New rules. Sourcebans finally replaced.

Bottiger

Bottiger

Administrator
We have 2 exciting major changes.

1. The rules have been revamped. It is now 50% shorter and now includes a new rule.

https://www.skial.com/serverrules/

No trolling, baiting, threatening, intimidating, spamming, or abusive language/insults.

This is to bring it more in-line with the official Steam rules and to make a more positive gaming environment.

2. Sourcebans has finally been replaced and rewritten from the ground up to be a super fast control panel.

https://www.skial.com/panel

Many of the improvements are behind the scenes and available to admins only. But everyone can benefit from the following:
  • No more laggy website.
  • Chat on any server. Stay connected to your friends without having to open the game.
  • Punishment expiration update live without refreshing.
  • Mutes update live. If an admin shortens or removes your mute, it instantly updates on the server.
  • Fully designed for mobile.
  • Full list of admins.
  • 8 different languages
  • Donator page which shows how much time is left on donation status.
One of the behind the scenes improvements is the ability for admins to create moderators themselves. These mini admins have the ability to mute, but not ban.

If you are interested in becoming a moderator please contact one of our admins here.

https://www.skial.com/panel/admins
 
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Why the new trolling, baiting, and abusive language rule? Do you think this will give admin too much discretion in their mutes and could cause an alienation of the core player base?

I mean, I love the new chat-moderator role being added. But this is giving an incredibly wide discretion with a the same time as a whole new role being added. We’ve always had a core toxicity rule that gave admin’s the ability to mute if players were being pushed away from the server due to someone’s actions and that already covered the new rule expansion. This is an entirely new and much lower bar for admins (and now chat moderators) to clear.
 
lucas4647 said:
Why the new trolling, baiting, and abusive language rule? Do you think this will give admin too much discretion in their mutes and could cause an alienation of the core player base?

I mean, I love the new chat-moderator role being added. But this is giving an incredibly wide discretion with a the same time as a whole new role being added. We’ve always had a core toxicity rule that gave admin’s the ability to mute if players were being pushed away from the server due to someone’s actions and that already covered the new rule expansion. This is an entirely new and much lower bar for admins (and now chat moderators) to clear.
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Bottiger said:
This is to bring it more in-line with the official Steam rules and to make a more positive gaming environment.
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https://store.steampowered.com/online_conduct/
 
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It may be obvious to others, but not to me; what do you specifically mean by 'trolling'?? what exactly does that encompass? i feel like that's too vague since trolling can be in a lot of different forms.
 
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Vanya said:
It may be obvious to others, but not to me; what do you specifically mean by 'trolling'?? what exactly does that encompass? i feel like that's too vague since trolling can be in a lot of different forms.
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I think trolling like griefing

So it the same thing
 
“Intimidating” seems to be brought over without Steam’s rule set.

Does this specify that provocation is also now added indirectly?
 
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Like, admins already banned and muted people for this on discretion. I think it was better when they had to make a case for it. Now it seems if I say anything they disagree with I might get a mute because its so vague.

Not gonna argue that toxicity is a non issue, but even steam doesnt really act on like, any of those guidelines, which you would know if you look at the steam community page. This is because, these guidelines are vague and they know it. It really has to cross several clear lines for any action to occur. I don't think thats a good strategy personally, but I'm more voicing concern it could go to an opposite extreme.

DISC-FF, another decently large TF2 community once upon a time, lost vast numbers of players due to admins acting with impunity against small actions due to vagaries in the rules and the communities ultimate leaders being largely absent on the matter. It is not a non risk.

That being said, if it was clarified, this could be a serious improvement. Many players do join JUST to be toxic and annoying and while I enjoy tomfoolery I also think there is a line. I think the problem is subjectivity in what is acceptable, so you really ought to address this by making the rules much more clear and discussing with the community where lines should be drawn.

There is such a thing as being OVERLY SENSITIVE and it can kill experiences that are fun for majority of people. To be clear, I'm not CREAM TEAING this, hate and slurs and an insistence on being able to engage like that is stupid and unnecessarily inflammatory and disrespectful out the door. However, calling someone bad at the game a couple times because I'm doing well and riding a high is not something I think should be mutable. Now, if you spam ez in chat every kill you are an annoying person and should be muted.

The nuance is lost I think with these rules tl;dr.

Oh and the sourcebans change is well made. No complaints there.
 
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rahdevil1775 said:
This is a VERY slippery slope, who determines what constitutes "trolling" I fear that this gives the admins too much power.
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Before there were rules that you could have considered vague like don't be annoying or toxic and I never saw a flood of mutes/bans on the servers...
 
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Meganus said:
Before there were rules that you could have considered vague like don't be annoying or toxic and I never saw a flood of mutes/bans on the servers...
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That is true but also if this is just a nothing change why make it at all? All it signals is a shift in policy towards more action on these vague ideas.
Jermaphobe said:
You will not be banned or silenced for having and voicing an opinion.
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We can also disagree over what constitutes trolling or baiting. Also having a bunch of mini admins running around handing out mutes with a wider net........

Like I previously said in this thread, admins ALREADY, reasonably and justifiably, handed out bans on grounds such as this for cases that I think we all agree with. I just don't like how the rule was put into writing.
 
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Some of the disagreement with the rule change here might be from people who engage like this predominantly and make arguments you see from people you reasonably disagree with. I imagine that for that very reason this might not be taken seriously.

I think those people should be wrangled in many cases, they can be annoying even to the people they aren't targeting and just overall draining. I just need the writing to be concise, because I think you might be missing some nuance here that, with a whole new administrative role in play, could prove to have an outcome you did not want.
 
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It's pretty much the same as the old rule which was also very vague and could be interpreted as anything, "don't be annoying, toxic". So if there hasn't been major problems before there likely won't be now. It's just copied from Steam because of convenience

If anything people have complained more about not doing enough for toxicity than doing too much
 
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It is true, but I don't like it with the new mini admins. Granted staff activity can definitely leave something to be desired. Not throwing shade, just a general observation.
 
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I see there report and appeal section on panel are we gonna have to report or appeal in panel now or we still can report and appeal on forums?
 
I guess another question to ponder is Mod Applications, since Admins and Mods are now being distinguished.
Probably rename Admin Applications to Applications and establish 2 sections of each? Set of standards to meet?
 
I love the new mini chat moderators idea. I’ve been told they can only mute for an hour and I’m not sure other powers they have.

I agree that our problem has historically been under-enforcement to correct toxic behavior. In fact I’m very happy to see some admins stepping up to punish long term bad behavior of regulars even though that comes with backlash. I just feel that we needed to more thoroughly enforce the old (somewhat ambiguous) rules instead of creating new ones that allow admins to mute for almost anything.
 
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So i guess we have to report player on panel now

but the new panel is better but its kinda confusing when we have to report player on panel now instead of the forums
 
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