While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Lord of Elves]

Anyone who sympathizes with Arya's eminently childish stance on being denied a position in an NES has some kind of political axe to grind. This is always the way things have been done in NESing, and the rest of us accept on good faith that we can't always have what we want.

 

[Thlayli]

I think that the moderators now swarming down on our forum would be best left consulting Birdjaguar before doling out infractions.

He tends to have more experience dealing with our community.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

The policy as set forth by the mod staff forces "inclusiveness" .

This policy is set by top administration, and moderators have been who may have been ruminating about modifying it locally, have admonished from the top that it applies site wide, as a given, without negotiation, and we have been ORDERED to "stamp this ..... out" including specifically how to deal with any GM who violates or tries to evade said policy. It is part and parcel of CFC, it is not going to change, and to the extent that member wants or needs might conflict with it, they shall yield, not this policy. This part of the debate is over, not just for members, but also for staff.
We have also be ordered to enforce the civility rules and rules for dealing with moderator staff consistently without local forum exceptions. Flaming will be tagged, PDMA will be tagged, abusive posting will be tagged, disrespect to staff will be tagged, and whoever your favorite moderator might be, he no longer has discretion to pass it over.

 

[Thlayli]

So now we're being punished for trying to enforce ANY sort of quality in our community?

Seriously, the moderating staff needs to take a step back and reconsider what is going to be an extremely draconian and UNIVERSALLY unpopular policy.

You're making dozens of people angry here for the sake of your "rules," which are not even clearly explained to begin with. We aren't talking about limiting PARTICIPATION in threads in the form of commentary, we're talking about CONTROLLING the way in which our games work.

Nothing we have attempted to do or set forth is at variance with CFC forum rules. I have attempted consistently and politely to clarify the forum rules in a way that can act as a compromise between the moderating staff and the player base here in the NESing forum, and I am now being treated as if I am a criminal.

This is ridiculous.

 

[Crezth]

Can I report roleplay posts if they're mean?

 

[Masada]

Games our mods have spent months developing in their own time.

*

Can I report players for persecuting me in-game because of my in-game and out-of-game religious and/or political beliefs?

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

--->Thlayli regarding quality selection (before his post edit)

Read again, the moderating staff has been told they have nothing further to discuss about the policy, and they shall enforce it.

 

[erez87]

Read again, the moderating staff has been told they have nothing further to discuss about the policy, and they shall enforce it.

Who can we discuss with?

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Can I report players for persecuting me in-game because of my in-game and out-of-game religious and/or political beliefs?

You can try, if valid, but abuse of the report function is a violation.

 

[Crezth]

We're asking about how the policy applies to what we do. It was unclear and remains unclear.

edit: As a case in point, I'm considering starting a game, but the number of players that can play is limited and I'm confused about what exactly the rules require me to do.

 

[Thlayli]

Read again, the moderating staff has been told they have nothing further to discuss about the policy, and they shall enforce it.

Told by whom? Thunderfall?

The faceless authority handing down these dictates needs to come down from his cloud and talk this out with us.

 

[spryllino]

Told by whom? Thunderfall?

The faceless authority handing down these dictates needs to come down from his cloud and talk this out with us.

This. What on earth is going on here?

And anyway, no NES - or any game at all, for that matter - can exist without some selection on account of players losing the game, or becoming inactive, or limits on the number of player the game can hold.

 

[erez87]

This. What on earth is going on here?

And anyway, no NES - or any game at all, for that matter - can exist without some selection on account of players losing the game, or becoming inactive, or limits on the number of player the game can hold.

Yes, but we do need approval to make sure we can do that, cause right now it is a bit... eefy?

 

[bombshoo]

Can we please get some clarification over most of the concerns expressed on the last two pages. These posts basically continues to answer nothing of note. Namely when it comes to removing players who periodically fail to report in, games with a limited number players, prior reservations for positions and the removal of players who have a lost a game.

The fact is this top-down policy of aimed at inclusiveness simply does not seem very functional for the way a good portion of our games work. It seems like without a lot of clarification or some sub-rules, GMs are going to feel compelled to ask for mod permission to do nearly anything, for fear of being reprimanded and their game shutdown because a player is unhappy.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Who can we discuss with?

Adminstration would be the only place, but
1. I predict 0% chance of it going anywhere
2. Getting administration's attention to to this thread and to this forum's deviance from CFC community wide standards is the first place is what foreclosed anything further at the moderator level.
3. As mildly as I can put it, my boss was distressed at the tone of discourse in this thread, (including posts like those being made today) and he may not be entirely receptive to being having it brought to him up again, for a century or two anyway.
4. Wait until you see what GM powers and procedures are being worked up by moderator staff (within the strictures we have been given).

 

[Symphony D.]

That's not right. That never happened.

You were cited two instances of it happening in this very thread. Are you saying they were fabricated? People have in fact been outright excluded from playing before.

 

[spryllino]

My point is that the apparent forum policy would involve the shutting down of every single forum game on the forum. "Forum game" and "no selection whatsoever even if you lose the game or run out of player slots" are logically and inherently mutually exclusive.

 

[Symphony D.]

When a player is eliminated through game actions summarized and synthesized by the game moderator, doesn't that technically count as unilaterally removing them from the game? I'm just asking.

 

[erez87]

Adminstration would be the only place, but
1. I predict 0% chance of it going anywhere
2. Getting administration's attention to to this thread and to this forum's deviance from CFC community wide standards is the first place is what foreclosed anything further at the moderator level.
3. As mildly as I can put it, my boss was distressed at the tone of discourse in this thread, (including posts like those being made today) and he may not be entirely receptive to being having it brought to him up again, for a century or two anyway.
4. Wait until you see what GM powers and procedures are being worked up by moderator staff (within the strictures we have been given).

What administration means? Can I email them somehow? I'm not interested in changing anything they said, just interested in some, admittedly, silly clarifications, but because of the hard tone, they are required.

 

[Thlayli]

spryllino is correct. Inclusiveness has a limit.

For example, if we're playing chess, and my opponent tries to move his pawn three spaces ahead, he is breaking the rules. How can I "include" someone who isn't playing the game in the way it is supposed to be played? What happened in stazNES is a more complicated version of that. This player "broke the rules" by posting something ridiculous, a fascist revolution in modern Italy that then proceeds to develop nuclear weapons and invade North Africa, all of this without any explanation as to why.

This is taking place in a game intended to accurately simulate the modern era.

It's the equivalent of playing chess with someone who sweeps their hand across the board and knocks all the pieces to the floor. Now, of course, I can politely tell this person what they've done and reset the pieces, but at a certain point, you can either tell the offending individual you don't want to play chess with them anymore, or you can stop playing chess.