Discussing the "rename rule"

[Nuggets]

@maudlin27
Why do you need to tell players apart when there is no reason? The only reason when mods need to tell people apart is upon a report. If its ingame report the name does not matter, because replay-ID is attached.
For the example in aeolus chat, that is something i did not consider, but more like a fault with the client that i cant right click someone and report.
If i want to avoid someone i use the foe list. There can't be any confusion there even with renames. (If you dont use foe list you can't really avoid anyone, because he can rename)
If you dont want there to be a 2nd maudlin, just report him and he gets banned. That should always be your right, as its "your" name. But not the right of anyone else to report that there are 2 maudlin.
The point is that for example 2 people want to play together and decide to take the same name (ot at least same looking name), they can do that (as literally tons of people do on other platforms)

Don't get me wrong, I am genuinely looking for a reason for this rule to exist, but personally i can't see it

[BlackYps]

He just gave you reasons. You might not think they are valid, but that is just your opinion

[maudlin27]

I've already mentioned two examples where not being able to tell who a player is causes harm. Many players won't be aware of the foe feature (while it also doesnt work for matchmaker), and you didn't give a solution for the aeolus chat issue. I'd also note you haven't given a reason for the rule not to exist beyond 'two people might want to have indistinguishable names'. If two people want similar names that's already probably ok, so you're presumably not talking about similar names, you're talking about indistinguishable names.

In other words, if someone wants to call themself maudlin28 then that's similar to my name but clearly distinguishable, so is probably ok (although this shouldn't be taken as a general rule as I'd have thought the main factors likely to be taken into account on whether a name is ok is both whether the name is distinguishable from others and if there's an intent/risk of impersonation). If instead they want to call themselves maudIin27 then that's indisguishable from my name even if technically different.

[Nuggets]

First of all, yes i am talking about indistinguishable names.

So regarding aeolus, i myself can't give a solution, because i feel like the only solution is if you can right-click people to copy username or directly report. Seems more like a client feature that should exist (in general).
Other than aeolus, there is no way a wrong person gets reported, as with reports you have to give the replay-ID and then the player is 100% identified.

The reason for the rule to not exist is freedom of picking your own username, i guess. As i said, this is not something that is enforced anywhere else.

I completly get that it makes everything easier for mods. As they can more easily identify the player "who is causing harm". But I do not see this as a valid reason for the rule to exist. But as @BlackYps said, thats my opinion.

[Exselsior]

I generally agree with Nuggets, the rule sounds like it’s banning what amounts to annoying behavior. If we go down the path of banning what’s annoying then there goes 99% of faf.

If someone copies someone and then starts being toxic/messing up games/causing any other issues then we have rules to ban them for those offenses. The only kind of argument against that is reporting someone from chat but that seems niche enough that it doesn’t really justify the rule.

I could go play any other game and have an account name that looks like a famous player’s account and there are no rules against that. Not sure why FAF would be different

[Katharsas]

Having a clear rule that is in effect for everbody is MUCH better than just enforcing an arbitrary case-by-case subjective too-annoying vs. not-annoying-enough rule.

[Jip]

@exselsior said in Discussing the "rename rule":

I could go play any other game and have an account name that looks like a famous player’s account and there are no rules against that. Not sure why FAF would be different

Impersonating another community member in a large community is much less impactful than doing the same in a small community such as FAForever. It's trivial to end up on a foe list on accident and then be unable to join a lobby because of that.

@nuggets said in Discussing the "rename rule":

In my opinion someone should only be banned on rename for these reasons:

(1) the player he renamed himself to reported him
(2) the name is racist or offensive

Won't you agree that (1) is a bit lame? Unless Maudlin (to continue the example) is around to report it himself then nobody else is able to report the fake Maudlin26 who's being a total douche bag and actively trying to be toxic within the boundaries of the rules? How does that contribute to a healthy environment?

I would personally not appreciate it if it would happen to me for sure.

@katharsas said in Discussing the "rename rule":

Having a clear rule that is in effect for everbody is MUCH better than just enforcing an arbitrary case-by-case subjective too-annoying vs. not-annoying-enough rule.

I agree with this. Just disallowing it in general is better than making it subjective. I also do not understand the origin of the discussion; did someone get banned over this?

[SpikeyNoob]

@jip said in Discussing the "rename rule":

I agree with this. Just disallowing it in general is better than making it subjective. I also do not understand the origin of the discussion; did someone get banned over this?

Yes. But I did not want this thread to become a discussion about specific moderation action, so I asked nuggets to just discuss the rule.

[Nuggets]

@jip said in Discussing the "rename rule":

Impersonating another community member in a large community is much less impactful than doing the same in a small community such as FAForever. It's trivial to end up on a foe list on accident and then be unable to join a lobby because of that.

Its true, that it's a bit different in smaller communities, but it is also not like other communities where it is completly indistinguishable, as you have country, game amount and avatar (even cpu score). I do not see the landing on a foe list on accident as a good point, because that is just user error. If you want to prevent that might aswell make a popup confirming every foe or friend.

@nuggets said in Discussing the "rename rule":

In my opinion someone should only be banned on rename for these reasons:

(1) the player he renamed himself to reported him
(2) the name is racist or offensive

Won't you agree that (1) is a bit lame? Unless Maudlin (to continue the example) is around to report it himself then nobody else is able to report the fake Maudlin26 who's being a total douche bag and actively trying to be toxic within the boundaries of the rules? How does that contribute to a healthy environment?

I would personally not appreciate it if it would happen to me for sure.

Well first of all, if someone is being toxic - report him. This has little to do with the rename. And the example you provided is impersonation, which is a different rule. I am talking about 2 players getting the same name (with each others permission).

@katharsas said in Discussing the "rename rule":

Having a clear rule that is in effect for everbody is MUCH better than just enforcing an arbitrary case-by-case subjective too-annoying vs. not-annoying-enough rule.

I agree with this. Just disallowing it in general is better than making it subjective. I also do not understand the origin of the discussion; did someone get banned over this?

I actually do not think that my take on the rule, makes the rule subjective. It's not like the mod has to actually debate on whether to ban someone misusing the rule or not. If the "original owner" of the name reports him - ban. If someone else reports him, discard (toxicity and stuff like that falls under other rules).

[waffelzNoob]

please remove the impersonation rule guys we had a fun one planned

[FtXCommando]

@Jip said in Discussing the "rename rule":

@nuggets said in Discussing the "rename rule":

In my opinion someone should only be banned on rename for these reasons:

(1) the player he renamed himself to reported him
(2) the name is racist or offensive

Won't you agree that (1) is a bit lame? Unless Maudlin (to continue the example) is around to report it himself then nobody else is able to report the fake Maudlin26 who's being a total douche bag and actively trying to be toxic within the boundaries of the rules? How does that contribute to a healthy environment?

I would personally not appreciate it if it would happen to me for sure.

It sounds to me like the primary thing you’re worried about is acting toxic within the boundaries of the rule with the name impersonation being a tertiary aspect.

Does it contribute to a healthy environment to ban people that are having fun having impersonating names and not being toxic within the rules? Because currently like 10-15% of the active 1800+ players have taken each other’s names and are impersonating each other. Do we stop that?

[Jip]

@ftxcommando said in Discussing the "rename rule":

Does it contribute to a healthy environment to ban people that are having fun having impersonating names and not being toxic within the rules? Because currently like 10-15% of the active 1800+ players have taken each other’s names and are impersonating each other. Do we stop that?

Do you need to impersonate others to have fun?

[Nuggets]

@jip said in Discussing the "rename rule":

@ftxcommando said in Discussing the "rename rule":

Does it contribute to a healthy environment to ban people that are having fun having impersonating names and not being toxic within the rules? Because currently like 10-15% of the active 1800+ players have taken each other’s names and are impersonating each other. Do we stop that?

Do you need to impersonate others to have fun?

What kind of question is that. Of course you can have fun without. Doens't change the fact that you can also have fun with the name changes.
It's like asking if you need to have ingame chat to have fun.

[TheVVheelboy]

@jip said in Discussing the "rename rule":

@ftxcommando said in Discussing the "rename rule":

Does it contribute to a healthy environment to ban people that are having fun having impersonating names and not being toxic within the rules? Because currently like 10-15% of the active 1800+ players have taken each other’s names and are impersonating each other. Do we stop that?

Do you need to impersonate others to have fun?

Tbh, at this point you can just remove renames all together. Cuz what's the reasoning behind allowing them once a month, if you are gonna have multiple names be off the list cuz someone once used them?

Like, are we gonna start banning everyone who renames to a name that was once had by someone?

I can fully understand if someone is malicious with the renames and behaving like a twat/breaking the rules. But if nobody is getting hurt then why be so uptight about them. Especially when all the parties actually involved don't see a problem with it apart from the moderation team.

Like how many "hide on bush" are there in league? And yet none of them are getting banned as long as they are actually behaving like a normal human being instead of being toxic pos.

[waffelzNoob]

@nuggets hello sir please pick one thing you enjoy in life and only do that one thing for the rest of your life.

[IndexLibrorum]

Just to make sure this is not misunderstood: we did not ban a player permanently for name-impersonating. We only locked the account until the player contacted us to change their name to a new name, then changed the name and unlocked the account.

Also, in this particular case the two names in question were indistinguishable: the only difference between 'Deli' and 'DeIi' is that the latter doesn't use a lower-case L, but a capital-case i. That caused issues, and so we told the last player to change his name to pick another username.

[Nuggets]

@indexlibrorum said in Discussing the "rename rule":

Just to make sure this is not misunderstood: we did not ban a player permanently for name-impersonating. We only locked the account until the player contacted us to change their name to a new name, then changed the name and unlocked the account.

Also, in this particular case the two names in question were indistinguishable: the only difference between 'Deli' and 'DeIi' is that the latter doesn't use a lower-case L, but a capital-case i. That caused issues, and so we told the last player to change his name to pick another username.

First of all, we dont discuss moderation actions!! But if you are, please elaborate "that caused issues". Are you talking about the rule or the report?

I think everybody, or at least most people, understand what i meant. Doesn't change the fact that this rule (in my opinion) has no use case and is not enforced anywhere else (even in other small communities)

[BanthaFodder]

As with all the made up rules for the Forged Alliance Forever client, the rules apply to some but not to all.

In the case of this renaming rule debacle, take some of these current SNF clan members. The most active of these players have all changed their names to various other members, and not just the members from within the clan but outside the clan too. This is completely fine apparently.

According to my sources, it's fine because they are just "joking". My source being someone who has suffered the consequences of this bias rule

I stand with Nuggets in principle, that this rule is nonsensical essentially. I see 0 harm in renaming to someone else or similar. I mean how do you change your name to someone else's anyway when presumably the name is taken.

[ThomasHiatt]

Everyone should be required to use their legal name on FAF. Stop using all your weird fake names.

[BanthaFodder]

@thomashiatt What's weird is that you're active in a forum for a game you don't play