Rule Discussion Thread.

[Ozymandias]

Just by asking themselves the most subjective question of all: how do I feel about this? Do I personally think this was enough of a dick move to warrant intervention? The answer to that question will vary based on the individual making the decision,

This is exactly how things are handled for flaming/baiting.

It isn't.

There's no list that covers what exactly is counted as an insult or bait either. Yet I do think that the staff team is doing good in terms of consistency with mutes? Why would this not be the same with scamming?

It's not all or nothing. Sure there is no complete list of offensive terms but there are guidelines to help staff decide what (not) to punish and how severe the punishment should be. It's also worth noting that the arbitrary decisions staff makes in the realm of borderline offensive language are extremely minor and inconsequential. On the other hand, when these gray zone choices end up deciding who is right in a dispute, having significant wealth consequences for both players, and possibly branding one of them as a hardened criminal... Then people will care a lot more about staff's judgement calls going their way. Nobody really cares if some noob gets a short mute for calling someone a mofo.

If theres a mod that thinks merching is scamming then.... Again, it's a 'hiring competent staff'-problem rather than a rule problem.

Um no, that's a "define your rules properly" problem. Rules are supposed to make it clear to both players and staff what isn't allowed. If you want to be negligent by not defining things clearly at all but instead you snap your fingers and POOF suddenly all staff knows how to apply this vague rule specifically, even though you won't even attempt to do that yourself because you think it's impossible to define... Yeah... Not a "competent staff" problem but an "incompetent manager" problem.

The big issue here is, as much as I hate centrism, that Rapsey is right and so is everyone else. Making these kind of rules is complicated and impossible to get right. The way the rules are set up right now just happen to be the best way they could think of at the time to account for these situations. Overly specific means constant debate and argument and attempts at loopholing. Overly vague rules will upset the community either just cause, or the second the staff team looks at a situation and says "this isn't scamming."

That's exactly right. Both approaches have their problems.

@Rapsey what does EvE do?

Well, from their own website:

A scam is what happens when someone takes advantage of a players misplaced trust, temporary confusion or ignorance of game rules, and robs players via legal in-game means. When this occurs, there is nothing the Support Team can do for the victim. Although low and despicable, scams do not violate any game mechanics and can not be compensated for by the GMs, nor can the scammers generally be punished for their actions.

However, scams that affect areas outside of the game may not be tolerated in the same manner, such as, but not limited to:

Scams involving Character Transfers, mainly via the Character Bazaar where scamming is explicitly forbidden
Scams mimicking services provided by CCP while providing modified data via third party websites
Scams using exploits (fake or existing)
Scams involving the "PLEX for Good" campaigns
Scams that encourage the mark to purchase PLEX in order to acquire the ISK/Items

So, a few things are explicitly forbidden but for the most part (attempts at) scamming are considered a normal part of the social structure. The idea (and result) is that the community polices itself, rather than expecting the devs to do it for them. Of course there is still drama from time to time when an epic scam does occur but for the most part the system works well. More and more games are taking this stance of non-interference towards what happens inside the game. Take Amazon's MMO New World for example. It's only been out for about 2 weeks and already there is no shortage of stories about guild leaders collecting money from their members to buy an unclaimed zone, only to transfer all the money to an alt and disappear.

As immoral as it is, some developers believe that dick moves should be possible in their games. Considering how people flock to drama and how scandals always result in activity spikes they may be onto something. In fact, knowing that it is allowed and the scammers get away with it makes it even more sensational. It gives the EVE community more social depth than pretty much any other community, more sense of freedom and adventure, and on the rare occasions when someone does manage to trick rich players out of their wealth they go down into the history books as legends.

On this note I think that even if we find a new form of scamming, at the end of the day we know the player was scamming, which took effort to attempt to begin with, in that case I think we should add to the rule that once a player scams and loop holes it through it being not clearly listed in the rules, punishment can still be handed out with interpretation being left to the staff team. This would insure that players will still be punished for scamming, or being deseptive, after the fact even if it wasn't clearly listed in the rules.

If you want to avoid the pitchfork's from the mob then do right and punish players who deserve punishment when they try to loop hole around situations.

Which is how we end up with our 2 options:

1. Have a clear and specific rule so there is no confusion or disagreement (but occasionally someone might find a loophole)
2. Have a meaningless "scamming is whatever staff decides" rule (because even 1 scammer getting away with it is unacceptable)

How many loopholes do you think will be discovered? Maybe 3? If the price for having solid unambiguous rules is that the first 3 people to discover these loopholes get to walk free, I'd call that a bargain. With the other system there would be way more drama than this from disputes about staff decisions.

I'd also like to point out that you can make things more specific while still being vague. E.g. instead of having "omission of useful information" as a crime in general, you could make that apply only in the context of risk fights and services (if those are the only places where it is needed). Instead of trying to make this as broad as possible I implore you to attempt doing the opposite: how can we make these rules more specific while still covering all the scam cases we have in mind?

How come you can spout your nonsense for this but still can't answer my question after almost 4 years?

[Thearlygamer]

@Rapsey what does EvE do?

Well, from their own website:

A scam is what happens when someone takes advantage of a players misplaced trust, temporary confusion or ignorance of game rules, and robs players via legal in-game means. When this occurs, there is nothing the Support Team can do for the victim. Although low and despicable, scams do not violate any game mechanics and can not be compensated for by the GMs, nor can the scammers generally be punished for their actions.

However, scams that affect areas outside of the game may not be tolerated in the same manner, such as, but not limited to:

Scams involving Character Transfers, mainly via the Character Bazaar where scamming is explicitly forbidden
Scams mimicking services provided by CCP while providing modified data via third party websites
Scams using exploits (fake or existing)
Scams involving the "PLEX for Good" campaigns
Scams that encourage the mark to purchase PLEX in order to acquire the ISK/Items

So, a few things are explicitly forbidden but for the most part (attempts at) scamming are considered a normal part of the social structure. The idea (and result) is that the community polices itself, rather than expecting the devs to do it for them. Of course there is still drama from time to time when an epic scam does occur but for the most part the system works well. More and more games are taking this stance of non-interference towards what happens inside the game. Take Amazon's MMO New World for example. It's only been out for about 2 weeks and already there is no shortage of stories about guild leaders collecting money from their members to buy an unclaimed zone, only to transfer all the money to an alt and disappear.

As immoral as it is, some developers believe that dick moves should be possible in their games. Considering how people flock to drama and how scandals always result in activity spikes they may be onto something. In fact, knowing that it is allowed and the scammers get away with it makes it even more sensational. It gives the EVE community more social depth than pretty much any other community, more sense of freedom and adventure, and on the rare occasions when someone does manage to trick rich players out of their wealth they go down into the history books as legends.

I can see that this would be viable for other games, but I don't think that's good for a RSPS with a small community that should be easier to handle, vs a huge game that has tens of thousands of players that make it near impossible to have the man power and current lack of AI to intervene in these things. If scamming players made others 'legends' than I think the PkH community would not only dwindle over time, but it'll make it toxic to the point everyone is just trying to out scam everyone else.

On this note I think that even if we find a new form of scamming, at the end of the day we know the player was scamming, which took effort to attempt to begin with, in that case I think we should add to the rule that once a player scams and loop holes it through it being not clearly listed in the rules, punishment can still be handed out with interpretation being left to the staff team. This would insure that players will still be punished for scamming, or being deseptive, after the fact even if it wasn't clearly listed in the rules.

If you want to avoid the pitchfork's from the mob then do right and punish players who deserve punishment when they try to loop hole around situations.

Which is how we end up with our 2 options:

1. Have a clear and specific rule so there is no confusion or disagreement (but occasionally someone might find a loophole)
2. Have a meaningless "scamming is whatever staff decides" rule (because even 1 scammer getting away with it is unacceptable)

How many loopholes do you think will be discovered? Maybe 3? If the price for having solid unambiguous rules is that the first 3 people to discover these loopholes get to walk free, I'd call that a bargain. With the other system there would be way more drama than this from disputes about staff decisions.

I just don't see why if you believe we can have the clear and specific rules so there's no confusion, that we also can't have punishment for the ones who find these loop holes? As I've said before this mentality is similar to "it's not a bug until it's reported, until then it's a feature". I would hope that if a player found a way to dupe scythes, and for some reason the rules didn't specifically say duping isn't allowed, that he would still be punished if it was found out after the fact.

I'd also like to point out that you can make things more specific while still being vague. E.g. instead of having "omission of useful information" as a crime in general, you could make that apply only in the context of risk fights and services (if those are the only places where it is needed). Instead of trying to make this as broad as possible I implore you to attempt doing the opposite: how can we make these rules more specific while still covering all the scam cases we have in mind?

If you in text say that 'omission of useful information' only applys to the context of risk fights and services then that opens up the door for players to try and find loop holes for other scenarios, but if we punished them for doing so if they were successful I'd be okay with that. It could still have a negative impact to the player, community, or game if we don't let it be known that if they try to loop hole any rule breaking then they will be punished as if they broke the rule to begin with. I'm actually really glad this discussion is happening openly so we can all have our input and as a community we maybe can have a clear defined list to cover most scam cases, but I don't think having a broad stroke for "just in case" scenarios is a bad thing either.

I think with unique scenarios the staff team as a collective along with input from the community can come to a decision if there's unique cases like the ones of recent events to apply proper punishment if any punishment is warranted. In regards to recent events management (as far as I know) already made their decision, and whether the player base agrees with it or not, they made it and accepted the reprocussions, if any, of the community.

[Fungamer]

On the other hand, when these gray zone choices end up deciding who is right in a dispute, having significant wealth consequences for both players, and possibly branding one of them as a hardened criminal... Then people will care a lot more about staff's judgement calls going their way. Nobody really cares if some noob gets a short mute for calling someone a mofo.

Agreed. A mute is obviously less impactful.

Um no, that's a "define your rules properly" problem. Rules are supposed to make it clear to both players and staff what isn't allowed. If you want to be negligent by not defining things clearly at all but instead you snap your fingers and POOF suddenly all staff knows how to apply this vague rule specifically, even though you won't even attempt to do that yourself because you think it's impossible to define... Yeah... Not a "competent staff" problem but an "incompetent manager" problem.

Disagree.

The community and staff team (should) pick new moderators largely based on how much they trust the applicant & their judgement. Their judgement on, for example, whether or not someone broke the rules, would then align with that of the majority of the community AND the rules, which means everyone is happy unless:

A) A popular player doesn't get their way and they cause a drama. That's PKH for ya no matter what.
B) An oversight happens and results in positive change for the server and its rules, resulting in more detailed examples.
C) The mod makes a bad call because they're only human. Their judgement gets reversed and depending on the context, the mod either learns from their mistake or gets demoted/suspended for a while.

But, let's take a step back and make a broader statement. Instead of saying mods should be free to judge if something was a scam or not, I'm gonna say they should be free to judge if a rule was broken based on acceptable evidence. For that, we need to (re)define the rules to clarify when they are broken and also clarify what counts as acceptable proof, which is the main issue the community has right now.

I agree on both systems having their own problems. But I think in regards to scamming that it's very clear what most people want after both the community and even some staff members have shown a preference for the "old" system rather than the current.

With the other system there would be way more drama than this from disputes about staff decisions.

There's about 35 pages of drama with the current system. This was one of the biggest dramas in recent PKH history.
When it comes to scamming (even if its a popular player or mod like in our recent case) there's always been a clear stance from the community.

When the scammer ends up punished and makes a thread trying to argue with "the rules didn't specifically state this", the community (aside from a few contrarians and the scammers friends) will shut them down and laugh and have enough common sense to realize the scammer is an ass that deserved to be punished for whatever swindle they were running.

When the scammer is not punished and it was major enough, a witch hunt will start and even though the scammer might not get punished, now the staff team will know that the community deems this unacceptable and as you said, the rules can be altered with that case being an example of what is not allowed going forward.

We really are a lot like EVE in that sense, just with the community being able to police itself more efficiently in the form of community-picked staff members punishing the players.

I think your main concern here is drama.
As Early said, we are a small community. Drama is bound to happen if one of the more known players does something the community sees as bad no matter what the rules are.

Again, this isn't 100% On Topic but:
There's good drama (that leads to positive change) and bad drama (a shitshow in the form of a forums thread). We don't want bad drama. Wouldn't the logical step be to increase moderation that takes place on the forums and also take a look at the forum rules rather than the in-game rules, then?
If regular mods cba moderating the forums, then some form of what used to be the forum moderator rank could be reinstated.

It could even help take some weight off the shoulders of the current staff. E.G back when I was a moderator I helped @Ely and @Alex a lot with the tedious things. Part of that was archiving appeals, recoveries and refunds that were completed and enough time had passed. Ngl it was quite fun next to the other work I did for them.

I'd also like to point out that you can make things more specific while still being vague. E.g. instead of having "omission of useful information" as a crime in general, you could make that apply only in the context of risk fights and services (if those are the only places where it is needed). Instead of trying to make this as broad as possible I implore you to attempt doing the opposite: how can we make these rules more specific while still covering all the scam cases we have in mind?

Here's another attempt based on Patels edit of my suggestion (apologies for formatting, on mobile):

You may not trick or deceive another player in order to steal their items or cause losses to them (ingame statuses, stats, weath, etc.).

Examples of scamming include, but are not limited to:

- Spreading false information about how the game works or abusing game mechanics to orchestrate a player to be deceived and lose money or items.
- Not honoring (the specifics of) an agreement i.e during services or risk fights.*
- Letting someone else log onto your account to do a risk fight without the other party knowing this will happen.
- Luring a player into an unsafe area by telling them it is safe and/or falsely claiming there is something valuable to be found there.
- Falsely telling a player they will receive a special reward if they alch a valuable item or press alt-F4 in a dangerous area.
- Not giving items or money back when having agreed to it being a trust trade or loan


* If (one of the) specifics for a risk fight were not agreed upon beforehand, these things will default to being "allowed" to do. For example, if you and your opponent didn't agree on whether or not it was a death match, both you and your opponent are free to tab out when you feel like it.
In the context of a service, both players are always held to the baseline agreements for services made here


Not all forms of deception are considered scamming. I.e.

- Using an unknown alt account in the wilderness.
- Tricks that don't cause players to lose anything.
- Not splitting loot while PvMing.
- Selling an item at a higher than usual price, while not lying about its rarity or function.

Agreements between players can be eligible for refunds if the staff team is able to recover the lost items and/or money. However, they will not spawn new items into the economy in order to refund you.

While we can punish a player for scamming if they do not hold up their part of the agreement (provided there is clear proof from in-game screenshots and/or videos), we encourage all players to use the Player Made Deal section when engaging in these agreements to ensure things go as smoothly as possible: viewforum.php?f=138


Be sure to ask a staff member if you are unsure your actions will get you in trouble for scamming.

This rule says nothing about "staff will use their own judgement if they feel like doing so", and I can't think of any other way a player could scam without violating any of the examples posted or without violating other rules to begin with.
Staff would only be required to use their judgement when presented with in-game footage to determine if what was said and done is in violation with the rules and its examples, which I think is what the majority wants staff to be able to do.
If someone loopholes, we use that specific case as one of the examples or rewrite one of the examples to include that case, which is what you want.

Everyone should be happy now, no?

What does everyone else think? I encourage everyone to try and make an imaginary scenario where you'd be able to scam someone without breaking the proposed rule, so it can improve.

[Patel]

The idea (and result) is that the community polices itself,

Could Pkhonor pull this off? Seems like something that works when n is large.

With the other system there would be way more drama than this from disputes about staff decisions.

Is this a scary thought? What is drama in your view?