Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?

[BlackYps]

@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.

[IndexLibrorum]

@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.

[Nuggets]

@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.

[Nuggets]

@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".

[IndexLibrorum]

@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.

[Giebmasse]

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.

[magge]

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.

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• [QUOTE] ... rules are irrelevant if nobody in the game has a problem with it

Rules have to exist because not everyone agrees.

[Nuggets]

@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.

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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?

[magge]

@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.

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@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.

[IndexLibrorum]

@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.

[Nuggets]

@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.

[maudlin27]

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).

[Nuggets]

@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.

[Tersto]

@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.

[Gorton]

@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.

[BlackYps]

@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

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.

I think it's important to distinguish games that were streamed and games that were really private. I can get behind the idea of not wanting to have the knowledge spread how exploits work in detail. And on top of that, people will inevitably imitate what they see streamers do, especially if it's unusual stuff. They might not know that it is an exploit, do it in a game, get banned and then be pissed, because they perceive it was ok when the streamer did it.
So when the game is streamed it's really not a "no one asked" situation, because it has ripples into the wider community. The easy way out is to just not stream games where you want to do dumb shit that is against the rules.

I do agree though that it doesn't feel like a good situation that the current rules are that every game is considered public because a replay file exists. The answer that practically there is a really, really low chance of getting reported by someone not involved in the game, is not really satisfying in my opinion. Personally, I would say that games that were not streamed or remarkable in some other way (like being a tournament game) should not be reportable by external people. Or, better worded: there must be an identifiable harm, that the behaviour in this game did to the community (for example rating manipulation or spreading exploit knowledge in a stream), to make a report by an external person valid.

[IndexLibrorum]

@Tersto said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

f 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.

We're aware of this possibility, which is why as a general rule we do not accept reports from players who did not participate in the reported game. We are also extra suspicious whenever we get a large number of reports for a specific player. Consequently, we haven't gotten into a situation where such report trawling has lead to a ban, to the best of my knowledge.

To name a very recent (this month) example of this approach working as intended: we received a report against TheWreck. The reported game was more than a month old, and was reported by someone who did not participate in the game. We investigated the reporter and found it was a random player with no history of playing with TheWreck, nor a history of filing other reports against TheWreck. The reporter did near-exclusively played the map that the report resulted from, so we have now assumed that this was happenstance following from this reporter looking at high rated replays on that map. The report was discarded both for the age of the game, and the lack of participation by the reporter.

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...

This is a decent enough idea, but I want to reiterate that this is a solution looking for a problem. It addresses a hypothetical that has not happened, and is already well covered by our current methods.

@BlackYps said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

Or, better worded: there must be an identifiable harm, that the behaviour in this game did to the community (for example rating manipulation or spreading exploit knowledge in a stream), to make a report by an external person valid.

You describe the exact approach we currently use to cover non-participant reports. Because we cannot cover each hypothetical, we've consistently phrased it as "we do not generally accept reports from people not participating in the game". Even with this type of phrasing we already frequently get attempts at rule-lawyering (for this and similar rules), where people argue that "well, it's not exactly against the rules as written, so you can't ban me", which is why we have to resort to these more general phrasings. But the situation you describe is the exact protocol we now adhere to.

@Nuggets said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

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.

Correct, but as the game logs do not record the vibe of the team at the time or their support of someone ctrl-K'ing their base and we feel disinclined to use an Oujia board to check, we're going to insist that you use the recall option instead. That one actually leaves the necessary logs and does not later result in a discussion on whether or not everyone in the team was on board with the decision. And since the end result is the same, the continued insistence of some select players to use Ctrl-K instead, followed (inevitably) by a forum post or appeal asking why they were banned, mostly just signals a preference for plausible deniability over accountability. Which is not a standard we’re interested in accommodating.

[Giebmasse]

@Tersto said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

@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.

I'll be direct, this is not really a problem, we don't need to be chasing ghosts.
Sure, theoretically if you stretch the scenarios as far as possible and assume reports are processed blindfolded or completely isolated from any other data points we take into account when processing reports.

We've had people thrawling through reports just trying to cause problems for another user, this is easily spotted and dealt with accordingly.

Basically in any case if a report is not made by a game participant and in a timely manner, faint warning bells are ringing in the background when checking the report for its validity and if the reporter had any malicious intent.

[BlackYps]

@IndexLibrorum said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

You describe the exact approach we currently use to cover non-participant reports. Because we cannot cover each hypothetical, we've consistently phrased it as "we do not generally accept reports from people not participating in the game". Even with this type of phrasing we already frequently get attempts at rule-lawyering (for this and similar rules), where people argue that "well, it's not exactly against the rules as written, so you can't ban me", which is why we have to resort to these more general phrasings. But the situation you describe is the exact protocol we now adhere to.

I feel that it would make sense to spell out the reasoning of rules more explicitly in the rule page. Currently we have the rules that explain what is allowed or forbidden and we have moderators stepping around specific questions by saying "we don't generally do X", but if we leave the discourse at that it keeps being frustrating for both sides. As a player you don't get a clearcut answer, only vague statements that don't help you to gauge when you risk a ban. As a moderator you don't want to be too broad with your statements because some smartass will abuse the statement and find behaviour that should be punished but that would be against the wording of the moderator.

If we instead spell out the reasonings and goals in the rule page, then it becomes clearer for everyone. We could add statements like "A report from a person not in the game will only be considered if it explains how the behaviour in the game is harmful for the community at large. Otherwise it will be discarded." This would also make it clearer what reasoning the mod team uses to interpret the rules.

[Gorton]

@BlackYps said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

@IndexLibrorum said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

You describe the exact approach we currently use to cover non-participant reports. Because we cannot cover each hypothetical, we've consistently phrased it as "we do not generally accept reports from people not participating in the game". Even with this type of phrasing we already frequently get attempts at rule-lawyering (for this and similar rules), where people argue that "well, it's not exactly against the rules as written, so you can't ban me", which is why we have to resort to these more general phrasings. But the situation you describe is the exact protocol we now adhere to.

I feel that it would make sense to spell out the reasoning of rules more explicitly in the rule page. Currently we have the rules that explain what is allowed or forbidden and we have moderators stepping around specific questions by saying "we don't generally do X", but if we leave the discourse at that it keeps being frustrating for both sides. As a player you don't get a clearcut answer, only vague statements that don't help you to gauge when you risk a ban. As a moderator you don't want to be too broad with your statements because some smartass will abuse the statement and find behaviour that should be punished but that would be against the wording of the moderator.

To be fair here, the players do absolutely know what risks a ban: breaking the rules on that page. Not being reported for it, (and that we do not proactively seek out, nor (generally) ban people based on the reports of those not in the game) does not change this. Technically, they are only "getting away" with it by virtue of not being reported by players in the game.

So it really wouldn't change anything to spell it out more, and as has been said previously by you and Index, spelling it out too broadly is unhelpful because we can't cover all edge cases, and it only invites a situation where a specific edge case hasn't been written down.

@BlackYps said in Change the handling of Reports - When is a report valid?:

If we instead spell out the reasonings and goals in the rule page, then it becomes clearer for everyone. We could add statements like "A report from a person not in the game will only be considered if it explains how the behaviour in the game is harmful for the community at large. Otherwise it will be discarded." This would also make it clearer what reasoning the mod team uses to interpret the rules.

I would think something similar to this, - i.e a statement to give a few examples, but specifically not be an exhaustive list around why we would sometimes do this, is reasonable to add, but i'm not entirely sure it will change much.