a problem with a player, and proof, brings the issue up and the others discuss it.  Over and over since so many warnings are needed before a strike can be added.  Pretty damn lenient if you ask me.  Strikes are a community effort on the staffers part.  

As Noor said, it takes a hell of a lot more than just pissing a staffer off randomly.  It takes abuse or breaking the rules.  

As for the years...  I'm pretty sure that any strike over a year would be more like consulting a criminal record when deciding upon new actions of discipline.  I know I would.  If the strike was ages and ages ago or even just a year ago and unrelated, it probably wouldn't be an influence.  If it was ages ago and the EXACT thing, yeah, a second strike might be considered.  But keep in mind that there are always warnings pointing to the possibility of future discipline involved.  Plus informal warnings.  

If a person gets a strike, then five years later does something similar, I'm pretty sure the chances of that being a second strike are slim.