Policing and PC Statistics

[Regas]

Bah..we all know what happens when the lawyers sign on to admin

[oldgrayrogue]

Yeah, personally I hate most lawyers

[Swift]

Mikalya was a rocking PA, we need to bring her back

[Brokenbone]

Well, if OGR's suggested "self monitoring tools" were around, then Mikayla might have realized her PC was the victim of all 18's for stats (or not quite 18's, but whatever her patron DM adjusted them to in game), and the discovery and controversy three years later might not have happened.

[Magile]

Well, if OGR's suggested "self monitoring tools" were around, then Mikayla might have realized her PC was the victim of all 18's for stats (or not quite 18's, but whatever her patron DM adjusted them to in game), and the discovery and controversy three years later might not have happened.

Just because O.J.'s "glove not fitting" scandal worked for him, doesn't mean the same would work for Mik.

[Dorn]

/me points to 'on topic' noticing it's getting a little further away

[Magile]

/me points to 'on topic' noticing it's getting a little further away

Players should never have power to police one another. Allow them to report if necessary, that is why we have DMs, ARs, Admins, etc.

[oldgrayrogue]

/me points to 'on topic' noticing it's getting a little further away

Players should never have power to police one another. Allow them to report if necessary, that is why we have DMs, ARs, Admins, etc.

Just to be clear -- I was proposing the AR role be expanded to include this function to take it off the DM plate, which under the rules and charter I quoted, I don't think it should be on anyway. ARs are part of the Admin staff under PA. This looks like PA domain to me. I never suggested players policing players. I asked in the OP whether there was an easy way to gather statistics for policing anonomously so that an AR would not be privy to the player and PC name they were policing. Some DMs were worried about non-DMs having this "behind the screen" access to info, and I was wondering if there was a way to address that. That's why we call this thread "Brainstorming." And players can and presently do report other players. That is how many complaints are generated and PA investigations commenced.

[Veilan]

Any actual in-game enforcement, however, is what DMs alone ought to be able to do.

I would welcome it with open arms if the AR job was more of a partner than an opponent to the few DMs sticking their neck out concerning standards enforcement, but as first I, then Magile have emphasised, players never should have power over other players. And appointed by PA or not, in game, an AR is a player, nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, we might be simply talking past each other. I've no problem with ARs giving hints and tips and trying to relay that ALFA philosophy (if they actually have imbibed it themselves), but it must be clear that ARs have no mandate whatsoever to police.

I do see a lot of merit in your approach, I'm just worried that human nature will turn it on its head.

Cheers,

[Rotku]

Surely DMs are also players these days? Sometimes it seems that most DMs seem to play more than DM. Also, keep in mind that the key person responsible for the investigation and enforcement of rules on that front is the Player Admin (who does not have to be a DM), not the HDM, ADM or anyone else. If the PA wishes to delegate to a redefined AR, all the power to them.

I really don't see any problem with increasing the ARs roles. However, that is up to the next PA.

[Veilan]

And because of that, we have strong conflict of interest rules keeping DMs from doing favourable / unfavourable things to people they play with.

But a good point, Rotku - those rules then, of course, should be applied to ARs too.

[Brokenbone]

We relaxed our conflict of interest rules due to being a two server project.

Anyhow, back to ARs, the common perception in the past was that they were more like defense lawyers than police.

And back to what I thought part of the topic might have been... people being able to monitor their own "progress" as it were. Not their neighbour's progress. Wasn't there a whiff of an idea to put monitoring tools into a person's own hands? Whether this was a widget where you could do a "reading" on yourself kind of like a wand function to say what your wealth readout was?

In the past, DMs would do such a reading with their own tools on NWN1 players if requested, though sometimes a little knowledge was a dangerous thing, you'd "read" someone, say "oh you're below wealth", but not know they had three pChests across a few servers each stuffed to the gills with filthy lucre. DM gets bad intel, and may try to compensate on rewards when they shouldn't have. Alternately, a player asks for a reading, every scrap of gear on their toon at the time, gets told "low wealth" or "high wealth" or whatever, then gets fixated on entitlement, even if before knowing the "facts", they were having fun in like a weekly campaign.

Maybe log access strictly tied to their character's name, to know "oh dear I fought 35 rats in a week, that is going to look bad..."? I only saw the really good web based logs in the first 1-2 weeks of ALFA NWN2 going live, but I seem to recall it was pure dropdown menu and easy to isolate who was being "read." Letting people see their own just-the-facts records, I wonder if that's cool? Not like seeing "gained torch", "lost torch", "gained 3gp" is all that interesting.

[oldgrayrogue]

Brokenbone:

Cloud raised the issue of "self monitoring" because she assumed that was the point of my post -- it wasn't. To repeat, the point was to try to brainstorm a way to take policing off the DM plate and put it on the PA plate, if possible. The original question about whether this could be done anonomously, and without client access, was to address concerns about access to meta information and perceived conflicts of interest, and to eliminate those concerns if possible.

In my view, ARs are members of Admin Staff. They are not "just players" because they have access to information (just like application reviewers) that regular players do not have. They are trusted with that access and expected not to abuse it as members of staff. Nor are they "defense attorneys" for players in my view, but more neutral investigators and arbiters of disputes that are ultimately decided by the PA if they cannot be worked out. They can counsel and advocate on behalf of a player accused of misconduct, but also on behalf of the complainant.

AR's seemed a logical place to me to place responsibility for policing if DMs don't want to do it, but it need not be. Ultimately the rules provide that this is the domain of the PA. It is very clear to me. If there is such a broad lack of trust within this community that only the elected PA can be trusted to perform this function, then so be it. But it is worth noting that individual DMs are not elected either, they are appointed by Admin, just like ARs.

[Regalis]

OGR's proposal was very straightforward. I'm surprised it seems to have confused most of the people in this thread.

In another thread, a DM said they were overburdened enough without needing to try to police standards.

OGR has proposed shifting or sharing that responsibility to/with other staff members: ALFA Representatives. This would, presumably, reduce the burden on the DMs giving them more time to DM.

It has been suggested this proposal be tabled until after the merger and PA election.

We can leave it at that... or people can keep responding to posts that were misinterpretations of what was proposed.

[Sandermann]

I think one DM saying they dont like doing it and its a burden is a significant step away from syaing DMs dont want to do it. When we DM we take on the responsibility of monitoring and keeping the game world balanced, even in PnP this is part of the DMs role.

What we need is more DMs.