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Legends of Equestria Discussion / Re: An Open Letter To The LoE Development Team
2018 Oct 20, 14:37:58
Public ban logs are usually the standard, friends. Here are just a few examples:
https://www.yogstation.net/index.php?do=publicbans
https://sg-gaming.net/bans/
https://bans.rustafied.com/
Ultimately the reason for this, as we've seen in this thread, is so the public can trust the moderation team. It protects moderators from accusations of unfair banning sprees as every ban they make, and the reason for said ban, is public. When you hold power over people it is generally best practice to provide them some avenue for observing the use of that power, to ensure it won't be used against them unfairly.
There were a lot of points made in this debate with anecdotal evidence, the most unreliable kind of evidence, and without public logs that's all the discussion can ever be. Obviously every intimate detail of the ban shouldn't be made public, but username + brief description along with ban duration and moderator that issued the ban has been accepted by most communities. The individual banned should be given the full statement of reasons upon request, of course. Ex:
somepony - banned for: offensive conduct - duration: 1 week - banned by: somepony else
Maybe even tie this to a warning system, with the time of each warning being displayed under the ban and being made clear to the user with a popup when they are issued. They only show up on the page after they are used as justification for a ban. This way people can also see that proper protocol was followed and warnings were given. Might ultimately be too much work to set up, but again these systems exist primary to protect the moderators from false accusations so any time you save not dealing with those is probably worth the up-front investment.
As for logging private messages, it's rather controversial:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/15/twitter_sued_reading_direct_msgs/
If you imply a messaging system is private when it really isn't, you could be violating laws in several states relating to consent and eavesdropping. Most public communication platforms don't even allow admins to view private messages, likely complying with both these laws and the general ethics of such a position. Storing private messages typically involves encryption, but in your case it would probably just be easier to not store them at all. If it's important to you to allow someone who wants to report a private message to do so, there are a variety of ways to handle it without storing messages long-term or in a format readable to anyone except the sender, recipient, and moderators if one of them reports a specific message. There's probably several libraries for unity or whatever platform the server runs on that should make this possible without in-depth networking and encryption knowledge.
Not that you'd ever actually run into legal trouble, of course, but it does seem that the general expectation is that you'd protect user's privacy and not store their private conversations in plaintext.
It's also common practice to announce in the chat logs when an admin uses a game-changing admin command, so that players know who did it and the record exists for later examination. Should clear up any misconceptions about moderators abusing their entity spawning rights, if they even have that ability. It's also somewhat common to provide a console command to all players to check what commands exist and what flags a user must have to use a given command.
When you hold power over others you also have to hold yourself to a higher standard than you do them. People are smart to distrust those with power over them, especially when that power comes with no apparent checks-and-balances. The game may not come with a price tag, but the regulars are still investing immense amounts of time into it. If we're to value someone's time at even half of minimum wage (~$6), spending 10 hours playing this game amounts to $60 of time spent. That's the up-front cost of a AAA title. Obviously the dev team gets none of this value for themselves, actually occurring sizable expenses of their own in terms of time and money to accommodate it, but it does at least illustrate the point that some players may have a sizable investment in the game and it's community regardless.
Making a free game can be very taxing as it yields no direct benefit, and often the players just want more than you're already giving them. However, that's the very nature of labors of love, you do them because you enjoy the work and want to give back to the community. If that's changed and you've come to hate the community you're supposed to be providing for, something's gone wrong somewhere and maybe you should move on to a new project. If it hasn't, then do whatever is reasonable to keep your community happy and keep bringing activity to your game. It's really not supposed to be a fight with the people you're making content for.
Anyway, back to running my vast empire. Just figured that, as the Saltan of Wheatgypt and Soyria, I'd share the wisdom that power has brought me since I was already passing through the area.
https://www.yogstation.net/index.php?do=publicbans
https://sg-gaming.net/bans/
https://bans.rustafied.com/
Ultimately the reason for this, as we've seen in this thread, is so the public can trust the moderation team. It protects moderators from accusations of unfair banning sprees as every ban they make, and the reason for said ban, is public. When you hold power over people it is generally best practice to provide them some avenue for observing the use of that power, to ensure it won't be used against them unfairly.
There were a lot of points made in this debate with anecdotal evidence, the most unreliable kind of evidence, and without public logs that's all the discussion can ever be. Obviously every intimate detail of the ban shouldn't be made public, but username + brief description along with ban duration and moderator that issued the ban has been accepted by most communities. The individual banned should be given the full statement of reasons upon request, of course. Ex:
somepony - banned for: offensive conduct - duration: 1 week - banned by: somepony else
Maybe even tie this to a warning system, with the time of each warning being displayed under the ban and being made clear to the user with a popup when they are issued. They only show up on the page after they are used as justification for a ban. This way people can also see that proper protocol was followed and warnings were given. Might ultimately be too much work to set up, but again these systems exist primary to protect the moderators from false accusations so any time you save not dealing with those is probably worth the up-front investment.
As for logging private messages, it's rather controversial:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/15/twitter_sued_reading_direct_msgs/
If you imply a messaging system is private when it really isn't, you could be violating laws in several states relating to consent and eavesdropping. Most public communication platforms don't even allow admins to view private messages, likely complying with both these laws and the general ethics of such a position. Storing private messages typically involves encryption, but in your case it would probably just be easier to not store them at all. If it's important to you to allow someone who wants to report a private message to do so, there are a variety of ways to handle it without storing messages long-term or in a format readable to anyone except the sender, recipient, and moderators if one of them reports a specific message. There's probably several libraries for unity or whatever platform the server runs on that should make this possible without in-depth networking and encryption knowledge.
Not that you'd ever actually run into legal trouble, of course, but it does seem that the general expectation is that you'd protect user's privacy and not store their private conversations in plaintext.
It's also common practice to announce in the chat logs when an admin uses a game-changing admin command, so that players know who did it and the record exists for later examination. Should clear up any misconceptions about moderators abusing their entity spawning rights, if they even have that ability. It's also somewhat common to provide a console command to all players to check what commands exist and what flags a user must have to use a given command.
When you hold power over others you also have to hold yourself to a higher standard than you do them. People are smart to distrust those with power over them, especially when that power comes with no apparent checks-and-balances. The game may not come with a price tag, but the regulars are still investing immense amounts of time into it. If we're to value someone's time at even half of minimum wage (~$6), spending 10 hours playing this game amounts to $60 of time spent. That's the up-front cost of a AAA title. Obviously the dev team gets none of this value for themselves, actually occurring sizable expenses of their own in terms of time and money to accommodate it, but it does at least illustrate the point that some players may have a sizable investment in the game and it's community regardless.
Making a free game can be very taxing as it yields no direct benefit, and often the players just want more than you're already giving them. However, that's the very nature of labors of love, you do them because you enjoy the work and want to give back to the community. If that's changed and you've come to hate the community you're supposed to be providing for, something's gone wrong somewhere and maybe you should move on to a new project. If it hasn't, then do whatever is reasonable to keep your community happy and keep bringing activity to your game. It's really not supposed to be a fight with the people you're making content for.
Anyway, back to running my vast empire. Just figured that, as the Saltan of Wheatgypt and Soyria, I'd share the wisdom that power has brought me since I was already passing through the area.
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