Abuse of Vulgarity

[BattleMaster Server]

Summary:	Abuse of Vulgarity
Violation:	Social Contract
World:	Atamara
Complainer:	Derek Anderson
About:	Lyman Stone

Full Complaint Text:
A player stated their character did not follow a religion, so Vellos reported this as vulgar to his character.  Some other players apparently agreed this was also vulgar, and the character in question (not one of mine), lost a point of honor.  Using a mnix of IC and OOC logic, Vellos basically stated he was trying to prove a point that all characters need to follow a religion.  The other player then RP'd that their character did believe in a higher power, but did not follow an organized religion.  So, rather than giving the player/character a chance to RP this situation, Vellos silently reported this as vulgar and slinked away, not discussing it until called out.  Total abuse of this mechanism, and by a magistrate...where does it end?  During the times of the crusades, I am certain a Muslim would have found a Christian vulgar and vice versa...so any time a person of another religion makes a statement, are we, as players supposed to report this as vulgar?  Clearly, Vellos violated the "fair play" of the social contract in order to (unsurprisingly) prove his point/get his way.  The point of honor should be restored to the character Athena, and Vellos should be given some type of warning.  Also, due to personal biases, Vellos, Chenier, and Indirik should recuse themselves from this case.

[Indirik]

Sorry, I can't recuse myself. I'm not a Magistrate.

There is a public list of Magistrates posted in a sticky thread here.

[Geronus]

Can you elaborate on your reasoning? What makes this a violation of the Fair Play clause? I would like to see an objectively stated argument free of any references to actual players or personal attacks, please.

Moderator note: I will be moderating this thread aggressively.

[Geronus]

Also of relevance:

Here is the text that appears on the complaint page when you click on the link to report Vulgarity:

As a noble, you can expect to be treated with respect and dignity, and expect certain manners from your peers. That does not mean they can not be offensive or they can not backstab you, but it does mean their manner of speech and behaviour should stand above the common, vulgar peasants.

You can mark another noble's words as vulgar and unbefitting of his class, and they will be forwarded to several randomly selected distinguished nobles for a short peer-review. If they agree on your assessment, the vulgar noble will lose a point of honour for behaving in a non-noble way.
If you complain falsely too often, you yourself will lose respect among your peers, and suffer the consequences.

This is a tool to enforce proper roleplaying and keep the atmosphere and quality level of the game up. The focus is on the manner of speech, not its contents.

[Elroy]

One of the other 3 players involved in the private (not realm wide back and forth) IC and OOC dialogue said it best (I have removed all inflammatory statements from the text):

"I personally think that this was abuse of an OOC policing tool intended to keep the game relatively clean and free of offensive issues. 
I feel that this is abuse of game mechanics and a form of power gaming that is strictly prohibited in the social contract. Using OOC tools to get what they want IC."

Basically, the offending character/player (the one who reported the "vulgarity") utilized the feature in order to try ad punish another player and admitted to utilzing the tool both IC and OOC in order to justify its use.

From the Offender:

"This is a long-running dispute regarding the vulgarity feature.

I regard the vulgarity feature as being essentially an IC tool whereby the standards of nobility are upheld. In {my character's} view, {the other character} has breached those standards, namely by professing what he believes to be atheism.

If she has it narrowed down who did it, she can ICly retaliate easily enough. Vulgarity is not only a question of naughty words. It's ICly about maintaining standards of nobility, and also OOCly about policing the atmosphere of the game."

Mind you, the other player never stated their character was an atheist, just one who did not follow an organized religion, later stating their character did believe in a higher power.

So, the offending player admitted to pushing their own interpretation/agenda of the vulgarity feature, and got "lucky" in who reviewed the dialogue, and the "Fair Play" of the social contract was violated with the abuse of the vulgarity feature.

Here, by the way, is the VULGAR message:

"King *****

I must abide by your ruling in this matter but I still believe that Count **** is in the right and **** was in the wrong if nothing more then to be polite in telling Count **** of his intentions.

Yes King you did hear right I do not practice any religion.  It is my right not to do and I believe it is best for me not to being an official of this realm.  When I first became Judge a long time ago there were fights among two Eston religions The Way of the Warrior Saints and the Venerist. Duke **** and if I remember right Duke **** was going head to head in the kingdom over their beliefs.  That is when I decided it was better being an official of Eston that I would not adhere to any faith."

No where does that say the characted doesn't believe in a higher power!  The fact that the offender admits the crossing of the IC and OOC lines on a debated subject (and for all I know, the offender is the only one on his side of the argument), basically is an admission of at the very least misuse of the vulgarity feature, and the victimized character should not have lost a point of honor.

[Elroy]

"The focus is on the manner of speech, not its contents."

Case closed.

[Geronus]

Thank you. That is very helpful and is exactly what I was looking for. Just a note, There is no guarantee that the point of honor will be restored regardless of the ruling. It is beyond the Magistrates' power to make that happen without assistance from the Developers, and in any case is a point of precedent we should probably discuss in the backroom.

I would now invite the defendant to lay out his reasoning in greater detail. Why would the above message be considered vulgar?

[Draco Tanos]

I cannot see anything "vulgar" about the post, so as a player I do view the current case as an abuse of the function.

However, the post does go against Tom's anti-athiest rulings for the game and should probably have been reported to him directly so the character could be lightning bolted until such an IC view changes.

[Indirik]

Mrh? I don't find anything "atheist" about the reported post. The the sender does not deny the existence of gods, call them false, claim they don't exist, etc. It just says that the sender does not follow any religion. Regardless, that's not the point of this thread. It would be best to debate that in a separate thread, if desired.

[James]

Wasn't it discussed in another thread somewhere about the misuse and correct use of the vulgarity report? It was clarified and the person involved accepted they were wrong and said they wouldn't do it again?

(on my phone so not easy to search...)

[Indirik]

Yes, there was. I don't know where it was, though. Could provide some interesting background, and related discussion.

Meh, I should search before I post. Here it is:

Topic: Rework the Vulgarity flag feature
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,1795.0.html

[skiarxon@gmail.com]

From reading the messages Vellos wrote in the other thread I think he really got a problem in using the report tool.

[Geronus]

Yes, there was. I don't know where it was, though. Could provide some interesting background, and related discussion.

Meh, I should search before I post. Here it is:

Topic: Rework the Vulgarity flag feature
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,1795.0.html

Good find, in a place I never would have thought to look. Thanks James and Indirik.

Based on that discussion, I am personally thinking that a Magistrate ruling that clarifies the intent and acceptable uses of the Vulgarity reporting system might very well prove to be helpful. It is clearly an area that is very poorly understood by the community, and I base this not only on that thread but also on some of the messages I have personally seen when I was the one randomly selected to judge a message reported by someone else. For the record, I have just about never agreed with a vulgarity report. Most reported messages are almost entirely innocuous. I have generally subscribed to Indirik's sentiment about how it should be used, as elucidated in the linked thread.

[Vellos]

A clarifyying ruling would be useful.

I will note, however, that though debates about manner/content did come up in the aforementioned thread (which I re-read in its entirety before reporting the message in question), that debate was certainly not resolved.

I will explain my reasoning here. In keeping with the "Reworking the Vulgarity" feature thread, I interpreted, in this case, the vulgarity tool to be about upholding standards of nobility. In that thread, it seemed to me that the position (with which I disagreed) was that vulgarity is a semi-OOC tool for upholding RP standards. Under that basis, my character reported Athena as vulgar, given that he perceived her comment (in collaboration with many other comments; it's a debate that's been going back and forth for a long time, longer than the player of Elroy is probably aware) as expressing atheism.

Also, it is worth noting that another character (Kerwin Perth) also interpreted her message as at least reasonably hinting at atheism. Athena's stated reasons for adhering to no faith (she has since ICly clarified her position) was that she believes being in a religion makes it impossible to be a fair judge. Though under the position I believe is appropriate (namely, that any vulgarity should be used on any non-Medieval-noble-ish action) that would be vulgar as well, I did not report it, because I desired to only report things that seemed vulgar under the definition advocated by others.

I observed that another player had gleaned the same thing I had. I observed numerous messages hinting at the same thing. So I reported it. The fact that it was ruled as vulgarity (apparently) suggests, to me, that my interpretation was not atypical. At least some other players believed it was vulgar.

I'll also add: religion wasn't the only reason. She also referred to Cyrilos as "Cyrilos" instead of his proper title, "Royal High Priest Cyrilos." Even "Sir Cyrilos" would have been acceptable. But in a dispute about the state religion's legal status in relation to the law, you don't usually ignore the title and rank of your conversation partner.

Finally, I wish to point out a jurisprudential to the Magistrates, and I will do so here instead of the backroom as, naturally, I am recusing myself: you are not able to police this effectively. The only reason this was tied back to me was because:
1. It was a message to few people
2. I confessed to it publicly

You aren't going to be able to police your ruling on this more generally without Tom going into the database every time, if you rule that what I did (reporting something that isn't quite vulgar by your standards) is vulgar. By ruling that "false reporting" or "reporting for marginally incorrect reasons" is abuse you are going to "criminalize" (for lack of a better term) a large number of players, a routine behavior, and, vitally, a highly debatable behavior which you cannot effectively police.

Finally, if you rule that this is abuse, or not abuse but still not an ideal or desirable action (something we have ruled before), the burden is on the Magistrates to offer useful guidance on appropriate use; and, given the experiences many of us have had with the vulgarity feature, I suggest that guidance needs to be exhaustive in nature, because this is evidently a feature perceived wildly differently by different players.


---

To sum up, I make two arguments:

First, my reporting in this case, I believe, was justified under even a very narrow interpretation of the vulgarity feature given that multiple other players perceived her remark as getting at atheism, and atheism is clearly outside the RP atmosphere of BM, and thus an appropriate target for vulgarity. It was appropriate not only because of hints at atheism in the letter, but a larger context of IC political roles relating to religion, and also because of the totally separate issue of Athena's refusal to address Cyrilos by his title which, especially in the context of a power struggle between two court officials, is definitely "vulgar" in that it is hardly subtle or noble.

Second, if the Magistrates uphold a narrow interpretation of vulgarity (which I believe is the wrong course), they should do so aware of the near impossibility of policing such a ruling, the radical departure in the use of the feature it will imply for numerous players, their own departure from the decisions of whatever players ruled on this (i.e. their overruling of game mechanics, which the Magistrates, as far as I can remember, have never done before), and the likelihood of their creating a substantial new caseload. Given that possibility, it is necessary for the Magistrates to produce clear, detailed, substantial guidance for players to use with regards to the vulgarity feature. Ideally, the Magistrates should produce wording for Tom to add to the vulgarity page in order to clarify its use.

[Vellos]

Oh, three small points:

It is worth noting that Athena's assertion of belief in a higher power came after my message saying Athena had IC options.

She then did reply ICly, and when I made another IC rebuttal, another player set into what I regard as OOC bullying (to which I have not responded). The whole OOC exchange is below:

Out-of-Character from Elroy Anderbliss   (1 day, 4 hours ago)
Message sent to: Arturius Entreri, Athena Leather, Cyrilos Vellos, Kerwin Perth
So player of the Vellos family,

I think it would be useful to let us know why you, at least I am assuming it was you since only 4 people were involved in the discussion, reported Athena for vulgarity from a very benign appearing message that the other 3 did not say they felt was inappropriate.  Help make this a learning opportunity, as right now the reason for reporting was not clear.
Derek Anderson

  [reply to sender] | [ignore] | [userdetails]

Out-of-Character from Cyrilos Vellos   (21 hours, 39 minutes ago)
Message sent to: Arturius Entreri, Athena Leather, Elroy Anderbliss, Kerwin Perth
This is a long-running dispute regarding the vulgarity feature.

I regard the vulgarity feature as being essentially an IC tool whereby the standards of nobility are upheld. In Cyrilos' view, Athena has breached those standards, namely by professing what he believes to be atheism.

If she has it narrowed down who did it, she can ICly retaliate easily enough. Vulgarity is not only a question of naughty words. It's ICly about maintaining standards of nobility, and also OOCly about policing the atmosphere of the game. Tom's stance on atheism is well known (and frankly can be extended to include other ahistorical ideas like modern pluralism).

If you are upset by it, you may open a Magistrate case. However, if the message was in fact found to be vulgar and you did lose honor, then I would suggest that at least somebody must have thought it was vulgar.
Lyman Stone

Out-of-Character from Athena Leather   (20 hours, 27 minutes ago)
Message sent to: Arturius Entreri, Cyrilos Vellos, Elroy Anderbliss, Kerwin Perth
So Lyman, As I understand it you believe in using this OOC feature IC for character usage but when it comes down to it you hide behind the OOC so your character does not need to admit to anything. Isnt that OOC abuse?
cathy mack

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Out-of-Character from Arturius Entreri   (20 hours, 20 minutes ago)
Message sent to: Athena Leather, Cyrilos Vellos, Elroy Anderbliss, Kerwin Perth
I think what happened here is you did not get the response you wanted and got angry IC and OOC. I personally think that this was abuse of an OOC policing tool intended to keep the game relatively clean and free of offensive issues.  Quite honestly I am embarrassed to be in the same realm as someone that would go to this type of extent to get what they want. However, just MY opinion.

I feel that this is abuse of game mechanics and a form of power gaming that is strictly prohibited in the social contract. Using OOC tools to get what they want IC. But what do I know.

I am now going to begin putting certain people on ignore and hopefully this will not have any in game repercussions for me, but if it does its been fun. This is the last time I will speak on this matter in this message group on this matter OOC and IC.
Ernest Williams

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Out-of-Character from Elroy Anderbliss   (10 hours, 29 minutes ago)
Message sent to: Arturius Entreri, Athena Leather, Cyrilos Vellos, Kerwin Perth
Agreed...total abuse. That line of thinking will open up vulgarity complaints on so many situations...in the time of the crusades, I sure the word Christian or.Muslim was used in a vulgar sense. So to abuse tom's statement on atheism is a bad precident...especially for a magistrate. I would open a case, but with Vellos a magistrate and the high horse riding members like indirik and Chenier on the magistrate group, I am sure it would just be a waste of my time.
Derek Anderson

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Out-of-Character from Kerwin Perth   (10 hours, 22 minutes ago)
Message sent to: Arturius Entreri, Athena Leather, Cyrilos Vellos, Elroy Anderbliss
I won't have an OOC flame war within the game.

If anyone thinks some kind of abuse has been done there are more than enough ways to make your grievances heard: Tom, the Titans, the Magistrates. Otherwise, let's cut the OOC chatter in game and just play the game.


Thank you.
Chase Barney

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Out-of-Character from Elroy Anderbliss   (10 hours ago)
Message sent to: Arturius Entreri, Athena Leather, Cyrilos Vellos, Kerwin Perth
You're right...I'm done.  Still a little miffed, but done.
Derek Anderson

  [reply to sender] | [ignore] | [userdetails]

(emphasis mine)

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Second, I am unsure why Chenier was asked to recuse, as he is not involved in the case in any way.

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Third, I would also note that referring to something as abuse which confers no advantage whatsoever on the abuser, but in fact stigmatizes them for even using it (as the vulgarity feature does; if you ever confess to using it, people freak out, no matter your reasons), and which, at the extreme upper limit, takes a small H/P hit to the "victim".... that's gotta be one of the lowest thresholds of abuse we've ever set. There is literally no gain for the abuser.