My case for amendment of rules 2 and 3

[OkaPoka]

just to clarify bugspray, an activity tell isn't about private topics

its that a very smart person once upon a time figured out that for a lot of people, being active elsewhere on site but not in the game present was scum indicative. it was like a step up from the lurktell, someone (ellibereth probably, at least the elitell is named after him) noticed it was super scummy for someone to be specifically lurking in game x while doing stuff in game y or chatting it up in thread z.

now id reason that arguably the elitell, is kinda bringing in outside influence because you are snooping around and developing a read based on not game x related stuff, but this is/was a super common tell and there weren't any consequences leads me to believe that it is okay to bring in 'outside' influences as long as its 1) generalized to not reference the stuff a specific game i.e. person is active elsewhere on site vs person is posting in specifically thread y and 2) it is something that everyone can check really quick (everyone can check someone's activity equally, vs activity on the discord that not everyone is in)

which is why i wonder if we generalize a situation like yours to something like a 'bugtell', where its scummy/opportunistic to push someone who is getting banned would be a passable alternative. i get not allowing quoting specific posts in other threads, especially since its in a restricted area, would constitute as an outside influence that is 1) not generalized and 2) not equally accessible. but say hypothetically jake (sorry jake) and i were in a game and jake launched a push on someone who just got banned, would it be legal if all i said was "JAKE SCUM BECAUSE BUGTELL!" and everyone understood what that meant? and if they didn't could i explain what a bugtell meant in a general manner?

just to clarify one step further

im saying that i realize outside influences are against the rules

but elitells are to an extent, an outside influence

so the way i reason that the reason an elitell is fine is because it is 1) generalized 2) information is accessible for all players

so would a 'bugtell' be fine if we could 1) generalize it 2) from equally accessible information

[Jake The Wolfie]

Honestly, everyone would understand "JAKE SCUM" and stop reading from there.

[Isis]

I think these situations are very hard to develop good site policy. We are all doing the best we can and we view policies for cases like this as a balance of harms rather than a clearcut easy situation where the choice is clear or where the hardships being mentioned don't exist because they actually do.

The case of the Datisi post bugspray has posted here, I am not sure I would stick to a view that it should be disallowed to discuss due to the game influence rule. The post was in the borderline territory where Datisi almost, or maybe actually did, commit an ongoing games infraction, but at extremely low levels of content and NAI sanitation perhaps it should not be viewed as an infraction.

Assuming we decided it was not an ongoing game violation, then bugspray should be free to comment on it, similar to commenting on someone's participation in a fantasy football thread or something. Whether it's allowed should turn on whether moderation decided it was out of game game related communication. I used bugspray's assessment of whether it is instead, and in hindsight I believe that may have been a mistake. (Incidentally, you cannot post speakeasy content outside of the speakeasy without the poster's permission, but that consideration has to do with the speakeasy itself unrelatedly)

But comparison, there is less delta in my view that potential replacements and reports associated with that have to be treated as outside influence. However I'm listening to opinions on the topic and try to stay open minded. Knowing the situation with the rule in place really bites doesn't make ideal policy clearly different to me, since bans and replacements necessarily bite, so it doesn't seem dispositive.

[OkaPoka]

heavy is the head that wears the crown teehee i enjoy these mod perspectives

[bugspray]

I always assumed that bringing up a players' activity outside of threads related to the game were against the rules, so I can just say "x is scum because elitell" and then it's okay as long as I don't bring up the specific data that I drew the conclusion from?

[OkaPoka]

yeah i think that's how it works

[Ythan]

I always assumed that bringing up a players' activity outside of threads related to the game were against the rules, so I can just say "x is scum because elitell" and then it's okay as long as I don't bring up the specific data that I drew the conclusion from?

I don't think that assumption leads to that conclusion.

[Ythan]

But that's my own take idk what gets by in practice.

[OkaPoka]

ive seen plenty of people say x is active elsewhere but not here so they are scum by elitell and i think that's okay

[Something_Smart]

It seems to me that the root of the issue is the assumption that Datisi's posting in a non-game thread would be influenced by his alignment in a game. Which may have been an accurate assumption, in which case its being accurate was the problem.

Maybe the best path forward is to discourage people who are in a game from discussing bans that occurred due to that game? Or maybe just a more general "if it seems like it might relate to an ongoing game, don't post it".

[LlamaFluff]

This exists

Also remember that tells vary from person to person. One of the biggest reasons that talking about ongoing games is bad is that you have no idea how it can potentially impact the read of another player not only in the game you are in, but potentially in another game. If you say something that even hints at a scenario somewhere else, and that causes a different player in your current game to modify a read in that game, you messed up badly and potentially just ruined at least one game if not multiple.

Pretty much just dont. If you think you see something, find a way that might not compromise players slots because you have no idea what everyone is thinking and even what you think is an entirely innocent statement can make someone need to replace out because they feel like they have been compromised enough to warrant it.

[Isis]

I always assumed that bringing up a players' activity outside of threads related to the game were against the rules, so I can just say "x is scum because elitell" and then it's okay as long as I don't bring up the specific data that I drew the conclusion from?

If it's not activity in another social deduction game you can even be specific, that's how I've always understood it and implosion was present when I pushed a specific ellitell in Guns and Roses 1 so I think that's accurate

[Isis]

My mistake might be forgiving Datisi's 4 character post, possibly I should be more zero tolerance. I'm not sure.

[OkaPoka]

i like ss's train of though - just don't let players in game x to react to bans in outside of game x until its done

because arguably it could be suspicious if certain people didn't react you know what i mean

[Something_Smart]

I mean, ultimately the problem is that bans are effectively an exception to the discussing ongoing games rule. So for the integrity of the game, it would be best to prohibit discussing bans until the game that prompted them has completed, but that's probably overly restrictive.

But I guess it makes sense that if BS was being offensive in a game thread, and he got banned for that, people shouldn't be allowed to talk about the specific thing he said since that's discussing an ongoing game? That feels pretty reasonable to me.

This doesn't touch on the issue of inside knowledge, which was also a problem here (bugspray knew that BS might get banned but couldn't share that information). But I mean, insider knowledge happens in a wide variety of situations (the simplest is if you are scum or dead in a different game with a player, so you have fresh meta that you can apply to them but obviously can't reference), and we can't prevent those, so I think the answer to that problem has to just be "suck it up".

[Menalque]

I sr datisi and tr ythan but can't say why.

why not just make up reasons for the reads, I'm not seeing an issue here

Because it would be a definitive lie at that point, something which either the scum could capitalize on (Proving that you are a liar), or something that you yourself can't back up.

If people were that good at realising when ur lying then mafia would be a lot easier

You can't back up a lie you make based upon things that are either inside the main thread or inside other game threads.[/quote]

Sure you can, you just base it on in game stuff and exaggerate your confidence level

[Menalque]

Maybe the best path forward is to discourage people who are in a game from discussing bans that occurred due to that game? Or maybe just a more general "if it seems like it might relate to an ongoing game, don't post it".

I don’t think a single reaction post to a ban is ever going to indicate someone’s alignment in game to an accuracy of better than luck

Like bugs thinks it was a scummy post for dats to make, but it’s basically just as likely that they could have been wrong about him and I think if you re-ran the whole thing 1000 times then bugs would be right about dats being scum 1/4 of the time

[MURDERCAT]

My mistake might be forgiving Datisi's 4 character post, possibly I should be more zero tolerance. I'm not sure.

Do we really want to be this serious? Like if someone posts something in GD about how they had a long day are we going to say you shouldn't post that because that will affect how people read you in the mafia game you are in? I think you just have to use common sense, getting a read from outside a game is unavoidable I think, but don't talk about it in the game. Find other reasons to support your read on someone or say you can't talk about it due to site rules.

[Menalque]

I’m pretty sure isis was joking

[OkaPoka]

Isis is taking datisi to the family farm as we speak sadge

[MURDERCAT]

I’m pretty sure isis was joking

Yeah I was more reacting to the idea of it

[Isis]

My mistake might be forgiving Datisi's 4 character post, possibly I should be more zero tolerance. I'm not sure.

Do we really want to be this serious? Like if someone posts something in GD about how they had a long day are we going to say you shouldn't post that because that will affect how people read you in the mafia game you are in? I think you just have to use common sense, getting a read from outside a game is unavoidable I think, but don't talk about it in the game. Find other reasons to support your read on someone or say you can't talk about it due to site rules.

There would be a bright line how that is different because it's not specific to the game. Datisi responded to a post that linked to a post in the game he was alive with with "lmao". Thats different from him tweeting he just ate the best waffle of his life shortly after he got fake innocented even if it's actually more alignment indicative as a mood

[Isis]

I don't like calling out Datisi specifically here really it is such an extremely minor post and it's one where we have to question whether it should even be considered infracting (and mena thought I was joking in considering that maybe it is and it's not too unreasonable for him to think I might be joking)

The ongoing game analogy is pretty apt sometimes you will have to not talk about something. I think no more restrictions than are strictly necessary should be levied though, for player enjoyment. The report/likely force replace case seems strictly necessary to me.

[Menalque]

I am legitimately surprised that you weren’t and am still not more than like 90% confident that you’re not still joking

[bugspray]

I am legitimately surprised that you weren’t and am still not more than like 90% confident that you’re not still joking

There should be no reason for you to believe that a listmod is joking about something like that in a serious thread about discussing site rules. Did you read the OP? I cited my sources, this isn't some crappy speezy thread.