Let’s talk about blacklists

[Blair]

I'd agree with one condition - Player A has to prove a proof of Player B inciting toxicity.

And this is the crux of the issue.

When we are talking about two players who are

only

toxic when they're

together

(the hypothetical being put forth in this thread), it is almost never one-sided.

If Skitter, for example, is game-breakingly toxic, but only when she's in a game with

me,

then that is not really a problem exclusive to Skitter as a person - it's something about the combination, which indicates we are both contributing to toxicity.

I feel like that is both axiomatic and self-evident, but you don't have to take my word for it: Virtually everyone who has ever played in a game where a pair of players discovered they could never play with each other again can attest to the fact that it takes two players to create that environment.

In cases where the blame really does lie singularly with a particular player, they should just be banned from games for a while, which is outside the scope of this discussion.

[Ramcius]

I'd agree with one condition - Player A has to prove a proof of Player B inciting toxicity.

And this is the crux of the issue.

When we are talking about two players who are

only

toxic when they're

together

(the hypothetical being put forth in this thread), it is almost never one-sided.

If Skitter, for example, is game-breakingly toxic, but only when she's in a game with

me,

then that is not really a problem exclusive to Skitter as a person - it's something about the combination, which indicates we are both contributing to toxicity.

I feel like that is both axiomatic and self-evident, but you don't have to take my word for it: Virtually everyone who has ever played in a game where a pair of players discovered they could never play with each other again can attest to the fact that it takes two players to create that environment.

In cases where the blame really does lie singularly with a particular player, they should just be banned from games for a while, which is outside the scope of this discussion.

If they can't deal with it peacefully by themselves - remove both from sign ups

My point was more about people having a way to remove people they don't like without there being fault from second person

[Luke82]

I'm merely passing by to say I'm very opposed.I do hope the site moderation isn't considering adding it. I don't want to go on this too much without a need, therefore trying to be as succint as I can (I could talk about this topic for days, I feel), the case here would be that although the intentions seems to be good, creating new rules to fix some problemas might arise new problems much bigger than the previous ones.

The worst case scenario here currently is one, or two players, being replaced out of a single game due to "toxic" behavior. Most commonly only one, and the event happening in a few games compared to the total games being played at given time. One episode of the conflict also makes it less likely for the same one happen again as those players would try to actively avoid each other, most of the time (many players seems to respect blacklists). The game in the majority of the time keeps going on normally after. Many mods also already respect justified personal blacklists as long as they are informed beforehand.

By adding the "Any player can object to another player trying to sign up for or replace in a game", you give legal base for the following being possible of happening though:

(Some issues that I thought in matter of few minutes)

Spoiler:

1) Player Y already in the game rejecting a X sign-up/ replace-in because X player usually don't put "as much effort as Y wants" or "doesn't play as Y likes" therefore X player ruins games for Y and is therefore blacklisted.

2) Player Y already in the game rejecting a X sign-up/ replace-in because X player and him tend to disagree too much in games/doesn't mesh well/etc, even though such conflict between them isn't what common sense would dictate it's something that needs to be actively avoided/it's actually toxic rather than just conflictuous, and you can't remove

all

conflict from a mafia game while keeping the game integrity/not having extremely biased playerlists.

3) Player Y already in the game rejecting a X sign-up/ replace-in because there's a tactical disadvantage on that player being in the list, which may be the most uncommon case but very possible, especially if scum feels like for example a good scumhunter is trying to replace in which may turn the game around completely. In cases on which this happened, mafia was often not very pleased with it, I wouldn't be surprised that in some cases they would try to reject the player replacing-in to avoid sudden losses.

4) Queue/replacements being possibly severely slower than they already are which it would be very detrimental to site health which is already not in its prime. Especially in large games, I could see some cases of games having many days lost/people losing motivation to play it because sign-ups or replacements are taking too long.

5) Site meta increasingly becoming "to not play with people you dislike" rather than "to not play with people you dislike so much that it makes the game completely unemjoyable for you and other people". Each year the blacklists would probably grow and people would very probably grow less and less tolerant to any kind of animosity. In a game that has so much conflict all the time, that doesn't seem like a good formula.

Those are only a few, I feel. There's more.

If you say "Well, but Y player needs to prove that X player is indeniably toxic" that's gonna be full of complications as well. Who needs to review it? the game mod? the list mods? Because that would take time and easily be the most time-consuming task on their everyday rather than...modding games, moderating boards, etc, which is already fairly time-consuming.

Even if we were willing to do that though, it would be common for some mods to agree with X, and some to disagree, which would mean that enforcing the blacklist wouldn't be absolute after all and ultimately be dependent on mods, which already have the power to blacklist or to reject certain people from participating in their games anyway.

In my vision this would either create a very abusable system which would only get unhealthier as time goes on, or to create a rule that doesn't change much of anything at all, other than it being mandatory for mods to explain (possibly extensively) to players why they disagree with their blacklist, which may even cause new kinds of "mod x player" conflicts.

More effective/practical in my opinion, with no downsides, would be to have more discussion on why respecting blacklists are positive to games, which would influence even more mods to respect player's blacklists if they felt that they were reasonable, while leaving legal room in the rules for they to use common sense and outright reject any kind of possible abuse or overly picky behavior.

I feel many things work better in the base of ethics/trust/respect, rather than mandatory regulation.

[Isis]

Why the flip are you secret alting to respond to an MD thread

[OkaPoka]

damn isis is really going all out in hiding her secret alt

[SJReaver]

I guess since the mods have left this thread up, it doesn't break rules.

Players who can't behave like mature adults should be issued warnings and given increasingly lengthy bans. If someone is abusive, report them and let the mods handle it. If you simply don't like them, that's fine. You don't have to like everyone on a website. If simply seeing someone sends you into a frothing rage where you can't behave yourself, then return to point one.

[SJReaver]

Also, the OP blacklisted me after one game, which was my first game on the site.

My response is totally biased.

[Luke82]

Why the flip are you secret alting to respond to an MD thread

It's no secret though, I just hadn't added the signature before posting that.

Also, the OP blacklisted me after one game, which was my first game on the site.

My response is totally biased.

I don't want to comment on this, or support either side. I would just say that I've seen and experienced

some

blacklisted players to end up leaving other players blacklists as time went on, which probably wouldn't have happened at all if site rules were different. People can change, forget a bad past/game, etc. That's simply my opinion though.

[Isis]

forget a bad past/game

If you do blacklists it should be based on an expectation of future bad behavior and not revenge for past bad behavior

[zoraster]

Since this has veered into ongoing games territory, this is locked. I believe the listmods are working on a statement of clarification and that'll be posted here.

[Micc]

Listmod hat on:
Blacklists are a social construct created by players and game moderators. They aren’t covered by site rules, and as a general rule won’t be enforced by a Listmod. We give final authority of the playerlist to the game moderators, and trust them to make good decisions for their games. This is the authority that WotM and WotC are based on, and the same authority exists for replacement situations. If someone replaces into a game that you don’t want to play with, it’s ultimately up to the game moderator to determine what happens next. If you bring your concern to the game mod and it’s well enough documented that you don’t want to play with that player, a reasonable game mod is going to be willing to replace that player back out, but they don’t have to.

The one very big exception is the Newbie queue. Game mods in the Newbie queue do not have final authority of their playerlist, and as such WotC and WotM will not be enforced at the Listmod level in the Newbie Queue. This is part of game mods and SE’s being held to a higher standard in the Newbie queue. The expectation is that to participate in the Newbie queue, you are willing to set these blacklist causing conflicts aside or remove yourself from the situation for the sake of not completely ruining someone’s first experience on site.

Finally, following a player around by replacing into their games despite clearly being asked not to can be a form of harassment. Please report posts or PM a Listmod if you believe this is happening. We will take action against harassment, but please know that there is some burden of proof of ill-will necessary. We see two players who don’t get along simply wanting to play in the same game as a game mod issue, or in the case of the Newbie queue, a “remove yourself if you can’t behave” issue.

I'm going to open the thread back up for continued discussion. Please keep the topic of discussion within the scope of general blacklist policy and avoid moving the discussion into a direction that breaks our rules against discussing ongoing games. Thanks!

[Isis]

People like random blacklist threads but I reread the OP and it's about "site administration level" changes and I kind of can't imagine what could be different besides pairwise bans, which seems like a nonstarter.

[SJReaver]

My preference is for mods to be more aggressive in terms of what behavior is allowed or not. That games are allowed to devolve into page-long insults, slurs, and shouting matches ruins the experience for every player in the game. Why is it allowed in the first place?

I see tons of mafia games play out where people manage to remain civil, even when things get heated. Why should two players with a grudge and lack of maturity turn a game into a shitfest for everyone?

[Menalque]

Also, first come, first served rule isn't really fair - punishing someone for being busy at a certain time, while other person wasn't busy

Unless it’s reasonable to assume that one player will always be getting there first in the case of there being an issue between two, I still think this is the fairest way of doing things.

[Menalque]

@SJreaver you clearly have no understanding of site culture or what the term “respect” means so I’ll be ignoring whatever your opinion is regardless. Feel free to prattle away in the background if you must though!

[Menalque]

It seems that the general objections from those opposed are with regard to the potential for abuse: is this accurate? If so, I’ve thought about it and have some proposals on how to resolve what I believe would be several of the “playing for advantage” issues in codifying blacklists.

Any player could start a private thread entitled “Player X’s Blacklist” or similar. They would not edit posts in the thread, as edited posts would be considered null and void. Upon the addition or removal of a player to their blacklist, they make a post in this PT. In the case that someone is trying to join a game in signups or in play who is on their blacklist, they are able to inform the mod of this and they give the mod access to the PT to establish that this is a pre-existing blacklist.

If this is deemed insufficient in terms of frivolity of addition/subtraction, you could make it such that blacklists have a mandated minimum period — if you add someone they can’t be removed for 3 months for instance. This would also strongly disincentivise the attempted manipulation of the system.

Points have been made about how blacklists are primarily a cultural and respect based method to ensure games run smoothly — the problem is, as with all forms of rules, when people lack the ability to understand culture or simply lack the capacity for basic respect of others. In these cases, more robust enforcement is needed. If people behaved well, we would need no laws or rules.

[Menalque]

There are other points that I’d like to respond to from ircher, Blair, and ramcius, but it will have to wait until I get to a computer which still hasn’t happened.

[Isis]

I don't really think it would be abused, except people pointed out that some people would add users that are not personally abrasive but also don't try very hard in the games and considered that abuse, I would probably be doing that and not considering it to be abuse

[Blair]

@SJreaver you clearly have no understanding of site culture or what the term “respect” means so I’ll be ignoring whatever your opinion is regardless. Feel free to prattle away in the background if you must though!

There was an opportunity here to do this by not saying it.

[Blair]

My preference is for mods to be more aggressive in terms of what behavior is allowed or not. That games are allowed to devolve into page-long insults, slurs, and shouting matches ruins the experience for every player in the game. Why is it allowed in the first place?

I see tons of mafia games play out where people manage to remain civil, even when things get heated. Why should two players with a grudge and lack of maturity turn a game into a shitfest for everyone?

It's allowed largely because there is a very fine line between an argument and a "shouting match." Also because sometimes shouting matches are fun! (Though they are less fun when they become genuinely personal and bad-faith)

Making a rule against it forces game moderators to police this fine line, and since we all view things through our own selective filters, the result would be wildly inconsistent between different moderators (this already happens even without a formal rule on toxicity).

[Blair]

Points have been made about how blacklists are primarily a cultural and respect based method to ensure games run smoothly — the problem is, as with all forms of rules, when people lack the ability to understand culture or simply lack the capacity for basic respect of others. In these cases, more robust enforcement is needed. If people behaved well, we would need no laws or rules.

This is a confusing line of logic.

You say that we need this new rule, and that the fear of abuse is overblown, then you say that if people behaved well, we wouldn't need rules.

[Blair]

I don't really think it would be abused, except people pointed out that some people would add users that are not personally abrasive but also don't try very hard in the games and considered that abuse, I would probably be doing that and not considering it to be abuse

This is a very valid point because most of the players on my blacklist are there due to what I considered at the time to be egregiously, game-ruiningly terrible play.

My internal logic for those listings is that their play actively ruined the game and wasted my time investment, and I would prefer not to play in games with people who tend to do that. (Note: I'm not talking about "He pushed four mislynches in a row" here, I'm talking about things like "He was a Vanilla Townie who fakeclaimed Cop with a guilty in LyLo and lost us the game")

I feel pretty justified in that regard, but I realize those who believe blacklists are only for "toxicity" (something I actually have a pretty high tolerance for) would take issue with my blacklist, and would not want to see it enforced by site administration.

[SJReaver]

It's allowed largely because there is a very fine line between an argument and a "shouting match." Also because sometimes shouting matches are fun! (Though they are less fun when they become genuinely personal and bad-faith)

Making a rule against it forces game moderators to police this fine line, and since we all view things through our own selective filters, the result would be wildly inconsistent between different moderators (this already happens even without a formal rule on toxicity).

Yeah, but I'm okay with this.

With Mod X, you can tell another player they're a waste of oxygen and you'd like them to die.

With Mod Y, you can't.

People who enjoyed that sort of atmosphere would tend to choose Mod X. Those who want to avoid it pick Mod Y. This seems like a net benefit in that players get the sort of environment they prefer and mods are allowed to be as strict or lenient as they're comfortable with.

We already have long list of rules at the beginning of a game thread, and I think many (I hope?) believe these rules benefit play because they make expectations clear. In a social game, clear expectations are a great thing.

[Micc]

It seems that the general objections from those opposed are with regard to the potential for abuse: is this accurate?

I think it’s more than that. There’s some pretty big issues with keeping a sufficient level of fairness to any blacklist policy.

There are people who play on this site regularly that I’ve “blacklisted” in the sense that I would never sign up to play a game with them, and I would seriously consider replacing out if they replaced into a game I was alive in. But I would never consider it fair for me to tell them not to play in a game so that I can. For the most part these people haven’t done anything wrong, and if they have done something wrong it’s already been reported, reviewed by site mods and consequences served. My simply not wanting to play with them doesn’t give me a right to tell them what to do.

It isn't fair to the person I’ve blacklisted for me to restrict the games they have available to join.
It isn’t fair to the game moderator for my blacklist to restrict the pool of available players to fill their game.
It isn’t fair to give the Listmod extra hoops to jump through while trying to verify a playerlist and launch the game as quickly as possible.

I don’t know that an official blacklist system can exist that puts enough of the burden squarely where it belongs - on the person making the blacklist.

[Blair]

Yeah, but I'm okay with this.

With Mod X, you can tell another player they're a waste of oxygen and you'd like them to die.

With Mod Y, you can't.

People who enjoyed that sort of atmosphere would tend to choose Mod X. Those who want to avoid it pick Mod Y. This seems like a net benefit in that players get the sort of environment they prefer and mods are allowed to be as strict or lenient as they're comfortable with.

This is already the case, without any new rules.

There are already mods who force-replace players for toxicity. I replaced into a game once where the mod had just force-replaced five players at once because they had turned the thread into a salt-flat.

If you make it a site rule, though, then you need consistency.