[Global] Shik

[Molly]

The core problem is the lack of communication. The fact that only now have the admins decided to come forward and explain how the system works and how they come to decisions is rather surprising.  The entire shit-storm could have been avoided with better communication from the admin team and a bit more transparency with the inner goings on of the 'free to play community mod'.

Not letting people know that there was an ongoing process and simply leaving sooth to spew his rot all over those that inquired was an oversight, similar to the problems that have occurred with admins in the past.

This.

Already said that like 6 months ago. There is a lack of communication although it has been way better with the new born lately.

[MrShine]

This.

Already said that like 6 months ago. There is a lack of communication although it has been way better with the new born lately.

I'm as much a fan of transparency as anyone else, but frankly when it comes to how admins operate behind the scenes, it really isn't anyone else's business.  The only reason others are aware of the Kesh situation is because Kesh & others have made it very vocal, and with Smoothrich being the original admin who did the ban, the forum drama naturally escalated.  Somehow people have exaggerated the situation and make it appear as some sort of mass admin corruption controversy...this belief obviously favors those in the Kesh camp because it discredits the admin system in a whole.

What everyone should know & take away from all this now that we are at this point:
- Devs are involved
- Kesh is still banned
- Smoothrich currently has has his admin privileges revoked.
- The investigation about IRC leaks is ongoing
- Where we are at now has nothing to do with strategus enemies & vendettas

[Casimir]

I disagree, considering that the admins are meant to be here to ensure that players have a good time how is it not our business how they regulate themselves.

 When they have the independent ability to deny someone from playing for whatever reason, we have the right to know what is in place to stop this from being abused.  The argument you present is the same as saying if your not in the army/police/government etc. you have no right to know how they operate.  The decision and actions of admins affect not only the individual case, but the whole community due to the precedent they can set. As such i believe we should be informed how admins are kept in check and how the system regulates itself.  There is no need for people to have in depth knowledge of the day to day goings on, but an awareness of the system, or the fact the system exists, should be clearly communicated. This has not been the case until recently.

I guess its a matter of opinion, but i believe that those with power should be accountable and those who are susceptible to their power should know who to contact and how it is handled.

[Duster]

People, its a free mod to a fifteen dollar game. Time invested does not make you entitled to anything.

[oprah_winfrey]

The more they tell you about how they catch multiaccounters/account sharing/autoblockers, the easier it is for people to find workarounds so they don't get caught. End of Story.

@MrShine: From my understanding, these can be added to that list:

-Cmp has permanently banned Kesh and Trillian for multiaccounting.
-Cmp has permanently banned Vick/Homey for supposedly leaking chat logs.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

that's funny. I even have EU guys talking to me on steam and being amazed at how shitty and corrupt the NA admin team is.

That's funny, I even have EU guys talking to me on steam and being amazed at how funny it is that Kesh is banned.

[Turboflex]

People, its a free mod to a fifteen dollar game. Time invested does not make you entitled to anything.

before maybe, but now the guys running it are working on a new professional game and have solicited money from this community so whatever they do here now reflects back onto their new projects. People are quitting over this so it's costing them long term supporters.

[Smoothrich]

before maybe, but now the guys running it are working on a new professional game and have solicited money from this community so whatever they do here now reflects back onto their new projects. People are quitting over this so it's costing them long term supporters.

Quitting over what.  People cheating, or people being banned for cheating?  Don't really know what the problems with the admins here are, except not enough is done to deal with Strategus multiaccounters, exploiters, bug abusers, etc.

[Tagora]

before maybe, but now the guys running it are working on a new professional game and have solicited money from this community so whatever they do here now reflects back onto their new projects. People are quitting over this so it's costing them long term supporters.

note to devs, the rest of us don't care.  we're not quitting.

[MrShine]

I disagree, considering that the admins are meant to be here to ensure that players have a good time how is it not our business how they regulate themselves.

 When they have the independent ability to deny someone from playing for whatever reason, we have the right to know what is in place to stop this from being abused.  The argument you present is the same as saying if your not in the army/police/government etc. you have no right to know how they operate.  The decision and actions of admins affect not only the individual case, but the whole community due to the precedent they can set. As such i believe we should be informed how admins are kept in check and how the system regulates itself.  There is no need for people to have in depth knowledge of the day to day goings on, but an awareness of the system, or the fact the system exists, should be clearly communicated. This has not been the case until recently.

I guess its a matter of opinion, but i believe that those with power should be accountable and those who are susceptible to their power should know who to contact and how it is handled.

I think your analogy of army/police/government actually reinforces my argument.  Do we get let in on the army's weapon secrets, or (legal) techniques police might have to get criminals to confess?  Of course not, nor should admins be expected to make all their internal discussions about players known, nor should devs explain in length how they can detect autoblockers/multi-accounts.  Just like the police/government/army has a job to protect the general population & has some guidelines to adhere to, so too admins have a job to administrate & give people who need it reasonable information, but not every ban needs to be explained in full detail for everyone to hear. 

^Obviously this is rather melodramatic; a volunteer admin system consisting of a bunch of guys playing a video game isn't nearly as important in the scheme of things as the services mentioned.

I do think the system usually works though: someone does something wrong, an admin bans them, the person who did something wrong can appeal it in the unban section.  Other admins/devs typically do not intervene unless something seems egregious.  In this recent case of Kesh's ban from Smoothrich obviously there was this intervention.

Ultimately though, I don't see how the system isn't working properly.  Do admins usually do their job correctly?  Usually.  Do admins make mistakes?  Undoubtedly.  Can admins lose their privileges if they are determined to be making too many mistakes?  Clearly. 

@MrShine: From my understanding, these can be added to that list:

-Cmp has permanently banned Kesh and Trillian for multiaccounting.
-Cmp has permanently banned Vick/Homey for supposedly leaking chat logs.

I didn't add those because I think there are still discussions happening regarding permanence. 

before maybe, but now the guys running it are working on a new professional game and have solicited money from this community so whatever they do here now reflects back onto their new projects. People are quitting over this so it's costing them long term supporters.

The original issue was an admin issue in c-rpg, which literally has nothing to do with the devs developing the new game.  And people have been saying they are/will be quitting cRPG for about a million other reasons in the past.  Strangely I tend to notice those people playing cRPG a week later.

[Turboflex]

The original issue was an admin issue in c-rpg, which literally has nothing to do with the devs developing the new game.  And people have been saying they are/will be quitting cRPG for about a million other reasons in the past.  Strangely I tend to notice those people playing cRPG a week later.

Well it does cuz it effects their reputation which carries over to their new project so is a factor towards its future success.  For a lot of players the community experience matters to them so the devs can laugh off their troll reputation if they want, and laugh off admins like smoothrich & shik banning rival players like Kesh & Vick with armies outside their city walls and offer up weak explanations to people days later, but it will result in a lot of people forming a poor opinion of Donkey Crew (who are the ones ultimately responsible for the administration of their games). When M:BG is getting closer to release and they start putting out promotional stuff like preview videos to be passed around on other forums or site articles expect a lot of negative community comments from people with opinions formed by events like this.

[oprah_winfrey]

Well it does cuz it effects their reputation which carries over to their new project so is a factor towards its future success.  For a lot of players the community experience matters to them so the devs can laugh off their troll reputation if they want, and laugh off admins like smoothrich & shik banning rival players like Kesh & Vick with armies outside their city walls and offer up weak explanations to people days later, but it will result in a lot of people forming a poor opinion of Donkey Crew (who are the ones ultimately responsible for the administration of their games). When M:BG is getting closer to release and they start putting out promotional stuff like preview videos to be passed around on other forums or site articles expect a lot of negative community comments from people with opinions formed by events like this.

So your saying that in order to get better reviews for their upcoming game, they should keep Kesh unbanned even if they have proof that he is cheating? Doesn't sound very professional to me.

As far as Vick, I hope he gets unbanned sooner rather then later.

[Matey]

Vick should never have been banned to begin with. His ban just confirms how bad things are. "Well, smoothrich the awful troll thinks Vick leaked the info.. So lets permaban vick!"

Seems legit.

also, I think Casimir pretty much covered my opinion about more transparency. We don't need to all be there watching everything, but any logs from any admin decision should be made at least partially public if there is reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the decision. You can always edit away things that might explain how the evidence is gathered or whatever.

Another thing, I know shik is a troll. He has always been a troll. I like shik, but he was never a good pick for NA leadership as he is a troll, and doesn't take things seriously. Remember when he made Kesh an admin cause he thought it would be funny seeing how it would go wrong? Basically, if you want good leadership for NA, you want someone who does care and who does take things seriously.

[MrShine]

Well it does cuz it effects their reputation which carries over to their new project so is a factor towards its future success.  For a lot of players the community experience matters to them so the devs can laugh off their troll reputation if they want, and laugh off admins like smoothrich & shik banning rival players like Kesh & Vick with armies outside their city walls and offer up weak explanations to people days later, but it will result in a lot of people forming a poor opinion of Donkey Crew (who are the ones ultimately responsible for the administration of their games). When M:BG is getting closer to release and they start putting out promotional stuff like preview videos to be passed around on other forums or site articles expect a lot of negative community comments from people with opinions formed by events like this.

If people want to read more into it than is actually there no-one can stop them.  chadz & co are going to have to deal with misinformed people making up wild reasons for purchasing/not purchasing their product just like anyone else out there.

Just know that I as an NA admin for c-rpg have no more impact on the development process than anyone else, nor was I picked as an NA admin by any of the EU developers, who are the majority of the development team. 

It's like blaming the boss of a company for something their ex-employee did in their personal time somewhere... is there a vague connection?  Yeah, but nothing direct that's worth getting worked up over.

 

Vick should never have been banned to begin with. His ban just confirms how bad things are. "Well, smoothrich the awful troll thinks Vick leaked the info.. So lets permaban vick!"

Seems legit.

Obviously if smoothrich had that much sway in the actions of the devs he wouldn't be deadminned right now. 

also, I think Casimir pretty much covered my opinion about more transparency. We don't need to all be there watching everything, but any logs from any admin decision should be made at least partially public if there is reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the decision. You can always edit away things that might explain how the evidence is gathered or whatever.

cmp has given you what you want to hear: he's looked into it and determined Kesh to be guilty of multiaccounting.  Putting aside everything else with smoothrich and shik and the incredibley entertaining drama of the past day or so, he's explained why Kesh is currently banned.  I don't know what the results are going to be with vick, but I don't see how you can expect a more detailed reason for why Kesh is being banned that doesn't leak their detection processes.

[Matey]

except if you read cmp's posts, he banned kesh as leverage for finding the leak, not for any actual crimes. He even stated specifically that if kesh revealed his information source that they would unban him; he then decided to just keep kesh permabanned because they have now apparently looked into the multi accounting accusations and decided kesh is guilty... in other words, assuming they actually did investigate instead of just saying "well fine, you won't reveal the name of this random person who told you stuff?! then you can stay ban!" it still shows that cmp isn't trustworthy; either A. if kesh had been able and willing to name the leak then he would be unban despite apparently deserving to be ban thus circumventing proper justice or B. if kesh was able and willing to name the leak they would have just said "lol u ban anyway" and thus been proven as lying.
cmp is more concerned with banning someone for revealing that the NA team fucked up hard than he is about anything else. he has permaban TWO people in an attempt to find out who leaked, he promised to unban one of those people if he revealed the leak, in other words, promising a pardon for any real crimes that player may or may not have commited if they just reveal the source of that chat log. So it is apparently a bigger crime to post logs from that private chat (which multiple other people have since done) than it is to multiaccount (as cmp is now claiming kesh is confirmed as having done)

the more i think about this the more it just disgusts me.


and as bad as all that is, it still doesn't explain why vick is banned and why they still care about who revealed the chat log.