To stratics:

[Restroom Cowboy]

To all those who moderate these forums, I have a bone to pick. I have found a flaw in the very way these forums operate...which needs to be somehow addressed. As of late, there was an unfortunate incident on Pacific that tainted the very core of this game. This incident could have been possibly avoided, that is if this forum did not cater to the very people responsible for the deeds that took place.

How is that I can say this you might ask? As things stand...if someone does something wrong in the game that adversely affects others, we as posters are not allowed to publicly share this information. Now as a player, I recognized right away the person who ended up being the culprit was no good... unfortunately nobody on Pacific realized this until it was too late.

Why? Anytime bad things are mentioned personally on the boards, they are censored. Period. In the end, you favorably are harboring criminal behavior by supressing factual information from being spread. Perhaps this may be ok for some situations, but I clearly do not see any reason why behavior like this should be rewarded...or even accepted.

If this board is about community, then it ought to act like it. Period.

 

[NewThunder]

One issue with what you would like to see is that there is no direct link to stratics usernames and game accounts. They are not haboring these people, they are simply not going to be the police. The "factual" information you mention is not able to be verified, while I completely agree with you that it is true, it cannot be proven. If that type of speculation was permitted, the boards may quickly become a nasty place of mud slinging.

 

[Gowron]

Restroom Cowboy, your post has merit, but I would submit that the staff has those kind of rules in place because there can be a fine line between a legitimate post and harrassing defamation.

 

[Kat]

Cowboy -

My "heart" wants to agree with everything you just said since I've struggled with these feelings myself, especially relating to calling out cheaters/exploiters/people who hack accts, etc. But... logically, I can't agree with you and I do understand why the RoC won't allow publically naming the culprit of these actions.

If you are determined to get word out, there are ways to do it without breaking the RoC.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

This is not a RoC issue...I clearly point to any of you to see for yourselves. Theft of the month has long been a tradition on the PVP thief boards for instance... it is a place where thieves can outright post what they stole and who they took it from. On the flipside, as users it is against the rules for us to reiterate the same information. I see some mention harrassment, yet how can anything be judged as such if the very activities are being bragged about on the boards?

OK...I will step back and indeed say there is a fine line there...however I think for the sense of community we should be allowed to express things openly for the greater good of all...not the selfish reasons of a few.

Point of fact here: the person admitted being the culprit...yet even then any public mention of this persons name has been disallowed and deemed against the rules.

 

[Cetric]

Person X is a scammer

Person Z posts on boards telling everyone he is a scammer

Person X whines and cries that he has been defamed, and he is not a scammer.

Person Z's post is banned and he gets a warning

Person X scams more people.


As restroom said--- this game and these boards in particular are supposed to be about community. If the community can not stay well informed, then it is a shame. I remember at one point, with all the naysayers about, someone set out to show people that cheating in UO was very very real. He took a screenshot someone else posted of tile hacks and several programs running. He blocked out the names of the programs so someone couldn't go looking for them, and posted it. He was trying to show anyone out there who would listen at the time (a few years ago) cheating is real, and it is a problem. The pic was immediately removed, and the user was reprimanded. Years later now, we have a rampant problem and ea is struggling to take care of it.


Good call restroom cowboy, alot of things are moderated... a little strange on here. Take a look at the GL shard forum. It used to have tons and tons of posts a day, most of them about pvp. At some point all of the threads started getting deleted, locked, etc. Feeling that pvp was being pushed off the board for some reason, someone made a forum dedicated to gl pvp, and it has flourished. Now the GL shard board is dead. =(

 

[Petra Fyde]

And how do you propose that we protect the innocents who's reputations are tarnished, or even destroyed by people fabricating evidence, copying their characters or just outright lying?
I've been down that road. I've been accused of being a hypocrite, a liar and a cheat when some clever idiot thought it was a good idea to create a character with my name and use it for script mining. Even adding the casting of incognito into the script to give it more credibility. The character was seen and I was 'called out' on these boards.
It hurt, it hurt a lot. My reputation as an honest and trustworthy person means a lot to me. The more I protested, the more convinced the person who'd seen the fake char was that I was guilty, as charged.
So no, we're not going to change our rules.
In my experience the way to find out if someone is trustworthy or not is to ask. To ask as many people as possible, in pms. People who's judgement I trust.

 

[Chad Sexington]

This is not a RoC issue...I clearly point to any of you to see for yourselves. Theft of the month has long been a tradition on the PVP thief boards for instance... it is a place where thieves can outright post what they stole and who they took it from. On the flipside, as users it is against the rules for us to reiterate the same information. I see some mention harrassment, yet how can anything be judged as such if the very activities are being bragged about on the boards?

I also wish everyone I stole from made a post about me.

 

[Cetric]

And how do you propose that we protect the innocents who's reputations are tarnished, or even destroyed by people fabricating evidence, copying their characters or just outright lying?
I've been down that road. I've been accused of being a hypocrite, a liar and a cheat when some clever idiot thought it was a good idea to create a character with my name and use it for script mining. Even adding the casting of incognito into the script to give it more credibility. The character was seen and I was 'called out' on these boards.
It hurt, it hurt a lot. My reputation as an honest and trustworthy person means a lot to me. The more I protested, the more convinced the person who'd seen the fake char was that I was guilty, as charged.
So no, we're not going to change our rules.
In my experience the way to find out if someone is trustworthy or not is to ask. To ask as many people as possible, in pms. People who's judgement I trust.

Well i suppose it can be on you when someone screws over someone else, and a simple post about this person would have stopped it.

I value reputation as well, but at the same time, who the hell cares what people think about you, the people that actually matter know you well enough. Going on my other post, remember the threads and threads on cheating, and people trying to make a "known cheater list" No one set out to ruin anyones reputation, if they were a known and proven cheater (basically someone that posted pictures of themselves cheating) they were added to this list. Someone cried that was on that list, he had posted several pictures of himself using client modifications, but since he was a major player in the trammel marketplace, he didn't want his name up there. The list was promptly removed.

Something like this was put in place at the time, to help players avoid the cheating players, and to stick with legit ones. It was done because EA was not doing anything about cheating so the players had to try to do something 1. to convince them it was real, and 2. to try to deter other people form cheating by making an example out of the proven few. The problem was, stratics condoned their behavior by not allowing the players to take the action.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

And how do you propose that we protect the innocents who's reputations are tarnished, or even destroyed by people fabricating evidence, copying their characters or just outright lying?
I've been down that road. I've been accused of being a hypocrite, a liar and a cheat when some clever idiot thought it was a good idea to create a character with my name and use it for script mining. Even adding the casting of incognito into the script to give it more credibility. The character was seen and I was 'called out' on these boards.
It hurt, it hurt a lot. My reputation as an honest and trustworthy person means a lot to me. The more I protested, the more convinced the person who'd seen the fake char was that I was guilty, as charged.
So no, we're not going to change our rules.
In my experience the way to find out if someone is trustworthy or not is to ask. To ask as many people as possible, in pms. People who's judgement I trust.

If something is openly admitted, all should be allowed to know. Period.

In this instance, we were not talking slander...we are talking about publicly available information on your forums. Unfortunately, this information does not get spread easily amongst the public.

Do I have a solution? No, however again I reiterate that there is indeed a problem. This thread is here only to present that...and hopefully this will spur some sort of process to come up with a solution.

I will say this...avoiding the problem is not the answer...I hope that a solution however can be discussed.

 

[Kat]

This is not a RoC issue...I clearly point to any of you to see for yourselves. Theft of the month has long been a tradition on the PVP thief boards for instance... it is a place where thieves can outright post what they stole and who they took it from. On the flipside, as users it is against the rules for us to reiterate the same information. I see some mention harrassment, yet how can anything be judged as such if the very activities are being bragged about on the boards?

OK...I will step back and indeed say there is a fine line there...however I think for the sense of community we should be allowed to express things openly for the greater good of all...not the selfish reasons of a few.

Point of fact here: the person admitted being the culprit...yet even then any public mention of this persons name has been disallowed and deemed against the rules.

If character names were officially connected with Stratics usernames, I would agree with you, but anyone could make a stratics username with some version your character name and claim all sorts of things. How would that go over with ya?

The rules and guidelines are not here to protect the guilty.

 

[Petra Fyde]

And how, exactly, would a simple post have helped, unless it was a very recent one? Would it have done more than a simple pm to each of the mods and reporters on the relevant shard saying 'what can you tell me about this person? do you consider him/her trustworthy?' Allowing defamation of characters would only expose their perfidity to those reading the correct shard board, and as you've already said, people on that shard already knew. Changing our rules would not help these situations. Making extensive enquiries, privately, in the right places would.

 

[Cetric]

And how, exactly, would a simple post have helped, unless it was a very recent one? Would it have done more than a simple pm to each of the mods and reporters on the relevant shard saying 'what can you tell me about this person? do you consider him/her trustworthy?' Allowing defamation of characters would only expose their perfidity to those reading the correct shard board, and as you've already said, people on that shard already knew. Changing our rules would not help these situations. Making extensive enquiries, privately, in the right places would.

and do you think those private messages not out in the public, would help a most players actually know of the problem? Like he said, i don't have a solution to this either. But it is a problem. If some open discussion about it can take place, there are plenty of smart folks on the boards that could help lend some solutions.


Things in uo used to be taboo, and information was passed through the community like wildfire. You didn't need a forum to pass the info. That isn't the case in today's UO.



As the one poster mentioned about creating a duplicate stratics user name and defaming someone. That could be done in-game just as easily as on a forum.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

If character names were officially connected with Stratics usernames, I would agree with you, but anyone could make a stratics username with some version your character name and claim all sorts of things. How would that go over with ya?

The rules and guidelines are not here to protect the guilty.

This is not about hypothetical, this is about cut and dry fact. In this case those who committed the acts were known to be theives on the shard they originated. However, on pacific they were able to start up a whole new facade...due to anonymity rules on stratics this information was not available to be made public in other areas of the forum. In fact, any mention of this would have either ended up being deleted from public view or deleted and the person who published the information cited for slander.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

And how, exactly, would a simple post have helped, unless it was a very recent one? Would it have done more than a simple pm to each of the mods and reporters on the relevant shard saying 'what can you tell me about this person? do you consider him/her trustworthy?' Allowing defamation of characters would only expose their perfidity to those reading the correct shard board, and as you've already said, people on that shard already knew. Changing our rules would not help these situations. Making extensive enquiries, privately, in the right places would.

This is a reflection of how there is a flaw with the current system. This is not a hypothetical issue.

How would one post help? It carries further than any comment you could make in game.

Could the information be passed on via PM? Sure, if I knew who all to send it to. Unfortunately that information is often harder to discover than the truth behind instances such as this one.

How can this be discussed as a matter of defamation after the person personally admitted to doing the offense? If you ask me, this issue is one which violates this rule to the core...

You may not victimize, harass, threaten, or cause another player unwanted distress or discomfort, as determined by Support Staff.

That is rule one of the RoC...if someone violates this, they deserve no right to play...or even post on this forum...period.

 

[Black Sun]

You may not victimize, harass, threaten, or cause another player unwanted distress or discomfort, as determined by Support Staff.

That is rule one of the RoC...if someone violates this, they deserve no right to play...or even post on this forum...period.

That's taken from the UO ToS, not Stratics. We are not here to enforce UO's ToS, Stratics and EA/UO are entirely separate entities.

It is not our job to police in game action. We follow our own RoC.

 

[Llewen]

Again, I haven't read the entire thread, but if you need to warn someone about a potential problem, and you know who that person is on the boards, and you don't have any other way of contacting them, you can always send a pm, and you can send it to multiple recipients if you need to.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Again, I haven't read the entire thread, but if you need to warn someone about a potential problem, and you know who that person is on the boards, and you don't have any other way of contacting them, you can always send a pm, and you can send it to multiple recipients if you need to.

If things like a name were not censored the first time around, more people would be able to pick up on that persons bad behavior. As far as your idea of PMing...that is often difficult to do if one does not show up until the last minute to see some wonky things.

I am not from the Pacific shard...I am only a visitor. I did not know this was going to happen, as I did not know the scope of player staff involvement in the festivities. It would have been impossible for me to PM everyone that was there, and most likely I would have been brushed off as a kook. However, had people the opportunity to voice concerns publicly...things might have been different.

 

[Kratos Aurion]

One issue with what you would like to see is that there is no direct link to stratics usernames and game accounts. They are not haboring these people, they are simply not going to be the police. The "factual" information you mention is not able to be verified, while I completely agree with you that it is true, it cannot be proven. If that type of speculation was permitted, the boards may quickly become a nasty place of mud slinging.

What he said.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

You may not victimize, harass, threaten, or cause another player unwanted distress or discomfort, as determined by Support Staff.

That is rule one of the RoC...if someone violates this, they deserve no right to play...or even post on this forum...period.

That's taken from the UO ToS, not Stratics. We are not here to enforce UO's ToS, Stratics and EA/UO are entirely separate entities.

It is not our job to police in game action. We follow our own RoC.

On the first part...wrong. Let me point you to this little Stratics rule...

O. Activities that are against any games' Terms of Service or the User Agreement are prohibited from being promoted or advertised on our network. This includes, but is not limited to, third party programs, game item sales for real world goods, power leveling services, and/or links to such items.

That means that any violations included in the RoC cannot be promoted here. In essence, you have an entire sub-forum present which breaks the rule I quoted. Should I continue on? I only wish I promote discussion here. Instead of telling me I am wrong or by giving example to hypothetical...perhaps a good solution can be had.

 

[NuSair]

Game. Set. Match.

He has a point.

 

[Arcus]

harboring criminal behavior.

LOL

 

[Chad Sexington]

That means that any violations included in the RoC cannot be promoted here. In essence, you have an entire sub-forum present which breaks the rule I quoted. Should I continue on? I only wish I promote discussion here. Instead of telling me I am wrong or by giving example to hypothetical...perhaps a good solution can be had.

Not the entire sub-forum, just the ones that steal in Trammel.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

LOL

welp...glad you found it entertaining. I was actually being serious. *shrugs*

 

[Black Sun]

O. Activities that are against any games' Terms of Service or the User Agreement are prohibited from being promoted or advertised on our network. This includes, but is not limited to, third party programs, game item sales for real world goods, power leveling services, and/or links to such items.

That means that any violations included in the RoC cannot be promoted here. In essence, you have an entire sub-forum present which breaks the rule I quoted. Should I continue on? I only wish I promote discussion here. Instead of telling me I am wrong or by giving example to hypothetical...perhaps a good solution can be had.

Enforcement of UO's ToS and not allowing users to post things that are against that ToS are too totally different things. You can't run illegal 3rd party apps. Do we stop people from doing so? No. We just tell them they can't talk about or advertise it here. We do not police player action in game, nor should we.

The problem with the situation you're talking about is not something that can be easily remedied. Stratics accounts are not tied to UO names, nor are UO names unique. Because of this "proof" can easily be fabricated to make anyone look like they're doing something wrong. If we even allow someone to "admit" to something it could easily be an impostor trying to cause problems for someone who's actually innocent.

The bottom line is there's no such thing as concrete proof in cases like this. "Facts" are too easy to manipulate to produce a desired outcome. A blanket policy is the only one that really works. Yes, it might protect some legitimate scammers, but it also protects the truly innocent.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Not the entire sub-forum, just the ones that steal in Trammel.

I have no issues with theft as a skill in the game. The trammel stuff however is for the birds. Again, I mention rule #1 as a reason for EA to do something about this...I mention stratics rule O. as a reason for a solution to come about.

As for the discussion, I hope something useful comes about. I will step away and I hope you all speak your minds with civility. Just try to remain open minded. Instead of he said she said...lets keep this productive!

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Enforcement of UO's ToS and not allowing users to post things that are against that ToS are too totally different things. You can't run illegal 3rd party apps. Do we stop people from doing so? No. We just tell them they can't talk about or advertise it here. We do not police player action in game, nor should we.

The problem with the situation you're talking about is not something that can be easily remedied. Stratics accounts are not tied to UO names, nor are UO names unique. Because of this "proof" can easily be fabricated to make anyone look like they're doing something wrong. If we even allow someone to "admit" to something it could easily be an impostor trying to cause problems for someone who's actually innocent.

The bottom line is there's no such thing as concrete proof in cases like this. "Facts" are too easy to manipulate to produce a desired outcome. A blanket policy is the only one that really works. Yes, it might protect some legitimate scammers, but it also protects the truly innocent.

No...I suggest you ask a lawyer to define the rule you have listed in your own section. The second part is all about *up to and including*. Promotion is anything from talking of something, to *hint hint* posting about it. It is obvious when something is grievous.

With regards to your second paragraph...the name of the person who was involved also goes by the same username here on the forums. Your point is moot.

Concrete proof? Images depicting proof are not even allowed to be posted. When they are posted they are censored. Your point is moot.

 

[Coragin]

And how do you propose that we protect the innocents who's reputations are tarnished, or even destroyed by people fabricating evidence, copying their characters or just outright lying?
I've been down that road. I've been accused of being a hypocrite, a liar and a cheat when some clever idiot thought it was a good idea to create a character with my name and use it for script mining. Even adding the casting of incognito into the script to give it more credibility. The character was seen and I was 'called out' on these boards.
It hurt, it hurt a lot. My reputation as an honest and trustworthy person means a lot to me. The more I protested, the more convinced the person who'd seen the fake char was that I was guilty, as charged.
So no, we're not going to change our rules.
In my experience the way to find out if someone is trustworthy or not is to ask. To ask as many people as possible, in pms. People who's judgement I trust.

Exactly what she said!

IMO you should have moved or deleted that old post long ago, I said from the beginning it didnt belong in uhall.

Wheres the mod sign up form? Can you link it please?

 

[Llewen]

Again, I haven't read the entire thread, but if you need to warn someone about a potential problem, and you know who that person is on the boards, and you don't have any other way of contacting them, you can always send a pm, and you can send it to multiple recipients if you need to.

If things like a name were not censored the first time around, more people would be able to pick up on that persons bad behavior. As far as your idea of PMing...that is often difficult to do if one does not show up until the last minute to see some wonky things.

I am not from the Pacific shard...I am only a visitor. I did not know this was going to happen, as I did not know the scope of player staff involvement in the festivities. It would have been impossible for me to PM everyone that was there, and most likely I would have been brushed off as a kook. However, had people the opportunity to voice concerns publicly...things might have been different.

I understand what you are saying, but I just don't see how the mods here can go down that road without opening the users of Stratics up to all kinds of abuse. If you don't know who to contact if you see a disaster in the making like what happened with the Pacific rares fest, you can always send out a pm to a few of the active mods. The mods on these forums are very well connected and if something is going on they are as likely as anyone to be able to connect with the potential victims before any real damage is done.

 

[Aroma]

You may not victimize, harass, threaten, or cause another player unwanted distress or discomfort, as determined by Support Staff.

That is rule one of the RoC...if someone violates this, they deserve no right to play...or even post on this forum...period.

That's taken from the UO ToS, not Stratics. We are not here to enforce UO's ToS, Stratics and EA/UO are entirely separate entities.

It is not our job to police in game action. We follow our own RoC.

Then everyone who pvp's in the game and uses this board is in violation and should be banned eh???

 

[Borric]

I never thought I would say this, but I agree with Restroom Cowboy. There has to be a way to inform the community without breaking any rules.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

I understand what you are saying, but I just don't see how the mods here can go down that road without opening the users of Stratics up to all kinds of abuse. If you don't know who to contact if you see a disaster in the making like what happened with the Pacific rares fest, you can always send out a pm to a few of the active mods. The mods on these forums are very well connected and if something is going on they are as likely as anyone to be able to connect with the potential victims before any real damage is done.

Its not that simple. Second, I call BS in this matter...as the moderator of the rares forum is not around to answer issues for days on end. Asking someone with no association to pass the buck is like peeing in the wind here.

Again, when I arrived I pointed out my curiosities...and it was not until the actual event that I even knew the person in question was involved. I certainly did not learn of the other two peoples involvement until after the fact.

Hindsight is 20/20. Shoulda coulda woulda is completely hypothetical...and saying your solution is workable is far from reality as we see it in this place.

@aroma...that statement of yours does not deserve an answer. if you play in fel...you know the rules are not the same.

 

[BeefSupreme]

The problem is everyone with power here following the stratics terms of use to the letter.

I don't know of any situation in life where I always followed a strict set of rules, and by doing that got further ahead than any other way.

Every situation is different. Consider guidelines then apply the ones that make sense to that situation.

I can't imagine anyone thinking squelching this bad deed is a good idea.
My best guess is every mod is thinking "Damn this sucks, but I have to follow strict guidelines"

Of course, there's a lot of stupid people out there, so who knows.

 

[Black Sun]

I think you're being a bit too literal in the interpolation of that rule. Just because EA says you can't use 3rd party programs doesn't mean we (Stratics) can tell people they can't do so. They can't advertise or talk about it here, but what they do outside this board is none of our concern.

As far as this whole pacific debacle goes, when you get down to it those people involved in didn't break any rules. The abused trust and lied. Anyone who says those are breaking the UO ToS because it constitutes harassment or causes mental anguish is being far too literal. Yes, it was a sleazy and underhanded thing to do, but they didn't exploit or cheat in any way to accomplish it.

Personally I think the whole thing is getting blow out of proportion.

 

[BeefSupreme]

Personally I think the whole thing is getting blow out of proportion.

I don't think so, I think everyone is so damned sick of trashy people in game, that this situation has just pushed everyone over the edge, and now we're all holding pitchforks, torches and sheep.



Ok maybe no sheep.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

I think you're being a bit too literal in the interpolation of that rule. Just because EA says you can't use 3rd party programs doesn't mean we (Stratics) can tell people they can't do so. They can't advertise or talk about it here, but what they do outside this board is none of our concern.

As far as this whole pacific debacle goes, when you get down to it those people involved in didn't break any rules. The abused trust and lied. Anyone who says those are breaking the UO ToS because it constitutes harassment or causes mental anguish is being far too literal. Yes, it was a sleazy and underhanded thing to do, but they didn't exploit or cheat in any way to accomplish it.

Personally I think the whole thing is getting blow out of proportion.

Stop with the sleight of hand routine, please? This has nothing to do with third party programs...it has to do with supporting acts that are in violation of the RoC. Your own rules state this, I didn't. This act on Pacific indeed violated rule #1 and many many people are in agreement with that.

I have not even mentioned (until now) that since the event was sponsored by EA staff, I see no reason they personally do not enforce what they will to be. (btw...all three I am sure have traceable IPs...since they are all registered with stratics)

Nothing here is blown out of proportion, this is about noticing a flaw which directly affects the ability to converse to everyone across shard(s). (personally I don't wish to PM every person who is registered to stratics if an issue ever arises that I may in the future have some ability to potentially stop)

 

[Aroma]

About the only reason a lot of people are on stratics is because the dev team uses this as a pulse of the game. Now i can see rules for uhall needing to be strict. But the shard forums? I would think that would be where that information should be posted and allowed. Ah but no body uses them due to these rules.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

agreed, it is a major flaw.

 

[Black Sun]

Stop with the sleight of hand routine, please? This has nothing to do with third party programs...it has to do with supporting acts that are in violation of the RoC. Your own rules state this, I didn't. This act on Pacific indeed violated rule #1 and many many people are in agreement with that.

Taking items from another player without exploiting game mechanics or otherwise cheating is not harassment. I'm sorry, it's not. There's an entire class of character dedicated to exactly that. These guys planned and pulled off a heist using nothing but the systems put in place by the game designers.

Nothing is 100% safe. People have to realize this. If I gave someone access to my house and they dry looted it I have no recourse. I gave them access, I paid the price. Would it cause me mental distress? Probably, but it was my own fault. Why should anyone be punished for doing something that the game allows for?

Now, I'm not saying people should be allowed to harass others without consequence. If you're following someone around hurling racial slurs, foul language, and threats of violence, yes, action should be taken against you.

Taking items from a house you were given access to? No, that's not a punishable offense, nor should it be. I don't care how upset the owner of said items gets. Once you hand over or otherwise give access to an item to anyone else you are taking a chance. If they take that item it's not harassment, it's underhanded, sneaky, and a whole bunch of other adjectives, but it's not harassment.

But to get back to the point of not allowing people to advertise scammers on the boards. It's not allowed because it's far to easy to fake evidence and ruin someone's reputation.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

You are being serial obtuse regarding this whole matter Black Sun. For every big idea I bring up, you nit pick trivialities. If you do not think four figures in a video game is an issue of great distress for a player...I do not know what is nor do I know how to convince you of such.

If you have the ability to clinically dismiss this without regards to relevance, you also have the ability to summarily dismiss any idea further brought your way. I have offered reason for my thought, provided ample evidence of WHY things are not as they as they should, yet I don't foresee change in your tone.

So...I repeat for you, there is an issue here due to lack of the ability to communicate. Censorship is allowing the lowest forms of excrement full privilege in your community...at the cost of those who actually try to spread goodwill amongst the community. Case in point...Pacific.

 

[Black Sun]

Obtuse? Yes, I suppose so. I'm both very blunt and insensitive at times. Sometimes painfully so, just ask any of my ex-girlfriends.

That aside, by removing any sort of censorship yes, it would enable the community to point out and expose "the lowest forms of excrement", but at the same time it would also open up a new window for that same excrement to grief and harm the reputation of honest players. It's a double edged sword. There is no simple answer, but allowing witch hunts to run rampant across the boards hardly seems like a good solution.

I'm sorry, but I have a very hard time thinking it's OK to start allowing people to just name names and start slinging mud freely. Do you have any idea of the kind of nightmare that create for the staff here?

 

[Aroma]

Here's a thought then leave the shard rules up to the shard's mod's. Hell you trusted them enough to make em the mod of that forum.

 

[NewThunder]

Even if you were allowed to post the guilty parties name, what good would that do:

ICQ #s can be changed, Stratics user accounts can be changed, Emails can be changed, Name change tokens can be used, X-sharding can be done.

This saddest part of the whole fiasco is that this person didn't change his name at all, had the Auction orginizers done any research they would have known they should not be trusted. What good would shouting this person's name do if event orginizers do not pay attention.

 

[Coragin]

You are being serial obtuse regarding this whole matter Black Sun. For every big idea I bring up, you nit pick trivialities. If you do not think four figures in a video game is an issue of great distress for a player...I do not know what is nor do I know how to convince you of such.

If you have the ability to clinically dismiss this without regards to relevance, you also have the ability to summarily dismiss any idea further brought your way. I have offered reason for my thought, provided ample evidence of WHY things are not as they as they should, yet I don't foresee change in your tone.

So...I repeat for you, there is an issue here due to lack of the ability to communicate. Censorship is allowing the lowest forms of excrement full privilege in your community...at the cost of those who actually try to spread goodwill amongst the community. Case in point...Pacific.

The people or person in question from this event did not do anything wrong from a game mechanics standpoint. They played within the rules of the game mechanics and they won so to speak. Morally it is not right, but by the game rules, they did not do anything wrong.

Should you be able to post the char name of the person in question (On the shard forum only)? Yes I think that is a request that is valid. But do I think this person should be banned from the game or stratics? No, they did not do anything against the rules. Maybe the rules of morality, but that is not against the rules of Stratics or Ultima Online.

This is a moot point here. Yes people lost items. Some would argue that this case is special because the items in question had a big dollar amount attached to them. I ask you then, why do these items have a big dollar amount attached to them? Because the players made it so. Blame the players for making these items valuable. Honestly none of the items in question were worth anything to me, not even a dollar. Because I dont play my game to keep things that do not help my toon progress. Its all about a social status thing and these items, no matter how rare or wanted they are are no different than a plate mail chest. Just because some people make them out to be worth hundreds of dollars does not make them worth that much. Its just a picture. But the people to blame are the ones who trusted a con artist, not the con artist himself. And stratics should not change their rules because some rare collectors got conned, nor should EA change their stance on the issue.

People were conned, it sucks, move on with your UO life.

 

[Picus at the office]

Taking items from another player without exploiting game mechanics or otherwise cheating is not harassment. I'm sorry, it's not. There's an entire class of character dedicated to exactly that. These guys planned and pulled off a heist using nothing but the systems put in place by the game designers.

Nothing is 100% safe. People have to realize this. If I gave someone access to my house and they dry looted it I have no recourse. I gave them access, I paid the price. Would it cause me mental distress? Probably, but it was my own fault. Why should anyone be punished for doing something that the game allows for?

Now, I'm not saying people should be allowed to harass others without consequence. If you're following someone around hurling racial slurs, foul language, and threats of violence, yes, action should be taken against you.

Taking items from a house you were given access to? No, that's not a punishable offense, nor should it be. I don't care how upset the owner of said items gets. Once you hand over or otherwise give access to an item to anyone else you are taking a chance. If they take that item it's not harassment, it's underhanded, sneaky, and a whole bunch of other adjectives, but it's not harassment.

But to get back to the point of not allowing people to advertise scammers on the boards. It's not allowed because it's far to easy to fake evidence and ruin someone's reputation.

/THREAD.

This said I see no reason why there cannot be a epic thread directly related to the uber scam pulled off by these guys. Praise and joy given the specific chars and alter-ego's. Nothing wrong with that I think as at least one of the people have claimed on stratics to have done the scam.

Its a burn for the people who got pulled in but no one has provided a specific thing that these players did that is against the ToS. Morally they are scum but morals have never ment much to some people.

 

[Petra Fyde]

1. What do I, personally think about what happened. It was a despicable act.
2. Do I think the organisers are, in part, to blame? Yes I do. A few simple enquiries, or even a little reading of the subject's own posts would have answered the question 'is this person trustworthy?'
3. Will we change Stratics rules to allow witch hunts? Most assuredly not.
4. This topic is now closed!