Overzealous muting by GMs

[Toonga1]

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How exactly do things like this warrant a 60 minute chat ban + the GM gloating about it in world chat afterwards? How can you accept money for donations and then have ban-happy GMs overreaching like this? It's extremely unprofessional and quite frankly puts a really bad vibe out there. There were no arguments happening in the chat, nor was it getting heated. I understand if there's trolling going on or repeated discussion about edgy political topics but that is not at all what was going on here. I was simply responding to a person saying something about the idea of empathy being bad, or something.

Kestrel really needs to get a handle on these GMs. This is the kind of stuff Pig used to do. This is not the way a good community is built. I've heard many times from other people that they've received even longer mutes for less. Seems to be based on how angry the GM is at the time.

[Toonga1]

I should also add there were other people saying things just as "political" as this was but they didn't seem to receive a mute. I assume it's because afterwards I made a comment about not saying anything more about politics as it was against the rules. The GM interpreted this as me "talking back" so that made him angry and thus the mute.

This GM is powertripping just like Pig did.

[Kestrel]

Unfortunately often when political conversations break out, it is necessary to find the exact line that they cross into "political" and that can be very difficult to standardize. As a result some moderators and GM's may be slightly different in where they draw the line while we work to get on the same page.

In addition to that it also can take a minute to cross that line and that line has to be drawn somewhere. In general if you type out a message in world chat that specifically mentions political parties in a way that is central to the conversation, or the same for religions or other banned topics, I would recommend rethinking before sending it to world and instead send it to a discord or guild chat ect

[Proxyone]

Unfortunately often when political conversations break out, it is necessary to find the exact line that they cross into "political" and that can be very difficult to standardize. As a result some moderators and GM's may be slightly different in where they draw the line while we work to get on the same page.

In addition to that it also can take a minute to cross that line and that line has to be drawn somewhere. In general if you type out a message in world chat that specifically mentions political parties in a way that is central to the conversation, or the same for religions or other banned topics, I would recommend rethinking before sending it to world and instead send it to a discord or guild chat ect

I agree with what you're saying. Just as a mention though could GMs not mute people for saying things in guild chat? one of our members got muted for saying something in guild chat. I believe its the guilds responsibility and its officers to receive those reports. I for one don't like my guild members reporting our own guild members instead of bringing the problem to me.

[Reiker]

A GM told me they wouldn't do anything about a guy being super racist in world chat, but apparently you're not allowed to say anything negative about conservatives, the most oppressed class.

[Kestrel]

I agree with what you're saying. Just as a mention though could GMs not mute people for saying things in guild chat? one of our members got muted for saying something in guild chat. I believe its the guilds responsibility and its officers to receive those reports. I for one don't like my guild members reporting our own guild members instead of bringing the problem to me.

I agree Moderators/GM's should not be muting for in guild chat, I have sent out some additional communication internally about this and confirmed it is on our moderation guidelines now explicitly. Thank you for bringing this to our attention!

[Kestrel]

A GM told me they wouldn't do anything about a guy being super racist in world chat, but apparently you're not allowed to say anything negative about conservatives, the most oppressed class.

You should DM me the deets if you have em and I can do some digging and pull up chat logs, we definitely don't allow or support super racist stuff in world chat.

You can't say anything negative about any political group hence the no politics rule.

[Proxyone]

I agree with what you're saying. Just as a mention though could GMs not mute people for saying things in guild chat? one of our members got muted for saying something in guild chat. I believe its the guilds responsibility and its officers to receive those reports. I for one don't like my guild members reporting our own guild members instead of bringing the problem to me.

I agree Moderators/GM's should not be muting for in guild chat, I have sent out some additional communication internally about this and confirmed it is on our moderation guidelines now explicitly. Thank you for bringing this to our attention!

<3 ty! our officers are glad to hear this!

[Toonga1]

Unfortunately often when political conversations break out, it is necessary to find the exact line that they cross into "political" and that can be very difficult to standardize. As a result some moderators and GM's may be slightly different in where they draw the line while we work to get on the same page.

In addition to that it also can take a minute to cross that line and that line has to be drawn somewhere. In general if you type out a message in world chat that specifically mentions political parties in a way that is central to the conversation, or the same for religions or other banned topics, I would recommend rethinking before sending it to world and instead send it to a discord or guild chat ect

Thanks for the response. I understand there's a line to be drawn and it can be confusing sometimes, but simply referring to a political ideology/simple adjective like 'conservative' in a cheeky comment about the philosophy behind empathy does not count, in my mind, as "political discussion". Again, I agree with those rules and I've seen their benefit many times in world chat when shit-flinging about the news or politics starts. I just think it's within the set of skills a GM should have to read the room and not interpret rules so literally as to be toxic - and like I said, GMs gloating about handing out mutes is in very bad taste. This GM said something like "bat is getting a real workout today" after muting me and I assume some others for an hour. We were having a grand old time just shooting the shit in world chat before that happened.

I also found it funny that the mute didn't come when I said that statement but a few minutes later when I made the comment about politics breaking the rules. I assume that set him off and so I was punished for that with the message in the screenshot as justification.

Regardless, it's water under the bridge now and I feel my message got through; thank you.

[Kestrel]

Thanks for the response. I understand there's a line to be drawn and it can be confusing sometimes, but simply referring to a political ideology/simple adjective like 'conservative' in a cheeky comment about the philosophy behind empathy does not count, in my mind, as "political discussion". Again, I agree with those rules and I've seen their benefit many times in world chat when shit-flinging about the news or politics starts. I just think it's within the set of skills a GM should have to read the room and not interpret rules so literally as to be toxic - and like I said, GMs gloating about handing out mutes is in very bad taste. This GM said something like "bat is getting a real workout today" after muting me and I assume some others for an hour. We were having a grand old time just shooting the shit in world chat before that happened.

I also found it funny that the mute didn't come when I said that statement but a few minutes later when I made the comment about politics breaking the rules. I assume that set him off and so I was punished for that with the message in the screenshot as justification.

Regardless, it's water under the bridge now and I feel my message got through; thank you.

Yeah without digging into the context, I agree with you. I also agree that gloating about handing out mutes is a very bad look and not something we want our Moderators (or GMs) doing.

Appreciate bringing it to our attention and for your patience with this while we get things more standardized!