More Game Ethics: Mod-Abandoned Closed-Setup Games

[Seol]

I don't think it's farfetched that if they cared little enough about the game to abandon it that they wouldn't care enough to post the setup at some later point. Not to mention mods that just vanish for long periods.

OK, so let's assume you get away with it. You're still lying, and not in the usual Mafia artificial context where it is accepted, understood, and expected that lying is part of the game.

Might as well ask if it's ethical to steal someone else's login details and post as them to get them lynched, really.

[Seol]

Might as well ask if it's ethical to steal someone else's login details and post as them to get them lynched, really.

I don't think that's a fair comparison at all. Most sites' TOS require that their users not use another's account at least without permission and possibly at all. In some cases, I imagine it could be illegal. Lying on a message board about a game, on the other hand, is not against the TOS of MafiaScum, and is not illegal in any locale I know of.

Maybe I was a bit hyperbolic, but the point about ethics - and that's what you're asking about here - is it's not about what the laws are, but what is considered acceptable behaviour.

Lying to further your own agenda is generally not considered acceptable behaviour. The fact there isn't a codified rule against it, either legally or in the TOS, is beside the point.

Are you asking because you want to know what other people think, or because you want to justify your own (either prior or intended) behaviour?

[Seol]

I'm thinking mainly of the discussion over editing the Wiki and then pointing newbies towards the newly-edited page in order to deceive them as scum in a newbie game. I see little difference between editing the wiki to gain advantage and misrepresenting one's role to gain advantage.

I don't see any real difference either, I also think that editing the Wiki is ethically wrong. What's ethically permissible as scum within the game applies

only within the game

, outside the game (eg within the game thread after the game is over or in threads not part of the game) normal, real world ethics apply.

[Seol]

I have always been an advocate of allowing anything as scum that isn't outright cheating, which this is not.

the thing is this isn't done as scum. it's done

outside a game

.

if there's a mod-abandoned game where you didn't reveal your alignment, and then in another game you claim you were cop in that game, that's fine (imo). however claiming in the thread of that game to set up future plays after that game is already finished, not ok.

it's like, i've started discussions on approaches to vigging, for example, in mafia discussion forums. i would never advocate a position that i did not honestly believe in. what i could well do however is, whilst sk in a game, link to my previous arguments and deliberately misinterpret what i said. the original comments were made honestly but i am not above using them within the game.

lying within a game is one thing, but even if it's for the purposes of a specific game, lying outside the game is unethical.

[Seol]

I just don't want this to evolve into what many ethics threads (Especially post-Stallinggate) seemingly (to me, anyway) do: An overall feeling that this activity should be moderated by mafia rules. That bans and suspensions from the site should result from the practice of this activity. That I cannot agree with. I do not want to open the can of worms that administrators and mods can punish for actions done in the past and outside of the game as they apply to things occurring in games and in the present.

well, the stallingchamp episode was one where he ruined multiple games beyond repair on separate occasions. that's something which really deserves intervention, but that was a very extreme example.

this is outside mafia rules, but it's reasonable to say it's within community rules, unspoken or no. people should know this is unethical without having to ask. that doesn't mean any breach should automatically incur punishment: i don't think any sort of action would be normally be required unless someone is repeatedly, knowingly and deliberately being antisocial. at that point that person is arguably not part of the community anyway.