Anonymous kicking in LSes: Please fix this.

[Raxiaz]

Your solution requires reorganizing a whole LS, redistributing pearls to innumerable people, spending 8,000 gil (lol), "moving on" to another LS, which most likely won't be as easy you may think. I join new LSs very rarely, and when I do, "getting started" is a hard thing to do feeling empty most of the time.

Anyway, my "solution" to your scenario was born out of contempt for the solutions you so press against me. They're really no different. Except my solution is simple and logistic - while the solutions for the current system and the scenario given are complex, faulted, and require a little more work involved.

Joeblow makes a topic about how he loves turtles and thinks they're the best. Only three other people on the forum agree. The others disagree with him. They say obviously they can't be the best because there's only four of you who like them.

Please, I ask you nicely here, don't use forums, threads, posts, or anything of the nature to "prove a point" in such a way that you just did. Because I guarantee you, these forums, while official, don't display the actual playerbase as a whole. And not everyone is going to read and/or respond to a given topic. So results gained from topic posts are skewed at best and don't represent anything.

The suggestion was not made with the intentions of changing the way a linkshell succeeds or fails. It was made to give liability to sackholders, making it so that if they kick someone, it needs to be a legitimate reason agreed upon by a majority of the LS, through simple conduct. Obviously, most LSs won't keep someone shouting obscenities in chat. But just because a sackholder has a personal grudge against someone doesn't mean they should kick them.

[Greatguardian]

Take a picture of the log containing the boot text. If you're on PS2/360, play on PC. Or simply allow LS leaders to review a history of sackholder activity. Your scenario can't even happen if only sackholders and the LS leader can see sackholder activity.

You're saying we should prefer the outcomes we have in the current system wherein LS members are inclined not to enjoy the game because the negative outcomes that the solution has consists of "s/he said s/he said" tendencies? Again, now, it's up to the LS leader to make a decision. Your own scenario only empowers the LS leader more, giving them even more responsibility over the LS than before.

You accuse posters of not listening to you, yet you keep using the same example in nearly all of your posts (Sackholder logs in, kicks people, then changes shells so that no one can kick or see them)?

That has been fixable by GMs for years. If they won't do it for you, you're probably not articulating the problem properly.

Linkshells are purely a social device and are not implicitly involved in gameplay at all. There are no bonuses, or restrictions, to participating in gameplay based on your linkshell. If you're kicked from a shell, so what? That does not mean you can't talk to the cool people in that shell. If leaders don't like you, leaders don't like you.

This adjustment has only shown the slightest hint of merit in the case of incredibly large, disorganized social shells whose leaders are borderline incompetent. Your loudest (in terms of CAPS LOCK SPAM) advocate, Arlan, admits to being one of the troglodytes who has spam-kicked people out of spite in the past.

What it comes down to is this:

Does the entire linkshell need to know when someone is removed from a shell, and by whom? And the answer is No.

Does the Shellholder need to know when someone is removed from a shell, and by whom? Frankly, if they care, they can find out without the game's help. If they're running a shell with sackholders who will openly lie to them and attempt to hide a kick from them, they need to reevaluate their position and their choice of sub-leadership.

Does a kicked member need to know who kicked them? No. I'm sorry, but you don't have any of the fancy rights you think you have in an online, social setting. You can be removed at any time, for any reason, even if it's just for fun. It's not harassment. It's not online bullying. It's removing you from a social group. If anything, it is the antithesis of online bullying because it prevents you from making further contact with a potential bully. It is a removal from a situation, not an escalation of one.

tl;dr, People need thicker skin. Being kicked from a linkshell is not the end of the world. In fact, it means very little. If you hang out with a bunch of cool people in a shell but a leader decided to kick you anyways, use the /Tell function to talk to those people, do things in parties with those people, or make your own social shell with those people in it. Realize that internet loyalty and rights are 100% artificial in this environment. It is not bullying to remove you from the presence of others. It is a legitimate exercise of the rights bestowed onto the player who kicked you.

And yes. All sacks have that right, whether the Shellholder "approved" it or not. Whether the Shellholder even knows of it or not. Why? Because it is any sackholder's right to arbitrarily add and remove members to a linkshell. If this is too great a responsibility for someone, don't give them a sack. If a Shellholder's judgment is inadequate, they should not be a Shellholder. If a Sackholder goes rogue and legitimately harasses a linkshell, GM them. They can remove a pearlsack directly from a player's inventory.

Edit: Finally, there is no democracy in Linkshells. You have no rights. I will repeat that. You have no rights. No one but the person who kicked you needs to agree that you should have been kicked. Non-sacks are welcome to have opinions. But no one in leadership is required to give a damn what those opinions are. That is fact. End of story.

[Zagen]

Please, I ask you nicely here, don't use forums, threads, posts, or anything of the nature to "prove a point" in such a way that you just did. Because I guarantee you, these forums, while official, don't display the actual playerbase as a whole. And not everyone is going to read and/or respond to a given topic. So results gained from topic posts are skewed at best and don't represent anything.

I'll be honest I really enjoy "flame" threads especially how they always derail in unexpected ways, so much so that over the past 8 or so years I've been an active reader of several forums to find my ever so fun flame threads. To name a few killingifrit.com, ffxiah.com, zam.com, bg, and i'm sure there are many more I'm forgetting besides the 9 years late official forums. In those 8 years I vaguely remember 1 or 2 stories that are of people getting "anonymously kicked". My favorites were all the ones about X girl player cheated Y number of guys in an LS out of items they tried to buy her love with, always got a good kick out of those, or the people who get kicked and cry how they were robbed of DKP.

Just because I referenced this thread does not mean it is my only point of reference, and I feel confident in the fact that over 8 years this issue wasn't a major concern I came across often in forums or even the fun Jueno shout fests to say this isn't a major problem with linkshells.

The suggestion was not made with the intentions of changing the way a linkshell succeeds or fails. It was made to give liability to sackholders, making it so that if they kick someone, it needs to be a legitimate reason agreed upon by a majority of the LS, through simple conduct. Obviously, most LSs won't keep someone shouting obscenities in chat. But just because a sackholder has a personal grudge against someone doesn't mean they should kick them.

If the Shell holder/maker is responsible in who he designates to be a sack holder and there are well established rules/procedures for kicking this won't happen. The difference there is it requires the LS leader to do something and not be lazy when wanting to be a "leader".

[Raxiaz]

Does the entire linkshell need to know when someone is removed from a shell, and by whom?
I do not suggest that everyone sees the message. It's even in the OP now that only the person who was kicked would know who it was. I would like to ask now that this argument here ends. Because I don't suggest it. If I did originally, my opinion has changed. I'm a human, I have that right. Even on the Internet.

Does the Shellholder need to know when someone is removed from a shell, and by whom?
The LS Leader does need to know because it's their shell. And you're right that in the ideal situation there's no need for this suggestion. But this imperfect world exists for the sake of imperfection. Thus, safeguards need to be in place so that truth is readily available. For humans lie, and just saying "they shouldn't be a shellholder/assigned sacks to those people in the first place" doesn't fix the problem. It's a "coulda, woulda, shoulda." You should know what those are.

Does a kicked member need to know who kicked them?
Yes, they do. They need to know that information so that they can get in contact with the person, and know why they were kicked. If they know, then there's no need for that. They'll just know who gave them the boot. Just like you know who makes your blood rise on an internet forum... they need to know because this prevents the jerk from repetitive kicking. It stops a problem before it becomes a bigger one.

You're really saying, "live with the inconvenience." I'm giving this suggestion as a safeguard against unnecessary and inconvenient harassment, the suggestion being completely neutral and takes away nothing nor gives nothing significant save for the name of the person who kicked someone to be displayed in that someone's chat log alongside the message. Because it's happened before where the kicking person will drag it on for days - kicking one person in whole linkshell at random times of the day, the same person - there's nothing else wrong with the LS short of that, and that person is forced to get a new pearl every single day. When that inconvenience and aggravation could have been avoided by simply stating who it was.

[Bulrogg]

This is not a waste of time, this is actually a time worth spending to put down a simple feature that can help many.

Yeah, because soooooooooooooooooooooooooo many people are suffering from /brokenlinkshell-itis

"If you or a loved one has been anonymously kicked from a linkshell, we are here to fight for your rights."

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

/SicilianLisp : Inconceivable!!!

[Mokatu]

I still would like to be able to kick members who aren't a part of the shell anymore, or possible offenders who are offline at the time the ls leader is online. It would save some headaches.

[chubrocka]

bring back MPK!!!!

[scaevola]

Freud once said the route to purpose and happiness was to work and to love. If you want linkshells to stop being backstabbing free-for-alls, you need to direct them to content that encourages them to not be backstabbing free-for-alls. Such content does not currently exist, not really.

[Gotterdammerung]

I think this is a useful suggestion. I have several people that i can't boot out of my linkshell because they are never online when i look to boot them. And i have had several people who were kicked by an anonymous sackholder. Luckily, i found out about it but only because i send a tell to members who havent showed up in a run or 2. These anonymous boots at best make peolpe miss events and at worse make shell leaders lose valuable members over stupid kids games. And frankly im surprised so many are opposed to the idea. What's the downside of removing this problem?

[Raxiaz]

My sentiments exactly, Gotterdammerung.