Consistency of the Rule Regarding Quotation

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

in a complex large theme game where everyone has unique role pms with lots of moderator text, you absolutely do not want it even implied that it's ok to quote the moderator to get "cleared" as it would be a massive slippery slope that can lead to other people following the example if they get pressured.

the most fair way to deal with it is immediately modkilling the slot and warning everyone else.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

also this has been a site-wide rule since forever,

the proper procedure for applying the modkill was followed.

if you think there needs to be a change to sitewide modkill rules for mod-quoting, that should be a discussion with the administrators.

[Lukewarm]

I think that the issue is more obvious, when you put mastina's claim right next to the way it is worded in her role PM

My non-SP ability is Charm Eye. I target a player and they are Charmed -- Charming counts as a form of marking.
----------------------
Charm Eye [Active] - Choose a target. That target will become Charmed. Charm is a form of marking.

My 1-SP ability is Chain Circle. I bind the target, negating all support done to them
---------------------
Chain Circle (1 SP) [Active] Choose a target. You will bind that target, negating all support done to them.

My 2-SP ability is Nerve Circle. I ensnare my target in a circle--anyone targeting that player takes 2 HP in damage
---------------------
Nerve Circle (2 SP) [Active] Choose a target. That player will be ensnared into a circle, and any user who targets that player for that stratum will take 2 damage.

My 3-SP ability is Curse Circle. I curse my target to be unable to be healed by utility abilities.
---------------------
Curse Circle (3 SP) [Active] Choose a target. You will enact a curse upon them, where they may no longer be healed by utility abilities.

My fourth ability, Dispel, 2-SP, is dispelling the curse circle. Doing so heals me for 2 HP.
--------------------
Dispel (2 SP) [Active, Self-Targeting] Choosing to dispel your Curse Circle will cause you to heal for 2 damage instead.

My passive, Enlightenment, makes me gain 1 SP every time I successfully mark someone.
-------------------
Enlightenment [Passive] - Each successful mark will grant you 1 additional SP.

Basically every ability uses the same wording. I also find is strange that she even put the ability names?? Like, what impact does that have on your claim, unless you are hoping that everyone will be more likely to believe that it is coming straight from your pm?

[fferyllt]

the main problem with the modkill approval rule is that it shifts the blame for a bad modkill on the listmods, when it should be the game mod's responsibility

Listmods having the say on whether a modkill is needed as the response to the infraction

regularizes

the response (maintaining commensurate response across all games where PM quoting happens), which IMO is not a problem. Dozens of different mods independently deciding how to handle the infractions over time is not going to lead to consistency and players won't KNOW what the likely ruling is going to be.

[TemporalLich]

The main plus of the modkill approval rule is modkills are more consistent

There's also the secondary plus of more immediate bans and the secondary minus of less immediate action

My thought is that the listmods being blamed for the modkill feels unfair to me

[Bell]

Mastina usually prefers to give as much information and detail as possible to convey what she means and what the situation or context of a situation is.

I don't think this should be about Mastina though. If we want more rigorous policies to reduce dissimilarity's in judgment then effort should be put toward that goal.

[Bell]

The main plus of the modkill approval rule is modkills are more consistent

There's also the secondary plus of more immediate bans and the secondary minus of less immediate action

My thought is that the listmods being blamed for the modkill feels unfair to me

Blame is not a good way to start conversation, but it's an excellent way to end one.
It feels more productive and more restorative to just make it so that there isn't a conflict like this again. By making the policies crystal clear.

[Bell]

To be clear, I never post about policy, I'm mostly just trying to steer this conversation into something that's productive and less hurtful for everyone involved. Which means I'm trying to steer this away from the people involved in this and toward making people feel better after they felt hurt.

The title of this thread should stay within the boundaries it set. Or at least, I hope it will so that this doesn't cause more pain. (I know in the grand scheme of things this doesn't matter very much).

[Something_Smart]

My thought is that the listmods being blamed for the modkill feels unfair to me

For one, anyone looking to assign blame is doing it wrong. And anyone assuming that the people trying to effect change are simply looking to assign blame is doing it VERY wrong.

But no, it's not unfair. The listmods told unwnd to modkill mastina, so they did it. If anyone wants this to change, then the listmods are where the source of the change needs to be.

[TemporalLich]

Anyway I made a snap judgment that the modkill was bad... this just shows the point that the situation is more complex than it looks.

That paraphrasing feels insufficient to me but it still is technically that

[Ircher]

Personally, I have always interpreted "quote" to require attribution to the moderator, whereas at least some other game moderators appear to consider the use of identical short phrases to be an infraction worthy of a modkill- even when this does not harm the gamestate.

I have not yet read the rest of this post, but one of my rules does include the direct copy-pasting of mod communication as being unallowed. I do have exceptions for things like flavor name, unflavored results, etc., but part of the reason why the rule isn't just banning quoting is that formatting and wording also has the potential to break a game. This is the same reason why moderators generally include things like sample role pms.

I don't have really have a comment on the Yggdrasil modkill. From a glance, it looked okay, but with as much as was redacted, it is a bit tough to say whether it was indeed fair or not.

[Lukewarm]

I don't know if it's a widespread issue- I'll need to know how the listmods officially approach these kind of things

What I do know is it is a possible crack that things can fall down and it's worth discussing as a result

I was trying understand if this was your only example because I agree with the modkill in this example.

[see post 52 - every single ability is way too close to the original wording, it did not feel like something the player had put into their own words, and her claim unnecessarily included the flavor names of every single ability]

If you had other examples, then I was prepared to look at them to see if I agreed it was a problem, but if this is the only instance where you think that it was mishandled by the mods, then from my pov, it is a non-issue.

[Lukewarm]

I don't have really have a comment on the Yggdrasil modkill. From a glance, it looked okay, but with as much as was redacted, it is a bit tough to say whether it was indeed fair or not.

Mastina posted a non-redacted version of the role PM after the game ended. See 52 for a line by line comparison of Mastina's claim and the original role PM

[jjh927]

I have always considered the flavour names of abilities to be 100% claimable unless discussion of flavour is explicitly prohibited

[notscience]

Are you more interested in defending mastina or providing more transparency in the rules?

Because one of the two is about a finished game and won’t change anything, and the other actually has potential to.

[jjh927]

An example is helpful for demonstrating the need for more transparency in the rules

[jjh927]

I mean, the two questions I guess are
1. Was this correct
2. Should it be correct

and ultimately, unless the answer to 1 is "no" then I'm far more interested in the answer to 2, and of course 1 is really answered by the listmods

[Lukewarm]

Maybe. I don't think that that was the core of the issue, it was just how much was the same, and that just added to it.

Imo, the crux of the issue is that claiming your role is inherently quoting mod communication - and that is why the "paraphrasing is okay" clause exists in the first place.

From my point of view, Mastina's claim just did not do enough in the way of paraphrasing, for me to say that she paraphrased it. Again, if I were grading papers, I would not have accepted that as adequate paraphrasing - it would have been flagged for plagiarism in a "you basically quoted the original without indicating that you were quoting" --- So, I completely understand why a mod would have seen that post, and treated it the way that it was treated.

I guess I am saying that I think that the mod did the right thing, given how the rules are written, and that I think that the list mod did the right thing, given how the rules are written.

To be clear, I do not think that Mastina meant to break the rule there. But I also think that the rules should be enforced the same way - regardless of intent or context, because that just leaves the door open for people to try and game the system to see how close they can get to the line.

I do agree that it could be nice to have clearer rules / examples of how to adequately paraphrase role PMs

[jjh927]

When claiming your role you can use the full title of your role, in addition to any flavour titles. It's the explanation that gets hazy.

When explaining your roleclaim and what you are capable of, I would say that the objective is to sufficiently reword it such that it is your own voice and not the moderator's. I think it's fine to use some of the same words and phrases that the moderator has used provided that it is no longer the moderator's voice. It's not about avoiding plagiarism checkers. The bar should be on whether it is possible for game damage to be caused by the post in question, rather than an arbitrary decision on what constitutes too little paraphrasing.

I stand by the below as a standard by which you can determine whether something should be modkillable or not, perhaps with the addendum that if something is clearly presented as being the words of the moderator then it should be modkilled regardless of whether it is truthful or not:

I would propose that as a simple litmus test before a listmod approves a modkill for quotation of role PM, they look at the post(s) in question without looking at the actual role PM and see if they can determine if any of the words and phrases used were copied or not. At this moment I feel the general approach favours modkills in situations where there was no damage to the game, which is absolutely not how game rules should be being enforced.

In the example in tenet, there's a 20 word phrase in quotation marks, so it's pretty clear that the moderator has been quoted or the player has attempted to appear as though they are doing so.
In the example in Yggdrasil, I do not believe a spectator would be able to pinpoint any phrases as definitely the words of unwnd.


So, my stance is that a post is okay if it does not appear to be the voice of the moderator, and I feel this should be represented in the rules.

[jjh927]

Like, it's fine to say that the rules should be enforced the same way regardless of intent or context. . . but you can rewrite the rules such that they only cover the situations in which they harm the gamestate. The gamestate is only ever harmed by an infraction of this rule when a post is perceived to include the words of the moderator, so a modkill should only occur when that perception is possible.

[fferyllt]

Every player has a role PM in the voice of the moderator, though, and that's a filter that most players are going use to determine the likely veracity of the post about the role.

Having an outsider look at the post without similar info about how role PMs are worded is not always going to be a good indicator of whether the game was harmed by the role post.

[Lukewarm]

I think that maybe something like that could work possibly work, if you were to account for what ffery has added, by giving the list mod 1-2 role pms that are NOT the one in question, and then have then look at the post.

[Lukewarm]

Like, I like the idea in concept, but I personally feel that Mastina's post would have failed this kind of test as well.

Reading thorough her post, it feels like she is switching between two "voices." The voice where she states how the ability works (which is where she is very similar to unwnd's own wording" and then after that, she adds her own commentary to it, which feels like it is in her own words.

In my personal opinion, it does read like the voice of the mod when describing her abilities

My non-SP ability is Charm Eye. I target a player and they are Charmed.

(No clue what Charmed means, my role PM doesn't specify.)

Charming counts as a form of marking.

(And is the only form of marking I have.)

Like, here, she even separates out her own commentary with parentheses. And in the rest of her claim, when I read it, feels like it is "quoting my role pm" followed by "my commentary on my role pm"

Spoiler:

My 1-SP ability is Chain Circle. I bind the target, negating all support done to them

-- useful for the town if I target scum, but harmful to the town if I target town, because it's by my understanding basically negating buffs to the target. Preventing scum buffs pro-town, preventing town buffs anti-town.

My 2-SP ability is Nerve Circle. I ensnare my target in a circle--anyone targeting that player takes 2 HP in damage

. This basically turns my target into a form of PGO. Incredibly pro-town if I target a player scum target as it damages scum. Incredibly anti-town if I target a player town target.

My 3-SP ability is Curse Circle. I curse my target to be unable to be healed by utility abilities

. Again, incredibly pro-town if I target scum to stop them from healing, but incredibly anti-town if I target town to stop them from healing.

My fourth ability, Dispel, 2-SP, is dispelling the curse circle. Doing so heals me for 2 HP.

My passive, Enlightenment, makes me gain 1 SP every time I successfully mark someone.

Like reading through, everything that I made blue would have stood out to me, as not seeming to be coming from Mastina in Mastina's words - and if I had my own role pm to compare to, I would have looked at how everything in the blue was worded compared to how my own role pm was worded, and looking at both, it

feels

like unwnd wrote the words in blue. That is why her lack of paraphrasing is an issue, because it still feels like unwnd wrote it. - And every player in the game had a role pms to compare it against.

[jjh927]

I mean, I think the example is tainted at this point because you can't look at it without knowing what you know. Particularly as you have got some definite false positives in there- look at nerve circle.

As a player in that game who read through Mastina's post I did not suspect any of it was taken from unwnd

[jjh927]

As another element, I would note that key words are key words for a reason and you can't paraphrase them when they have in-game meaning. When designing a game, good design practice is to use consistent wording with consistent meaning over the game. You cannot consider the use of a key word as a quote as a synonym does not mean the same thing.

As a simple example, take "target". That means a very specific thing in the context of a game. It is a key word that describes that a player has designated another player in order to act upon them. "Target" means a different thing to "Visit", as a player who has targeted a player has not necessarily visited a player, although a player who has visited a player has always targeted them.

"Charm" and "Mark" would both be key words. "Support" and "Utility" would both be key words denoting a category of ability. "SP" and "Damage" are both key words known to every player in the game. The names of the abilities, particularly those referenced in other abilities such as "Curse Circle" are key words.