The reason why our ToS needs to change

Was thinking about this thread for a bit and I don't have anything extra to add about the ToS changes but I want to talk about what seems to be the real underlying reason for a lot of why people are upset.

I think a huge factor in people's hate for the ToS change is because a bunch of people obviously think Skarmory's ban was unjustified and they think that this change will lead to more "unjustified" bans like his (I have no idea if it was justified or not). A ton of comments in this thread are heavily concerned with staff transparency. They think staff will hide evidence in their ban appeals and behave like petty tyrants. I personally don't think staff is out to get anyone or behaves badly but I can see how friends of those who were banned are suspicious. On the flip side I see staff accusing users of having faked or edited their ban appeals.

It's not what anyone wants to hear but the biggest step towards transparency we could so as a server is simple: public ban appeals. It's obviously not a fix-all but something like this would help. Everything needs to be brought into the sunlight even if the light can sting at first.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

 

true, perhaps this can be extended to subjective bans like harassment. rwt ones are straightforward with solid evidence.

 

Your only point is just that staff needs to be more open to criticism, this has literally nothing to do with ToS. Rigid or not, it still comes down to staff interpretation. It is hilarious you think more grey is actually better. More rules actually means staff needs more burden of proof to ban you.

 

ToS is the veil under which staff hides. Ruling by adjusting ToS from afar and using precedence as an excuse is a cowardly way of handling things. Simplified solutions are not the way to preserve a small and declining population.

 

Screenshots from my private server have been used as a basis for banning players, both experiences were frustrating because I felt that my privacy was violated and I believe that actions and discussions within my server should remain within that context. To elaborate, first someone was banned for posting a stick figure drawing of someone else in an open channel and the other case was of Skarmory, for expressing his unfiltered opinions regarding someone else in a private channel. As a server owner Staff never asked me to provide context or evidence or to corroborate the veracity of the things happening in my server.

Having these experiences I've thought about 3.3.3 more than I wish and for me this rule is invasive without a doubt because it doesn't respect the boundaries and autonomy of players and gives the moderators too much power to punish or ban players based on their opinions or activities outside of the maplelegends platforms (game, forums and official discord server). It creates a chilling effect on players who may fear being reported for expressing themselves in private or interacting with others in different contexts and this rule also risks being abused or misused by malicious or biased players who are empowered to report others for petty reasons, rather than for genuine cases of harassment.

I guess the benefit is that it can deter some players from engaging in actual harassment, bullying or abuse but in my opinion this benefit is outweighed by the costs and risks of the rule. No one likes being surveilled in their own privacy, it sucks and is concerning that Staff is willing to meddle into private matters to have a say on how their players should behave outside of the game platforms.

I would suggest to limit the scope of the rule to only apply to cases of harassment within the game platforms (game, forums and official discord server).

 

Big thank you for the public statement on the Skarmory ban because it really seems like half the posts on this thread are people upset about that and it was annoying not finding anything official from the staff to read on that

 

A possibly biased answer, but since many people in this thread have anecdotally attributed to their avoidance of bans to “not being a dick” I feel like it’s a justified response: one wonders how much influence a single or small group of individuals has to shape the wider perception of someone in the greater ML community. I find it incredibly unlikely someone develops a negative reputation across the entire community due to the actions of a group of people, no matter how influential they may be. At the end of the day, there’s one individual who has the most influence on your reputation in a space - you.

For what it’s worth, I would also consider myself somewhat of a dick and have never been banned, so it must be something beyond that.

 

I’m referring to the methodology of handling in game conflicts/reports whilst creating more safeguards for staff. This is a game made of players that will have fewer and fewer players joining in over time while more and more players are opting to leave. ToS won’t mean shit if there’s no community left to govern.

What is the purpose of the ToS?

 

I think a better way is to change the rules to make it airtight and then go for bans (so there's no retroactive actions) rather than the other way around. Skarmory's case just shows how rules are made on the fly, interpretations based not on precedent but on emotion.

btw staff can still ban you for anything they want:
"Please note that the MapleLegends Staff has the right to use their discretion to ban you for any reason that they deem is abusive, disruptive, or otherwise has a negative impact on the server"

 

I noticed that there are some Pasta members sticking up for Skarmony. I understand that he's your friend. From what you know of him, what he did (good/bad), and also now that you're aware of his previous offenses, if you were staff, how would you proceed with his case?

 

Skarmory obviously was destined to get perma banned or account banned, anyone in pasta could have told you that. However the reality is , it was clearly anti climactic as the screenshot above posted brilliantly illustrates as nightz spoke the gospel. People can word it however they want, but he got banned because the staff were fed up with him (whatever that means).


and yes, his last ban was because screenshots were leaked in a private discord anyone that says otherwise is coping like a mf.

But skar is gone RIP, and there’s no point in bringing it up constantly whenever the tos is brought up. This thread is about the maplelegends tos, not skarmory.

 

i would first change the text of tos, invite some friends to try and poke some holes, and then keep changing until it's airtight. After that it'll become part of tos and if he violates it afterward then it's on him.

also being someone's friend doesn't mean you can't tell someone they didn't deserve a ban.

 

The safest drivers can still get into accidents.

I didn't know we had so many 'perfect' players on this server, let alone in the entire world. Yeah, it's easy to "not be a dick", but that doesn't mean you become immune to drama. Sometimes the drama finds you. Even I've been wrapped up in my share of it over the years, although never confronted by staff. I truly do not feel that my record is clean solely because I'm not a dick, but that there hasn't been anybody yet who feels like checking the "I'm offended" box. Players aren't perfect, and I lose respect for the ones who claim that they are.

Dont get me wrong; some players are definitely more dick-ish than others, and will find themselves in trouble more often. There's also plenty of dicks that know how to fly under the radar, and get away with stuff whether by edging the rules or garnering favor with those who matter.

On another topic, for how much staff bashing goes on in here, I don't think that's quite accurate. Most of them seem to do a good enough job most of the time. But I cannot feel comfortable in maintaining a good record as long as we have things like policing private chatlogs in conjunction with the creation of an offended party. Sometimes I feel like that's can be used to protect the abusers more than the abused by preventing proper private discourse.

Ultimately, these views may not be the actuality. Pasta seems to say what we'd like to believe, and it may well be true at the end of the day. But that is not the public perception, which I do think staff can be out of touch on due to a natural difference of position. Perhaps the greater ability to speak out when a player "goes public" will prove us wrong.

 

I don’t know how dangerous the roads are where you guys live but the safest drivers around me aren’t getting into 4+ accidents. The ToS is pretty explicitly not demanding ‘perfection’.

 

actually not that bad if you adjust for playtime. also there's naturally a higher chance for accidents or rule breaking since there's more cars on the road.

 

I would go so far as to say it's not just unlikely, it's impossible. I don't see any world in which someone's negative reputation is purely tied to the actions of others; sure other people may add fuel to the fire in spreading it but at the end of the day someone's reputation is going to be based on their own actions above anything else.

If the new ToS ruling is going to take into account something that, in my opinion, is an impossibility, then it should also take into account the antithesis - the impossibility of a player receiving an unfair permanent ban. The likelihood of a player receiving a false positive account ban is, in my opinion, more likely than the former scenario, and if we believe both situations to be unfair, then this is something the ToS should account for (that being, not associating a permanent ban with any action that can be falsely convicted). As other players have mentioned, having long bans or expiring strikes are both more desirable systems than one that can, however unlikely, falsely ban a player permanently.