[Langley]

ModEdit for context taken from original topic description: "Using non-game information to identify old players."

I wouldn't bring this up if it weren't for a conversation that took place tonight with another player in IRC. We had been discussing the many methods used by many alliances in the game to acquire information on players that visit IRC channels and other alliance forums. It is known that Cybernations may be classified as a mmog, but there is no denying that Cybernations is more of a community, layered in messaging and posting in forums and in game. I’m sure that you must be aware that if a player is attacked and has enough popularity within the game, his nation is then ZIed, and thus he must start over. This is where I'm not so clear on the rules, if a player deletes his nation and goes under different nation names and ruler names, is he not then (IC) a different person?

Its not a secret that many alliances use forms of identifying old players that wish to return to the game, even if they are "under the radar" so to speak. They then are Harassed and threatened in game, on your forums, publicly. Ultimately they must end their nation (usually in ZI). This information that was obtained to identify the player was not information that was given freely, instead there are many who copy IP addresses, and look for any electronic signature that they can to help identify players. There is only one problem, IP addresses are not (IC) information, and neither is any other means to gather intelligence on a player in Cybernations.


What this adds up to is Cyber bullying, Harassment, and ultimately Stalking of players within the Cybernations community. This should not only be condemned but dealt with harshly by Cybernation's Staff. Instead I see pleas, inside the forums, asking if they can go on playing without interference from past accounts, and then Threat after Threat.

I was once told myself by a former player and leader of an alliance, which quote "If I ever created another nation, they will find it and kill it". That is a threat not to an (IC) player, but instead a threat in (OOC). Some of the actions that I have seen of late, are not only against the rules, but can constitute legal action.

I will give a good example of bullying right here in your own Moderation forum. Here a player has posted a topic on OOC attacks, and with the intent of discussing it with the staff, and viola, some one appears to tell him to quote "Speaking as a man who frequently arranges punishment in-game for things said on these forums, I'd advise you to bite your tongue."

http://forums.cybern...?showtopic=5256

That is a threat, but no moderation found that to be such a threat, why? Why are players forced to leave this game on the basis of their (OOC)? Who is actually moderating the forums? The game?

There really is a real sense of apprehension when posting in the forums, and or replying to them and ultimately whether or not you can leave the game and return. In fact I would be willing to bet my account, that this post would cause me "in game punishment" for an (OOC) post.

[Josef Thorne]

I fail to see how this comes even close to stalking or harassment or that pedantic term "cyberbullying".

No one is followed home, no one is hunted down on MSN or MySpace or Facebook to be harassed. We simply police our own interests within the limited structure of a game.

Let's be honest, this is about personal responsibility and power politics. No one who incurs a harsh punishment wants to pay it, and those who disagree want "God" to step in and fix something they can't do themselves.

[Sithis]

I'm going to have to agree with Josef Thorne on this one. It's incredibly easy to reroll and stay under the radar. You'll find that in most cases where rerolled nations are sentenced to Perma-ZI it's because they did something that allowed themselves to be found out. I can personally attest to this statement.

It's also pretty ignorant to think that you can just post whatever you want on these forums and believe that there won't be any in-game repercussions.

This post has been edited by Sithis: 01 August 2008 - 04:41 PM

[Megabyte]

As we stated back during the NoV issue, players can declare war on anyone at any time for any reason. We can't and won't police the war system in that way. The recent ruling has to do with legal issues, extortion of real life possessions, such as money (even in the form of donations), forums, and anything else opens the door for legal action in RL. We allow players to police themselves through the war system in any manner they deem fit.

[Sword of Estel]

I'm curious if anyone has examples of players "having to leave the game" as the OP describes.

[ender land]

edit in SoE's post as well

Sword of Estel, on Aug 1 2008, 06:00 PM, said:

I'm curious if anyone has examples of players "having to leave the game" as the OP describes.

Josef Thorne, on Jul 31 2008, 07:50 PM, said:

No one is followed home, no one is hunted down on MSN or MySpace or Facebook to be harassed. We simply police our own interests within the limited structure of a game.

For what it's worth:

--I HAVE seen a player who has had his MySpace profile flooded with derogatory comments/posts after he was forced into perma-ZI
--I have seen entire alliances condemned for the OOC actions (maybe IC too? no one will ever know for certain the way this game works) that have nothing to do with the game
--I have seen players forced to either quit or completely abandon their OOC personality to play the game (across reroll perma-ZI)
--I have seen a player get IC actions as a response to the Water Cooler (I believe that is where Smallfrog's posts got him into trouble)
--I have seen entire alliances sent to near ZI because a reroll did exactly what you say Sithis

Actions of the nature the OP describes do exist and happen. I have no idea how many alliances watch or look for permaZIs over rerolls but I am sure that there are quite a few players in the game right now who would suddenly be attacked if their old identities were known.

Quote

It's also pretty ignorant to think that you can just post whatever you want on these forums and believe that there won't be any in-game repercussions.

I think what the OP is going at is more that people should not have to fear posting something that could cause IC consequences for something completely OOC.

This post has been edited by alden peterson: 01 August 2008 - 05:06 PM

[ender land]

Megabyte, on Aug 1 2008, 05:57 PM, said:

We allow players to police themselves through the war system in any manner they deem fit.

Can you expand a little more on this? I think that based on the OP he is saying those who would "need" (in their opinion) to police the system through the use of war have no IC power to prevent actions they believe are happening OOC.

[Voodoo Nova]

Sithis, on Aug 1 2008, 06:39 PM, said:

I'm going to have to agree with Josef Thorne on this one. It's incredibly easy to reroll and stay under the radar. You'll find that in most cases where rerolled nations are sentenced to Perma-ZI it's because they did something that allowed themselves to be found out. I can personally attest to this statement.

It's also pretty ignorant to think that you can just post whatever you want on these forums and believe that there won't be any in-game repercussions.

Is it easy to stay under the radar if people copy your IP address to try and find you on IRC to find you IC?

[Katsumi]

I vaguely remember a question I asked once of Moo aka TrotskysRevenge about why we (the NPO) were basically attacking the entire Devildogs alliance for eternity under a "permanent ZI" sentence after a DDOS attack on our forums, and he basically said that there was evidence that it was connected to one of their members (which there was) however there wasn't any certainty as to any one of them in particular so they all needed to take in-game "punishment" forever as justice.

While this is a dubious case of what is described in the OP especially in light of the fact that they were originally attacked for other reasons entirely, and I don't care about reasons for war as long as it's not personal OOC type stuff, this is an example of a pervasive attitude among many "important" people that they are allowed to do or say whatever they want and see everything against them as personal, which essentially results in griefing in the form of trying to keep a player themselves out of the game by attacking any nation they have and doing whatever they can to identify that player if they try to start over with a new identity because it's "justice", flaming and trolling on the forums, which often results in warns and then whining about anti-whatever mod bias on IRC, attempting to use moderation as a weapon to get opponents banned (this seems to be happening a lot towards Atrophis and other FAN players lately, at least in my observation). This same attitude is what led to a lot of events from last summer when Dizzay got banned and potential mod identities were leaked in order to "punish" them for it.

However, it's a very difficult standard to prove that someone is outright harassing or stalking a player themselves in the context of the game, in a large because of the "private channels ftw" tradition that even if you were to obtain a confession from Glorious Leader on IRC stating "you are being attacked because you used to be player X and we don't want you playing this game any more, and I personally ordered the attacks", I don't believe that would be tangible and acceptable evidence in order to take action against them with because they could just appeal and deny the conversation. On the other hand, I think the feeling that you'll be de facto banned from the game because you cannot even start over, by vigilante moderation in the form of influential players in response to you opposing them essentially does constitute a type of harassment, although I seriously doubt it would be considered as such in the legal sense even if you could prove it, however it does degrade the quality of gameplay. In my analysis, this is a very murky issue with no simple answers, even if the complaints are for the most part, very valid.

[The Grinch]

I may be missing something simple here, but it's not all that easy to reroll and stay under the radar if you want to play CN to the fullest again. If your nation is deleted for inactivity and you get banned and forum banned, you have to appeal the warn and apply for a name change. Everyone knows who you are immediately.

I think?

[Wad of Lint]

In general I think Perma-ZI is warranted for those who have committed rather distasteful OOC actions such as Hacking, Personal Attacks, etc.

But I will speak out heavily against holding someones nation responsible for OOC traits of that person (Political affiliation, nationality, sexual preferences, etc) or carrying a punishment for one nations IC actions, onto a future nation. People can, and do create different characters effectively that have NO bearing on their previous one.

I have no qualms about characters being chased down by their actions. This is especially the case if a new character is obviously just a re-copy of the first. But using IP addresses and other personal information to track down someones new nation is crossing the line, and I firmly believe something needs to be done to limit such actions.

[ender land]

The Grinch, on Aug 1 2008, 08:32 PM, said:

I may be missing something simple here, but it's not all that easy to reroll and stay under the radar if you want to play CN to the fullest again. If your nation is deleted for inactivity and you get banned and forum banned, you have to appeal the warn and apply for a name change. Everyone knows who you are immediately.

I think?

You can easily just PM a moderator about the name change, or (maybe? I don't even know) make a new forum account.

The way people get caught is when they join alliances or use IRC. Checking IPs seems to be a common enough thing for alliances to do and it's

[The Grinch]

alden peterson, on Aug 2 2008, 01:44 PM, said:

You can easily just PM a moderator about the name change, or (maybe? I don't even know) make a new forum account.

The way people get caught is when they join alliances or use IRC. Checking IPs seems to be a common enough thing for alliances to do and it's

I don't think moderators respond to PMs for name changes. And you can't create a new forum account if you already have a banned account.

[Creation]

I personally believe in the "new nation = new identity" way of doing things.

However, if a certain Perma-ZI'd nation that has threatened my alliance in the past comes to my forums under a new name, yet while doing an I.P. check (done usually to prevent multies) uncovers him, I'm more than likely going to decline him.

I understand what you're saying about "threatening" people who come back, but most of the people who "have" to re-roll because of ZI deserved their ZI in the first place (usually by threatening others themselves, being a general nuisance, or flaming). While ICly, they are a new person, their OOC actions and words are inevitably going to be the same.

So, I agree with you, in a sense, but I don't think this is serious to the degree as proposed by your OP. The whole incident with "Myspace" graffiti and flaming someone OOCly for a condition that shouldn't have anything to do with the game was "that serious", it wasn't overlooked, and (iirc), it was handled swiftly in both the IC and OOC realm.

However, one thing that this brings to mind that I absolute hate is when people purposely go looking for threads that "certain people" have posted in simply for the purpose of flaming them. (They know who they are). That to me is what I think of when I think of "harassment", though it should be handled by mods... not the cops.

[Baba O Riley]

Empress van Wain, on Aug 2 2008, 03:44 AM, said:

I personally believe in the "new nation = new identity" way of doing things.

However, if a certain Perma-ZI'd nation that has threatened my alliance in the past comes to my forums under a new name, yet while doing an I.P. check (done usually to prevent multies) uncovers him, I'm more than likely going to decline him.

I understand what you're saying about "threatening" people who come back, but most of the people who "have" to re-roll because of ZI deserved their ZI in the first place (usually by threatening others themselves, being a general nuisance, or flaming). While ICly, they are a new person, their OOC actions and words are inevitably going to be the same.

Not allowing someone in to your alliance that has threatened your alliance in the past I can understand and agree with. As for the second section, that's where I disagree. Although I haven't played CN for long, in other games I have played, I've known many people who were previously "troublemakers" and received those games equivalent of "ZI" that have rerolled into a new identity and played COMPLETELY differently. They didn't try to continue to take down the same alliances, they didn't keep the same personality, and in at least one situation, they actually ended up working together with their former enemies.

In the end, I can and certainly do agree with continuing to ZI someone if they keep up the same actions they performed before. What I disagree with, and can see how it is a form of "stalking," is to seek out people based on their IP in order to do things to them, even if they are playing completely differently and have done nothing wrong. This is where it ventures dangerously into the out of character area and where I think that it falls into the moderators territory to step up and say/do something.

This post has been edited by Baba O Riley: 01 August 2008 - 10:02 PM

[HeroofTime55]

I completely agree, if you create a new character it should not be attacked because of what an old and dead previous character did. Unfortunately, there's not much the staff can do. I think it's a very low move, and I have little respect for those who do it (not counting the obvious exceptions, like ZI for serious OOC acts or re-rolling with the same character identity). But I don't know what more can be done beyond shaking a finger and saying it's a low thing to do, since they can make up whatever other reason they want, even just "because we felt like it."

It's just some people can't accept the idea of proper role-playing, and take the game way to seriously, to the point of attacking the OOC identities of players. It's disgusting.

[Strykewolf]

You have a point or two...but then, I'm inclined to allow folks to re-roll and start again. But, you gotta admit some just do so to spread havoc among alliances. Thus, the reason many alliances check backgrounds...not all...but, many. While automatic kill shouldn't be followed...some do. I'd rather folks watched a bit before deciding "naaa, kill it"

Josef Thorne, on Jul 31 2008, 04:50 PM, said:

I fail to see how this comes even close to stalking or harassment or that pedantic term "cyberbullying".

No one is followed home, no one is hunted down on MSN or MySpace or Facebook to be harassed. We simply police our own interests within the limited structure of a game.

Let's be honest, this is about personal responsibility and power politics. No one who incurs a harsh punishment wants to pay it, and those who disagree want "God" to step in and fix something they can't do themselves.

'lo Josef... Don't know why folks are scared of ye...and seem to avoid your comments... And I really don't care LOL. So I'll bite, as it were, on this. Lets say I moved to 3 different houses...yet, you showed up at the door telling me that you would ruin my life unless I left... That would be harrassment. The internet is growing...expanding. And, unfortunately in my book, becoming a way that folks stay in touch and relate to each other. Sad, but true. Some don't see the difference anymore...and for them, I am sad. To some...CN is a home, of sorts.

They have aquaintenances and friends here... <<shrug>>

You may not like them...or, the friends....but...it's still there.

As for personal responsibility. Well...thats different for many folks. You'll note that I have not 'gone-off' since the NpO situation. <<shrugs>> Been reading more and thinking more. I'm still in the 'learning curve', so to speak.

I'd let folks have a chance...it might take only once getting pounded for doing stupid crap...it might take twice....it might take 100 times...but, until they do the stupid crap...something actionable. They should be left alone for the most part.

[Megabyte]

The Grinch, on Aug 1 2008, 10:32 PM, said:

I don't think moderators respond to PMs for name changes.

We do.

[Wad of Lint]

I think I have the right for my real life persona to remain completely different, isolated, and protected from my in-game character. It should have no bearing on how my nation and character are treated. And it should be enforced, but unfortunately it is not.

Attacking someone IC for their OOC beliefs or previous identities (not current) is nothing short of bullying and should be treated as such. We all reserve the right to act differently, and mask our persons through our characters, and until this right is forced we cannot truly ever be in character.

[Themistocles]

Sword of Estel, on Aug 1 2008, 06:00 PM, said:

I'm curious if anyone has examples of players "having to leave the game" as the OP describes.

Chris Kaos. Enough said.