No one likes being sanctioned. And not too many people like being publicly shamed, even online. So why combine them both?
I'm aware that sanctioning is a requirement within the Discovery community. But I don't understand the public display of sanctioning. I would understand if the "sanctionee" wanted it to be made public. But I'm sure it's also understandable that once you (as an admin/staff) read someones report and acted upon it. The person who made the report may probably be sitting there grinning while whispering to them-self "That's my doing. I did that." which encourages pro-sanction behavior for certain power hungry people or sadists seeking enjoyment out of others misfortune.
The majority of players can tell once they've been sanctioned by logging into the game seeing half their weapons missing or the warning within their cargo (if that still happens). And once they've received that any normal disco user would log into the forums and contact a staff member to find out what's going on, where matters could be discussed in private. Chances are if it's somebody who's completely new, and they've been sanctioned on the forums they probably don't even use the forums so it wouldn't grab their attention regardless of the post being public or not.
Just a personal belief but I don't think a public punishment is the best way to teach somebody that they've messed up. I believe it only panders to the enjoyment of the person who has done the sanctioning and should stay between the staff/sanction victim
Another point I'd like to make is that it may cause some animosity between players. For example if I'm fairly new and I read "Mr.Blablabwhoever" has been sanctioned. In my head I may think "Whoa. That Mr.Blablawhoever sure is a problem. They must be a dangerous internet terrorist" even though the offense may be excessively minor, like running around with two ID's.
Complete side notes of why I think sanctioning may of been made public
- To get the sanctionee's attention
- No better existing system
- For the sake of simplicity
- To prevent admin corruption / underhanded behaviour within the staff
- To stop people going "Ay what happened to ... "
- To show the admins are taking action against people who are breaking rules
- Some rich folk have 1 billion chars and may not see it for a year
I understand that there probably wont be any change in the system and just wanted to offer food for thought. More than happy for anyone to educate me on things I may be completely missing. Also yes I understand my examples may be a little extreme, but not entirely impossible :D
PS: I've not been sanctioned. I've just been reading a lot of sanction threads.
No one likes being sanctioned. And not too many people like being publicly shamed, even online. So why combine them both?
I'm aware that sanctioning is a requirement within the Discovery community. But I don't understand the public display of sanctioning. I would understand if the "sanctionee" wanted it to be made public. But I'm sure it's also understandable that once you (as an admin/staff) read someones report and acted upon it. The person who made the report may probably be sitting there grinning while whispering to them-self "That's my doing. I did that." which encourages pro-sanction behavior for certain power hungry people or sadists seeking enjoyment out of others misfortune.
The majority of players can tell once they've been sanctioned by logging into the game seeing half their weapons missing or the warning within their cargo (if that still happens). And once they've received that any normal disco user would log into the forums and contact a staff member to find out what's going on, where matters could be discussed in private. Chances are if it's somebody who's completely new, and they've been sanctioned on the forums they probably don't even use the forums so it wouldn't grab their attention regardless of the post being public or not.
Just a personal belief but I don't think a public punishment is the best way to teach somebody that they've messed up. I believe it only panders to the enjoyment of the person who has done the sanctioning and should stay between the staff/sanction victim
Another point I'd like to make is that it may cause some animosity between players. For example if I'm fairly new and I read "Mr.Blablabwhoever" has been sanctioned. In my head I may think "Whoa. That Mr.Blablawhoever sure is a problem. They must be a dangerous internet terrorist" even though the offense may be excessively minor, like running around with two ID's.
Complete side notes of why I think sanctioning may of been made public
- To get the sanctionee's attention
- No better existing system
- For the sake of simplicity
- To prevent admin corruption / underhanded behaviour within the staff
- To stop people going "Ay what happened to ... "
- To show the admins are taking action against people who are breaking rules
- Some rich folk have 1 billion chars and may not see it for a year
I understand that there probably wont be any change in the system and just wanted to offer food for thought. More than happy for anyone to educate me on things I may be completely missing. Also yes I understand my examples may be a little extreme, but not entirely impossible
PS: I've not been sanctioned. I've just been reading a lot of sanction threads.
What do you mean publically shamed? All depends on the on the severity of the violation. When it is accidental (your mentioned 2 IDs on one ship), there's nothing really to be ashamed of, mistakes happen and noone is going to laugh at you. On the other hand, if the violation is major (intentional cheating) it is okay to have it displayed publically, the violator should be ashamed at this point. This shame will most likely prevent him from breaking the rules over and over again.
Also let the reporters grin, they might just want to see their report successfull, not all the reporetrs are like this however. Either way they've done their job by getting the violator sanctioned, which is not bad in any way. The "sanctionee" gets to know what he's done wrong and will not let it happen anymore (unless he's dumb and keeps doing the same mistake again and again, or he doesn't understand the point of bastille and just deletes the ship without noticing the forums link, which leads to violating the rules repeatedly as well).
Animosity? Why would that even happen? If I see someone getting sanctioned I do not immediately consider him as a jerk (and I highly doubt anyone does).
Additionally, when someone gets sanctioned and the team is not diligent enough to expose All of the causes and consequences of the decision, people from the four corners of the world usually come down pouring accusations of bias and power abuse.
Although I do feel that sometimes the titles of the sanctions are misleading, like when some files are acting up and the person in question is restricted from playing, but it's dubbed as "BANNED". In my personal opinion, that is the only point that could use some improvement right now.
By publicly shamed I kind of made it clear. I believe it's between the staff and the offendee. I don't believe you as a reporter should have any further information on the matter after you send the report.
I honestly don't expect anything to change. I just think it reflects poorly on the community as a whole.
And animosity wise, maybe you've never been on the receiving end of it. But I remember getting started and making a few mistakes and being branded as a "lolwut" now if you're coining terms like that you're directly tagging and branding people based on a sanction or in game naivety you may end up causing them to dislike parts or certain people within the community pretty quickly. You yourself may not use the term but I've heard staff and other players use it. Now you yourself may not brand someone based on the sanction but you can't deny being publicly shamed will 100% effect your reputation within the community in one shape or another.
You may not see a problem but you're also probably not getting sanctioned very often if at all.
If people are breaking rules, they get sanctioned or banned. I do not see anything wrong in letting the community know about that. When stuff gets that far, some shaming is only apropriate. It will discourage such behavior in the future.
If you want to avoid that, I suggest not doing things, that get you sanctioned/banned. Most sanctions are just warnings anyway.
P.S.: I have been sanctioned twice in the 10 years of playing. Once I lost my nerve, when I was blown up by some Pirate ID/Police IFF scumbag. Then for following a swagpack guide, which suggested modifying gamefiles for it to work.
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As a former admin, I will chime in on this. I have no sympathy for rule breakers. All too often, people just start playing this game without one visit to the forums to read the bible (rules). If they did, they would know better. Another thing I always hated was that one person who argued with me over how a rule was written. "If you change this word in the rule, you won't have a loophole to exploit." That just tells me someone doesn't care about the rules.....and it's grammar Nazis like that I don't like either. I COULD have easily jailed the person and ended the argument but I spent on one occasion two hours debating in Tau 29 over a rule. I didn't log on again for a week after that.
Public shame? A couple of reasons. One, admins often see a lot of the same people for infractions over and over. Repeat offenders just don't learn nor did they gain any sympathy from them. THEY were my pet peeve. Another reason is that the person is quite possibly a part of a faction. Faction leaders have a right to know. Having been one, if I have someone who is a repeat offender, I really don't want them in my faction.
Also, flagrancy. Some people just violate without thought. What people don't get is that this server is an RP server. I mean, God forbid if they have to think before they shoot!
Have I personally ever deserved a sanction? Yes but I also worked out the issue with the other player. All too often, people in server won't do that.
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I remember it well, actually. It wasn't a set up. It was a total dipstick moment. I was in a Med Force cruiser outside of FP6. I started shooting at what I thought were NPC's only to take out two players. I apologized and they were very accepting. We talked and joked about it afterward.
I'm too smart to let someone set me up for a sanction. Yeah, I said that.
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