A Public Apology

[zanzibar]

To my surprise and disappointment, I found this in my inbox today:


From: stfrn
Date: 03.10.2005, 10:44
To: zanzibar
Subject: Notice of punishment ingame

stfrn (Retse, in game)
Enough is enough. I have a mailbox full of complaints about your actions ingmae [sic] and out of game, I have banned you ingame for a month. If you continue your behavior on the forum, you will likely be banned here as well.

You may reduce your sentance [sic] by doing the following:
Applogize [sic] to the dragon counil [sic] and others invloved [sic] for slandering their members out of game and ingame in OOC situations.
Applogize [sic] to the GMs such as Cereja and Zayek for false claims of abuse when logs prove that they were simply busy and not doing anything actively against you.

When I was new to Plane Shift, one of my early experiences involved repeated problems with certain members of the guild ?The Dragon Council?.  This involved malicious kill-stealing in the ?Tefusang valley?, then the individuals would brag to me about how I couldn?t stop them because they were friends with GMs.

Those experiences permanently coloured my perception of The Dragon Council.  During a later guild war, TDC members abused safe zones, which also coloured my image of their guild.  Later on, a DC member who I had not spoken to was extremely harsh and insulting to me due to accusations I was making on the forum, and also surely in part due to accusations others had made towards me.  That individual has since left the Plane Shift community.  On every issue, when I spoke to DC members in positions of power or who had good reputations in the PS community, I was met with insults, disbelief, and libel.

Despite all this, I have been too eager in my complaints against the Dragon Council.  While I have always maintained that there are merely a few bad apples within the guild as a whole, I have given the wrong impression and have not well enough communicated my thoughts.  The majority of the Dragon Council has good intentions and is a positive influence on the PS community.  It has only been a few ?bad apples? who I have had negative experiences with.

I can only hope that this clarifies what my attitudes are and gives apology and retraction where apology and retraction is due.

The other side of things is my relationship with the Game Masters (GMs).  It?s a similar story.  The first experience I ever had with a GM was when I asked an out-of-character question in the public chat.  The GM, who is no longer a part of the PS community, ?freaked out? on me for an extended period of time, saying many harsh things to me in reference to ?interrupting her (his) role-playing experience.?  Since then, I?ve had mixed experiences with the GMs.  In specific instances, I?ve had negative experiences with two GMs, and repeated negative experiences with one of the two.  In short, I found that these individuals acted unilaterally, without attention to all sides of the story, and without reference to past decisions made by GMs on similar instances.

There have been certain extremely well documented occasions that a number of other GMs have agreed with me to be cases where a GM was out of line to one degree or another.  However, there have been other instances that I documented and reported which were spurious, weak, insignificant, or wrong-headed.  For jumping the gun on any mud I could throw at these individuals, I apologize.  For saying things about these individuals that are objectively false or too extreme in position, I apologize.  For all their faults, these individuals are assets to the PS community and I should not have bad-mouthed them to such extremes as I have in the past.

What alarms me is the nature of my chastisement.  Stfrn has said that his mailbox has been flooded by complaints about my in-game behaviour.  Perhaps it is right to complain about me, but in many instances, I have surely not been the only one at fault.  I?m not saying outright that I?m sinned against more than sinning ? but if one did a count I believe it would be darned near close.  The fact is that words with such bile are coming my way, yet at the same time I?ve seen no response to complaints I?ve made over the past months, many of which were well founded, well agreed upon, and well documented.  

This worries me.  What is of greater concern to me however is that this is the second in what will hopefully not become a pattern of events.  The Dragon Council is an influential guild with many characters, many members, and many ?alts?.  That is, alternate characters to a person?s main character such that they have multiple active characters per account.  When I was in a guild called the Guild Knights, I was also ousted due to a quasi-public outcry that was kept anonymous to me.  The reason given was that I had an ?abrasive in-game persona.?  The leader of that guild was saddened by the decision he had to make, but he was left with no choice.  It was later discovered however that The Dragon Council infiltrated the Guild Knights with spies, many of which were alternates.  That is ? people who had main characters in the Dragon Council created alternate characters to join the Guild Knights for the purpose of espionage or general interest.  I cannot help but conclude that given the course of events that I witnessed, a partial or significant portion of that ?outcry? consisted of enraged or embittered Dragon Council members disguised as Guild Knights.

With this in mind, and given the size of the reaction against me as reported by Stfrn, and given the nature of the events which have actually transpired, I cannot help but be somewhat suspicious of the going-ons which I have not directly observed.

This is not to say that I haven?t done wrong, and this is not to say that there are not individuals who I owe apology to.  I have done wrong, and I have given apologies in the past and I give apologies again now in this document.  If there are any questions for me, for the time being I can still be reached via PM on the forums.  I have put effort into being courteous, frank, and helpful in my contribution to forum discussions.  Despite that, there is still the possibility that one day I will visit the boards only to find my account deleted.  In that instance and if there is reason to contact me, use the email zanzibarband@hotmail.com.  I find it unfortunate that events have seemed to escalate to this point.

[Kiern]

Care to sum up the gist of the post for those of us who only slightly care?

I only read the PM and this causes me to wonder - is slandering someone in-game against the rules?  What if you were an evil character?  

I wouldn\'t worry about being banned on the forums.  Most of your posts are no different then anyone elses.

[acraig]

Although I am not fully aware of all the details here I applaud your post.  It takes a lot to actually make a post like this.   We\'ve had some issues with GMs and we are taking a more active role in overseeing them.

We are also planning a more improved character logging/data mining system so we can quickly see what is going on in the game and monitor player behaviours.

Edit:  Heh, Kiern doesn\'t beat around the bush

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Kiern
Care to sum up the gist of the post for those of us who only slightly care?

If you only slight care, then it probably wasn\'t written for you.

I\'m afraid that there\'s so much information and dialogue included because I feel it\'s necessary to understand my message.  Summing it up in a few easy sentences won\'t get my message across.  At the same time, what\'s important to one person might not be important to another person, so summing it up is further complicated.  Sorry about that.

[Kiern]

Well I\'m mostly curious in why you were banned, because as you said the apology doesn\'t apply to me, from what I get it was because you complained a lot?

[acraig]

All I ask is to treat players with respect.  Note I said \'players\', if your character is evil, make sure they are \'in character\' evil and not to the point of causing grief to the other player.

[Kiern]

Originally posted by acraig
All I ask is to treat players with respect.  Note I said \'players\', if your character is evil, make sure they are \'in character\' evil and not to the point of causing grief to the other player.

Well I mean, if all GMs were like you that would be a good rule.  But unfortunately not everyone has great discretion, so shouldn\'t the rules be a little more defined then that?  Causing grief is generally what evil people like to do.

I\'m not arguing, by the way, I\'m just curious because I\'m sure this has been gone over.

On second thought I kind of hijacked zanzibar\'s post.  Sorry man, nevermind, I\'ll bring it up somewhere else if it comes up again.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Kiern
Well I\'m mostly curious in why you were banned, because as you said the apology doesn\'t apply to me, from what I get it was because you complained a lot?

There\'s a decent amount of history leading up to this.  It\'s best to read through the post, but officially, I\'m being banned for bad mouthing the dragon council as well as a few specific game masters.  Of course, there\'s more surrounding the issues than just that, and because of some particularly nasty things which have happened I\'ve been left suspicious of this whole chain of events.  The essential message however is that I\'m appologizing to key individuals and groups for certain things I\'ve been saying.  However, the rest is not filler.

[Nikodemus]

I think i should add somethink to this, because this what happened to Zanzibar could as well happen to me if i wasn\'t trying to solve conflicts, but than make them bigger.
I didn\'t had big problems with Shalmaneser (i\'m sorry if i have mispelled) It is true, it may be a bit hard to talk with him. He is also not kind of person who i would trust. But i don\'t think so he would attack someone with ooc behaviour without receiving the same from the other side. Sure Zanzibar isn\'t innocent here, but if he was banned, most people who reported him, should be banned too. Many people  treat every attack against them as ooc. And they are unable to see it as an act of ic evilness. And so they report. Some of them don\'t even know what is roleplaying. I would be suprised if guilds like Dragon Council or Guild Knights havent such people. It is effect of recruiting they way how they did and maybe still are.
Additionally he have generally bad reputation and he have almost no way to change this, this leads to ooc accusiations, even if he is evil ic.
There is also the KS (a word which should not exist). The way how many people think about it, is completly wrong, and definition provided by GM (the one i heard) is also wrong. I don\'t blame GM\'s much, as you can\'t do really much about it.

The general feeling i get is: Zanzibar is one, but he have a lot of enemies, so they report him, and GM ban him, because of too many complaints.

I don\'t have any worth proof for all this, just my word. I\'m sure the situation is a bit diferent how i see it, as i don\'t know all. It\'s just my opinion.

One last thing: a world where everybody are having fun and in which are both good and evil characters is utopia Just like communism.

[darkw00t]

actually in a way i agree with Zanzibar... he was very good statements against the DC but they have good statements against him too.... even though i don\'t completely hate DC (i don\'t like a couple of there members) they aren\'t one of my favourite guilds..... but i hate the Guild Warriors (i amstarting to like them a bit more) and the Klyros of Fury used to have some bad members (Constrabus and a few others are great people though) but really i have my reasons to not like a certain guild, KoF have changed alot of there, bad members have been kicked out ( i think) and really i have nothing against them but the Guild Warriors will always have a bad reputation with me, that is how it will probably stay but i guess Zanzibar has a few reasons to hate DC but i would not hate every member of Guild Warriors, they have a few nice members but most of them i don\'t like, so Zanzibar will probably just not like the DC until he makes a good friend with them or the DC agree with him (i doubt that)

[AryHann]

Well, this is surely a sensitive subject.

Problem in all issues is that before judging there should be the possibility to hear the so-called \"two bells\".
This is valid - IMHO - not just concerning this post (in which it is expressed zanzibar\'s point-of-view -POV from now on) but also in his \"punishment\". It is also true that as it is right now in PS there is no a \"court\" system, so the GMs have the power to decide these tricky situations and well, the problem is that they are really tricky ;-)

I don\'t think the matter here is about playing an evil character or not, I think the matter is going over the borderline between role-play and not.
I had previously experience of this matter when I was implementor of a little italian MUD and for avoiding people complaining about punishment and such, I was - as goddess of justice - writing a really detailed rules system and the ones that were not respecting it - depending from which rule it was - could be judged in a court system. This was making people happy. Anyway, the entity of the punishment was gradual (and of course depending from the act), but I was usually first of all trying to give a not so harsh punishment - e.g. muting the player for one week - and if the thing was repeated the entity could become bigger.

Now, of course I am not pushing for making \"my\" system working in PS, this is not the goal of the post (even if it would be nice to see a more objective way of judging people), but it is probably true that it should be clear who has started the insult chain and why.
Personally, if I get insulted, I insult back, but it is not for this reason that if there are witnesses around me, they get angry with me. They get angry with the one who started, especially if without any valid reason.

I think that from what I can understand of the situation, not being a GM, not being especially involved in the game is:
1)yes, it is probably true that certain characters have a different treatment depending from the level of knowledge with certain others, but this is a thing you cannot control that much. The matter is GMs should be as more objective as possible independently from their other players and they should stick to rules - that IMHO are not so well defined yet.
2) accusing a person of something can be tricky. Of course you explain that you didn\'t like certain actions of certain people, but I really don\'t see why going over the borderline of politeness and respect. Independently from their behaviour, starting to \"behave\" bad and not in \"RPG\" situation, is not good. I think that this is the \"real\" problem.
3) saying that others might have answered bad to you after your provocations could be a way to defend yourself, nd somehow you are right. Surely their behaviour was not nice. But, you have been probably provoked by some not-so-objective/nice/whatever adjective behaviour and they probably got too.
4) anyway, people can do mistakes. This on both sides.
I think that if GMs would have a more detailed rules system there will be less problems, but as it is PS right now, this is definetely an aspect under development IMHO.
5) I don\'t think, really, that the punishment is connected with playing an evil character, because what was going on was NOT RPG connected. And surely, this is what is being punished. (even if RPG is really hard to judge due to the fact that it is not really a super objective subject - each person has his POV on how RPG should be conduct).

Hope to have said some sensed and clear stuff,


EDIT: mispells

[Moogie]

When breaking rules, nothing you did beforehand and nobody else who is involved makes any difference. You either deserve it or not; and if what you said about you \'badmouthing\' people is true, then you do. That\'s not to say other people arn\'t getting punished for their actions; nobody is obligated to tell you everything that\'s being done, so assuming you\'re the ONLY person being chastised here is nothing short of funny.

All you\'re gonna get from posting this here is a long, endless, pointless discussion with everyone who isn\'t involved and, like Kiern, hardly cares. If you took this seriously at all, you would have just emailed this directly to Talad. But each to their own. I\'ll leave it open for a while to watch me being right again.

[zanzibar]

To Darkwoot:

I have only had direct bad experiences with a few select DC members.

In relating those experiences to seniour DC members, there was further clashing.

The DC as a whole has mostly been a positive influence on the PS community.  To make sweeping generalizations about DC members in such negative terms is wrong-headed and unfortunate.



To AryHann:

I believe the official action is in response to OOC behaviour and IC behaviour interpretted as OOC behaviour.  In my opinion, there has been a fair amount of behaviour which has been disruptive to the PS community.  Others have told me that I\'m wrong, and that it has all been IC.  Obviously, others believe that it has been all or mostly OOC.  Further, a decent number of people have decided that the responsibility for this disruption rests soley or mostly on my shoulders.  I believe that this is a framework for understanding why the official action has been made.  At the same time, I have also been informed that there is not concensus among the GMs on many issues surrounding this official action.  I hope that resolves things more.



To Moogie:

I believe that you\'re oversimplifying the issue.  I have posted the thread publically and overtly, not to promote discussion, but to give my appology to the PS community and to the individuals more directly involved.  Stfrn\'s instructions were to appologize to the GMs who have been criticized as well as to the DC guild as a whole.  I believe that by posting this publically, I have realized those instructions.  I felt that this was not enough, as the PS community has felt disruption as well, and there are individuals who would benefit from knowing the history involved.


That said, I find these sentences of yours particularly disturbing:

All you\'re gonna get from posting this here is a long, endless, pointless discussion with everyone who isn\'t involved and, like Kiern, hardly cares. If you took this seriously at all, you would have just emailed this directly to Talad. But each to their own. I\'ll leave it open for a while to watch me being right again.

Isn\'t this exactly the kind of condescending and heavy-handed behaviour that people are complaining about to acraig, stfrn, xordan, and yourself?  The question is rhetorical and I am not looking for discussion on the topic.  From what friends in the community have told me, the issue is already being discussed among persons of authority.

[Leeloo]

Originally posted by Moogie
All you\'re gonna get from posting this here is a long, endless, pointless discussion with everyone who isn\'t involved and, like Kiern, hardly cares. If you took this seriously at all, you would have just emailed this directly to Talad. But each to their own. I\'ll leave it open for a while to watch me being right again.

Erm, he was asked to \"Applogize [sic] to the dragon counil [sic] and others invloved [sic] for slandering their members out of game and ingame in OOC situations. Applogize [sic] to the GMs such as Cereja and Zayek for false claims of abuse when logs prove that they were simply busy and not doing anything actively against you.\"

I don\'t know about you, but I wouldn\'t consider emailing it directly to Talad as apologizing to the dragon council or those GMs.

I have a feeling that you read his post as a complaint about how things were handled. I don\'t, I read it (and I think he meant it) as a honest apology. He could just have kept it short and apologized for everything, but that wouldn\'t be honest, it would be apologizing because he was told to do so. Here we have a guy apolologizing to those he feels he has done wrong towards, and explaining why he doesn\'t feel that everyone is owed an apology (that\'s where the honest part comes in).

We\'ve all been told to apologize to someone back in school (ok, maybe not all, but I have), and told \"I\'m sorry (yeah right), I won\'t do that again (unless I\'m bored)\", and so on, just to satisfy the teachers. That\'s is what I would expect in a case like this, but I believe Zanzibar made a honest apology, and I agree with Acraig that he should be applauded for that.

[Moogie]

Ok. I\'d just woken up and hadn\'t fully read it. Sorry about that. Still, it didn\'t need to be posted here on the forum. If he was willing to write such a long and honest apology, it wouldn\'t have taken that much more time to send it individually to the GMs involved and the DC guild (post on their forum (if any) perhaps?). I still stand that it\'s inviting unneeded discussion from people who have no idea what they\'re talking about, me included.