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

[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.

[Nuggets]

I'm not really looking to clarify the rules here. I think it would be an improvement what @BlackYps mentioned but the main issue is what is even considered to be a bannable offense.
(Not to mention people are actively laughing at how broad the rules are written. It literally includes everything - and by that i dont mean just bannable things)

[TheWeakie]

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

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.

I'm sorry but why would you need any vibe check here? If nobody in your team reported you do a base ctrlk then it should be de facto assumed that nobody in the team had an issue with this.

I simply don't understand how someone on the enemy team can ever, EVER, report you for a base ctrlk. They should have no saying on the matter imo.

[magge]

Base ctrlk can still impact the match outcome, and enemy players might report it if they believe it undermined fair play. If you believe the match is lost, simply leave or use recall. It is not up to players to destroy the entire base or a significant part of it just because they feel like to express, "I will take away the toys, because I am done".

[TheWeakie]

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

Base ctrlk can still impact the match outcome, and enemy players might report it if they believe it undermined fair play. If you believe the match is lost, simply leave or use recall. It is not up to players to destroy the entire base or a significant part of it just because they feel like to express, "I will take away the toys, because I am done".

I'm sorry but who is the faf moderation team to tell us how to act when your team deems the match as lost? The enemy team doesn't like it cause they can't have fun killing my base now? well tough luck it shouldn't be on them to decide this to begin with.

It impacting the match outcome has nothing do with the conversation. If the enemy players report it because it " undermined fair play" then the ban shouldn't be for base ctrl k but for manipulating rating or something similar. Recalling from the game also impacts the match outcome because you can theoretically still win. It's 2 sides of the same coin, you just choose how you go out. You can use the exact same arguments against any 'allowed' way to leave the game as well.

I also think the argument makes zero sense anyway because the polar opposite is allowed. You're allowed to recall with your team, the entire team is allowed to just leave (without base ctrl k), you're allowed to play turtle until the last moment, even hiding your acu in a transport in a corner of the map on 1 mass income, but if your team decides to do a quadruple base ctrlk while flying into the enemy on t2 transports so you go out with a bang then your entire team can get banned if they report you because you somehow ruined their fun??

The enemy team should not have a say on this, period.

[magge]

I understand your concern that this action may fall under a different category, and we can review the rule wording or the ban description itself to improve clarity.

The issue is not, if the match is "technically" winnable, or "already lost" or if you/the enemy players are "having fun" - The rules are in place to ensure fair play and sportsmanship for all players in all matches.

If you/someone else disagree with the rule itself, then the issue is not about the wording, description or phrasing - it is the core of the rule itself.

And if you/someone else are aiming to propose a significant change to the rule core, then it is important to support it with a well-reasoned argument.

Players have the tool recall, or as last resort, quit manually to exit a match within the rules. If the team agrees the game is lost, recall lets everyone leave in a clean and fair way.

If you have suggestions on how the wording or descriptions of the rules could be improved, please share your ideas so we have material to work with.

In case you/a group/someone else fundamentally disagree with the rule itself - I am not entirely sure how best to proceed here.

Perhaps an official proposal to the board would be the next step, or a general vote for the association group before that? If someone is familiar with the process, please let us know.

To underline, the reason why the rules are written in a generalized way - rather than focused on specific scenarios - is because players come up with made-up "if"-situations, which are not practical for fair enforcement.

[FtXCommando]

I see zero material difference between

Scenario 1:
“Do you want to keep playing X?”
“No”
base ctrl +k

Scenario 2:
“Do you want to keep playing X?”
“No”
flies acu into 100 asf on a transport

Scenario 3:
“Do you want to keep playing X?”
“No”
Puts ACU in corner, drags lines of PD, sams, shields, and goes to watch YouTube on 2nd monitor

X didn’t care in any scenario. Team’s morale was 0. Game was over. Enemy team having a say in how you decide to implement your give up is ridiculous. We don’t even ban people for doing the most malicious actions here which would be intentionally prolonging the game or alt+f4 to cause a disconnect screen as both involve time waste for the same conclusion. They’re strictly the worst options and yet they don’t have any sort of rule beyond the vague “game ruining” one.

[Gorton]

There are a few other concerns we have regarding ctrl-k vs recall which are:

-Players may feel pressured to agree that there was a consensus to quit, even when they didn't want to, because of the possibility of moderation.

This situation is hopefully very rare, but it's one we don't want to happen.

-Players may report for ctrl-k for whatever reason later, even if they originally agreed (or did not care at the time)

We are especially concerned about the second scenario because we don't want a situation where a banned player states that at the time it was agreed... but we've received a report for base ctrl-k.

The ambiguity causes us problems that I think we would all rather avoid.

[FtXCommando]

That exact same ambiguity exists for any other way of ending the game (left without consulting the team, flew his ACU into enemy air, went afk) except these are not defaulted to a ban but base ctrl+k is.

If you ask your team if they want to play on and nobody does, who cares how you ended the game? If somebody says they changed their mind, why didn’t they say they wanted to play on in the chat when asked?

Shouldn’t the ban be for leaving a game without asking anybody? Isn’t that what recall ultimately is built on? Why are you banning a hypothetical person that achieved exactly that but decided he wanted to end it with base ctrl+k instead of hitting the leave button? Is that really the thing to be prioritizing here?

[IndexLibrorum]

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

I'm sorry but who is the faf moderation team to tell us how to act when your team deems the match as lost?

We don't want to make this decision. It was been made excessively clear last year, and the year before that, that there are players who feel it is not the moderation team's place to determine when a game is over. The resulting discussions about such decisions have taken a lot of time away from more important things.

Two developments last year have made it possible to remove this issue entirely:

1. The recall function allows players to vote to end the game. The moderation team no longer needs to check to see if a game is over, the team members can determine this among themselves.
2. The rule about leaving a game-mid game being considered griefing was changed after an association vote. Players that want to leave (after the first 5 minutes) can do so, so when a recall vote fails and a player still believes the game is over they can quit.

With these two changes we've given everyone exactly what they wanted: players get to decide for themselves when a game is over.

However, we also still have people who want to Ctrl-K their base to force the decision to end the game on the other participants, or to simply grief. This we do not allow. Ctrl-K'ing base will remain as a bannable offence for this reason. And now that we have multiple easy ways to handle situations, there is no room to argue whether a Ctrl-K base should have been acceptable or not. The answer, for now and all future cases, is that it is not acceptable. Ctrl-K'ing your base will get you banned.

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

I'm sorry but why would you need any vibe check here? If nobody in your team reported you do a base ctrlk then it should be de facto assumed that nobody in the team had an issue with this.

I simply don't understand how someone on the enemy team can ever, EVER, report you for a base ctrlk. They should have no saying on the matter imo.

I've floated the suggestion internally before that only teammembers should be able to report base ctrl-K. There are some arguments against it, such as that many players do not really know how to report someone. This is mostly the case for lower rated lobbies, of course.

If you want to adjust the rule so that only players from the reported player's team can report this offense, then handle it in the same way the rule change for leaving the game was handled: write a nice proposal for it and get the association to vote for it. I don't feel strongly about this change, whether in favor or against it, but will help you with setting up your proposal if you'd like.

[Tagada]

In the coming days I will be creating a thread in the Associacion part of the forums to discuss the ctrl-k rule and suggest potential adjustments to it.
Therefore I would ask everyone to cease discussion in this thread regarding that specific rule and its implementation and wait for that thread where we hopefully can reach a consensus and make a positive change.

If you have constructive arguments for keeping the current rule as is or for changing it please reach out to me and share them. I would like to include both viewpoints in my initial post.

If you aren't yet part of the Associacion and would like to partake in this discussion this is a good moment to join! Check out how to join here: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/2346/how-to-become-a-member-of-the-association

Please note that this post as well as the coming thread are my own view point and do not represent the stance of the Board.

[Nuggets]

The ctrl-k rule is just one part of a bigger problem. Its the enforcement of rules in games where no participant asked them to be enforced. I'm not trying to say you should just exploit or whatever in your average teamgame. But what I am trying to say is that anything that happens (lets take my example) in a 1v1 game should not be held accountable to some rule where BOTH / ALL players in that game know about it AND are fine with it.
I didn't know these kind of changes had to go through the association, and was expecting to get more done here. I will be looking to make a proposal, but have to think about it myself first how exactly to form this idea into words

[Nuggets]

But lets talk about another rule; the sharing of resources / reserved mex.

This is a previous statement from the moderation team:
“Sharing resources — Resources such as reclaim and mass extractors do not have to be shared evenly, but be open to sharing them fairly with your team.
There are no reserved mass extractor slots or reclaim. Teammates taking available resources does not constitute as griefing”

At first look it seems fine, but then you try to apply the rule to maps that have been played forever. Take Seton's or even dual gap or astro. This rule says that if a mex from a different slot gets taken and the "supposed owner" reclaimes it to get it (if the other guy didnt give it on request) means he can get banned.
Lets not come out with the stupid response of "be open to new strategies" or "there are no reserved mex". If you think thats the case, you haven't played faf for more than 3 games. If people know about mex distribution and they still knowingly take a mex from a different slot, it should be allowed for the "correct" slot to reclaim and build his own.

The only reason there isn't a massive clowning going on about this rules is because most people don't know about it.

[Deribus]

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

If you think thats the case, you haven't played faf for more than 3 games.

Hi, 2694 games here.

Specific slots having specific mass extractors is not a rule, and even attempting to make such a thing very quickly breaks down because in essence you're asking for different or differently enforced rules depending on the map.

• How would new players know? If I joined FAF and got into a Seton's game, start making mexes, and then my teammate starts reclaiming some of my structures, that's a terrible new player experience.

• It would require every moderator to know every assigned mex on who knows how many slots, and also keep up with the meta on those maps. Yeah every moderator probably knows what slot gets what mexes on Seton's, but how popular does a map have to be for these rules to kick in? Does Open Wonder have assigned mexes? I don't know.

• It would force un-optimal gameplay in weird situations. Let's take Seton's as an example. Beach gets nuked and air swoops in to rebuild quickly. Except beach is reclaiming their stuff because technically those are beach slot mexes.

• The current implementation immediately solves all mex ownership arguments. If your teammate built the mex, it's theirs. You can ask to have it, but they are also free to say no.

• It's about a crystal clear rule as we have right now. "Do not reclaim allied units or purposefully fire on allies." Your proposed solution would require a flowchart to even answer if you're allowed to reclaim a mex.

[BlackYps]

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

The ctrl-k rule is just one part of a bigger problem. Its the enforcement of rules in games where no participant asked them to be enforced. I'm not trying to say you should just exploit or whatever in your average teamgame. But what I am trying to say is that anything that happens (lets take my example) in a 1v1 game should not be held accountable to some rule where BOTH / ALL players in that game know about it AND are fine with it.

I think it has been well established now that if someone uses exploits in a streamed game, even if everybody in the game is fine with it, the done harm is the spread of exploit knowledge, because the game was literally streamed to an audience. I think everything about this scenario has been said already. Is there any other case where external reports happened that led to a ban?

[Jip]

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

I didn't know these kind of changes had to go through the association, and was expecting to get more done here. I will be looking to make a proposal, but have to think about it myself first how exactly to form this idea into words

They don't have to go through the association. It's only encouraged that you do so. As an example, this is a discussion about when one is considered leaving a game too early, and these are the corresponding votes on Discord. It's one of the best ways to have a meaningful and transparent discussion with people that are all sympathetic to the objectives of the association, as described by the statutes paragraph 2.2.

Note that if you want to discuss this with the association, it's encouraged to use the association section of the forums. It may also be interesting to collaborate with @Tagada, as what he's writing up is also a suggestion on adjustments for this rule.

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

The ctrl-k rule is just one part of a bigger problem. Its the enforcement of rules in games where no participant asked them to be enforced. I'm not trying to say you should just exploit or whatever in your average teamgame. But what I am trying to say is that anything that happens (lets take my example) in a 1v1 game should not be held accountable to some rule where BOTH / ALL players in that game know about it AND are fine with it.

I think it's already been explained. If the breach of rules is minor (like a CTRL + K), and nobody of the game makes a report about that then you're 'fine'. If you are still moderated because of a minor infraction then it clearly means that someone in your game was not actually fine with it. Or you gave them the perfect way to troll you. Think about that.

Meanwhile we specifically introduced the recall feature to allow you to end a game gracefully. We even took the effort to refine it. This was often also based on feedback. The request for such a feature originates from the same group of people that are now again complaining about CTRL + K. Now, the recall feature is not perfect. But it is transparent. The intentions of everyone is recorded in the replay. It's clear what is going on.

Which brings me to you @Nuggets . Let's say that the entire team wants to concede in a full share game. This is the assumption you make throughout this thread. Then why do you insist to use the one method that's not transparent about everyone's intentions? The one method that is against the current rules? If you CTRL + K in a full share game you, as an individual, force the game to end. It doesn't say anything about the intentions of your allies. Why not just recall and make it transparent that it's the whole team (minus 1) that wants the game to end? Or just leave on your own, and let full share run its course?

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

I'm not trying to say you should just exploit or whatever in your average teamgame. But what I am trying to say is that anything that happens (lets take my example) in a 1v1 game should not be held accountable to some rule where BOTH / ALL players in that game know about it AND are fine with it.

I personally would strongly be against allowing exploits to only be moderated when there's a report. Or rating manipulation for that matter. Or other issues that may have long term implications to the community. And above all - I would definitely not approve to streaming how it is done to a wider audience.

Because we can't fix the majority of the exploits they rely on what is called 'security through obscurity'. It's a common term used by security engineers stating that we're not really protected against it, but because nobody knows it is 'okay'. This is the only defense we have against these exploits because - as I started this paragraph with - we are unable to fix them. That makes obscurity our first line and often only line of defense that involves no labor to prevent a wider adoption of exploits. Our second line of defense is moderation, which is very labor intensive for exploits. You have to start the replay to analyze whether the exploit was used, which can be 45 minutes in a slow running game. And before you know it you'll miss it, having to start the replay all over again. Great.

I hope that now we can both agree that it's not in the best interest of the community to create more exposure to exploits. Regardless whether everyone in the game is 'fine' with it. And that we should take moderation action against such exposure.

---

It feels to me that there's a shared miss conception in this thread by some participants. As if there's a 'good way' of enforcing rules. To make it very clear: there is no good answer to enforcing rules. And when enforcing rules, there's always the risk that one party feels wronged. I don't know who of you got in touch with the police in real life - I can tell you based on experience that the feeling of being wronged is (initially) unavoidable.

One of the objectives of the association is to 'maintain a healthy community environment'. For contributors this responsibility is managed by the board through the contributing guidelines. The responsibility of the wider community is delegated to the moderation team, and is managed by the rules. This is why we have rules: we want to create a healthy community environment.

Late 2024 the moderation team spent their time on reworking the rules. Early 2025 @Giebmasse made an announcement about this. You can read about it in this announcement. These changes originate from feedback from the wider community over the years.

One goal of the changes was to make rules less ambiguous. Less ambiguous means more objective. Objective here should be interpret as 'context free'. This makes the system a lot easier to reason about:

• A user does X.
• A user is reported for X.
• Based on (replay) data, user did indeed do X. If relevant, and reporter was part of the game.
• Moderation keeps track of the infringement, based on the history of the user it takes action accordingly.

The rules depict that doing X does not contribute to maintaining a healthy community environment. And because X is objective, any additional context of the situation is ignored. If you do not want to get moderated again, then don't do X again. The simplicity makes it transparent. It being transparent makes it harder to feel wronged. Everyone can understand it. And, when necessary in an appeal for example, everyone can confirm it.

In practice these rules are the best type of rules. They're easy to understand for the user. They're easy to process for the moderator. It's a win-win for everyone.

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

This is a previous statement from the moderation team:
“Sharing resources — Resources such as reclaim and mass extractors do not have to be shared evenly, but be open to sharing them fairly with your team.
There are no reserved mass extractor slots or reclaim. Teammates taking available resources does not constitute as griefing”

As @Deribus points out - this is as objective as we can make it. Objective as in, context free. It's easy to understand for all players. It's natural to new players. And for more veteran-like players such as yourself, I'm sure that you're in the position to talk to your peers about it. After all - as is often used as an argument for 2k+ players - you're playing with the same group of people all the time. You know one another. Why should this be an issue at all? Why do you bring it up?

And yes - the reclaiming of allied structures is against the rules. Because if your ally wants to give you something, then they can do that! Just like recall, there's an in-game feature to share units. By sharing the unit you clearly communicate your intentions. By reclaiming your allied units you're making the whole situation vague again.

---

Last, but not least I want to have people understand a few things. This is in particular relevant for association members or those that contribute in general.

Moderation is by far the most thankless job there is. As a moderator you get to deal with things that are absolutely ridiculous. With people that are trying to manipulate the moderator. With people that want to do you, or your loved ones harm. With people that are outright gaslighting you. They take the worst of the worst of the community, and filter it out for us. They are the 'maintaining' part of the 'healthy community environment' that we are talking about.

Maintaining it is not trivial. Moderators are humans too. Not only does this mean that they have feelings, it also means that yes - they too can make a mistake. They process over 400 reports each month. This is time that they spent on sustaining the 'healthy community environment' instead of literally anything else they could be doing right now.

They also process over 40 appeals each month. The process to appeal can be found on the website. Based on what I've seen as owner of both Forums and the Discord - if you are truly on the 'right side' of the argument then you will win the appeal. But often that is just not the case. It's not the case because a lot of the rules are objective. They are context free. You did X. You got reported for X, usually by someone playing with you in the same game. If all boxes are checked, moderation action is taken. It's not difficult, as I tried to ask @Nuggets in this topic: to me it feels you make it difficult for yourself. Just don't do X. Nobody can report you. Nobody can troll you. Problem solved. Why are you so hung up still wanting to do it?

When the rules are discussed it's often not really about the rules. It's about the decisions of the moderation team. Those are done by the moderators. And therefore it is often about the moderators themselves. About how much wrong they do. And about how awful they are. About how unfit they are to make such decisions. About how they don't understand the game. 'Complaints' that are written in such a way that they're at the edge of the rules, but definitely long past the spirit of them.

Let me be quite clear: if it were up to me I would have banned some individuals of this community a long time ago. No appeal process possible. Just get out, do whatever you're doing somewhere else.

Spreading miss information, (practically) harassment of moderators and/or other contributors, miss representing facts, attacking the board, creating conspiracy theories, making 'silly' lobby titles - it was fun the first time. Especially being the target of a conspiracy theory that is about one self. Now, as president of the association that represents the community I have access to all the data. I am owner of the forums. I am the owner of Discord server. I see everything. With all this data reality hits. And it hits hard. Some of the people that I would like to outright ban are not just being silly, they are being ridiculous. Downright damaging the community in the long term, and the 'trust factor' between the players, various teams and the association. Outrageous in my opinion.

Sadly, it is not entirely up to me. According to the statutes 3.3 expelling a member of the association requires 3/4 of the board to agree. And I assume that dismissing team members based on the Governance structure would be similar, al though the procedure is not described there. I do not (yet) want to go through this.

Time and time again, the greater majority of interactions by* the moderation team abide to not just the letter, but also the spirit of the contributing guidelines. I want to thank them for that. Not only do they filter out the worst of the worst for the rest of us. For some reason, they are still decent enough to respond to these topics in a civil manner. Topics that I feel are less about the rules themselves, and more about moderators enforcing them.

In response to @Deli, @Giebmasse described the 'normal' approach to discuss rules. See also his response here. If you truly want to discuss rules, then please read the contributing guidelines and make sure that you understand it. Then proceed to actually discuss the rules - not the decisions. Not the moderators. But the rules and its implications. Why does it (not) contribute to a more healthy environment, according to you? I hope you'll soon find out that it's actually really hard, if not impossible to make (a set of) rules that 'just work' all the time, for everyone involved.

With all of that said - I look forward to the suggestions by @Tagada and @Nuggets to try and help make the rules better.

---

If you want to show a token of appreciation of the moderation team, then please take the time to upvote the response of @Giebmasse about how to actually discuss the rules. Or just any civil response from a moderator in this topic, or the topic of Deli. It's a small gesture. But sometimes it can be really meaningful to show some appreciation - even if it is just an up vote.

[Fichom]

If you don't mind me partaking in this discussion: I'm very concerned by Nugget's general outlook on some topics here.

If you don't mind me quoting you, Nuggets, and then deliberating what my concern is. It might be a simple misunderstanding on my part, but the volume and frequency at which these sentiments are presented is what pushed me to voice my observation. I've added a (...) if I took a quote out of the middle of the sentence, but I tried to keep only full quotes, that seem to present your sentiment correctly, even if observed in vacuum. If you think I've somehow misrepresented your own position and concerns, do let me know and I'll correct and acknowledge them. Additionally, the number stated in square brackets (e.g. [1]) is just a way to denote in which post a quote originates from. It helps me a bit to format the quotes, and hopefully showcases the volume and frequency that I claim exist:

---

Who is talking here?

Before I get into the meat of my observation, I'd like to do a bit of uncovering of the FAF "hierarchy" - not because it is hidden knowledge, but because people often don't (and I can understand them) take extra time to research stuff in-depth. If you are familiar with the FAF's hierarchy (or can't be bothered, but you might be confused as to some parts of the latter text), you can skip to the next title, which would be: "What are rules, Who are the rules for, and When do the rules apply".

The structure of FAF may not be known to many, but we have a project in the works that should make it a bit more easy to understand. However, it is very important that everyone who participates in this discussion (or is just observing it) and other similar that might follow understands it, so I will elaborate on it a bit here, since the project is not that close to completion (which would be my own, personal fault).

The FAF Association is de jure and de facto entity that represents the entire FAF community: PvE players, noobs and pros, contributors, trolls, inventors and bores, habitual rule breakers, yappers and gappers - everyone. Mostly anyone can join it, and try and affect the way FAF is ran for (in their view) the better - assuming they can convince the majority to agree with them. A reminder that the Association is a legal entity.

The FAF Association Board, or as we often abbreviate it, the Board, is the entity that is chosen by the aforementioned Association to actually run things on a daily basis. In theory, the Board is tasked with keeping the services available, administering finances, processing moderation issues, updating the game, organizing tournaments, posting news, deciding on maps for the matchmaker, balancing the game, and much more. If the FAF community had 60 members, the Board could do it. But that's not really achievable with the size of FAF. That is why, in a similar way that the Association tasks the Board to handle things, the Board delegates (most) tasks for the FAF Teams to handle.

Every Team is headed by the Team Lead, who is usually the person with adequate experience and understanding of the topic their Team covers. I won't go into details on all of them, but one of them is also the Moderation Team. They are a group of people that the Board, and by proxy, the Association, and by further proxy, the entirety of FAF community (as a majority rule, ofc) deemed capable of and was tasked with handling the work that they are doing.

Why am I saying this? Because I think it is very important we all understand who's who here. The moderation team wasn't picked by moderation team because they wanted to play moderators. They were (retroactively, and I can dissect this topic further, but I don't think this particular thread is a great place to do it) chosen because the Association decided they were both:
A) a necessary part of the FAF Community
B) capable of executing the work they are executing

I know this is a bit bureaucratic-heavy topic, but I just want to make sure we all understand the "hierarchy". That's why it is the moderation team you will primarily go to for moderation appeals, rule questions, etc. They are the base-line heavy-lifters when it comes to these topics. If you find any of their work unsatisfying, the next in the hierarchy is the Team Lead (currently, that'd be Giebmasse). If you are not satisfied with that person's work, you go to the Board next. If you are not satisfied with how the Board handled your case, you try and sway the Association to your side.

What are rules, Who are the rules for, and When do the rules apply

[1] Why would this be bannable if ANY other person reports this, other than one of the ALIVE players on the team of the offender?
[1] 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.
[2] By saying you can't ever do that, you are trying to force the rules on people who didn't ask.
[2] 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.
[3] 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?
[5] 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.
[6] However, I would still like to know the reason why the opponent team CAN report this.
[6] 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.
[6] 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?
[7] 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.
[8] 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.
[10] Its the enforcement of rules in games where no participant asked them to be enforced

From reading these, especially grouped they way they are above, there's an obvious gross misunderstanding of how rules work. And I'm not talking FAF rules. I'm talking rules, as a general concept. This is a most troublesome misunderstanding/misconception in my opinion - and it could potentially have real-life implications if you don't figure it out, regardless of FAF or any other gaming/leisurely community you might join.

Whatever anyone might say in this discussion on rules is just pointless, unless we establish what rules are, how they are implemented in FAF, and how that affects the way moderation process is carried out.

So what are rules? Rules are a set of explicit regulations and principles that govern conduct and procedures in a particular activity. Did I use Google to formulate this sentence? Yes I did. What is important is that we understand what this sentence means. Its the basis of what follows. Allow me to be so brazen as to break down a couple of parts of the definition which you might not understand the meaning of. I'm not trying to showcase some intellectual superiority here - there are many non-native English speakers around here, and I want to be sure we are all on the same page with this definition, which is loaded with some very "big words". I'll keep borrowing "Google's" definitions just so everyone can verify them.

• explicit - stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt - similar words: clear, exact, unambiguous
• govern - conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of (a state, organization, or people) with authority - similar words: manage, control

This means that rules should unambiguously define what is or, more often, isn't accepted, as well as unambiguously define the result of breaking them. Notice how nowhere it states who the rules apply to.

In general, rules apply to the group of people that agreed to those rules. That's it. Sometimes they might agree to the rules directly (explicitly), e.g. playing a game with a ball, a group of friends agrees that they will only touch the ball with their legs, or by signing a contract. Many times, however, people agree to the rules implicitly and/or indirectly (by signing a general "agreement" to whatever event or entity they are partaking in). When one signs up to a chess tournament, he agrees to play the game of chess using the rules for chess, and not rules for checkers or tennis. Another example is entering a foreign country, or gaining citizenship - there's intrinsic and presupposed agreement to follow the laws (rules) of that country (the act of requesting citizenship, for example, is your acknowledgment you will follow the rules).

When you create a FAF account - to play games using the FAF client, participate in social interactions in official FAF channels, share your creations (contribute) with the community - you are explicitly accepting the rules set by FAF (or, technically, the Association). There's no individual, group or subgroup that this does not befall. It doesn't matter if it is just a bunch of friends that don't have almost any contact with the community at large, or the most active group in the community or if you are in some "position of power" (e.g. members of Association or Board, Team Leads, etc.). It doesn't even matter how big the group is. Rules are rules. They define what we, the community, find important enough that we went out of our way to create rules about it. Rules should be followed, with no exception, and no loosey-goosey shenanigans.

Now, does this mean that the rules are infallible and indefinite? NO, no no no. We can change the rules, we can add rules, we can remove rules. We can make them more broad and all-encompassing, or we can go into the most minute of details for each and every case and subcase the rules define. However, currently active rules are there to ensure that things happen the way the majority sees it fit, and all should act accordingly. If someone doesn't like the rules, there's three things they can do: try and change them by winning over the majority, break them - masquerading as an attempt to try and showcase tyranny (it would be a tyranny if you could not change them fairly), or, and I'm not saying this to try and scare or drive people away, but only because it's the only option left: leave the community/organization that they do not see as conducive to their desires.

To touch on the "ball game with friends" example I mentioned earlier - one can either try to convince his friends to change the rules, be an ass and break the rules, or stop playing.

One might ask themselves if there's a time when the rules might not apply. The short of it is: no. Rules apply at all times. That is true in both the most totalitarian tyrannies, and in the most just, merciful and forgiving asylums.

What makes this not overbearing in "good and just" systems is that not every single action is under scrutiny, but rather the enforcement of the rules relies on some system of reports. Requiring a report by the community itself is pretty much the loosest enforcement system you can have (other than maybe self-reporting, but that's a pipe dream). Some systems might implement additional methods of detection and enforcement - often reserved for rules that are regarded as more important by the community. E.g., you could have traffic speed cameras in areas of high importance to the community (often schools, and other pedestrian-busy areas) to ensure drivers are on their best behavior. You could easily make this simple system completely overbearing, by having the entire road network be covered by speed cameras, making any kind of deviation from the stipulated immediately punished. You could also make it more forgiving, by introducing margins which allow members to deviate from the prescribed norm (even when detected, e.g. by a camera). Whatever might be decided on, it needs to be in the rules, or it is open to interpretation, and thus misuse which inevitably leads to indignation.

Just because rules apply at all times on all members of the community equally, does not mean that the rules themselves can not stipulate different outcomes for breaking the rules in different ways, or by different people. But again, any such deviations and additions then must be incorporated into the rules. There are plenty of real-world examples of this: a person breaking the speed limit can be punished differently than a different person breaking the same speed limit in the same place by the same amount - e.g. by being a repeat offender, or by doing it in adverse weather conditions. I'm sure we can all think of many other such examples.

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Unlike the example with the group of friends in a game with a ball, FAF is not anyone's personal playground that "just happens to also be used by a community". A single individual or a minority (vastly, in the cases you describe, Nuggets), does not get to set what the rules are, who they are applied to and when they are applicable. A "closed community" does not exists as a constituent of FAF. Yes you can have your circle of friends who you often play with, and I'm really happy that you are able to both find such people and enjoy your time with them. From what I've read here, however, what you are asking for is, quite ironically, the very thing you and "the people you talk to" are claiming to be (according to you) concerned about: [a police state].

I hope we can all be now satisfied with this. It is very important, and that's why I gave it my best effort to be as clear as possible. I was not concise, but that was on purpose - this time around, anyhow. If we really want to improve this community, we can not, under any circumstance, question whether rules should be applied or not. They should. But we should feel free to question: "Are the rules we are currently using complementary to the community we would like to have." We can, and should, also question how those rules are enforced. "Is there bias?", "Are we being controlled by a minority?" and "How can we trust the enforcement is by the rules?"

With what moderate amount of communication with the Moderation team I've had, I'd truly like to show you, Nuggets, and everyone, that this is not some kind of an action-movie tyrannic state that needs overthrowing. Moderation is a complex situation. I've had my touches with it - I've been muted unfairly in a misunderstanding before, and my appeal was processed and accepted. I've also been muted quite justly. I might've been lucky. But there are reasons some things are opaque. There are indeed also some things that are opaque that, in my honest opinion, don't need to be. I'm personally all for maximum transparency - but only as much as we can achieve, without compromising the efficiency and purpose of the moderation process. I can confirm that Moderation team is working around the clock to explore which data is safe to publish and bring to light - in addition to the usual: volunteering a lot of personal time and energy on this most thankless job in any community - being just [the police].

What is the criteria for when a game should be moderatable

[6] Yes, the games / replays are watchable via the vault, but imo this should not automatically make them adhere to the rules.
[6] I get that noone is (probably) ever going to report a single-player game, (...)
[8] I'm not saying moderators are actively looking through the replays (I don't know why this was mentioned multiple times now).

As I elaborated above, the amount of scrutiny is what makes a moderation system feel more or less oppressive. In theory, every game (or other action) that happens on this platform is under the scrutiny of rules. The Moderation Team is not, however, setup as a hunting team. And you seem to agree with that. I'm personally glad this is the case. Not only because I do believe that overbearing enforcement is just as bad as no enforcement whatsoever, but also because if it were the case that moderators were actively sifting through everything, people would be getting their bans with a 10 year delay (that's just how much work there is).

As also touched upon above, some rules in FAF are considered more important than others. This affects both how (by who) they can be reported, as well as under how much scrutiny particular actions are. In general, anyone privy to the infraction can report it. E.g. sending inappropriate messages in a public channel means anyone can report it (everyone is privy to public channels). For in-game events, it was decided (not by the moderation team) that anyone participating in the game is considered privy (even though technically, anyone can look at the replay).

Exploits, for example, are considered a very serious issue, and are under more scrutiny. Just to try and bring it closer to all readers why they are treated with more care, consider the following:

In the initial phases of this "big debate", I inadvertently observed a short message which very vaguely described a particular exploit. I've never heard of this exploit before, never seen it discussed or performed. I've just read the 3 words. Three. Number 3. Three words that describe what the exploit does. These three words were enough for me to launch local dev environment game, try the exploit out, and figure it in all of 10 seconds of trying.

I'm obviously not going to use this exploit, or even discuss it, because, despite the fact the original sender (of the 3 words) was of the opinion that that particular exploit is hardly impactful/useful on highly-rated players in FAF; that particular exploit could have tremendous impact on games for players who are rated under say 1.2k global. That'd be a hugely, and I do mean hugely, larger group of people than the author of the 3-word exploit is a part of.

Considering also that, unlike the "neat" little group at he top of the rankings (which I'm not trying to lower - it's an amazing achievement of skill I'm neither willing nor, likely, capable of pursuing), many people in the community would not even recognize that the exploit is happening. Most would probably not notice it at all. Of those that did notice it, most of them would assume it was a weird interaction. Of those that did not think it was a weird interaction, most of them would think it is a bug. Of those that assumed it was a bug, most of them wouldn't go out of their way to report the "bug" they witnessed. And most of the remaining few who assumed it was some oddity and not a bug, would not be aware it was a bannable offence.

Thus, there are many things we need to consider when we decide on the rules. This of course also includes the criteria for reporting (and moderation) actions. But understand that the rule is applicable to every member of the community. Just because a small group within it might not have the issue that the rule is trying to resolve, doesn't mean we should or even can formulate the ruling in a way that satisfies that small group (even if they were the more sensical one) - it needs to be resistant against misinterpretation of everyone in the community.

How should a person/moderator make a ruling:

[6] 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?
[8] However, it just feels like you're taking the easy way out by censoring / banning everything in that direction.

I'm hoping I covered this in the "long" part of this comment. But I do find it concerning enough that I'm willing to touch upon it just once again, briefly. Yes, the rules are to be followed to the letter. Any deviation from that is the exact thing that would allow the moderation team to "rule from the shadows" and "do things of their own accord".

By following rules exactly how they are written, and not allowing any poetic freedom, we ensure a properly functioning system. Again, that doesn't mean we can't change those rules to fit us, the community, better. It also doesn't mean we can't be more transparent with the moderation process. But are you really trying to suggest moderators should have the freedom to interpret the rules however they want? I don't think they should, and I think you'd agree with that.

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Anyways. I hope we can have a good, quality discussion on this whole class of topics. I do want to repeat that there are efforts in improving things. And they did start before this recent request to reconsider moderation. I hope that, if you still feel there are faults in the system or the rules, you now at least know where to ask about the particulars, identify faults with them, and how you can move forward to fix them.

Do not presume to avoid the rules. Bend them to your will - albeit as a part of the majority. Otherwise people will see you as yet another tyrant .

[Nuggets]

@Jip @Fichom

Thanks for the thoughtful and structured replies.
Let me be clear: I'm not arguing against the existence of rules or saying we should throw moderation out the window. I'm arguing that some rules are too broadly applied in contexts where enforcement seems unnecessary, especially when all players involved are fine with the situation.
I understand the need for consistency, transparency, and “context-free” enforcement. But when that enforcement extends to private 1v1s or niche situations where no one in the game was harmed — and the only potential harm is speculative (like spreading exploit knowledge) — that’s where I see an issue (as in, the harm is the spreading of knowledge, not the fact that the exploit was done).
Let me use a simple analogy: if two friends play a casual match and mess around with bugs or exploits (while not affecting anyone else), it should not be treated the same as someone doing it in a public 6v6 teamgame. Especially when there’s no external visibility (e.g. not streamed, not shared, not discussed). “Security through obscurity” should not justify blanket bans in every context.
Regarding the “just don’t do X and you won’t get banned” argument — I get it. But that doesn’t address whether X should actually be bannable in a specific context. That’s the discussion I hoped to have: not about misrepresenting moderators or sowing drama, but about refining where, when, and why enforcement kicks in.
On the reserved mex rule, I understand the goal is to make things simple for everyone, especially new players. But at the same time, long-standing community norms around slots and resource sharing are a real thing. Saying "no one owns anything" goes against actual in-game etiquette that players follow and expect. I’m not asking for a rulebook for every map — just some space to acknowledge these established patterns when evaluating reports.
To Fichom’s point — I appreciate you quoting me fairly. If there’s a misunderstanding, I’d rather clarify than argue. I’m not anti-moderation, and I’m not saying “do whatever you want.” I’m saying maybe there’s room to better distinguish between actual harm and internal, consensual decisions.
I'll keep thinking about how to turn this into a formal proposal, especially on limited enforcement for closed 1v1 or consensual games.

[Sheikah]

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

Regarding the “just don’t do X and you won’t get banned” argument — I get it. But that doesn’t address whether X should actually be bannable in a specific context. That’s the discussion I hoped to have: not about misrepresenting moderators or sowing drama, but about refining where, when, and why enforcement kicks in.

This desire to have the context come into play will almost certainly cause more issues that it fixes. Over the last two years almost the moderation team has been working to remove contextual cases from the rules. This was because this directly lead to the situations where moderators had to judge the game state. And that just leads to endless back and forth and interpretations. Then the reason they sought to clarify and remove context was because of complaints from the community around lack of clarity.

It is better that the rules are very clear cut and free from interpretation so that everyone knows what to expect when they report and handle reports. I think the desire to add ambiguity back based on game state or how people were feeling at the time will just lead to a worse situation overall with regards to moderation.

[SpikeyNoob]

I do not currently have the time to fully read this thread. Eventually I will. For now I just want to remind everyone that we are real humans with jobs, families, and lives. For me this has meant I have been unable to keep up with the amount of work some of our more active mods put in. But even our most active mods have these other commitments. My point when discussing how rules should be enforced, the amount of time and effort involved in making a ruling is incredibly important. If that time and effort becomes too high than reports will begin to pile up and pretty soon any 1100 and base ctrl k in a won game without any recourse. In my mind the blanket ban on base ctrl k is a small price to pray in order to help keep the moderation machine going. Ill write something longer whenever i have time. This is all my opinion and not an official view of the mod team.