Shard moderation system added

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+Colibri
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Shard moderation system added

Post by +Colibri »

New system on the shard, which could also be called "New Jailing system", but it's much more than that.

A system like this was already in the works, and about quarter-done, back in 2010-ish. I forgot if my computer broke down, or the scripts got jumbled up, and then a month later I lost my train of thought. Something similar was starting to go in the works in 2017, but was also abandoned. But this time I did this start to finish in a week.

Well, in a way this might not have been a priority, since in the last year or two we've had very few incidents. But still, we currently rely on a Google Spreadsheet to keep track of what warnings/penalties someone got in the past. And sending a warning, or assigning a penalty means a lot of paperwork, which nobody likes.

This system makes things much better
- Simpler: target a player, assign a penalty, and voila they get teleported into jail, and also receive a notification why, see progress of the penalty.
- Searchable: no need to get player's account Id, then open browser, and search various spreadsheets for that ID. We can now target a player and see their history right away.
- Ready for the future: although not yet supported, it's built so that there can be voting by the players, to for example disable chat for someone. That's why the notification message doesn't say "message from staff" but "message from a moderator". Yes I know, there's potential for exploiting the system, so this will have to be carefully thought out.
- Most of all, it's integrated all into the shard. For example, if there's a rule that says "only people with a clear record can join the mentor society", the signup stone can now do a quick check on the player's history. Where before, staff would have to get involved and manually process each request.


Legacy/compatibility notes:
Any tasks assigned before this system was added, still remain. The systems work side-by-side, so as you complete Jail tasks, it will first count down the remaining tasks in the old system, then count them down in the new system, until it's all zero and you can leave.
Since there were so few issues in the last year or two, I will not be importing old stuff from the Google Spreadsheets. But for a while, we will still be checking the history there in cases of more serious rule breaking.


Restriction graunlarity
The penalties system is completely new, but the rules on the Codex still need updating. So for a while, we will be still using the old rules until they are rewritten.
One important concept in the new system is the ability to restrict just parts of the game. For example, someone adding price in the descriptions on vendor items, might just be restricted from setting the description. Or someone who has been kill-stealing repeatedly, but otherwise had no issues with other parts of the game, might get some jailtime/jailtasks, but then also a longer term restriction to engage in combat on any creature, if there's another player nearby (unless they're partied or teamed).

Granular restrictions that already work, and will likely be used soon:
- Chatban from just public chat. A player with this restriction can still send messages to guildchat or send private messages to players who have them on their friends list. Being jailed (either jail tasks or jail time) also automatically includes this restriction.
- Vendor descriptions: cannot set item description on vendor, or change existing description, but can remove an existing description.
- The assigned restriction time can either be the regular delay (e.g. 48 hours, starting with when the penalty is given), or is only counted down when player is actively playing (e.g. 10 hours of active gametime). We often come to a situation when things have already blown over, and the players are about to log off or already have, and maybe they weren't going to be on for the next 2 days anyway. So in this case, setting a chatban for 72 hours can either be too steep for an active player, or something irrelevant for someone who won't be online for the next couple of days anyway.



Here's a screenshot of the notification gump... which I hope you won't ever get to see yourself directly :)
moderation system notification gump.png
moderation system notification gump.png (26.98 KiB) Viewed 5621 times
Kudos to testers that just spent an hour with me, to find issues with the new system, as well as some things to buff out from the existing jail tasking (warden, llamas & cart) - in alphabetical order:
- Carzikan
- Ed-Boy
- FartyMcBoogaBalls
- Fivefingers
- Parabellum
- Pirla
- Praise

I'm looking forward to testing gameplay stuff that's more fun, after the remaining technical/infrastructural systems are done.
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Melkor
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by Melkor »

It’s hard to get excited about updates like this when the community it starved for new content.

For me personally, it was a years long wait for the new facets and all the content that was previewed to come with them. Then the new facets were cancelled but we were told the previewed content would still come, but just to the existing facets. Okay, but now we’ve been what two years since then?

I’m not complaining, just giving my perspective. Making the shard easier to admin isn’t what players have been waiting years for.

Edit: I am happy to see something getting done, that is encouraging. Also I wrote this when I first woke up so I may have been grumpier than normal.
Last edited by Melkor on Thu Jan 28, 2021 8:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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+Colibri
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by +Colibri »

You don't have to like it, just informing everyone about what's going on and what I've been working on.

I don't particularly love this either, nor did I like over a year of cleaning up incomplete stuff and buggy code, not to mention there's still around 480 open bug report tickets - some that might be fixed in 15 minutes, others taking an hour or several hours to fix & test & apply to the shard. But if i use a metaphore - if the server was a restaurant - we can't serve many meals with just 2 working burners.
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Texter
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by Texter »

I for one love these updates that make the shard more stable and reliable. Anything easing things on the backend ensures stability and in turn longevity (which are great things). Not everything in life can be candy, you need your spinach also. I've only been here a few months and am really impressed by the amount of things happening (player events, auctions, trivia, etc).
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Wil
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by Wil »

+Colibri wrote:I don't particularly love this either, nor did I like over a year of cleaning up incomplete stuff and buggy code.
Hey, just curious: what's left on the backend cleanup list before it becomes practical to rebuild the fall and spring quests with the revised game mechanics?

Regards,
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Matrix
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by Matrix »

Hey man, keep sharing with us what you've been up to, i understand melkor too, it may not be exactly what we waiting, but any progress makes me happy, if it will speed up the process or if you need help i can come on the test server, i know there are many player who think like me, keep going on, thanks.
Please reply to me:
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+Colibri
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by +Colibri »

Let's keep this on topic about the Moderation system, if there's any relevant inputs, like:
- link to a good podcast about MMO penalties/bans or community moderation?
- perhaps you were given a penalty and something glitched out?
- ...

For current list of projects in development, this is the latest update:
viewtopic.php?p=77194#p77194
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Sister Nicci
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by Sister Nicci »

So your giving the general populace of the game the ability to impose penalties onto another player?
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Johnny Warren
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by Johnny Warren »

Sister Nicci wrote:So your giving the general populace of the game the ability to impose penalties onto another player?
+Colibri wrote:.
- Ready for the future: although not yet supported, it's built so that there can be voting by the players, to for example disable chat for someone. That's why the notification message doesn't say "message from staff" but "message from a moderator". Yes I know, there's potential for exploiting the system, so this will have to be carefully thought out.
I don't think the intention is to roll out anarchistic, lord of the flies type situation here. I'd be inclined to think maybe, once fully up and running, that mentors might first get these privileges. The word vote is included so i doubt even a single mentor can just chatban someone, a quorum of sorts would be needed. It also states that this is prepared for the future, so is not currently included in the system.
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+Colibri
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by +Colibri »

With time, I'd like to open up a lot of the shard functionality to everyone (the players) but with much caution and forward planning. I'm not putting in all this effort just so that a few players can have some fun ruining it for everyone else.

Two mentors have reached out and reminded me it would be good for them to step in at critical moments when staff isn't around. For mentors, I think they'll have moderation capabilities over newbies (under 30 days of age), but overall I don't want the mentor society to turn into the shard police. If they are the ones with power, then I won't be sure whether someone applying to that team is because they want to help newbies, or wear a badge.
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by culichi »

i wasn't told there was a badge
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+Colibri
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Re: Shard moderation system added

Post by +Colibri »

I've made a few fixes that were found in testing, and the system is now live.

There was someone making new accounts and trolling on the public chat, so I've also made a chatban voting system, more info on this thread: viewtopic.php?p=77740#p77740
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Don't know what the purpose of your life is? Well then make something up! ;)
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