[jerdge]

The following quote contains astronaut jones's explanation of what would have been asked to Sileath in exchange for peace:

astronaut jones, on Jul 26 2009, said:

Because I don't like you.

And you know that was taken out of context. I believe, off the top of my head, was a joke topic with a fake log dump to cause more drama, or you not post at all on these forums for 30 days.

And yeah, if you want to be at PZI, consider your wish granted.

I think that AJ just misused the term "joke thread" - posting fake IRC logs isn't necessarily an (IC) "joke" and it isn't thus forbidden by itself - but I'd anyway like to ask/discuss to which point surrender terms can be pushed before they become "illegal".
Asking to someone to do something against the rules would obviously be illegal, but I am not certain about asking to someone to not post on the forums. I believe that trying to prevent anybody to post/participate (yes, even Sileath!) should be prerogative of the moderation team only.
What AJ claims would have been done looks to me as a breach of the "Questionable Actions and Content" Forum Rule - and it's possibly against CN TOS #2 also («Users agree to not engage in extortion of real life possessions of other players in response to in-game situations or vice versa.») - I in fact believe that the usage of these forums has to do with RL rights also (I will spare you my essay on the subject...)
I also find relevant that there is precedent of the Admin stating that "RL should be kept out of peace terms".

Long story short: what are (or should be) the borders of legitimate Surrender Terms? (And of any agreement concluded under the threat of in-game force, for that matter.)

[Sword of Estel]

admin did dictate RL must be left out of surrender terms and I don't imagine he'd be pleased to find out players might be effectively banned from posting on his forums by other players through said terms. Besides effectively ruining one of the most interesting parts of the game for an entire alliance, one facet of Moderation decision-making is based on how players conduct themselves while remaining active and if that ability is taken away by other players that throws somewhat of a wrench in our WLR policy.

[Shodemofi]

How is telling someone they can't post as part of surrender terms any different from attacking someone based on their posts? As long as the ban only applies to the IC portions of the forum, I don't see how this has to do with moderation at all. We've just exited an era where it was pretty common to attack people based on their posts on this forum, the moderation team didn't see a need to intervene, and the community corrected itself. I don't see how this concerns moderation at all. As for WLR's, it wouldn't be any different from anyone who applied for WLR and hadn't posted for a month.

[nc1701]

Mandatory radio silence (at least in IC forums areas), seems to me to be a legitimate IC demand. Now obviously if this were applied to other forums or OOC forums it would be a problem, but here we have specific forums labeled as IC only. It only makes sense that we be able to use IC pressure in such an IC environment.

[Katsumi]

As far as warn level reductions go, if they were accrued by rule violations only in IC areas of the forum, could improvement be shown by posting in say, the Water Cooler, where a person might respond quite a bit differently? The "What song are you listening to now" or "Anime Talk" threads offer little opportunity for flame war, after all, while still showing "activity" on the forum by posting in them. If that's the case, barring someone from IC subforums could be a little problematic.

[BamaBuc]

I wasn't aware that OOC surrender terms were against the rules. Does this rule apply to the Fark-IROK beer term?

-Bama

[Voodoo Nova]

BamaBuc, on Aug 27 2009, 07:38 PM, said:

I wasn't aware that OOC surrender terms were against the rules. Does this rule apply to the Fark-IROK beer term?

-Bama

I think that was more of a joke term that some people chose to do for fun.

Really, I personally think disallowing someone from posting in an IC area of the forum because of terms is a bit over the line because you do force them to be ICly removed from the forum community. With most of the game being in the OWF IC area's, it really takes a way an integral part of the game. In my opinion (and many others may agree with me here), being able to participate in the IC forums gives me another reason to stay in this game.

[ChairmanHal]

With all due respect, Fark seemed to take the whole issue of the reviews rather seriously. Indeed they were offended that IRON wouldn't "play along".

As to the question at hand, treaties are signed on a daily basis that limit speech. For example, a clause in almost every PIAT demands that the signatories remain "respectful to each other in the forums". No one seems to have a problem with this. Indeed, treaties have been canceled because individual members were not respectful, even if they were speaking for themselves and not for their alliance.

As to a treaty/surrender terms clause that would completely prohibit posting in the IC forums for a time...that would seem to cross a line. I *could* however see a treaty that would demand that the surrendering nation/alliance remain respectful to the victorious nation/alliance while the terms were still in place. That would be just a variation of the "respect" clause in a PIAT or other treaty of friendship. Perhaps that would be a nice compromise.

[Francesca]

I think that requesting that someone doesn't post on the forums as part of surrender terms is a legimitate term. If the person surrendering isn't happy with it, they don't have to accept terms.

[BamaBuc]

Voodoo Nova, on Aug 27 2009, 07:22 PM, said:

I think that was more of a joke term that some people chose to do for fun.

Really, I personally think disallowing someone from posting in an IC area of the forum because of terms is a bit over the line because you do force them to be ICly removed from the forum community. With most of the game being in the OWF IC area's, it really takes a way an integral part of the game. In my opinion (and many others may agree with me here), being able to participate in the IC forums gives me another reason to stay in this game.

Me too. Apparently we were wrong.

-Bama

[Tom Litler]

I also think it's fine. I thought viceroys with forum access were fine too.

The game stops being fun when we nitpick and find loopholes which would let us disallow certain actions that might be tough to deal with while playing the game.

[Sonata]

ChairmanHal brings up a good point, we have precedent for treatys limiting the usage of the Open World Forum.

To expand on his point, with the proper writing of terms one can basically make it impossible for the defeated to post on the forums. For example, if Alliance A has a PIAT (with respect clause) with Alliance B and people from Alliance A troll Alliance B, then Alliance B is justified in breaking the PIAT due to postings on these forums.

Now for surrender terms, I can just throw the same respect clause in there and wait for a member of the defeated alliance to have a bad day, log into the game and shoot his or her mouth off on the forums, and low and behold I have a surrender terms violation, so I can cancel the surrender terms or punish the defeated for their 'infraction.'

It is basically the same use case, just swap PIAT for Surrender Terms or vice versa. If the victors really want to silence an entire alliance they just make those 'respect' terms so strict its next to impossible to post anything of substance without breaking the terms and they've hit de facto radio silence. Since the forums are in character it means you can face in game attacks for your posts on them, so it makes sense that treaties can govern behavior on the forums to a degree.

Now in the special case of the recent FARK-IRON terms and the posting requirements I could see banning such terms because they required an out of game action (drinking beer, eating bacon, playing a video game), but you can't really ban them for IC posting requirements.

As a final note it seems like a good idea for certian alliances to lay low after winning or losing. We've recently see few alliances exit wars and promptly shoot themselves in their foot, so really making them run under radio silence might have actually been in their benefit. So telling people to stay off the forums isn't a cruel and unheard of punishment.

If the administrative staff is concerned perhaps the policy should focus on setting a limit for how long terms can last such as radio silence. Also I'd like note that the root forum of Alliance Politics is listed as an OOC section, so no one can be banned IC from posting there. This area is a fairly busy area and often features topics that are somewhat IC and somewhat OOC. That area can easily serve as an area for defeated alliance members to post OOC commentary on the state of the game and voice the views of the player, if not their character.

[Blue Lightning]

Francesca, on Aug 28 2009, 02:05 AM, said:

I think that requesting that someone doesn't post on the forums as part of surrender terms is a legimitate term. If the person surrendering isn't happy with it, they don't have to accept terms.

Agreed with this.

People have always been held accountable for what they post in the IC forums, it's a huge part of the game. I don't see how attacking someone for posting on the IC sub forums (regardless of said post's contents) is any more of a violation of the rules than attacking someone who insults your alliance there. Alliance leaders gag their members all the time (with the potential punishment of being removed from their alliance if they post).

At the end of the day, no player can force another player off of the forums with any threat of IC action. If someone is under constant attack for what they are saying on the forums then they should handle it as the IC persecution that it is. The only point at which that becomes OOC is if they are attacked for posts in the OOC sections of the forums (which probably happens anyway but is impossible to police).

This post has been edited by Blue Lightning: 27 August 2009 - 11:05 PM

[jerdge]

Francesca, on Aug 28 2009, said:

I think that requesting that someone doesn't post on the forums as part of surrender terms is a legimitate term. If the person surrendering isn't happy with it, they don't have to accept terms.

Your argument implies a reasoning of the kind "anything that can't be materially imposed musts be legitimate".
If that was correct extorting donations would be legitimate, but since it is instead forbidden your reasoning musts be wrong.
(Your conclusion may be correct, but it can't be because of your logic - that is necessarily wrong.)

The point (IMO) is: what is OOC and thus "off limits", and what can instead be allowed? In other words / for example: to what extent can IC actions affect anybody's ability to interact with these forums?

[JoshuaR]

The IC forums are IC. If someone were gagged from speaking in those IC forums at the threat of war IC, then I feel the term is fair. This means the same player may speak at will in the OWF and can bash the other alliance all he/she wants there because that forum is OOC.

[youwish959]

There was a time when NPO was at war, wouldn't allow anyone to leave, but at the same time was on radio silence. If you would have left you would have been attacked. Effectively doing the same thing.

[Sword of Estel]

Many good points on both sides for sure.

It's true that the nations being offered the terms can choose not to surrender if there's a "no posting" clause, making this different than someone attempting a forced takeover of forums. It could be an IC gag order if players are not disallowed posting in the OOC areas. Are they typically only banned from posting in IC forums?

When considering Warn Level Reduction requests we do prefer players stay active in the areas they've previously had the most problems with to demonstrate they have learned how to hold it together when faced with the situations most contentious to them personally.

Here's a clarification of the Viceroy/forum policy: http://forums.cybern...mp;#entry783646.

[youwish959]

Sword of Estel, on Sep 2 2009, 07:31 AM, said:

Many good points on both sides for sure.

It's true that the nations being offered the terms can choose not to surrender if there's a "no posting" clause, making this different than someone attempting a forced takeover of forums. It could be an IC gag order if players are not disallowed posting in the OOC areas. Are they typically only banned from posting in IC forums?

When considering Warn Level Reduction requests we do prefer players stay active in the areas they've previously had the most problems with to demonstrate they have learned how to hold it together when faced with the situations most contentious to them personally.

Here's a clarification of the Viceroy/forum policy: http://forums.cybern...mp;#entry783646.

Alliances always had the "option" to not take the surrender terms including a viceroy. But, yet that was banned. So in theory, yes, they could reject the terms, but likely it would mean further destruction, just like the viceroy issue.

[Atlas]

Dear god this was a good topic from Jerdge. A very good question.

At one hand we want everyone to be able to participate in the forum, the discussions and be active members of the Cybernations community. Something that wouldn't be compatible with allowing surrender terms restricting forum access for players.

On the other hand I tried to see this from a RL/IC perspective. Could it be compared to a nation completely blocking another nation from participating on the International Arena? Well yes, in my opinion it could. Although that only would be reasonable if IC-forums such as the alliance one was blocked.

Oh well. More arguments please! You need to convince us stubborn moderators.

[bigwoody]

So long as its restricted to only the Alliance Politics and the like (let the RPers keep RPing, etc.), seems perfectly IC. Consider too that the community seems to do a good job self-regulating these things, as an alliance issuing such a term would have a rocky path in doing so.