Request for an Inalienable Rights judgement

[Anaris]

It bears remembering that if someone is actually inactive—ie, they're not logging in at all—they will autopause in 2 weeks.

Giving someone 2 months means they are logging in without any doubt.

[Indirik]

Random banning is against the banning rules. When you ban someone, it must be for something related to them. You cannot have "random ban Tuesday" or other such nonsense. That doesn't mean you have to be truthful, but you can't just randomly ban people because "well, I had to ban *someone*, it's a full moon!"

[Scarlett]

The same guy (and the guy who commented on it) were banned from Cathay a while back for exactly the same thing.

This is a pretty easy rule to apply. The occasions when it comes up are not borderline cases. There really are no borderline cases. Any idiot can tell the difference between a player who meets the pretty low bar of IC activity and then gets busy RL here and there versus a player who is just not interested in having their character do anything with the realm. It's the second category that gets you and even if you also fit the first (you both don't participate AND sent an OOC message about how you're not around for whatever reason, even though it's been going on for months) it doesn't change anything.

I don't remember the last time I actually saw a ruler or judge get in hot water over this. It's the first thing you learn as a judge or a ruler and really you learned it well before then. It isn't subject to much interpretation or dispute or rules-lawyering.

I'd say 'why are we even here' but it does come up every so often, usually by people who haven't seen it come up before and think that IR is a passport to do whatever (or not do whatever) and get away with it.

[Vellos]

Random banning is against the banning rules. When you ban someone, it must be for something related to them. You cannot have "random ban Tuesday" or other such nonsense. That doesn't mean you have to be truthful, but you can't just randomly ban people because "well, I had to ban *someone*, it's a full moon!"

Really?

I had thought for sure this actually WAS allowed. I've never been in a circumstance where it mattered, but I thought banning for ridiculously inane reasons was allowed.

[Draco Tanos]

I think it means you have to have a reason of some sort, Vellos.  Even if it's be viewed as flimsy.

[Draco Tanos]

Of course you don't need an investigation to accuse someone of being a spy. I've never seen anyone violating the IRs for falsely accusing someone of being a spy either. That doesn't make it right to ban people for inactivity and then justify this by saying that they could have been spies.

What Draco Tanos is saying is basically that inactive characters should be banned because they could be spies. Well, guess what? Active characters can also be spies.

No, what Draco Tanos is saying is that characters who do nothing should be banished.  Characters that are inactive will autopause.

[vonGenf]

No, what Draco Tanos is saying is that characters who do nothing should be banished.  Characters that are inactive will autopause.

That's where I disagree. "Doing nothing" and "being inactive" is the same thing to me. If someone wants to have a character because he only wants to read what other people are posting, I don't care.

Now, I agree that judges should be allowed to ban people for flimsy reasons, even random reasons. I can even see a case where a power-mad character would do this just to intimidate others. It's fine.

But if you regularly scan the character lists to find inactive players, then devise some kind of tests to be able to ban them without violating the IR, apply such method, and then ban them, well you were already wrong in the first part of the sentence, however well-designed your test was.

You should not care about inactive players. They take nothing away from you.

[egamma]

You should not care about inactive players. They take nothing away from you.

Right. And this entire thread has been about inactive characters. If I play my character as a snob, and another character offends him by not responding to my characters letters for two months, then it's perfectly fine to ban that offending character.

[Anaris]

That's where I disagree. "Doing nothing" and "being inactive" is the same thing to me.

Being inactive has a specific meaning in BattleMaster. If you want to communicate meaningfully with other people in BattleMaster, you're going to have to adopt the common conventions. It's like saying "I want to succeed, how do I do it?" and getting mad when people tell you how to get ahead in the game rather than how to change your duchy's allegiance.

If someone wants to have a character because he only wants to read what other people are posting, I don't care.

Nor do I. But if he gets multiple messages telling him, specifically, to do something, and he doesn't even respond, he shouldn't even be a little bit surprised when he gets banned.

You should not care about inactive players. They take nothing away from you.

That used to be mostly true. Now, it's not, because anyone inside the realm is getting their taxes in gold. This means they will not revert to the realm when they autopause.

Furthermore, you are again ignoring the difference between "not doing anything" and "inactive". If they are sitting there sending every penny to their family, that is most definitely taking something away from the realm. And just because they are not doing anything you can see does not mean they are not sending the realm's troop movements to the enemy every turn. They don't even need to be in an army to do that; they just have to look at the character list (for mobile) and the realm's region pages (for militia).

[Bedwyr]

But if you regularly scan the character lists to find inactive players, then devise some kind of tests to be able to ban them without violating the IR, apply such method, and then ban them, well you were already wrong in the first part of the sentence, however well-designed your test was.

57 days of not responding to multiple letters from the King of your realm is a bannable offense right then and there.  You have a right to play at your own speed.  You do not have the right to thumb your nose at the hierarchy.  I don't care if he's sitting in the capital or fighting in every battle, if you are a knight, and I am a King, and you don't respond to my letters over the course of two months, you'll be lucky if I don't set up a full plan to have you executed.

This IR I have always considered from this perspective: If the characters were real, and it's assumed that anyone can get too sick to do anything at any time (quite plausible given the state of medicine), there's no way to know if someone is sick, and we make the simplifying assumption that anyone who is that sick for two weeks is moved to a house of healing, then what would the proper response be?  You wait two weeks to see if they get moved to the house of healing.  If they don't, then they are willfully ignoring the King of the realm and thus deserve anything and everything that happens to them.

[vonGenf]

Right. And this entire thread has been about inactive characters. If I play my character as a snob, and another character offends him by not responding to my characters letters for two months, then it's perfectly fine to ban that offending character.

57 days of not responding to multiple letters from the King of your realm is a bannable offense right then and there.  You have a right to play at your own speed.  You do not have the right to thumb your nose at the hierarchy.

Yes, I agree. This is exactly what Velax has been doing, and I think it's fine. It seems perfectly in character to do so.

However, then I see people using this as justification for things like "banishing deadbeats is the best move one can make". Well, no it's not, and that violates the IR. The intent of it violates the IR, even if the execution of the ban follows the guidelines.

[vonGenf]

That used to be mostly true. Now, it's not, because anyone inside the realm is getting their taxes in gold. This means they will not revert to the realm when they autopause.

Furthermore, you are again ignoring the difference between "not doing anything" and "inactive". If they are sitting there sending every penny to their family, that is most definitely taking something away from the realm.

Taking someone's estate away is perfectly justified. Banning them is a different thing. There are no realm-wide shares either anymore.

[Bedwyr]

However, then I see people using this as justification for things like "banishing deadbeats is the best move one can make". Well, no it's not, and that violates the IR. The intent of it violates the IR, even if the execution of the ban follows the guidelines.

Depends on your definition of "deadbeat".  If "deadbeat" is "someone who doesn't respond to their Ruler writing a direct message" then yes, I would concur that "banishing deadbeats is the best move one can make".

[vonGenf]

Depends on your definition of "deadbeat".  If "deadbeat" is "someone who doesn't respond to their Ruler writing a direct message" then yes, I would concur that "banishing deadbeats is the best move one can make".

I take deadbeat as a synonym for useless, incompetent, lazy.

[Indirik]

@Vellos: I don't have a judge character to check right now, but I'm fairly certain the banning page has some language about "no random bans". So things like "it's Random Ban Tuesday, let's roll the dice and see who gets kicked out" are not kosher. When you ban someone, it should be about something they have/haven't done.