The reason why our ToS needs to change

The issue is that there are a ton of people on this thread who have been playing just as long as you that haven’t ran into trouble once so clearly it’s not this inevitable problem that every late game player will run into.

 

I actually don’t super agree with what fael is saying personally, but to play devil’s advocate, it’s much easier to find yourself in conflict with others when you’re in positions of power and influence.

If I have a squabble with another player as just a random runner, it’s easy to ignore them and not escalate, but if I have a squabble with another player as a host and I blacklist them from my runs, it’s incredibly problematic for that other player that I’ve blacklisted, especially if I am, in theory, the host of almost half the pink bean runs on the entire server. That player is much more affected by my actions and this conflict is significantly more likely to escalate.

Not saying anyone is right or wrong in this scenario, btw. Just saying there’s more opportunities for escalated drama versus some random petty squabble.

 

Just for fun to continue the analogy, I looked it up and the average person gets into a car accident only once every 17-18 years! Way less than I thought. The more you know.

 

the average person also drives like an hour or two a day cool!

 

People can post their ban appeal to the public, the reason you barely see this happening is because they realize theyre rightfully banned. People keep bringing up Skars case, and they can just ask Skar to publicize his ban appeal if he wants to, nobody will stop him if he does really. But it does seem like Skar himself accepted it and has moved on since, its just the people around him that keep bringing it up.

Ive been a guildleader for nearly 3 years of one of the biggest guilds in ML. Yes theres been drama, yes people have had personal problems with me (and still do), but I never got banned and neither has my fellow guildleader buddy. Hosting PB runs is stressful yes (trust me i tried), but that is irrelevant to this thread. Having to deal with banks and splits of many people? Its like HT, but bigger really. And honestly, unless you mess up the maths big time, or use a bank to fund yourself, it wont land you trouble. The islanders can have just as much drama as the endgamers, even tho in different forms. In the end its all about how you deal with it, and the majority of people obviously has no issues dealing with it correctly, without getting banned.

As someone mentioned before on this thread, people overestimate their own importance. And the argument that important people or people with high/longterm investment should get more leeway is nonsense. That would be discrimination and favoritism, which nobody wants.

 

I'd recommend to engage with my first post as I think the crux of the problem is the reach of 3.3.3
everything else is details

(Also I would gladly post Skarmory's ban appeal here if Staff allows me. And I'm asking seriously. You saying that he could just post it is disingenuous since you very well know posting the ban appeal would make evident WHO reported, which would be classified as harassment, furthermore that ban appeal contains a lot of players testimonies regarding the reporter. Why would you even say "just post it xd" . But if you dare people to do it, do you or Staff allow me? is it fine really?)

 

I personally have no issue with the reach of the ToS. If you dont want to risk things you said becoming public, dont say them or make sure theyre within your trusted people circle. If you create something that can be shared, you risk it being shared. I do understand it makes people uncomfortable that "private" discords can be used as evidence, but how private are they really.

Personally i think the ML community is small enough for the "private" ML-related discords to have an effect ingame, where it affects those very people being targetted. That said, I manage my guilds discord together with the guilds leadership team, and we have no issues in telling people not to be rude, not throw accusations around or not spread hatred against people. Yes, our members can still express their frustration, and they will, but they keep it decent. This is why I and (hopefully) the members of this mentioned discord will not fear it being used as evidence, because theyre simply not creating it.

 

I think everyone kind of assumed this was the reason people don’t publicize their ban appeals but this was half of my original point. People think all the staff are crazy petty tyrants because false narratives are allowed to propagate from people lying or misleading about the reasons they (or their friends) were banned. I don’t think we’d be talking about skarmory today and I don’t think people would be up in arms about this ToS change if his ban (and most bans) were initially public

 

I can see where you coming from when you mention limiting the scope of the rule, privacy is indeed a big thing to consider.

I do have an edge case I would like to discuss though. What would happen if there exists a private discord server with majority of the end game community (lets say 50%, but feel free to put any number you would like) and in that private discord server bashing and harassment occurs? Should staff ignore instances like these and let the harassment/bullying go on?

It does seem like there's a lot of powers in the hands of GM since they act as judge, jury, and executioner. But that's the nature of the role as a game moderator. A lot of what I'm sensing is distrust in GMs. Since if you do trust said GMs, you would trust that they would exercise clear judgement and admit if a case has been mishandled. At the end of the day, rules in ToS are just words and GMs are the ones handling each case on a personal basis.

 

So we shouldn't just speak our minds in private? Imagine embracing surveillance.
I remind you that we aren't talking about the game platforms, you are OK with the ToS reaching other platforms? No other game monitors things this way, it's ridiculous. It doesn't matter how small or big the game is, most of us do not consent for this degree of invasion of privacy. It's about consent.
You manage your server however you want, I don't see how's that relevant other than virtue signaling.

 

Note that under the new ToS:

 

I am perfectly aware that we're talking about other platforms. Discord, WeChat, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc..

First, I must say my point of view, but I obviously it's my point of view and needn't be forced upon anyone. I think people nowadays have been taking advantage of the internet to perform various malicious acts that they can only get away with because there's anonymity in the internet. But I believe that regardless online or in person, one is responsible for one's own words and actions and should be careful with how you speak, who you speak to, how your actions can affect others.

Second, EVERYTHING and literally everything you do in real life affects other people's opinion of you. If you bad mouth your boss in a private setting, but your coworker leaked what you said to your boss, who's fault is it then? It's both you and your coworker's fault. Real proof or not, the boss will have changed his opinion of you. Private conversations are private until they are public. There are a lot of court cases on slander and libel of people suing one another. MapleLegends reports are just another form of court cases.

I agree from start to end, privacy is important. But you should be aware of who you speaking to. If you trust the wrong person and they end up leaking conversation from the discord group you're in, then that conversation is now public and may potentially be under scrutiny.

My advice is speak your mind with only a close trusted group of friends. You telling it to bystander A and B in a private setting does not free you from any damage it causes from then forward.

In the real world, there's no fairness. People just play by different rules.

 

Well, why not share the reports and just ask how the community thinks? You don't have to give your two cents on the report if you're afraid of being accused of public accusation.

 

Problems happening in private should be left to the players themselves. Staff should focus on making the game better instead of losing their time with petty things.
They should only interfere if these cases are present in the maplelegends platforms (game, forums, official discord server), the rest is none of their business. As simple as that.

As I said I would be willing to publicate the entirety of Skarmory's ban appeal if Staff gives me a go. They are reading, so if they say nothing I'll interpret it as "its not ok".

 

Mageor
skarmory offenses were:

1) Ban for harassment- message a player “toon is comming for your ass”

2) Grief- left a mule on ht map so channel was occupied without fighting the boss

3) Mass griefing- entered on a random pb run to watch. First he checked the discord and there were 29 signs. However, in the end there were 30 and one person from the run couldn’t. The run failed. Ofc this was an attitude that deserve the ban even not having the intent of harm. The run failed, but it would regardless (not that it’s justified).

At last, he got perma banned for the last report of leaked private messages from his own guild discord. Problem is that to be perma banned at that time you would need tree bans on one section. The leak had messages of skarmory saying that a certain players would be expelled from a Pasta run. All the guild was talking about that but the leaker cut in a way it seemed was only skarmory manipulation. Can’t someone choose who is on his own guild run?

The warnings Pasta is referring never had an official effect and the GM who supposedly made them have already expressed himself against the injustice that happened as you can see here.

I understand that those situations deserved a ban but they seem pretty silly to erase all game effort and bonds with community. When we say that skarmory affected the game, people don’t visualize how hosting 4 pb runs with people from any guild positively affect the game. Not only pbs, but years of ht. Not counting all the help with tips and pushing the game to its boundaries that inspired many people to love even more this game.

 

From my understanding I doubt staff would give you the explicit go ahead to post this because if they did, it could be considered violating their user confidentiality agreement with skarmory. But if skarmory shared his ban appeal with you then you’d for sure be allowed to post it on his behalf, no? Sorry if I’m confused