P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

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Nalates
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P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Nalates »

Over on MOUL the 'Who You Invite" discussion is becoming a promotion for a /kick command to allow a player to eject a problem player from their private instances.

In the effort going here the question came up for me of; what place does player to player action have?

In general this section is about how we each handle situations and respond to problems. A /kick command takes direct action on another player. In SL even bumping another AV is a reportable offense. Only SIM owners can eject and/or ban an AV from their SIM and only Linden Lab can ban a player from SL. Their idea is players do not take vigilante action. In society people rely on law enforcement and only take direct action when life or health is at risk.

This section I see as providing the frame work and knowledge for how people respond to issues, debates, disagreements, and habitual poor behavior. Hopefully providing knowledge for better responses. Also coming up with philosophies on when problems move to moderator intervention and actions.

The /kick command seems to move from where society as developed to, back to an earlier time. I'm not sure whether that is good or bad on the large stage of life. I do see it as counter productive and violating the theme of Uru.
Nalates wrote:I like the idea of a /me kicks - to the moon...

However, I think /kick allows griefers the ability to target 'helpers' makes for significant change to the Uru environment. On the other hand that tactic is in use now. I see it as more broadly targeted now. I think a /kick would narrow the focus of the gimmick. Trying to solve a problem by creating a bigger problem for a class of player want to help seems counter productive.

While I'm not overly opposed to adding a /kick-eject I don't see it as a solution. I also see it as outside the basic nature of the Uru environment, non-violent. Taking physical action against another AV in game has been avoided. I see it as a basic philosophy that /kick would violate.

Until we have someone that has 'game eject' ability we have a problem with repeat offenders.

In the interim I don't see a good solution. The addition of /kick might be a fun, satisfying interim solution. The problem is that it is likely going to be fun and satisfying and those two rewards feed right into the griefers mentality and mental/emotional needs. I see that as encouraging its misuse and a big red flag.

But all that is opinion and speculation. Until we try it, we won't know, but we can see how it will feed griefers needs and a probable result.

For an immediate solution, it does not work. We can't add it until we can change the game. A /kick command is going to need some server side cooperation.

Until we can have ResEng with eject authority or a /kick or some other tool (like Whilyam pointed out /ignore making AV silent and invisible) we have to handle problems. Going armed with knowledge is about our only real tool, which is actually the only real tool we need.

While I think using tools to solve these problems is overly simplistic... the expansion of /ignore to include making the problem AV invisible comes the closest to handling the underlaying problem of griefers typically wanting attention and control, an ability to effect his/her environment and see it validated in another's reactions. It very effectively removes most of the griefers incentives and rewards.

It also is more in line with what I think is the Uru ideal of non-violence. It does not really do anything to THEM. It just affects what we see. It also does not offer a fun activity or an emotionally satisfying action. It does get the annoyed relief.

I also think expanding the /ignore function could be done with only changes on the client side, which means it could be implemented sooner.

The only part of the solution that it does not address is leaving the griefers in game to pray on those that have yet to /ignore them. That tends to be a lot of new players, or so I think. That could be a problem. But, I can't see a way to factually evaluate the benefit to disadvantage ratio without trying it.
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semplerfi
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by semplerfi »

Cross post from same topic on MO:UL forum. This is only going to be an issue on Cyan's shard.
Griefers are only going to be a issue on the Cyan server. :roll:

I predict the OS Shard owners will deal with griefers rather quickly. Griefers will not be an issue there for very long for OS Shard owners will have Admin Ki's. Most shard owners of the past did quite well with this issue whether you personaly liked it or not. 8-)

So the real issue here is going to be what & how is Cyan going to do on their shard. :wink:
I agree that:
The /kick command seems to move from where society as developed to, back to an earlier time.
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Mac_Fife
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Mac_Fife »

semplerfi wrote:This is only going to be an issue on Cyan's shard.
That's very probably true. People are trying to seek a way to provide some "protection" in the absence of ResEngs and I'm pretty sure that Cyan will never sanction volunteer ResEngs on the MOULagain shard. This whole issue came to the fore because someone effectively got "trapped" in their own Relto with another player who ended up making them uncomfortable. There's a whole set of questions and issues surrounding that particular set of circumstances that we don't really need to go into again here, but the point is that usually, Relto is where you would escape to if things start going wrong - this was true even when ResEngs were around and even the original ABM manual from 2003 includes a section headed "Relto as refuge".

The acceptability of /kick really depends on your interpretation/expectation of what /kick will actually do. Being able to arbitrarily eject someone from the game is, to me, unacceptable and open to abuse. From what I've read, it seems like the preferred behaviour of any such command would be:
a) A player is only kicked to their own Relto, not out of the game - I guess this limits the effects should it ever be used as a griefing tool, but at the same time that also limits the deterrent effect when applied to someone who's harassing another player, as either it won't take them long to track down another victim or if it's a "stalking" type case they'll end up confining the victim to private ages. Either way the griefer still wins. Sort of.
b) The /kick can only be used in private ages of the player using the command. But I struggle a bit to see why it's really all that necessary in any ages other than Relto, since you can just F3 and Relto away. The griefer will pretty soon get bored on their own and go elsewhere. And the Relto incident that started all this seems like it's a bit of an oddity anyway.

So, the more I think about it, the less reason I really see for adopting a /kick command; excuse the word-play, but it seems like a bit of knee-jerk reaction, that doesn't stand scrutiny under a magnifying glass.

As an aside, it hadn't previously occurred to me until I was reading Nalates' post that some people might imagine a /kick command that was tied to a "kicking" emote (Kung Fu Uru?). That would certainly be outside the spirit of Uru (although it also crossed my mind that "/kick Griefer" might result in an interesting autoseek if Griefer then decided to run away at the crucial moment :lol: ).
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Nalates
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Nalates »

I think if a /kick command is added at Cyan's shard, we will see it migrate to fan run shards.

I think that fan runs shards will have enforcement. I agree griefer problems on privately owned shards are likely to be resolved quickly.

Whether a /kick command is from any private age or just the Relto, it is still an action by one AV on another AV. That and its feeding into griefers need to touch another, leave me thinking it is not such a good idea.

Letting players take action against other players would likely lead to escalating problems, at least in my thinking.

The idea of adding a /kick is probably an over-reaction (to avoid the word play) to a rare circumstance (griefer @ Relto).
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Whilyam
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Whilyam »

As I believe kaelis pointed out, feeding the griefer mentality doesn't really matter. The fact is, what would you rather do: sit on Relto/a private Age with a griefer while he... griefs you, or be kicked to your Relto, know the person is a griefer, /ignore him, and move on with your day? Personally, I go with option 2 because option 1 wastes my time. Obviously I'm not forced to stay with a griefer, but if the griefing isn't immediately noticable I may help this person for a while before real griefing occurs. Also, I believe any "fun" would be pretty short-lived (i.e. yeah, you kicked another person from your Age, go you. Don't you have schoolwork to do, little boy?). I didn't really see a coherent response in the thread (just a restating of the flawed premise). Is there any real reason not to include this aside from that? /kick followed by /ignore doesn't escalate the problem, it eliminates it. Obviously the griefer can continue to harm people's experience, but they can do that now and for much longer than if /kick were implemented. If you worry too much about "will the griefer still win?" you will lose. Griefers always win unless their effects are 100% eliminated. This is why I would also like /ignore to stop the ignored person from physically appearing or being able to interact with anything belonging to the ignorer.

As an aside, obviously any /kick should not be for public Ages (no /kick from the city or even from a person's neighborhood unless they're the owner) and it should send people to Relto (not close the game).
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Mac_Fife »

While I have to say that I still think that the argument for a /kick command isn't really all that compelling, I'll admit that it is probably winning against the argument against it, and I don't object to it. In my mind, it's one of those cases where, if I were Cyan and it was going to cost me to do it then I'd likely decide that the cost outwieghs the value. But OpenSource changes that equation substantially. Then you can add in the fact that it'd likely end up making shard admins jobs a little bit easier (at least in some respects). So, it's something I expect will happen. I think the same goes for Whilyam's enhanced /ignore.
As an aside, obviously any /kick should not be for public Ages (no /kick from the city or even from a person's neighborhood unless they're the owner) and it should send people to Relto (not close the game).
No disagreement from me on that. In fact I think I've only seen one persons suggest that it should be available in public ages and I somehow got a feeling that they hadn't understood the proposition :? .
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Whilyam
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Whilyam »

Obviously Cyan can't/isn't going to do this. They can't staff ResEngs and they likely never will (I see Uru's future in the fans with Cyan working on profitable products).

Public /kick only makes sense for admins (they already have this power). Now, the enhanced /ignore should be ubiquitous just like /ignore is now. With the goal being total elimination of the ignored from the ignorer's experience. This could have practical fan-story purposes outside of the griefing solution area. For example, if you have a story character you want to have a big speech in Ae'gura and Ae'gura has lots of people, you can /ignore all of them, perform, and leave (assuming you don't need audience participation). Similarly, if someone wants to not experience the game with other people, they can just /ignore everyone they meet :lol:
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Mac_Fife »

You probably know a lot more about this than I do, but I'm guessing that apart from not being able to interact with the ignorer's "property", most of the enhancement to /ignore can be handled entirely at the ignorer's client?

I'm trying to think if there's a justification for a two tier /ignore, i.e. an /ignore that works as at present, and an /ignore2 that works as you describe: I have a feeling that there'll be a reason to retain the former, but I can't really rationlise it just now so maybe there isn't one.

I guess the only oddity is the visual/chat anomoly that some third party will/might see when observing an ignorer and an ignoree - but then, the way MOULa is working on occasion right now that can happen anyway :lol:
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Whilyam
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Re: P2P - Player to Player Enforcement

Post by Whilyam »

Well, the chat anomaly thing already exists because the existing /ignore already does this.
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