[CONCERN] Chat Rules

To be honest I like the rules as they are now, but I do think they could use one small addition. Just to make things official: "When in doubt use some common sense.".

I think that's a good thing. Because if you try to regulate that then you can be sure that some people are going to go by the letter of the rules. And quite frankly I think that you can't regulate this. This is one of the rules which I'd put under "use some common sense". Do note that I don't mean to be offensive here, but...

In the morning where there are hardly any players around then repeating an advertisement after 5 or 10 minutes can be considered spam. Because all which ever happens in the chat channel is you repeating your message.

Move to the evening where we have 30 players online and a moment where there's lots of activity then those 5 minutes delay would be perfect to post your message without it ever being caught up as spam.

So as said, I don't think you can regulate this. When in doubt I'd go with the responses you might get from in-town chat. I've seen plenty of players on many servers warning others about spam. That should be your given hint that you might be taking things a little too far.

I'd also put this under the same rule. The moment the usage of a character becomes disruptive or overly annoying then I'm sure it's covered and not allowed (like character spamming). However, just the other day did I see some players advertise (in E chat, which I thought was very considerate) and they used special characters ("high ascii" as I call it). And it looked pretty cool too. Note: I usually play vanilla Minecraft, so if I could see that then others could too.

So I'd say if vanilla Minecraft supports it then you should be good. As long as you abide by the other rules, such as character spamming.

Not sure I agree. I've actually seen this happening a few times: a guy pops in and all he asked is: "English only?". To which players responded with yes. "Ok. Im Turkish", and the player left.

Just because they don't speak / chat in fluent English doesn't mean they can't use a little courtesy. Players, and I doubt moderators as well, won't attack someone if they're not very good with English. You mentioned Google translate, lets say all I speak is Dutch...

So I'll come online and what I want to ask is this: "Spreekt iemand Nederlands?" ("Does anyone speak Dutch?") and: "Is dit een Engelse server?" ("Is this an English server?"). Lets see what Google translate makes of this:

and:

If I can do this, why wouldn't someone else? Thing is; there is also something as, here I go again, common sense. If you visit a server and all you see is English chatter, doesn't it become a bit obvious that it could be the main and only used language?

Thing is; I'm all in favour of making things as easy to understand as possible, but I also believe that there comes a time where other people can't (and shouldn't!) try to tell you everything which you can and cannot do. Over regulating things can be just as bad as leaving too much uncertainties within the rules.

And no matter how much rules you make there will always be a time where you need to take responsibility for your own actions.

Just my 2 cents on the matter obviously.

I'm a regular on SMP8 and don't really leave it much, we have near constant chat flowing through when the server is alive and everyone notices when someone advertises 5 minutes in between. Other people may as well, but don't say anything against it because they either don't care enough to say anything or might just wanna let them "off the hook". Despite this, there's still a good need that clearly states how long we should wait before our next advertisement regardless of situation in chat. Since there is no current one.

The reason towards special characters is not because they look different between normal chat, but it's because it shows up as "???" in chat logs. If someone reports a player for offensive language said in these characters and Staff look in the logs, they'll just see a bunch of "???" and wouldn't know what to do.

Here you seem to be only defending those who leave the server because the primary language is English, doesn't mean that those who don't speak it wont stay because they enjoy how it's setup. I'm aware Google Translate isn't the best, it's just accessible to everyone, you can obviously use whatever you wish. Common sense doesn't mean you have to follow it if it's in the best for your intentions, as this gameplay very well can be =)

It should be fairly simple to make something similar to the disallowed words filter for illegal characters. Instead of disallowing the message though, it could just let the player know that they aren't allowed in public chat but ok in private chat, with a link to the specific rules.

If a player is clearly abusing the system, then other players can report them.

In my opinion this part should be added to the reporting guide, if not the rules:

If you see someone using external fonts/characters in chat, please screenshot it and include a link in the /report.

I don't know how difficult logs are to make sense of, but to quote a Staff member: Do you have screenshots of that spammer? Logs are... confusing."

They could be cross-refrenced with existing logs, though, to check their validity, correct?

You say there's a need, ok, but then I do wonder why? Just because it's not stated in the rules or are there other reasons as well? The reason I ask is because it seems to me that in general the community pretty much regulates itself. Of course there are excesses, those will always happen, but on the servers I frequent people usually speak up when others become intrusive with their advertisements. And in most cases those other people act on it as well.

However... I also have to admit that I don't visit SMP8 that often. I usually hop between smp1, smp2, smp4, smp5 and utopia (in varies degrees).

But here's the thing: the rules apply to all the servers. So I don't think you can take the situation on one as an argument for changing or adding the rules. Even if that server is smp8

I see your point. Yah, can't really comment on the issue itself, but there are other ways to fix that. I am aware of both client and server -sided plugins which can save logs in high-ascii instead of regular ascii, thus also preserving those characters. Then, when loaded in the right viewer, all would be revealed.

However, now I'm deviating from your point.

Special character: any characters which you can't directly type in using your keyboard. So: if you need to resort to alt-xxx codes to generate it then it's considered a special character. Special characters require special means to create 'm.

In technical terms: I'd say everything above ascii value 255. Windows' special character program will show you what I mean by that.

Well, that's because I don't really agree that there is a valid point here.

In my opinion any in-game chatter which violates the rules can be considered spam or spamming. It doesn't matter if this chatter consists of a foreign language, heavily repeated characters, offensive language, etc. In the end it's all spamming.

And no matter how you would rephrase this the end result still remains the same: people break a rule and risk getting punished for it.

If I start talking Dutch in town chat then I'm spamming. I don't see how I should be offended by that.

The rules are very unclear on this, and clarification is always good. This thread shows the need well. Some say it's 5 minutes, some 10, some 30, and some 60. And in response to your earlier post, it doesn't matter how full chat gets, spamming is still spamming. Even though it's not annoying to some players, it's very annoying for others. Rules shouldn't be conditional.[/quote]

I was thinking of just one scenario... now I realize why this wouldn't work. But out of curiosity... does that mean that screenshots have no value at all, under any circumstance? Because pretty much anything can be faked, even videos... :/

Videos are a lot easier to tell if they're fake. Screenshots, 99% of the time are hard to accept as valid evidence.

One of the large networks don't even accept screenshots as a form of evidence.

Most of them don't, and any that do have ID numbers and animated stuff to make it pretty impossible to fake - which EMC unfortunately can't do since there's no where to put them.

As PenguinDJ stated here, there's no clear verification. I was just giving an example of how time doesn't really matter and didn't really focus on my main argument on that with the example =P

Some code to block these characters is what JackBiggin originally stated here, which would be quite useful to avoid further issues with these =)

The only argument I have to back this up is just not everyone is offended by the same thing, just thought it shouldn't be stated as spam because not everyone can understand it =P

And that's where we disagree. I think they should.

The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law.

An example:

One should not use foreign language in town chat. And here I am greeting a friend, in town chat, using my native tongue. Happened a few times. Of course in my own weird way (by also providing a translation). Officially speaking that's out of the question. But I do it so sparsely its generally accepted or better put: tolerated.

Sometimes it's fun, it adds to the atmosphere, no harm done. I never got any complaints.

One could argue that this isn't regulated so it's not clear enough when you can do this.

But then I still have to ask: why does it need clarification?

Now, I do realize that there is a huge difference between occasional Dutch chatter and advertising. You want to know how often you can repeat.

First a small side-track: why do we have chat rules in the first place?

Wouldn't it be fair to say that those rules are in place to make sure that everyone can have a good time?

So within that reasoning: wouldn't it also be fair to say that the moment you're annoying someone you're basically breaking the intent of those rules, even if its not fully regulated (there's always the "don't cause intentional drama")?

And having said that: I have to ask again: Why does it need to be regulated how many times you can repeat? Why not turn it around: why not repeat your advertisement in such ways where you try and do your utmost best not to annoy others? Within the idea behind the rules?

Because, I know I'm cynical here, one could also argue that if you want to have the rules to state that you can advertise an x amount of times you could also use that as an excuse to hide behind. Do exactly that whenever you feel like it. Even if its a bit out of place ("the rules say I can so I will"). Isn't it fair to say that this could cause a wee bit of drama and unhappyness as well?

I find nothing wrong with saying a hello in another language, but the rules are in place for a reason:

"Please use English in public Chat channels. In all public chats, the use of other languages is not allowed because a staff member is not able to ensure you are abiding by all EMC Chat rules and to other players it is seen as spam. This ruling includes Town, Local, Supporter, and Economy."

And that is key. Staff are not aware what you're saying, which is why they're not allowed. And, it is annoying when other players have a full conversation in another language, the not bolded part of the quote.

I wasn't talking about other languages, it was about advertisements. So, an on-topic response:

Because people are annoyed at different levels, so it wouldn't work. I, for one, get annoyed easily. I can tell you do not. So if a player similar to you wanted to advertise their auction, they'd be doing it every five minutes, which would annoy the crap out of someone like me. A ruling like that would just be an ambiguity.

Full agree. And staff allowed (or: ignored) my slip (knowing Murphy's law I guess I'm in deep trouble now ).

Ok, more serious: the rules are applied in a variant manner. Its why I came to love this server so much. There are 2 sides to the medal with these rules....

On one end we have us players who can use the rules to our advantage. On the other side of the medal we have moderators who could (I need to emphasize: could, EMC works differently thankfully) apply them to the letter. Let that sink in, how much fun would it be?

I know I am playing the devils advocate right now, I really do....

But doesn't adding regulation also mean giving the moderators a means to enforce it no matter what?

(fictional): rule: one advertisement per hour.

E Shell: Come to my shop, I sell sea lanterns!
PotentialBuyer joined, last seen: last millennium
T: Buyer: Hi there, good to see you. I got those sea lanterns you wanted!
Moderator: Shell: one advertisement per hour, no more.
T: Shell: I was talking to a friend?
Moderator: Shell: use /tell to talk someone, you should know better.

Here we have a fictional rule of one ad. per hour and a situation where they are applied without varying degrees. I dunno...

You'd be mistaken, but I know how to use /ignore and also how to ignore in general

Trust me: when I ignore you during an evening on purpose... hmmm

But that is also a factor here IMO: someone annoys you; why not /ignore?

In fact; I can also argue (this is meant seriously) that this NOT being regulated helped regulate things.

True example: Player spams smp2 town chat. He gets warned by several players: "don't spam!" and "its annoying". Stuff continues. I say: "you do know you're achieving the opposite, right? All this does is get players to /report you or worse: /ignore you. /ignore players prob. never hear of your shop again". And then you see the virtual cogwheels spin.

I truly believe that such comments will have a lot more impact than any locked rules wiki page can ever have.

Esp. when coming from a non-mod (no comments).

Lets say I /report'ed him, staff came in, "you spammed" and temp banned 'm. What lesson was learned there?

Now, I know.... I do see your point: Clarification as to when you're breaking the rules and when not. I do see what you're getting at.

But why doesn't: "you're not breaking the advertisement rules when no player complains" suffice?

Here's my dilemma:

"You can advertise once per 30 minutes". (sounds fair, no?)

"Come to my shop"
<5 sec later, other player>
"Come to MY shop!"
<5 sec, idem>
"No, come to MY shop!!"

All within the "one ad. per 30min" rule.

Sometimes you best regulate things by not regulating them. You have doubts, otherwise you wouldn't be asking. Why not use those? So advertise sparsingly?

Lets be honest: it's not as if staff perm bans you after one stupid slip-up....

There are plenty of set rules that are "interpreted" by the staff now. Mostly chat rules. Part of the problem comes when there are no staff around and those of us being spammed need something to backup our requests for them to stop. And yes, telling the spammer he is actually harming his business sometimes helps but not always.

As for making it every 5 minutes when it's busy I cannot disagree more. Your point of view here is purely from the sellers side trying to make a sale, it does not take into account the other 20-30 people trying to have a conversation. If a buyer wants to know who is selling a certain item then by all means answer, that is different from straight up advertsing. If all sellers followed a 5 minute rule during busy times then chat would become so bloated that conversations would die off. Whether the server is busy or not, every 15-30 minutes is the most I want to be spammed.

The only reason rules are made is because of people who don't have the sense to do the right thing themselves.

So by having a set rule we can point them to, they have no argument and if they persist we can feel justified in /reporting them. This whole thread would not exist if the simple rule, once per "whatever" existed. Instead, MasterDude and myself have wasted a couple of hours trying to convince the spammer to do the right thing and then creating/responding to this thread.

The problem with this is that having a set rule would make a lot of business owners (and even those who just occasionally buy/sell very angry). I wish I could agree that having a rule to time an advertisement every 15-30 minutes would be a good thing, but that would get very complicated very quickly. For starters, what if someone loses track of time and re-posts at 20 minutes when the limit is 30? They get reported for that, have no argument to stand on (as you say) because of the enforced rule, and it was a little mistake.

Before you say "well anyone can just keep track", remember that this is a kid-friendly server. There are 11 and 12 year olds on here who may not be so patient, but mean well. Enforcing such a difficult rule so strictly is only going to lead to complaints and technicalities when the whole issue could be solved with a little common sense.

I do kind of have a problem with the fact that town and economy chat filter into each other. I wish that cold be separated but I'm worried about all the complications (programming and otherwise) that this could pose. Plus for some players, separating the two chats means that economy chat users lose some advertising potential (but that's a minor point).

On another point, if you have to try for a couple hours and convince someone that what they're doing is wrong on such a vague point, all you risk really doing is riling up passions and stirring up more trouble. Something like this can't be accurately placed in a rule, so you encourage common sense. If it takes more than a few minutes debate, it's probably an issue that is better solved by a mod. I know that when you play on a community for a long time, you feel justification and responsibility for keeping it well-maintained and guiding other players, but there are some arguments that go beyond the average player's reach no matter how experienced anyone is.