Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?
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Hello,
as this seems to be happening more and more recently, and the current policy is (in my opinion) beyond bad, I'd like to talk about how and why some reports (no specific reports, talking generally) are handled this way.
The case of someone reporting who is not in the game. At the top of my head I can think of 2 things (i wonder why) which are currently bannable if someone from outside the game reports it.
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Base Ctrl-k: apparently this is bannable if an observer or someone watching the replay reports this.
Why is this the case? Yes, it says so on the rules page, but I'm trying to apply common sense here. Why would this be bannable if ANY other person reports this, other than one of the ALIVE players on the team of the offender?
I've heard about the argument "ruining the fun of others", but if the team has no problems / or even agrees with the decision, then IMO others have nothing to say in this case. -
Any exploit: If an exploit (doesn't matter which one) is used in a game, the other player(s) is/are aware of it and doesn't have a problem, why is this bannable? (Furthermore doing it if a game is considered over by all players)
It feels like an overreach of moderation / the rules in general to try to enforce something, which no-one in the game has a problem with it. I don't really see a difference between this, and doing an exploit in singleplayer vs AI. (Basically what I'm trying to say is: who does the reporter or moderator think they are to intervene in the game)
There is one other rule, which massively shocked me and others when we read it. Its this:
I'm sorry, but what? I get the assisting part, but "Failing to report"?? Is it just me or can noone see how insane this is? I see someone doing a wall-glitch exploit and I can get punished if I don't report???I understand wanting to generalise the rules, so it can be applied when needed. But some, not limited to the one I outlined are just a bit over the top.
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- bannable if someone from outside the game reports it
Reports will generally only be accepted from players who participated in that particular game. (source: https://www.faforever.com/rules)
Edit: Exceptions may happen for very serious violations like using exploits or threats of extreme explicit violence.
- If an exploit ... is used in a game ... why is this bannable?
Allowing it - even when both parties agree - will normalize rule-breaking- behavior and opens the door for widespread abuse when knowledge about it will actively spread around.
- Generalized rules = failing to report = ban
If the moderator team tried to specify every possible scenario, people would constantly come up with new edge cases. By keeping the rule generalized, we close loopholes.
If you see someone using an exploit and decide not to report it because you want to use it for yourself and hide it from the moderator team, that is a bannable offense. However, if you are unaware of the exploit, and it happens during gameplay, you will not be banned.
How would you suggest rephrasing the rules you think are over the top?
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@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
Base Ctrl-k: apparently this is bannable if an observer or someone watching the replay reports this.
Not sure if this is what you mean, but from the top of my head I cannot think of an instance where we banned a player for Ctrl-K'ing base following a report sent by a person who didn't participate in the game. Is there a specific case you are referring to?
Basically what I'm trying to say is: who does the reporter or moderator think they are to intervene in the game
Short answer: any game that you play with other people is subject to moderation. We are not crawling through the replay vault for offenses to ban people for, and generally only review games that were directly reported to us. For this reason, games played by a single player against an AI, or games where people sandbox things, do not get brought to our attention and generally do not get moderated.
Assisting others in using exploits or failing to report players exploiting a game you are participating in may result in penalites
This rule is included to catch those situations where people are intentionally assisting exploits by other users. One real-life example includes a map author creating a map where one slot has hidden amounts of extra reclaim. A hypothetical example for the latter part would be a team in a tournament knowingly allowing a teammate to play with a maphack. To the extent of my knowledge, this rule has not led to a ban in recent years.
In general:
By using the FAF services to play your games, you agree to adhere to the FAF rules. While you may disagree with rules and seek to change them, you are required to follow the active ruleset as long as you use this service."Design is an iterative process. The required number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time."
See all my projects:
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@magge said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
- bannable if someone from outside the game reports it
Reports will generally only be accepted from players who participated in that particular game. (source: https://www.faforever.com/rules)
Edit: Exceptions may happen for very serious violations like using exploits or threats of extreme explicit violence.
- If an exploit ... is used in a game ... why is this bannable?
Allowing it - even when both parties agree - will normalize rule-breaking- behavior and opens the door for widespread abuse when knowledge about it will actively spread around.
I disagree that it will spread abuse. You are trying to suppress knowledge of the exploits, which is (imo) pretty insane. Yes its not good to spread the knowledge, but to actively suppress showing / talking about it, is pretty crazy. By saying you can't ever do that, you are trying to force the rules on people who didn't ask.
Image some 2-3 players new players just playing and streaming their games on the weekend, they "find" the any exploit and use it in their games. Some random viewer reports them and they get banned.
Even if you decide not to ban, and just give a warning; you are warning them to not play in a certain way in their games.- Generalized rules = failing to report = ban
If the moderator team tried to specify every possible scenario, people would constantly come up with new edge cases. By keeping the rule generalized, we close loopholes.
If you see someone using an exploit and decide not to report it because you want to use it for yourself and hide it from the moderator team, that is a bannable offense. However, if you are unaware of the exploit, and it happens during gameplay, you will not be banned.
This does not make it any better. I shouldn't get banned for not reporting it, but should get banned if I use it myself. (every time i tell people this, the first thing that comes up is "police state")
How would you suggest rephrasing the rules you think are over the top?
I will get back to this, because i can think of a few improvements right now, but want to summarize it
Regarding @IndexLibrorum comment that a player is using FAF as a platform and must therefore follow there rules; yes I get that argument, and if that is actually the case, theres nothing to be done, but is that really what FAF wants do to? I think (as I said before) this is a bit of an overreach
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@IndexLibrorum said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
Base Ctrl-k: apparently this is bannable if an observer or someone watching the replay reports this.
Not sure if this is what you mean, but from the top of my head I cannot think of an instance where we banned a player for Ctrl-K'ing base following a report sent by a person who didn't participate in the game. Is there a specific case you are referring to?
No, it was in fact a case, that was not from someone outside (i believe), BUT from my / others moderator conversations it clearly reads that a player not in the game (as in someone watching the replay) can report it and it will lead to penalties.
If thats not true - please correct me.
Also, I think the enemy team is basically the same as someone not in the game in this category. But, as you clearly see this differently, can you elaborate why you think so? -
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
Regarding @IndexLibrorum comment that a player is using FAF as a platform and must therefore follow there rules; yes I get that argument, and if that is actually the case, theres nothing to be done, but is that really what FAF wants do to? I think (as I said before) this is a bit of an overreach
Is this a misunderstanding? because I really can't follow.
if that is actually the case, theres nothing to be done
what do you mean? He stated that you can still change the rules, but as long as they are not changed yet, the rules are still in effect.
I also don't see how this is an overreach? This seems like the standard way of dealing with changing rules. So please, if this is not just a misunderstanding, please elaborate why you think this is the case. -
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
No, it was in fact a case, that was not from someone outside (i believe), BUT from my / others moderator conversations it clearly reads that a player not in the game (as in someone watching the replay) can report it and it will lead to penalties.
If thats not true - please correct me.I do not understand what you have written here.
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@IndexLibrorum said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
No, it was in fact a case, that was not from someone outside (i believe), BUT from my / others moderator conversations it clearly reads that a player not in the game (as in someone watching the replay) can report it and it will lead to penalties.
If thats not true - please correct me.I do not understand what you have written here.
Yeah i guess it wasnt that clear, i was a bit distracted. What i meant is:
I do not have a case or example, but from the conversations I have gathered that it IS possible to report someone for base ctrl-k, even if the reporter is not in said game. -
@BlackYps said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
Regarding @IndexLibrorum comment that a player is using FAF as a platform and must therefore follow there rules; yes I get that argument, and if that is actually the case, theres nothing to be done, but is that really what FAF wants do to? I think (as I said before) this is a bit of an overreach
Is this a misunderstanding? because I really can't follow.
if that is actually the case, theres nothing to be done
what do you mean? He stated that you can still change the rules, but as long as they are not changed yet, the rules are still in effect.
I also don't see how this is an overreach? This seems like the standard way of dealing with changing rules. So please, if this is not just a misunderstanding, please elaborate why you think this is the case.Basically, I'm saying these rules are irrelevant if nobody in the game has a problem with it (obviously only makes sense for the rules i mentioned). Index is then saying if you play ANY game on FAF (which includes singleplayer), you must follow these rules. As in, you can't even wall-glitch in singleplayer.
I get that this is the stance of Index, but I'm not so sure if this is the general stance of FAF to interfere in games where "no one asked". -
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
I do not have a case or example, but from the conversations I have gathered that it IS possible to report someone for base ctrl-k, even if the reporter is not in said game.
I've noticed in past conversations that there are many vague claims about things the moderation team may or may not have done. Barring exception, such statements are exclusively negative. When asked for detail, it then often emerges that either important context is missing, details are "forgotten", numbers are exaggerated, or the claimed offense never occurred.
We cannot have a constructive conversation about how rules and reports are read and processed if we are dealing with falsehoods and half-truths, and it is for that reason that I need to ask you that when you talk about specifics, you make sure you do not add to such noise.
You start off your post with claiming that base Ctrl-K is bannable if a non-participant reports the game. To the best of my knowledge this has not happened. Please verify if what you said here is correct, and if it isn't then retract your words. If it did happen, but relevant context can be provided (such as this having happened several years ago), then that is something we should add as well and is something I will help you with.
"Design is an iterative process. The required number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time."
See all my projects:
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We even ask that only players participating in the game generally should report events from games. Big part of the responsibility of "is this reporteable" is up to the participating players who are most closely affected by potential events. The moderation team does not crawl through replays for fun, we have plenty to do otherwise already. Circumstances where a non-participant report of a ctrl-k event in a game would have to be something special for us not to just discard it.
That being said, this is not be something carved in stone. There are events serious enough to not matter who reports, is it reported or if it was the neighbours cat who saw it, the mod team will take action. Easy example for such being clear cheating.
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The moderator team has to make sure everyone plays fair in all games and adhere to the rules; not decide if rule X may or not may apply because of case Y, scenario-based Y or on players mood.
It also applies to a certain degree to single-player* games hosted on FAF, because whatever you do there is baked into the replay file, which can be watched by other users.
Edit: to clarify: * in case of very serious violations
No one is banning discussions of exploits in a development or balance context. What is not tolerated is using them in live games and pretending that is okay because the players "dont mind".
It creates unfair games and gives players who use them an unfair advantage. It just harms every game in general.
- [QUOTE] ... rules are irrelevant if nobody in the game has a problem with it
Rules have to exist because not everyone agrees.
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@IndexLibrorum said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
I do not have a case or example, but from the conversations I have gathered that it IS possible to report someone for base ctrl-k, even if the reporter is not in said game.
I've noticed in past conversations that there are many vague claims about things the moderation team may or may not have done. Barring exception, such statements are exclusively negative. When asked for detail, it then often emerges that either important context is missing, details are "forgotten", numbers are exaggerated, or the claimed offense never occurred.
We cannot have a constructive conversation about how rules and reports are read and processed if we are dealing with falsehoods and half-truths, and it is for that reason that I need to ask you that when you talk about specifics, you make sure you do not add to such noise.
You start off your post with claiming that base Ctrl-K is bannable if a non-participant reports the game. To the best of my knowledge this has not happened. Please verify if what you said here is correct, and if it isn't then retract your words. If it did happen, but relevant context can be provided (such as this having happened several years ago), then that is something we should add as well and is something I will help you with.
My entire point here is NOT talk about a specific case, which isn't even allowed. The point here is to talk about the rules and how they are applied in general. Didn't I say I do NOT have a case? This is mainly because of what I have read from conversations between players and moderators. -> As I said, feel free to correct me.
I have not, to my knowledge, spread any falsehoods here or attempted to do so. What I'm trying to say is that it is currently possible to report Base Ctrl-K when one is not part of the game in where it happened. As that is what every statement before this, sounded like. Now I "finally" got an answer from Gieb that it is "in general" not possible, but not set in stone (even though I dont know why its not set in stone).
Honestly these are the kind of answers I am missing. A clear and direct answer.
In this case it looks like I was wrong, and that one cannot report, if not part of the game (with base ctrl k). However, I would still like to know the reason why the opponent team CAN report this.
Regarding the rules, or in specific, exploits in games; (i dont know how to quote multiple people)
@magge said "The moderator team has to make sure everyone plays fair in all games and adhere to the rules".
I know this is your stance, but I am even calling that into question. Yes, the games / replays are watchable via the vault, but imo this should not automatically make them adhere to the rules.
I get that noone is (probably) ever going to report a single-player game, but that fact that it is possible is just crazy to me.
Sadly I don't have a different game I can compare this to or ask.
Maybe I'm just no aware of all possible exploits, but maybe there is a difference in the severity of them.You also said "not decide if rule X may or not may apply because of case Y, scenario-based Y..". I think thats exactly what should be done actually. With you saying this, you are saying context is irrelevant. I'm sure (or hope) you mean this differently but if not, do you really mean that you just look at the rule on paper and nothing else?
"No one is banning discussions of exploits in a development or balance context" -> So you are banning talking about how they work (as in how to do them) or lets say just talking about them in general?
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@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
do you really mean that you just look at the rule on paper and nothing else?
It is a starting point which guides my decisions; edge cases and gray areas always come up and if that happens, I ask the team how we should proceed with the case to make it fair.
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
So you are banning talking about how they [exploits] work ... or lets say just talking about them in general?
Discussion about exploits is not banned when it is part of a development, balance, or educational context.
But just adding the words "for educational purposes only" while explaining an exploit with a wink "to not abuse it" in general chat when it is clearly meant to provoke is the kind of behavior which is seen as trolling and trying to bypass the rules. It has to contribute to a serious discussion.
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@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
I have not, to my knowledge, spread any falsehoods here or attempted to do so.
By starting your post with:
Base Ctrl-k: apparently this is bannable if an observer or someone watching the replay reports this.
you have (unintended, I understand) done so; you did not phrase this as a question, but made a statement. This is what I want you to be cautious of. There are enough bad takes about the moderation team as is, and we do not need to add more to the pile of perceived unreasonable actions.
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
However, I would still like to know the reason why the opponent team CAN report this.
The opponent team is also affected when a player from the other team ctrl-K's their base. Ctrl-K'ing a base is inherently griefing, because you take away the ability for every other player to play the game. You do not get to make that decision. Not for your team, and not for the opponent team. For games where the whole team has agreed to quit, you have the option to recall. If your team is unwilling to recall, you have the option to quit. There isn't a circumstance where a base Ctrl-K is necessary.
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@IndexLibrorum said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
I have not, to my knowledge, spread any falsehoods here or attempted to do so.
By starting your post with:
Base Ctrl-k: apparently this is bannable if an observer or someone watching the replay reports this.
you have (unintended, I understand) done so; you did not phrase this as a question, but made a statement. This is what I want you to be cautious of. There are enough bad takes about the moderation team as is, and we do not need to add more to the pile of perceived unreasonable actions.
@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
However, I would still like to know the reason why the opponent team CAN report this.
The opponent team is also affected when a player from the other team ctrl-K's their base. Ctrl-K'ing a base is inherently griefing, because you take away the ability for every other player to play the game. You do not get to make that decision. Not for your team, and not for the opponent team. For games where the whole team has agreed to quit, you have the option to recall. If your team is unwilling to recall, you have the option to quit. There isn't a circumstance where a base Ctrl-K is necessary.
So the definition of griefing is "the act of deliberately annoying or disrupting other players' enjoyment of a game" (generally).
By having the consent of your team, you are not annoying or disrupting your teammates enjoyment of the game. Furthermore, by having the consent of your team, they have clearly decided the game is over, so the enemy can't really argue that the guy stole their enjoyment. While the offender did "steal" the enjoyment of the opponents, its with the consent of his team, so no different from recalling or quitting in their own way. -
The recall option gives a clear way to get the consent of your team, so it's very simple - instead of selecting all your units and then doing a ctrl-k, you start a recall vote and all your units get ctrl-k'd if your team consents to it. If the recall vote fails, you just leave the game without ctrl-king all your units.
Also avoids the issue of people being coerced into giving 'consent' after the fact - certain players have publicly discussed how people who report them will be blacklisted from playing games involving anyone from their group.
Image some 2-3 players new players just playing and streaming their games on the weekend, they "find" the any exploit and use it in their games. Some random viewer reports them and they get banned. Even if you decide not to ban, and just give a warning; you are warning them to not play in a certain way in their games.
So in this hypothetical scenario these new players discover the exploit in a streamed game; someone watching the stream reports it, but the mods decide to give them the benefit of the doubt that it was an innocent mistake and let them off with a warning not to use the exploit again.
Those 3 players go and stream a new game where they make use of the exploit again, someone watching the stream reports it, and the mods give them a temporary ban.
Your objection is that they're being prevented playing a certain way due to a rule prohibiting use of exploits. Not really though - if those 3 players genuinely have no issue with playing where each of them uses exploits, and only uses the exploit when it's just the 3 of them in a game, then they can do that, but they shouldn't stream it and make knowledge of how to use or achieve the exploit more widespread. If they don't stream it, then the chances they get reported for it are very low.So practically they're being prevented from using the exploits in games with other players (who want to play games where their opponents dont cheat or use exploits) due to the risk that player notices they used the exploit and reports them, and/or from publicly streaming details of how to use the exploit (something which would make it much more likely people use the exploits in games with people that don't consent to their use).
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@maudlin27 Its just censorship.
Yes it is not good to share this knowledge, yes not everybody should know about it and yes people shouldn't use it (generally speaking). However, it just feels like you're taking the easy way out by censoring / banning everything in that direction.You also mention that if they don't stream the chance is lower. I don't really care about the chance and it's kind of a weird comment to see. What does it matter if I got a 10% chance to get reported or 100%? What matters if its bannable or not. The fact that something is bannable in games where "no one asked" (as in: a closed community (like my example earlier), a 1v1 between 2 players and so on) is just crazy to me. Someone can just look into replays see 2 players where having fun with exploits and report them to get the banned.
I'm not saying moderators are actively looking through the replays (I don't know why this was mentioned multiple times now). I'm saying anybody, or more importantly someone who dislikes person X can do this. -
@Giebmasse said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
We even ask that only players participating in the game generally should report events from games. Big part of the responsibility of "is this reporteable" is up to the participating players who are most closely affected by potential events. The moderation team does not crawl through replays for fun, we have plenty to do otherwise already. Circumstances where a non-participant report of a ctrl-k event in a game would have to be something special for us not to just discard it.
The fact that FAF doesn't have a big playerbase means, that high rated players constantly play against or with the same players. If someone really wants to get another player banned, I'm sure he could search through enough replays to eventually find a reportable offence for almost everyone that happened a long time ago. This can be abused to get people banned before or in tournaments so you don't have to play against them or also just if you don't like them.
Therefore I suggest a timelimit of how old a reported "offence" is allowed to be. Maybe 1-2 month? Serious offences like cheating should be excluded, however I don't see an issue to apply this timelimit to most other FAF rules e.g. base ctrl k, griefing, exploits...
Because if it really was an issue, that was affecting someone in a negative way, then it would have been reported in a timely manner. -
@Tersto said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:
I'm sure he could search through enough replays to eventually find a reportable offence for almost everyone that happened a long time ago. This can be abused to get people banned before or in tournaments so you don't have to play against them or also just if you don't like them.
To be clear, in general, this should not happen. We do not, in most cases, issue bans on people who were reported by users who were not in the game. There are some exceptions to this, but the example of player x trawling through replays of player y to find a violation shouldn't be an issue.
A few examples where this doesn't apply are cheating/exploiting, rating manipulation, cheat maps, etc.The idea of a statute of limitations is interesting, though, because I too think it would be strange if a player reported another for, say, a 6 month old violation.
However, we can't say it's entirely nefarious - it might simply be because a player did not know how to make a report, or did not know reports exist (this is fairly common).
A game from some time ago might also be part of a pattern of behaviour and we'd want to consider it then.As a result, i'm not sure we can make a hard and fast rule to say if something was x months old it can't be checked, because there will always be edge cases where we should be.
And then, what's the point of having it stated for a certain amount of time if we can't always guarantee that's the case? Better to have people be aware that we will take it into account that a report is old.I will say that it is rare that a report is made for something that didn't happen in the same day, let alone more than a week past, when a specific game is being reported.
However, you can be assured that we would notice reports being made against much less recent games and consider that, as above.
