Guild of Writers

I agree with the two last posts. I thought my admin management was going too far but Nalates beats me by several miles.
The idea of an Uru admin using his position for abusing children is sqaure into tinfoil-hat territory. Any member on any on-line forum, chat room or game server could do that much more easily than an Uru admin. Anyway you look at it, only parents can regulate their child's activities.

Nalates wrote:How do we verify that our ResEng's (or whoever does in-game policing) are child safe? This is the kind of position we find bad people infiltrating. As time goes by we will likely need new ResEng's (I hope). Who and how will we vet them?

We don't. No vetting, no drug testing, and no asking "Are you, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of America?".

Nalates wrote:Is it possible to flag chat for ResEng review if the words 'I am [wild card for numbers and spelled numbers]' pass through chat? (can we have a flag list for numerous words and phrases?). How much review work would that create?

All of this is technically possible but hopefully we're not going to do any of it, because it would mean spying on our people, which is frowned upon by people who value privacy.

Nalates wrote:May be we should start a thread just for this subject. /me goes to add questions to MOUL's Cyan Question list

How about no? How about we stop worrying about that, like the thousands of server operators in the world? How about we just do our best to ensure a fun environment for everyone? How about we tell parents to stop expecting other people to cater to their precious snowflakes? Let's have a sign-up screen that says "This is the internet. It's less safe than your living room. Teach your child to protect himself".

Because otherwise, why bother offering the service in the first place?

Sorry Nalates if I'm over-reacting, I know you're just trying to cover all bases, but the current state of paranoia in the US is pissing me off.

We can just have a "If you get hurt on this program don't come running to us" disclaimer. GameTap and Cyan did something similar with MOUL.

Paranoia it may be but vigilante action just got one pervert killed in the UK ok he was a convicted paedophile but I reserve the right to be Paranoid if it stops some idiot labelling me as something I am not.

It's not the child I am protecting it's me. I am willing to give up a degree of privacy if I can have the assurance that if I am accused of something there's somewhere I can go to achieve justice. Justice for me is also justice for the child. If someone does try to groom a young player I would like us to be able to say we sorted it before anyone was hurt.

This is not just limited to this extreme end of the accusation spectrum. There are players who have been hounded for being members of a shard that allowed local variations in the game.

I am not going to mention names because it took over a year for this trollish behaviour to go away last time.

We have already seen accusations here that the guilds are running secrets. The only secrets were those made in compliance with Non Disclosure Agreements. This discussion is in an open forum for that very reason.

[edit]spelling correction[/edit]

J'Kla,
I think I speak for most of us here when I say that I'm compleately fine with your actions in that case. It's just that I don't want a rule or guideline specifying that that is what everyone should do in such a case

Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me....

As Kermit said It ain't easy being green.

Trylon wrote:J'Kla,
I think I speak for most of us here when I say that I'm compleately fine with your actions in that case. It's just that I don't want a rule or guideline specifying that that is what everyone should do in such a case

Your point is understandable. I believe there is no way to enforce any rule the fans make, if they would even make a rule. I'm not sure why you would oppose guidelines...

Cyan can enforce their rules because we will be signing an agreement with them. I strongly believe they will avoid any legal issues other than their liability and IP rights.

The most that can come out of this is a 'white paper' that sets out best practices and itemizes what a server operator needs to consider. I see no way this can be imposed on an operator.

I thought my admin management was going too far but Nalates beats me by several miles

lol... not really. I am actually looking for a balance point, something between it being totally ignored until there is a knock on the door and the position many seem to ascribe to me.

I bang the point into the ground when I hear only opinion and am told it is not an issue, laws don't apply and it has never happened so why worry.
Andy Carvin in "Online Predators: Much Ado About… What Exactly?" covers getting Child Protection into perspective. The best stats I've found are the US AG

I don't believe we have a serious threat situation in either direction all I want is an available way of validation. A chat log can be faked but if we were to have an encrypted store of the last say 48 hours rolling then if someone has an issue then they have 48 hours to have the log set aside. There were players who were offended by things said in D'Mala and there Cyan were responsible and issued warnings that appeared to be heeded.

All I ask is we make sure we can dig ourselves out of that sort of hole honourably.

I don't agree about rules.

The only rules that could be enforced, are the ones Server owners set for their servers specifically. Those rules will only apply to that server. Beyond that, even guidelines will only be heeded by those who want to.

Rules are ok when properly implemented. But as BAD said, they are hard to enforce from shard to shard.

There is a way to get peoples attention though. If anyone from a regular player all the way up to a shard owner is causing a problem of any kind...that person can be warned...the players name given to all shard owners...and if that player persists in being obnoxious...can be banned from any or all shards...permantly! Even if they create new avatars or reinstall the client! It was done by Cyan during Prologue and MOUL. It was also done during UU. And any experienced owner/admin can do it. And faster than light the word gets out to the players. Screw up and you are out!

So stop worrying about things you can't easily control.

To be realistic what happens elsewhere on other shard/servers is not really at issue as long as we keep our own house in order. At this time it's a discussion topic and can be nothing more till we get the code and find out how it's implemented.