Forum Policy Discussion

[MaHuD]

Since the warned/muted/banned thread was getting a bit flooded I decided to make a new topic on that subject.

Hahahahahaha. Really, because I'm speaking out against fse banning people with no proof whatsoever I must be refusing to read or incapable of understanding?

So you count yourself as one of those who are generally speaking "the same ones"? (I didn't, but if you think you are one of those there is no problem on this side.)


 

I understand very well your reasoning - because they write in the same style and they make the same anti-fse rants they must all be betty. Now, they may very well be betty, and I'm not saying betty shouldn't be banned, but you don't know that it's betty, so you have had no reason to ban WRML.

Let's assume he wasn't Betty. He was still trolling, no? No difference either way for me.

You can ban anyone you want, and nobody can stop you, but you seem to have been missing my point time and time again. I'm not saying they are not allowed to do what they want, I'm just saying it would be shitty administration and it would put them in the trashheap of other corrupt, power hungry forum administrators throughout the internet.

If it's allowed, it's acceptable right? I thought that was part of the definition of the word.
Also,

But that's fucking retarded, and that shouldn't be an excuse to go around randomly banning people. It doesn't matter if you're "technically" able to ban people whenever you want. I'm "technically" able to jump off a building in times square with a bomb strapped to my chest and kill thousands of people, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable.

You are saying they shouldn't be allowed, but you did sign it. Why would you sign something that you are against? You don't come off as someone who is cowardly or easily coursed into doing something.
Also the difference between technically being able to and being allowed to do something is different. For instance, your example is not allowed in most countries on this planet so whilst you could do it, it would be a crime. (unlike Staff-members removing people from the forum for allegedly no reason)

 

Unfortunately FSE are a game development studio, not random people who wanted to make a forum, so there's a certain standard that they have to uphold if they want to keep peoples' respect. They can do whatever they want, but not at the expense of losing face as a company.

Whilst you are certainly correct that randomly punishing people will have a negative influence it doesn't really matter that much either. I am sure you are familiar with how many of the larger Game Companies run their forums? They are still making plenty of money, more than FSE despite their incredible censorship or hello kitty policies.

Besides all of that, has that actually happened here? Has anyone who was behaving in accordance to the rules been banned? No, they all did something. One could argue that the punishment they received was too harsh or came too late, but they still broke a rule.



I can understand why you are upset, but so far you haven't really supported your viewpoint very well (you are mainly mixing up your points and giving bad examples). Which is quite annoying from my perspective, but I am sure that you think the same of me.

Also, by saying that the community won't take it if they ban people for suspecting them to be betty...
why is there so few of the community members going against it?

Certainly if it was something that the community would be against there would be a public uproar?
Or there would be people leaving the forums and setting up their own fan forum?

Quite clearly the vast majority of the members don't really mind.

[Rejenorst]

Oui, I agree. I would suggest this to be brought up in the represetatives forum. Imagen I made an account and started typing like that, but it was only me. There are many thousands of people that do no use the comma's like me. I dont always use it, cause im too lazy. But really ahould bring this up in the representatives.

You say I've and he says ive. If we needed to be certain we would scan each post for clues using a different range of grammatical checks and inconsistencies, people reporting the user as a dupe (as was the case with WRML), as well as a few other checks such as post context, theme, knowledge and care factor of past events, similar issues raised in similar style etc. Its not like we take a look at a single post and say yep that's him. We can check each post which is why Betty's dupe accounts don't get banned on the first day nor even on the first offense half the time as a safety measure.

In terms of the rants they just provide us with a lot of words, content etc for context overview.

Spoiler

WRML RANT:
Total word count :    303
Number of different words :    213
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :    70.3%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)   9.1
Total number of characters :    2919
Number of characters without spaces :    1707
Average Syllables per Word :    1.54
Sentence count :    27
Average sentence length (words) :    19.3
Max sentence length (words) :    58
(many people make a big mistake when discovering mount and blade or warband or nw for the first time that seeing the community and forums so active with people recruiting regiments and replying to your questions so frequently and fall into the false trap that it is one big happy family and the friendliest community on the net)   
Min sentence length (words) :    2
( 40 build points)   
Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70)   57.4

SALLY100 RANT:
Total word count :      278
Number of different words :    183
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :    65.8%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)   9.1
Total number of characters :    2717
Number of characters without spaces :    1562
Average Syllables per Word :    1.54
Sentence count :    27
Average sentence length (words) :    18.19
Max sentence length (words) :    80
( what other `community` has admins going on threads giving out id number of a key so that people on other servers can ban a person who hasnt even done anything wrong on their server what other `community` absolutly shits upon somebody and then jumps with suprise when that person gets a 5 minute revenge and uses that as an excuse to perm ban the person what other `community` will give somebody a `final warning of perm ban if u dont behave`)   
Min sentence length (words) :    1
( none)   
Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70)   57.8

[close]

You can take pretty much everything into account including the profile picture style etc and come to some form of probability and conclusion at the very least that is somewhat accurate, especially when as a moderator you tend to know what your looking for after having read tons of different posts all from the same user. And no one said he was banned based on grammar alone I just decided to evidence some similarities.

[Riddlez]

Spoiler

WRML RANT:
Total word count :    303
Number of different words :    213
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :    70.3%
Total number of characters :    2919
Number of characters without spaces :    1707

Max sentence length (words) :    58
(many people make a big mistake when discovering mount and blade or warband or nw for the first time that seeing the community and forums so active with people recruiting regiments and replying to your questions so frequently and fall into the false trap that it is one big happy family and the friendliest community on the net)   
( 40 build points)   

SALLY100 RANT:
Total word count :      278
Number of different words :    183
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :    65.8%
Total number of characters :    2717
Number of characters without spaces :    1562
Max sentence length (words) :    80
( what other `community` has admins going on threads giving out id number of a key so that people on other servers can ban a person who hasnt even done anything wrong on their server what other `community` absolutly shits upon somebody and then jumps with suprise when that person gets a 5 minute revenge and uses that as an excuse to perm ban the person what other `community` will give somebody a `final warning of perm ban if u dont behave`)   
( none)   

[close]

I am sorry Rejenorst, but I can't find these two comparisons as much convincing evidence. Allow me to elaborate:

 1- I have left out the thing that are indeed peculiar, because they are so much alike. But, As you see, there are a lot of subjects left.
A vocabulary of 30 words more, with less posts, is in my opinion, not a very strong point. The same goes for the complexity factor, for some it is close, for some it isn't. For me it isn't. We are tlaking about banning someone here.

1a- 22 Words more in Sally's longest sentence, than in WRML's. I'm sorry, but I just CAN'T see this as proof, I just can't.
Same for total characters. We still do need to keep in my that WRML has less words. So mroe characters means longers words, and the longer words are usually the more... complex ones. I especially would like an answer for point 1a.

2- I Am not throwing accusations. I am just remarking the facts!

Spoiler

WRML RANT:
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)   9.1
Average Syllables per Word :    1.54
Sentence count :    27


( 40 build points)   

SALLY100 RANT:
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)   9.1
Average Syllables per Word :    1.54
Sentence count :    27
Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70)   57.8

[close]

I can't help but to notice that all of these are either exactly the same, of very, very much alike.

[MaHuD]

Could you post that breakdown of a user's posting style of a few different members to show the difference? (Assuming it's some sort of automated tool you are easy and thus easy to do)

[Menelaos]

I'm not sure if this is allowed here but :

Stop trolling my thread or i will report you!

Please do not give warnings. The best possible thing to do is simply report so that we can fix problems like this as soon as possible. Next time just go ahead and report rule breakers ASAP, thanks!

Is it unlawful to warn people against posting in threads if the person is OP?

[Rejenorst]

I am sorry Rejenorst, but I can't find these two comparisons as much convincing evidence. Allow me to elaborate:

 1- I have left out the thing that are indeed peculiar, because they are so much alike. But, As you see, there are a lot of subjects left.
A vocabulary of 30 words more, with less posts, is in my opinion, not a very strong point. The same goes for the complexity factor, for some it is close, for some it isn't. For me it isn't. We are tlaking about banning someone here.

Your taking an individual factor and claiming that it doesn't constitute evidence and you would be correct in this assumption. Please remember we're going by probability and extensive experience with Betty's posting habits and after the amount of similarities I have already posted and given that we know of Betty's style, overall post content, his consistent grammatical errors, out of context sudden rants etc we can build a picture of probability. Some of you seem to think because one apostrophe is missing or present we're going to ban someone. Not going to happen. The sentence length factor just takes the longest sentence and displays it. I just copy pasted the whole thing because at the very least you can take a look at the longest sentence and see if there are any structural differences.

1a- 22 Words more in Sally's longest sentence, than in WRML's. I'm sorry, but I just CAN'T see this as proof, I just can't.
Same for total characters. We still do need to keep in my that WRML has less words. So mroe characters means longers words, and the longer words are usually the more... complex ones. I especially would like an answer for point 1a.

Not all the statistics are useful, that number just grabs the longest sentence of the post and gives you an idea of the max sentence length of a post. Some people have a tendency to write long sentences while others don't.

I can't help but to notice that all of these are either exactly the same, of very, very much alike.

I was surprised by that as well. Its either coincidence or Sally and and WRML have the same timed rage fuse and cool down type time

Could you post that breakdown of a user's posting style of a few different members to show the difference? (Assuming it's some sort of automated tool you are easy and thus easy to do)

I've taken your first post here (removed the quotes):

Spoiler

So you count yourself as one of those who are generally speaking "the same ones"? (I didn't, but if you think you are one of those there is no problem on this side.)
Let's assume he wasn't Betty. He was still trolling, no? No difference either way for me.
If it's allowed, it's acceptable right? I thought that was part of the definition of the word.
Also, You are saying they shouldn't be allowed, but you did sign it. Why would you sign something that you are against? You don't come off as someone who is cowardly or easily coursed into doing something.
Also the difference between technically being able to and being allowed to do something is different. For instance, your example is not allowed in most countries on this planet so whilst you could do it, it would be a crime. (unlike Staff-members removing people from the forum for allegedly no reason)
Whilst you are certainly correct that randomly punishing people will have a negative influence it doesn't really matter that much either. I am sure you are familiar with how many of the larger Game Companies run their forums? They are still making plenty of money, more than FSE despite their incredible censorship or hello kitty policies.
Besides all of that, has that actually happened here? Has anyone who was behaving in accordance to the rules been banned? No, they all did something. One could argue that the punishment they received was too harsh or came too late, but they still broke a rule. I can understand why you are upset, but so far you haven't really supported your viewpoint very well (you are mainly mixing up your points and giving bad examples). Which is quite annoying from my perspective, but I am sure that you think the same of me. Also, by saying that the community won't take it if they ban people for suspecting them to be betty...
why is there so few of the community members going against it? Certainly if it was something that the community would be against there would be a public uproar?
Or there would be people leaving the forums and setting up their own fan forum? Quite clearly the vast majority of the members don't really mind.

[close]

Have also taken Hekko's resignation letter as a control tests:

Spoiler

MAHUD'S POST:
Total word count :    202
   
Number of different words :    146
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :    72.3%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)   7.6
Total number of characters :    2134
Number of characters without spaces :    1213
Average Syllables per Word :    1.6
Sentence count :    26
Average sentence length (words) :    15
Max sentence length (words) :    34
( unlike staff members removing people from the forum for allegedly no reason whilst you are certainly correct that randomly punishing people will have a negative influence it doesn t really matter that much either)   
Min sentence length (words) :    5
( he was still trolling no)   
Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70)   56.2

HEKKO'S RESIGNATION LETTER:
Total word count :    288
   
Number of different words :    211
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :    73.3%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)   13.9
Total number of characters :    3063
Number of characters without spaces :    1753
Average Syllables per Word :    1.67
Sentence count :    20
Average sentence length (words) :    29.58
Max sentence length (words) :    94
( i want to touch on your main mistake though because it will come back and haunt you the reason why you are not acting like a ceo is because you do not understand that it s the consumers the customers the community that pays your paycheck if you piss them off like you continually have done people who are pissed off are alot more likely to complain to their friends you will run out funding for your current project and when that happens you will realise that people like me and hancock were right)   
Min sentence length (words) :    7
( however it comes to an end today)   
Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70)   35.8


DANIQUEEN'S RANT (BETTY DUPE):
Total word count :    241
   
Number of different words :    168
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :    69.7%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)   9.2
Total number of characters :    2371
Number of characters without spaces :    1363
Average Syllables per Word :    1.49
Sentence count :    22
Average sentence length (words) :    20.09
Max sentence length (words) :    63
( if somebody is doing nothing wrong on a server you have zero right to ban her and this absolute bullshit of bringing your egos and your personal problems when your server is dead and try to influence admins of the 33rd who elsewise wouldnt have had jack shit of an issue with betty to `ban her on sight` is absolute 100 per cent bullshit)   
Min sentence length (words) :    1
( no)   
Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70)   60.6

[close]

Now while these tests are not evidence in of themselves (I just did them out of curiosity) I just found it amusing how strikingly similar Sally and WRML's rants where, even the spacing style on the two threads seems somewhat similar:
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=4588.msg147163#msg147163
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5818.msg193868#msg193868

Anyway here is a recap on what I've stated so far in another thread:

Spoiler

I only spent a little while looking into it but there is a misconception that he was banned fast and purely on grammar, he made 26 posts and wouldn't have even been banned had a) people not pointed out that it was Betty due to the way he was acting https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5073.msg193855#msg193855 https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5073.msg194075#msg194075 and then right after that incident seemed to make a rant that was highly similar to Sally100's but had absolutely no context given his past 26 posts all of which I read which showed no altercations between admins and himself to lead up to it. And at the very least no requests for an uban etc. ultimately his anger came out of nowhere and only makes sense if he had been banned before.

Grammar was just one of the identifiers and I only posted a few examples I had picked up on when I did a quick scan though.

Just some extracts from what I already posted in the who are these banned people thread:

Spoiler

Last dupe account:

Spoiler

QueenDani banned for using dupe account to circumvent ban, trolling, excessive swearing, instigating fights, insulting, flaming, ranting and raving, etc... Original account: Sally100 (ie: Betty).

[close]

Original account under Sally100 made this thread to rant and rave grievances against the community:
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=4588.msg147163#msg147163

The post which may have triggered and preceded Sally's rant and rave (was due to a threatened ban for a growing list of offenses, there was also growing discord between Sally and said community not to mention FSE sharing info with an affiliated server group. The point being is that something happens which then triggers Betty to create a rant and rave thread shortly after):
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=4543.msg147138#msg147138

Warband_ruined_my_life dupe account made this thread:
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5818.msg193868#msg193868

The post which preceded Warband_ruined_my_life's rant and rave (was due to a ban on another server, again something happens and he launches into a tirade against the community):
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5073.msg193855#msg193855

As for Queendani his second post upon account creation was this:
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5229.msg171283#msg171283
And his first post was this:
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=70.msg171272#msg171272

Both Sally and WRML accounts entail rants against the community, devs, policy etc in a manner and theme that is strikingly similar and preceded by a threat or actual ban on either the forums or a private server. As for Dani it was an account that seemed exclusively created to defend Betty after the ban from post 1.

A quick check on activity dates to see if they overlap:
Sally100 last active April 10th
QueenDani registered May 5th
QueenDani last active May 12th
Warband_ruined_my_life registered May 23rd


List of offenses committed under Warband_ruined_my_life account:
Trolling, instigating fights, insulting, flaming, ranting and raving, etc...

While no evidence can compare to having to IP addresses lined up exactly. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then FSE reserves the right to refuse access/service of these forums to said user especially if there are similar violations of rules that raise suspicion.

If you want to get forensic about it then lets just analyze the spelling style of Warband_ruined_my_life vs Sally100:

Betty tends to be pretty lax with the use of apostrophes in that's, hasn't, isn't, don't and they've, but tends to over use them to emphasize other things:

What other `community` absolutly shits upon somebody...

This isnt a community.. its a pile of shit, full of `admins`...

What other `community` has admins going on threads giving out id number of a key so that people on other servers can ban a person who hasnt even done

...dont believe me check my fb in the album,...

...least be allowed to play on a server long as she isntcausing trouble.

 ...to `ban her on sight` is absolute 100 per cent bullshit.

If all you are going to do is respond calling me a troll or betty (im her friend she does have friends you pricks) then dont bother...

I would rather an absolutly dead community like men of war, where nobody says a word on the forums, than this.
This bullshit of going on a server where she hasnt tkd or done anything

Case in point i`ll either have this thread removed or get a simple answer of do not feed the troll or `if you dont like it go elsewhere`... 

...literally 2 seconds thats it.

Betty also tends to consistently use small caps for nouns such as taleworlds, admins, blobmania etc but then that isn't uncommon.
 

In any case if a dupe is suspected the date of registration is checked, time overlap is checked with suspected original/dupe account, similarity in grammar and thematic, post count, post content overall and FSE waits until the user actually brakes the rules in a manner similar to the original poster. There's not much more that you can do other than maybe disable gmail and hotmail accounts and force everyone to use real email addresses which I doubt is going to happen.

Anyway bring it up with the reps if you like, and if possible think of some solutions to go with it.

[close]

The few grammatical or spelling errors where a small sample.
 

[close]

As far as evidence goes, this about all your going to get aside from reading all of Betty's past posts and getting some idea of what to look for. I am thoroughly convinced its Betty and I feel the case for WRML's ban has been made and justified. The only reason I've heard so far that is supposed to shed doubt on it is the idea that WRML somehow was more engaging but if you look at a lot of Sally's posts you will realize that he was just as engaging when he wanted to be.


Also I just realized that Daniqueen which was another of Betty's dupe accounts was banned off the 33rd server. They're the ones that pointed out that WRML was Betty.
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5073.msg183708;topicseen#msg183708
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=5073.msg194075#msg194075

Anyway case closed I think.


For the next rant I would be looking for the range variation in these tests to fall somewhere in line with the following (not as an instant ban but as part of an already larger checklist with the number of charachters/word count just being a sample size guide I've also bolded the control tests):

Spoiler

Order: WRML,SALLY100,DANIQUEEN,MAHUD AND HEKKO:

Word count:
303
278
241
202
288
Number of different words : 
213
183
168
146
211
Complexity factor (Lexical Density) :   
70.3%
65.8%
69.7%
72.3%
73.3%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard) 
 9.1
9.1
9.2
7.6
13.9
Total number of characters :   
2919
1562
2371
2134
3063
Number of characters without spaces :
1707
1562
1363
1213
1753
Average Syllables per Word :
1.54
1.54
1.49
1.6
1.67
Sentence count :
27
27
22
26
20
Average sentence length (words) :   
19.3
18.19
20.09
15
29.58
Max sentence length (words) :
58
80
63
29.58
94
Min sentence length (words) :
2
1
1
5
7
Readability (Alternative) beta :
57.4
57.8
60.6
56.2
35.8

[close]

[Deofuta]

I'm not sure if this is allowed here but :

Stop trolling my thread or i will report you!

Please do not give warnings. The best possible thing to do is simply report so that we can fix problems like this as soon as possible. Next time just go ahead and report rule breakers ASAP, thanks!

Is it unlawful to warn people against posting in threads if the person is OP?

No, but it merely delays the process of dealing with rule breakers. If they break forum policy, then they should be reported. Typically, those that need to be warned are only going to be spurred into going further when asked to stop by someone without the ability to warn. This is because the responses are exactly what they want, they are aiming to illicit a response.

[DanyEle]

This isn't a game anymore....  Now it's all about politics, political correctness, rants, admins (consequently abuse). Seriously guys,  think about your life and how you're using it " Tempus fugit" and i'd suggest hat you don't spend it talking about the politics of a game.

[Riddlez]

This isn't a game anymore....  Now it's all about politics, political correctness, rants, admins (consequently abuse). Seriously guys,  think about your life and how you're using it " Tempus fugit" and i'd suggest hat you don't spend it talking about the politics of a game.

it's what comes with transparency

[Blobmania]

This isn't a game anymore....  Now it's all about politics, political correctness, rants, admins (consequently abuse). Seriously guys,  think about your life and how you're using it " Tempus fugit" and i'd suggest hat you don't spend it talking about the politics of a game.

If it means anything, I still don't give two tits either way about the "politics" of the community. It's the baggage you pick up when everything starts calming down - people crave drama. It's what keeps them interested now that the game has lost that new shiny feel.

[Duuring]

Now now, Blobby, that's a harsh thing to say. While I love a bit of drama now and then, I still love and play the game regulary. Many people can and will say the same.

[Deofuta]

This isn't a game anymore....  Now it's all about politics, political correctness, rants, admins (consequently abuse). Seriously guys,  think about your life and how you're using it " Tempus fugit" and i'd suggest hat you don't spend it talking about the politics of a game.

If it means anything, I still don't give two tits either way about the "politics" of the community. It's the baggage you pick up when everything starts calming down - people crave drama. It's what keeps them interested now that the game has lost that new shiny feel.

Politics, hue. Political correctness, hue. We make rules, the admins enforce the rules, sun goes up, sun goes down.

[Rejenorst]

This isn't a game anymore....  Now it's all about politics, political correctness, rants, admins (consequently abuse). Seriously guys,  think about your life and how you're using it " Tempus fugit" and i'd suggest hat you don't spend it talking about the politics of a game.

Normally wouldn't waste my time but I actually enjoy the detective work once in a while and this is unfortunately where people tend to push the direction of the discussion once to often though.

[Betaknight]

I also like to squander around the forums, working as an undercover detective. Looking for the trolls. Thats why i'm so active on the forums. I like doing that. Sometimes just chat. But really. I find that it's also interesting to hear what people have to say and how others react to it. Shows how the community is and how the game looks.

Plus if you don't like politics in forums then don't come around here. It's a political sector for everyone. Not to mention ban and unban sector.

Discussing also sometimes makes the forums better. And sometimes worse.

[Rejenorst]

Probably one of the most tongue in cheek comments made by the Emperor Napoleon on the subject:


In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

I had to smile when I read it.