[NOTICE] Staff Information Data Leak

This is probably my last message on this thread, I think it has served it's purpose and it's best ignored from here on. I think us players got the message loud & clear, we assessed the actual risks (at least I believe so) and also summed up what happened.

I do have one comment... "Why?". I think that is a question which the staff should ask themselves. Hear me out please: some players will get worked over for staff correcting them and that's something you can't change because that's just how that player is.

But... Staff interaction towards banned players leaves a lot of room for improvement.

<rant starts here>

I can easily see how it can get some players annoyed way much more then it should. And for the record: I can now approach this as a player who actually got temporarily banned. I'm speaking from personal experience.

When it happened I approached a staff member using my alt to ask them what was going on. The result was very disappointing, I was basically told that they refused to talk to me about the whole thing because I was using an alt account. Policies, or so I assume. Let's just say that I wasn't really happy to hear that, and it left me quite dissatisfied.

I mean... Using an alt to like your own forum posts (or the main liking theirs) is restricted. You're abusing features. Hang on: this can even become a problem if there are actually 2 players using the same IP address. In other words: when using the same IP address you're initially considered to be the same person.

So why does staff refuse to talk to me in-game while I'm using another account? One which has already been identified by me to be the same?

Just so we're clear: I know the staff member in question would follow procedures by the book and wouldn't deviate from them. This was not about them, but the procedures.

</rant ends here>

SO basically some staff members, moderators specifically, hide behind the rules, the "procedures". And the same happened to me when I was briefly banned. I didn't got any information in-game from staff at all. Not even a simple: "can't tell you much, but it is being looked into right now!". Instead I got: "I can't talk about this to alts".

Comments like that only incite drama, they don't prevent it.

And the reason I wrote this whole thing down is because I've seen other players get highly annoyed over the same thing as well (most recent being in Utopia when a player got banned, came back online and the moderator refused to talk to them). Back then I had nothing to go on, but now I have personal experience.

I also know of an another incident when a player made a /report which was most likely open to improvement (not denying that possibility) but as a result said inexperienced player found themselves shortly banned. (which has been fully solved and sorted out). As far as I know he got banned without any staff coming up to them to ask 'm about that report before taking action.

The sad part? I believe those moderators strictly followed procedure, and nothing else. As if there was no room for them to do things "their" way. Of course this is only speculation on my account.

For the record: I have no love lost for these events and I sure as hell do not try to excuse them.

BUT... I do think the staff should ask themselves: "why"? Why did this happen, why did someone get so ticked off that they would go this far to try and hurt the Empire?

Haters are going to hate, sure. But when a staff member plain out told me that they refused to talk to me just because I was using another account (while knowing it was really me!) I also wasn't very impressed with the staff at that time.

I shrugged off the comment which sounded extremely elitist and arrogant to me, but... yah, how would others react?

Right now I am still very disappointed about it, and that led up to this post.

Think about that....

Roughly the same time as this post

I'm not sure which alt account you used, but sometimes you do act like a "different entity" on either of them, so we can't assume that it's just you that's messaging us staff. Remember, if you got banned because someone hacked into someone's account, it's also possible that the hacker could have hacked into your account to talk to staff in-game. I know that wasn't the case, but just remember that from a staff member's point of view, we have to be careful who we have to give information to, even if they're on the same IP.

On my IP, there is my sister and myself. We have no problems liking each other's posts, etc, because we're clearly distinguished from each other. So we don't always assume that the person can only be one person, we're aware there may be others. The rule on not liking your posts with an alt is to prevent like spamming and the like.

You may have noticed that if we ban a player, we don't usually ban their alts - only in more extreme cases, it tends to be, from what I know of as a fairly new staff member. This is because we treat the account for what they did, we know there can be other family members on that same IP.

So, why did staff refuse to talk to you using another account? Well, for one it's just for safety, in case of a hack and even in case of if the staff member has incorrect information to give. We are staff so we do know more things that are going on, but it may also be possible that the staff member you talked to didn't have much information and didn't want to share it.

But, what you do need to know is that staff are always available via PM from your main account if banned on the forums, but even then we may be unsure of the information. If you were banned on forums too then there's the support email which allows us to message you there.

Moderators don't necessarily "hide behind the rules", I think that's the wrong way to word it, but rather follows the procedures and remains calm and impartial to every situation. There can be a lot going on but sometimes there can also be little information known at times, and that may mean we have to wait to get things out there so we tell the straight facts.

At the end of the day, the situation was being looked into, and when we had the facts it was sorted appropriately. You're not banned anymore, and as you can see there is a thread right here with the facts about what has happened. Staff communicate with banned players in all sorts of ways, and your case was very extreme so it was harder for staff to diagnose as it rarely happens and we needed to sort it properly, but it's sorted now and I hope you still have confidence in the team.

You also don't know which staff member got involved and that is the key issue here: they knew exactly that it was me. There was no room for confusion what so ever. I also know they handled this by the book, bias and all you know...

Totally irrelevant. Said staff member didn't even knew about the hack at this point, all they knew was that I was banned and they refused to give me any further information.

And because I'm convinced they followed the book I'm also decently sure that it's a policy not to discuss this information with someone else. And some staff members take that to extremes where alternate accounts get excluded as well. All by the book, all according to the manifest but it is a drama magnet.

You totally miss the point.

The procedure is to PM the moderator who banned you. And if he's not around for whatever reason (it wouldn't the be first time) players are left with questions and no answers. Since people play the game it's also not that surprising that some also hope to get some answers in-game.

Which is the main point: how to approach said player. Instead of denying any information at all a staff member could also simply have told them "It's being looked into". But refusing to talk to players in-game at all.. That is almost certain to cause more drama. I've seen this happening a bit too often, and now I finally got to understand some of the mechanics behind it, because I've experienced it myself.

Then say so instead of simply telling players that you won't tell them anything at all. Yet that is exactly what is happening.

Let's be clear here: I'm not merely commenting on one single incident, I am now commenting on dozens several of incidents which I've seen myself. I'll grant you this: as a bystander, so some of this is one sided information, but even so...

I have seen players press on in town chat to get some information from moderators where the moderator refused to talk to them. "Follow the procedures" was basically the answer, just what you're telling me here now.

You totally and completely miss the point. I'm not saying that the aftermath was handled badly, quite the contrary.

But what about those players who are still banned? I'm not insinuating that they might be innocent, spare me, but if they got the same treatment / approach as I got (and I know a lot did!) then it wouldn't surprise me if some took it much harder than others.

Which is all I'm saying here: also try to think for a moment as to why some players seem to be so negative and hostile. Action = reaction. That doesn't justify things, but it can sure put some issues into a better perspective.

This was my original message before fdny replied to you: If I may ask what case did this involved in? You can start a pm with him telling me what happened but only case I can see which this happened is something that Staff member wasn't involved in or didn't know was happening at the time because that manner was solved within minutes on the site with you and was told and you understood what happened. The staff member that refused to talk about the banning because he/she wasn't involved in didn't know anything that was going on. Your jumping to conclusion that he/she know what going on and was their fault. Please don't twist a case making look like he/she was withholding information about what happened.

Since you reply to FDNY: This is it now
Shell this case you are talking about was resolved within a 10-20 minutes time frame. A convo was started with you telling you what happened and told us that you understood what was going on. The Staff member prolly known you were on your alt but didn't know what was going on because He/she wasn't involved in it. Your bringing up a resolved case were something out of the ordinary happened.

As for the "Staff interaction towards banned players leaves a lot of room for improvement" You don't see most of are appeals and Support appeals we have with banned players. We treat everyone with respect during a appeal process some are honest and some straight out lie about what they did. We know what they did it's up the the banned player to come forward admitting he/she did was wrong then taking it from there.

Considering I've totally and completely missed the point, I'll keep this brief. I think you've mentioned lots of things so I've tried to mention lots of things in my reply, so I've probably gone off on a few tangents, just for peace of mind.

In your post, you just said "Said staff member didn't even knew about the hack at this point, all they knew was that I was banned and they refused to give me any further information.", so you know that the staff member didn't know anything. At this point, they can't give you any information if they don't have anything to give you.

If you PM the moderator that banned you and they can't get back to you, you can still email support and send a message to the community manager. A banned player will only hear nothing back if they don't send messages to people anyway. As I said, this is an extremely rare case which happened, and it shouldn't have happened, but it did and it was sorted quite quickly if I should say so myself.

The reason you were denied the information is because said staff member didn't know of the information at the time so couldn't give it to you anyway, and was not attached to the problem in hand. Yes, they could have said it's being looked into, that is a slight fault but only in this one case and we can learn from that but the situation was still investigated and was still sorted very quickly.

As you say, this is from a one-sided point of view so you don't see it all, and you're also picking on very few bad cases as opposed to the majority which are successful.

We treat each incident by itself, not as a group. Each incident will and has been sorted. If incidents still continue and it's down to procedure, talk to the community manager. But I can assure you everything is resolved fairly. All banned players were helped if they were banned wrongly. The situation was looked into and sorted very quickly.

I know this also goes on another tangent but I also want to thank the other staff members that resolved this quickly and efficiently, and always sorting issues no matter what!

Is this about me by any chance? xD

The confidence can be greatly improved with improvements in communication and interaction.

If you take out violence from the communication / interaction, no one will feel ... violated.

Sometimes violence in communication is a subtle thing and when people get used to distinct forms of interaction and phrases, they can easily miss to recognize violence - especially if they have the upper hand.

An example:

Instead of "I" or "a staff member", you use "we". And "us".
Instead of talking from your perspective as a staff member, or simply explaining why a staff member would act in some way, you're (needlessly) introducing a third person, the "we". You implicitly start to talk on behalf of "we" while in the same time you hide behind that "we" - you're not responsible yourself, because it's the "we" who does things, it's "we" who is responsible.

It's a somewhat subtle matter, but that's where the bureaucratic language and bureaucratic violence starts - with hiding behind "we" and creating a "we" vs. "you" relationship.
This undermines confidence.

A further examples of - not so subtle - bureaucratic violence is mentioning (secret) policies or rules without clearly explaining the reason of a distinct action in a way that it is comprehensible to the non-staff member.
Without publicized rules and policies, without explained reasoning behind them, the member is defenseless, as it is hard or impossible for them to check and understand that the staff action is reasonable.
This, of course, undermines confidence.

Children, younger members, might be accustomed to "it is so because we say so, we know more than you know" and may accept it to a degree, but at least since age of 10, or 12, that simply isn't enough. It simply isn't an acceptable kind of interaction.

The staff member in question could have given a clear reasonable explanation why they want to avoid talking to an "alt" and could have invited to switch to Forum PM.

Simply

is not enough and it's not a preferable way of communication.

Anyone acting as staff / moderator should be aware of the asymmetrical relationship with non-staff members and should be aware of the pitfalls of bureaucratic language and interaction, should be aware of its inherent violence - and should try their best to avoid it. This would improve confidence.

I'm going to keep this considerably brief now seeing as how the actual issues themselves have been resolved and were done very quickly.

I am aware of the "we", it's because my message was based mostly around the procedures. The procedures are followed by all of us stuff, not just myself, therefore it makes just as much sense to use that word. Most the time, I'll be talking about my own experiences or whatnot, but in this case, it's something that all staff follow. I am not intending to undermine confidence in any way, I'm not hiding, I'm being open about this to everyone here.

You said the following: "The staff member in question could have given a clear reasonable explanation why they want to avoid talking to an "alt" and could have invited to switch to Forum PM."

The reason for the staff member not giving a clear reasonable explanation is because they were not involved in any way to the ban, and was not aware of the hacking. Once we, all staff, were made known of what had happened, everything was sorted very quickly and efficiently.

A staff member cannot give information to anyone if that staff member doesn't actually know the information. Once the information was known, it was sorted, and that's what needs to be appreciated here. It was done so very quickly. As Dwight said, it was no more than 10-20 minutes before everything was known and being sorted.

I think I've made my point now - thanks all for the thoughts on the matter. I'm glad the issues themselves were resolved rapidly and we (all staff) will always aim to do just that.

You missed the point - I wasn't talking about "what to tell" nor "what to do", but about "how to communicate".

You're again talking on behalf of "we (all staff)" and there you're implicitly making promises on behalf of others, about something (and people) that you're not able to control and not able to ensure that what you're promising will be fulfilled.

Again, I'm just talking about how to communicate and not about the matter itself.

We're off topic here, starting with Shell's comment above, it's a new topic, it would be better if it would have its own thread.

Runder, remember m8, the universe revovles around the sun.

Miner, you want to talk bout staff's communication, most of which is based off that particular situation but also from wording trying to find extra meaning behind it when there are none to be found, yes, in some cases using "we" and "us" can be a way to hide from fault but you only really find that use in the corporate environment, here on EMC FDNY (may he forever have donuts)(#screwscones) is using it more as a collective, the staff learn and teach together in a way, its what makes them the best around (#otherserverssuck ). Yes, it could have been handled in a different way, but it didnt, and you have to remember, the staff are only human (chin might be an awesome alien tho and the only exception is EvilToade cuz ya know, he's a toade) and what makes being human amazing? we can learn from our mistkes (or dont and be doomed to repeat them).

(FDNY you should tell me what donut is your favorite donut)

If that were the case I wouldn't have written this. I realize I'm talking about procedures which are being kept secret for a good reason so I won't press on, but I happen to know that there was little he could do at the time because of the procedure which he had to follow regarding alternate characters.

Which is basically all I'm saying here.

With all due respect: Fendy was talking to me about a specific issue. And within that context he had every right & reason to refer to the whole team. Because it's true: there is a lot of group interaction going, things us players aren't aware of.

But even more important (in my opinion): this isn't so much about hiding behind, but about showing respect. It is a team effort and therefor you try to approach things as a team. I'm actually quite happy to see Fendy (and others!) use this approach. For the record: I tend to do the same when talking about the stuff us contribs do. We're a team, and therefor I refer to that as such. I don't care if it's about stuff a team member has done or which I did: I'll always credit the team. It's simply about courtesy and showing respect.

I hear you. But agree, perhaps too subtle for this audience and means of communication.

regarding the situation described...If I'm ever in that situation I would really appreciate a response more like, "I don't have anything I can share, but I'll help you with the process."

Trust me, without hounding krysyy I wouldn't of gotten answers for most of what actions were taken against me and also policy gripes

I missed the point because I'm not talking about communication, I'm talking about Shel's matter in particular. If a player has a problem then I want to help them out, I'm not here to talk about the usage of the word "we". Feel free to create your own thread for that if you wish.

I intended to speak on behalf of all staff in that particular comment. Technically it's our job, so if it's not being done properly and staff aren't keeping to what they're meant to be doing in order to protect the community, then you can contact the community manager to get that issue sorted.

All I'm trying to say is that it's not really just about you being on the alt, more to the point, it's about the fact the staff member didn't actually know about the issue at hand. As aforementioned, the issue was quickly diagnosed and sorted out. I'm sorry that this happened to you, it was a very odd circumstance, but all sorted now and was done very quickly indeed.

Agreed on the teams part, when it comes to work effort and procedures of a whole team it just makes sense to credit everyone out of respect.

I hope your issues are all sorted now, but if you have any more issues then let me/us staffies know.

---

I'm a simple man, a white iced bun/donut will do nicely

Now I'm hungry...

Me too...

Must. Look. Away.

[player] This should be it's own thread.
[staff] This is off topic. Go make your own thread.
[staff] Here's a donut.

I got hungry myself too, lol

I didn't say it was off-topic, just said I'm not here to talk about that and they can talk about that wherever else they want. I'm not stopping them.

Donut question was asked, I answered (common courtesy). Didn't expect the donut posts to keep on coming - perhaps you'd like to start a donut thread of your own, if you'd really like that.