Image BM community gives to players via forums, it is horrible...

[Velax]

Split off the posts about the Hatred diplomatic state into a new thread.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4439.0.html

[Eirikr]

Split off the posts about the Hatred diplomatic state into a new thread.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4439.0.html

Thank you.

I also wanted to echo the others in saying Tom's pretty spot-on. It's one of the hardest things to do both in game and in real life, but sometimes you have to accept that you'll never change the other person's mind. That doesn't mean either of you are right, but that nothing positive will come out of further discussion.

[Tom]

There's one more thing to the "playing as friends" part.

If you had a bunch of friends over, and two of them got into a nasty argument in front of everyone else, wouldn't you think everyone would call on them to stop? Not taking sides, just tell them "stop it, both of you!".

That needs to happen a lot more often in BM.

[Bendix]

If you had a bunch of friends over, and two of them got into a nasty argument in front of everyone else, wouldn't you think everyone would call on them to stop? Not taking sides, just tell them "stop it, both of you!".

For what it's worth, I tried to do exactly that when the OOC situation on East Continent started to get out of control. No one listened, but I did try.

[Lavigna]

I'm sick and tired beyond what I have words for of the constant bickering and arguing. I think it used to be better before when I was handling more of these issues myself because I could make a quick and final decision. And while they were probably no better then what the Titans and Magistrates decide, it was faster and it was final and thus people didn't argue so much about it.

Really, from my perspective, it isn't so much the occasional insult that's creating the toxic atmosphere, it's the two months of arguments that follow.

This. In fact i believe that the public discussionw on cases, the fact everyone can drop his opinion in it and generaly the way we Magistrates handle the cases hasn't helped much.

I do get the idea that people can aid with feedback on a case but that most of the times creates the bickering.

I think it was way better the way Titans worked. Complain filled, Titans looked into it and searched for evidence and decide.Simple, fast and most of the times effective.

The fact for example that one player brings forth his complain and some people will defend him at all costs cause they like the player or because they don't like the player for whom the complain is about, the fact that some will jump and say his complain is childish or make it look bigger than it is... creates bickering that goes on and on and on.

Maybe we should consider some changes on the way these complains shoul be handled.

I do not comment the rest of Tom's wise words since i believe it is obvious we all SHOULD try and solve problems before they become complains in a civil way and by handling them between us first.

[Anaris]

Simple, fast and most of the times effective.

This was the problem. The Titans were not fast for many years, because there were too few of them. The system started out great, but it didn't keep up with the changing playerbase. As the Titans one by one went inactive or just stopped caring, they weren't replaced, and so the system bogged down and became unresponsive and useless.

Only more recently, with the majority of cases shifted to the Magistrates and the devs handling multicheater investigations (which are 99% of the remainder) have things started to move again among the Titans.

[Lavigna]

This was the problem. The Titans were not fast for many years, because there were too few of them. The system started out great, but it didn't keep up with the changing playerbase. As the Titans one by one went inactive or just stopped caring, they weren't replaced, and so the system bogged down and became unresponsive and useless.

Only more recently, with the majority of cases shifted to the Magistrates and the devs handling multicheater investigations (which are 99% of the remainder) have things started to move again among the Titans.

Oh i didn't know that, i was absent for quite sometime from the game and since then never followed the Titans..but even if this was the case, with the Magistrates now and the amount of bickering that came up in severa cases, most in those that were followed with acount deletions, things are not that fast.Also many insult- cases come up more frequently and those cases do tend to find their way to a solution pretty late.

The thing is that this open to public -trial kind of thing is becoming what Tom hates irl, a bunch of lawyers bickering.

[Indirik]

You are definitely correct. The Magistrates need to keep a tighter control on the Cases board. That board should be heavily moderated by the Magistrates.

[Bendix]

You are definitely correct. The Magistrates need to keep a tighter control on the Cases board. That board should be heavily moderated by the Magistrates.

+1.

I also think perhaps there should be more specifics in how the Magistrates interact with each other. I remember a recent case where two magistrates got into a public argument over whether or not they should lock a thread. They were insulting each other and engaging in the exact sort of acrimonious behavior that they should be preventing in the first place. It certainly does not set a positive example for player interactions when the legal authorities fail to be civil toward one another.

[Dishman]

I'd rather see harsher moderation than thread locks. Irrelevant/insulting/trolling posts should be met with a warning then a fairly long forum-account lock. Democratic trials for the game, an iron-handed tyranny for the forum!

[Scarlett]

I don't recall the Titans' conduct ever being quite that acrimonious, though I was only a Titan for a year or so (maybe less, I forget). It seemed like a pretty good system back then but I wasn't around for whatever caused the Magistrates to be born.

I will say that one thing I appreciated about the Titans that seems less the case with the Magistrates is that the Titans' characters had a lower profile.  The magistrates sometimes seem like an OOC version of some of the big IC personas in the game. Several of the Titans definitely had characters with high profiles, but maybe it was just that we always emailed each other and so it wasn't our IG names or forum names that were pasted to everything...it just had a feel of 'hey guys, what should we do about this' and not 'wasn't that the same guy who was just celebrating his realm kicking ass.'

Maybe the distinction was mostly cosmetic or maybe this stuff matters to me more than it should. I've also never been a magistrate. I just know that it was easier to compartmentalize a lot of game issues when emailing another human being and addressing them by their name.

[Lavigna]

I will say that one thing I appreciated about the Titans that seems less the case with the Magistrates is that the Titans' characters had a lower profile.  The magistrates sometimes seem like an OOC version of some of the big IC personas in the game. Several of the Titans definitely had characters with high profiles, but maybe it was just that we always emailed each other and so it wasn't our IG names or forum names that were pasted to everything...it just had a feel of 'hey guys, what should we do about this' and not 'wasn't that the same guy who was just celebrating his realm kicking ass.'

This is correct. It happens and it actually happens because this public way of dealing things pretty much ends to it. First of all if we take a real trial as example .... not every one can drop and say his opinion, a trial shouldn't become a discussion....it brings personal opinions forth more than actual evidence and to the point that even the Magistrates forget who they are in all this chit chat. Of course i am not pointing fingers , i include myself to this.
Only people relevant to a case should be able to comment , only people who can actually add something to the case itself.What someone may heard, or dealt with in a similar yet different case shouldn't be used, it brings the personal opinion to the surface more than the evidence itself so instead of aiding it actually works against a good judgement by the Magistrates.

To be honest i am not all that happy with how this works. Yes we should be harsher and not allow bickering but i think that every "personal opinion" or any defending line of that kind should be prohibited. It creates an atmosphere that has nothing to do with a "trial" , because it is supposed to be one in a way ,and it leads to impressions that most of the times are wrong.

Also a thing that pretty much upsets me is stating the opinion of how childish or meaningless someone believes that a complain is.
This is not the case.Some people do find offensive certain things that other may not.No one can judge that. We can judge wether it is a violation or not, but how childish it is or not or how important it is to the person that fills the complain cannot be judged by any of us.

Anyway, i believe the forum is not the problem here, the problem is that all this publicity either it is a simple forum discussion, an irc discussion or a complain gets consumed due to the publicity itself. The more people that receive such info the more it gets discussed and reproduced so ending up in bickering is a natural result.

[Tom]

Appealing to people's interests might be a solution.

If the moderation policy is something like "comment on the case only. present evidence, not opinions. no insulting or belittling of anyone. violations of these rules will get your post REMOVED, even if it has good arguments and evidence, so keep to the rules or you only hurt your own argument."

[Bendix]

Appealing to people's interests might be a solution.

If the moderation policy is something like "comment on the case only. present evidence, not opinions. no insulting or belittling of anyone. violations of these rules will get your post REMOVED, even if it has good arguments and evidence, so keep to the rules or you only hurt your own argument."

That sounds more like a real trial, so I definitely support it. I think something to that effect would work well in assisting the defendants, complainants, and even the magistrates themselves in being more objective.

For example, I tried my best to give an unbiased testimony in the OOC Harassment case of Menethil vs. Atanamir. Unfortunately, as with my call for civility, some parties interpreted my words as either supporting or condemning one side or the other, which was not my intent at all.

If the parties involved in Magistrate Cases could be assured that witnesses are obligated by Magistrate Rules to give unbiased and objective testimony (or none at all), then perhaps it would reduce the level of acrimony.

To perhaps take it a step further, might it be prudent to discuss enacting a protocol where Magistrates whose characters will be personally effected by their own decisions may be obligated to recuse themselves? Is that already a part of the code of conduct for Magistrates? Or would it be too difficult to enforce? Because if the Magistrate's characters could potentially benefit from their own ruling, wouldn't it be safe to say that it is a conflict of interest?

[Gustav Kuriga]

Appealing to people's interests might be a solution.

If the moderation policy is something like "comment on the case only. present evidence, not opinions. no insulting or belittling of anyone. violations of these rules will get your post REMOVED, even if it has good arguments and evidence, so keep to the rules or you only hurt your own argument."

Honestly that is going a bit too far, as that means we can lose evidence. In that situation I believe the moderators should remove the offending statements while leaving in the evidence.