Should vote-to-dimiss remain anonymous?

I'm on the fence with revealing the identity of the person who initiates votes-to-dismiss a player or instance. On the other hand, so many people are abusing this system because they know their identities will remain anonymous.

A few days ago I hit up Garuda Ex. I figured something was wrong when a few players (who obviously knew each other) were acting like jerks. The noob tank, who didn't bother to know about the fight, had the other tank explain the mechanics. No big deal, I guess, since some players prefer to go into a fight blindly and learn that way. So whatever. But then this noob tank decided to go AFK while the other tank took the time to type out everything! WTF. When that inconsiderate tank finally returned, it was pretty clear he hadn't paid attention to what the other tank wrote since we wiped. Immediately on that first wipe, the tank who took the time to explain everything was abruptly 'dismissed'. I was confused. I'd pushed 'no' and asked why that tank was dismissed since he did nothing wrong at all. Then one of the tank's apparent buddies replied with a cynical 'who, what, where, and how' wise-ass reply. I ignored this guy (the healer) since I didn't want to feed the troll. We finally got a tank replacement. This one was also patient and, while we wiped a few times, we were making progress in the fight. but then, abruptly SOMEONE initiates the the vote-to-dismiss isntance! Not once. Not twice. BUT THREE TIMES. On both times the party rejected the motion. But on the THIRD time the window popped-up, it occurred immediately when the tank was pulling garuda and everyone was going in. Naturally, you're gonna push 'yes', especially if you want to get rid of the window. But I paused and noticed these assholes had AGAIN pushed the vote to dismiss and pushed no. Sadly, the rest of the party caught on too late and we were dimissed.

I already sent my report to SE. But it does make me wonder if the vote-to-dismiss should remain anonymous since people act like jack-asses when they know no one knows it's them initiating it. I know the tank and healer were involved with the trolling by the way they brushed off the dismisses and made fun of the situation. In another event, I remember months back I was in a titan ex run and people kept telling me someone in our group was trying to dismiss me. They didn't know who the troll was, but they were telling me this troll wanted me gone even though I hadn't done anything wrong. We eventually learned it was the other BLM in the party since he showed his true colors by intentionally pulling titan (hoping we would all dismiss the instance).

I dunno. On the one hand I value the ability to vote for dismiss and not worry about backlash. But with gamers like this running amuck, it's hard enjoying the game when any troll can abruptly dismiss the instance and have his/her identity protected.

should make it so the person who initiated it, and the votes of the other people are known. full transparency and less people would be kicked.

I've reported for vote kick abuse one time, was contacted by a GM and the first thing he asked was if I knew who initiated the vote, so if the GMs aren't even going to take the time to check the logs, then yes it should show the person that initiated it, and the how the people voted.

Vote to abandon can be done by any player, and should be known to everyone. Vote to dismiss can only be initiated by the party leader I assumed, and you should know who your party leader is, even in a DF group.

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Originally Posted by Rath

Vote to abandon can be done by any player, and should be known to everyone. Vote to dismiss can only be initiated by the party leader I assumed, and you should know who your party leader is, even in a DF group.

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Anyone can initiate a vote to dismiss in duty finder, if you are in a premade group out and about, then yes only the leader can boot someone from the group.

Yeah, in DF anyone can vote to abandon the instance after 15 minutes have passed. it's why in my report i told the GM the players who I *thought* were involved based on my observations. Not sure if anything will be done about it, tbh. But I'd like to think SE is reevaluating their voting system and its disclosures.

For myself, i believe transparency is the key to stopping this type of abuse. I get WHY SE wanted this system to remain anonymous. But it does more harm than good since the ones typically initiating a dismissal are either rage quitters or trolls who don't want to suck up the time penalty.

I don't get why the duty thing closes when it has people waiting for that tank or dps or healer.

when it should just fill the spot or send us in the fight without it till one comes.

Its better than retrying over and over again.

Yesterday i had a really nice run in hullbreaker isle. The tank had trouble with keeping aggro so it happened that our healer got aggro of a single mob and instead of doing his job the tank let it be. The healer died after this and suddenly they wanted to kick him. Worst is the reason for the kick was CHEATING! Also nothing was writen in the chat at that time so when the healer was gone he didn't even know what has happened. Since i could not agree with it i left right after that so the other dd could wait with the tank.

In the support desk they write vote kick abuse is a punishable act but in the report they want to know who initiated the kick. Now i wonder how should the healer report it when there are 3 players who could have done it?

I think they should either remove vote dismiss or make it possible to see who startet it and who voted in what way. After all the healer doesn't even know that one person didn't want to kick him and might think all three of us are assholes.

I also think the person kicked should know which reason was selected for why they were kicked.

I agree that if you're kicked then you should know by whom and why. Even if it isn't necessarily public at initiation of the kick, if it's successful then the player kicked should know so they can challenge/report/ignore the person who initiated the vote.

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Originally Posted by Vetaro

I think they should either remove vote dismiss or make it possible to see who startet it and who voted in what way.

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Can agree with keeping it transparent, but the vote kick must stay. I don't want to see the 2.0 leeching days ever again. Removing it would just lead to insufferable consequences.

The whole point behind this is to prevent people harassing the person(s) that initiated the kick. Last year, I once left a duty because my party sucked really hard and I didn't want to deal with it anymore (this was way before vote kick even existed!) and one of them decided to harass me via tell. I'm sure the GMs don't want to deal with sky rocketing harassment reports, real or fake, if vote kick annonomy was removed.

No, it should remain anonymous, both the identity of the initiator and the votes of the party. I don't want to be the target of verbal abuse from people I have started the vote to kick over the verbal abuse they've heaped on other players. The result of the vote to kick or abandon reflects the party sentiment, not just the person who initiated it. Anyway, even if you had the identity of the person who initiated, you cannot prove it was harassment without something in the chat logs.

I kick people who are stupid, I don't care if they know I think they're stupid.

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Originally Posted by Niamh_Rillemaugh

No, it should remain anonymous, both the identity of the initiator and the votes of the party. I don't want to be the target of verbal abuse from people I have started the vote to kick over the verbal abuse they've heaped on other players.

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You -are- aware this game has a delightful little mechanism called the blacklist, right?

So the initiator can be verbally abused? No thanks. There's already the flood of "Go kill your self instead of staying" when someone initiates

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Originally Posted by Brine_Gildchaff

You -are- aware this game has a delightful little mechanism called the blacklist, right?

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you cant blacklist cross server.

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Originally Posted by Yoninxi

you cant blacklist cross server.

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You also can't send /tell cross-server, which is the problem the person I was quoting was bringing up.

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Originally Posted by Yoninxi

you cant blacklist cross server.

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And you can't send tells cross server either. Besides, the chances of meeting the same people through DF are pretty slim.

Edit; Ah, ninja'd. xD

I don't see any reason why it should remain anonymous. Fewer vote kicks would happen if it were transparent, because you would need to really have a reason to vote kick someone. The argument that "I don't want to be harassed" for initiating a vote kick when you are already being harassed to the point you felt a kick was necessary is a poor one.

This would help people learn to use the tool at times when it actually needs to be used instead of just willy-nilly. It should be transparent ESPECIALLY if SE is instructing their GMs that they cannot do anything unless they know who initiated the vote kick. I mean, talk about putting in a system and then giving yourself a way out of enforcing anything by keeping information out of the reporter's hands.

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Originally Posted by Mcshiggs

I've reported for vote kick abuse one time, was contacted by a GM and the first thing he asked was if I knew who initiated the vote, so if the GMs aren't even going to take the time to check the logs, then yes it should show the person that initiated it, and the how the people voted.

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The GMs can see it. They are asking you if you knew who it was to see if it was obvious or not. I am willing to bet 99% of people who report a ticket for "vote kick abuse" are really just sore that they got kicked. If the vote kick passed, it is EXTREMELY unlikely it was abuse - unless you are saying that the majority of the group was in some giant conspiracy against you. You are kind of proving the point as to why people think it should stay anonymous. If it passed, there is a very small chance it was abuse of the system; however, you want a name gosh darnit so you know who to report!!!!

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Originally Posted by Brine_Gildchaff

You also can't send /tell cross-server, which is the problem the person I was quoting was bringing up.

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I wasn't talking about tells. I was talking about any type of communication that is possible during an instance. It doesn't matter if the harassment is isolated to the instance. It's still harassment.

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Originally Posted by StarHate

The GMs can see it. They are asking you if you knew who it was to see if it was obvious or not. I am willing to bet 99% of people who report a ticket for "vote kick abuse" are really just sore that they got kicked. If the vote kick passed, it is EXTREMELY unlikely it was abuse - unless you are saying that the majority of the group was in some giant conspiracy against you. You are kind of proving the point as to why people think it should stay anonymous. If it passed, there is a very small chance it was abuse of the system; however, you want a name gosh darnit so you know who to report!!!!

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That certainly is not always true and that was proven to me in a run. Like i said our healer got kicked for CHEATING and the only thing he did was that he died when the tank failed to protect him. That was 100% an abuse of the system for a really stupid reason. Also the majority of a party doesn't always mean muchs unless it is maybe a full party.

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Originally Posted by Vetaro

That certainly is not always true and that was proven to me in a run. Like i said our healer got kicked for CHEATING and the only thing he did was that he died when the tank failed to protect him. That was 100% an abuse of the system for a really stupid reason. Also the majority of a party doesn't always mean muchs unless it is maybe a full party.

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Of course it isn't always true. If there was a 100% perfect system then this thread wouldn't even exist. What you have to ask yourself is how reasonably frequent it is. Are you honestly telling me you believe that the MAJORITY of the time, when someone gets vote kicked, it is because the group is just secretly against them and abusing the system? Of course not, because that is ridiculous. You don't build systems based on the outliers.

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Originally Posted by Niamh_Rillemaugh

No, it should remain anonymous, both the identity of the initiator and the votes of the party. I don't want to be the target of verbal abuse from people I have started the vote to kick over the verbal abuse they've heaped on other players. The result of the vote to kick or abandon reflects the party sentiment, not just the person who initiated it. Anyway, even if you had the identity of the person who initiated, you cannot prove it was harassment without something in the chat logs.

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LOL, no. If you aren't willing to put a name on it then you shouldn't be using the feature. Your real name isn't Niamh Rillemaugh so you already have that wall to hide behind and blacklist. You don't need an extra layer. Anonymity is 99% of the problem with the internet these days. You put a persons identity on something and they at least try to act like something that resembles a human being.


Sincerely,
Chris Brooks

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Originally Posted by StarHate

Wild assumption

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Way to jump to conclusions, I was in Haukke Manor Hard mode on my monk for an animus book, as soon as we zone in someone says fast run, mnk can't aoe and I get kicked, so if you want to say that's not abuse of the system I don't know what is.

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Originally Posted by ckb

LOL, no. If you aren't willing to put a name on it then you shouldn't be using the feature. Your real name isn't Niamh Rillemaugh so you already have that wall to hide behind and blacklist. You don't need an extra layer. Anonymity is 99% of the problem with the internet these days. You put a persons identity on something and they at least try to act like something that resembles a human being.


Sincerely,
Chris Brooks

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Google must love you.


News flash, people are jerks whether they use their real identity or a fake name. If I am going to kick out a troll from my party, I don't need him or his friends trying to either find me in world or on the lodestone and stir up something and require a GM intervention to clean up the mess.

Also, showing who vote kicked you doesn't reduce the amount of kicks being used. Left 4 Dead 2 used to hide the identities of people that started a vote kick until Valve patched the system to show who started a kick. Kicking since then has not changed one bit.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

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Is that a fact that showing who initiated a vote kick does not reduce the abuse? I can understand your stance on the matter, but your example was wishy-washy at best. Sounds more to an opinion of perspective rather than a fact. And if it as you say that it doesn't change anything, then I really see no reason to not make it transparent.

Having your name flaunted around like a flag when you initiate a vote dismiss/abandon would make people more reluctant to initiate them because if that vote kick does not pass for whatever reason, your members are going to stare dagges at you. And if they end up choosing to dismiss you instead, the GMs sadly can't intervene as it is a dispute within the party. This can also be used when an abuse of the vote dismiss/abandon occurs to report said individual. I don't see much of a downside to showing who initiated the vote kick, personally.

Maybe they should rectify the fact that each member of an almost full pre-made party of 3/7 are all counted as individual votes?

It's already explained why they don't show names when vote kick is brought up; whether or not the kicking is legit or abused, internet drama ensues the minute you start pointing fingers for anything and that is something Square wants to avoid for their sanity and the sanity of the community.


Showing names would not make people more reluctant to start a kick, false or not, because since every instance is cross sever, people know that they can just do whatever they want since they can't be followed. Failed votes when showing who started the vote would just cause more drama unless you decided to keep the kickee from knowing they're being dismissed as it is right now. Names are hidden to reduce the drama and if anyone is going to report someone for abuse of the votes, they'll just write up the whole party regardless because everyone had to have agreed in the first place.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

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When I made the comment it was intended in a much larger scope than just an MMO where you canBLACKLIST anyone. That is the easiest fix for harassment in any MMO. SE and valve are 2 very different companies and SE has always been heavy handed with violations like the one you stated. People are even bigger jerks with anonymity and no accountability. Like I said, put a name on it and let SE do the rest. If it doesn't work you can come back and say I was wrong. I'm ok with being wrong but it's like saying league of legends has a horrible community so every other online community is horrible. Based on my experiences with SE over the last decade plus they take that type of behavior seriously and don't mind banning people.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Names are hidden to reduce the drama and if anyone is going to report someone for abuse of the votes, they'll just write up the whole party regardless because everyone had to have agreed in the first place.

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And that doesn't have to be true since there can also be people who refused but it was not enough. And you can be sure that there are many people you would no longer dare to abuse the vote kick if they did know that they could risk to be banned for some time. Right now people abuse it because they know that those that got kicked won't know who it did. Also if someone gets harrassed because he tried to kick someone he can just blacklist him. Don't care that you can't blacklist cross server because if the vote kick fails and you get harrassed you can just try again with the reason of harrasment. If that still doesn't work you can just leave and you will have your peace.

the question is : why would it be a problem to live up to what you decided to do and deal with the consequences of said decision. if it rightly motivated, then why would you fear a problem ? if it isnt motivated well then be ready to be the one condamned ( so to speak) and chances are you should not have done it in the first place.

Anonimity has removed the notion of responsability of own actions, people that fear need to reassess themselves and learn that fear doesnt control you, is you that control fear or be ready for sore moments.

Just me though.....

Mei

Keep it anonymous. Particularly, I've had very toxic players who treat people like **** in ST. However, they come with their friends to make sure they can't be kicked. If you put who is voting to try and kick someone for a toxic attitude, you simply open it up to even more abuse - namely, that person turning around and kicking a player from the party who is getting insulted by a toxic player.

There is no issue with the current iteration of the vote kick system, save players abuse. Currently, there is no abuse to be found in making it anonymous. Players are free to initiate vote kicks, and they won't find themselves treated badly by people who que as a team.

Vote kicking should remain anonymous in my opinion. The purpose isn't to put people on the spot, because most of the time the kick was initiated for a justifiable reason. That's not to say there are trolls and griefers who don't vote kick innocent people, it's just that it's a far less likely circumstance. Showing who initiates vote kicks leads to more potential abuse, more GM calls and more headaches for all involved. There are some really weird people who will go out of their way to further grief a person, even if they aren't on the same server.