Disable a Player's FC Chat privilege

is there a rank setting, that disables a player's ability to type in FC chat? rather than kick them out of FC outright?

Nope. The best you can do is make a new rank with zero privileges and a silly name.

If you don't mind me asking,.. If you don't want them to talk, why bother having them in your Free Company?

it's like timing out someone in a stream chat on twitch, or giving them a temp forum ban.

ie. things get heated, can stop someone from saying something nasty, that they might regret in the future.

never going to happen.

the only level of censorship is going to be left in players hands, aka, black list.

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Originally Posted by BiBi___

it's like timing out someone in a stream chat on twitch, or giving them a temp forum ban.

ie. things get heated, can stop someone from saying something nasty, that they might regret in the future.

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Remove the offending individual(s) from the FC and allow them back only if they can behave. If they can't, they can go spew their bile elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by BiBi___

it's like timing out someone in a stream chat on twitch, or giving them a temp forum ban.

ie. things get heated, can stop someone from saying something nasty, that they might regret in the future.

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This moderation is very childish and can be abused very easily. What is offensive to one person might not be offensive to another. This is a feature with a high rate of abuse.

If you don't let them talk they'll leave anyway. so just kick them.

That would make FCs look like dictatorships. Forcing someone to shut up just because you want (could be easily abused). It's not on your end if that person says something he/she might regret, nor your choice to let it happen or not, but his/hers. Let them deal with the consequences.

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Originally Posted by BiBi___

it's like timing out someone in a stream chat on twitch, or giving them a temp forum ban.

ie. things get heated, can stop someone from saying something nasty, that they might regret in the future.

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Your FC sounds like a fun place to be...

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Originally Posted by Edeline

That would make FCs look like dictatorships. Forcing someone to shut up just because you want (could be easily abused). It's not on your end if that person says something he/she might regret, nor your choice to let it happen or not, but his/hers. Let them deal with the consequences.

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An FC can easily be run like a dictatorship if desired anyway. Forcing someone to shut up just because you want, or else face gkick.

And although I've been fortunate enough never truly to run into a situation yet in which I felt muting a played in my FC would be required, although at times the urge did come close. I have encountered such scenarios in prior games. And often it's not so much a matter of muting because an officer wouldn't want to talk to them in such a scenario. But either because:

A) Two members are going at it against each other. Often over the most pointless thing. Where the urge came close was a recent example, a few members selling wedding bands whereas one person strongly opposed this concept. Things were turning heated for a moment. However, the level of discussion fortunately enough was maintained relatively mature. A few years ago I remember a heated argument between two guild members in WoW though over the game's shabby performance in Wine. A windows user told him to just suck up his love for linux and dualboot to play WoW. Things escalated quickly. The usual "will figure out where you live, and <fill in random threat>" lines were reached within mere minutes. Despite trying to get them to shut the hell up they kept going at it. So I gkicked both. Ultimately one ended up showing remorse for his manners, and got an invite back into the guild.

If there'd be some form of moderation available however, it'd be a lot easier to not have such a talk escalate to such levels. Not for the sake of being a dictatorial ruler over one's own guild reigning down upon your own members, but rather to protect them. From the need of being removed (temporarily) out of the guild. But also from risk of infraction (as yes, GM's do ban for what is said in private FC channels if someone reports it).

B) To quickly temporarily block spoilers. Sometimes excitement can go high, detailing about the plot of the latest blockbuster seen on opening night. Easily forgetting others are still to see it as well. A quick mute, followed by some chat to inform them to please stop spoiling, unmute can go a long way. Now often there's still another line of spoilers coming in, just because it's being typed as you're typing yourself.

At the same time though, many FCs are run with a group of officers in a semi-professional manner. I know if a previous company I was in, we -did- have people who would go overboard about a given topic, and then regrett everything they did the day after because stuff blew up. Were they bad people? No. Did they not their limits or when to stop (or perhaps recognize when to stop)? Possibly.

A temp mute wouldn't be so bad if there was a warning system in place. Something like "X Officer has requested a temporary mute on Player Y. Will other officers A, B, C approve?" As any of the voting-based features in the game, of course there will be those who will abuse it. But just like the voting features, it will also be helpful to many as well.

...think about vote dismiss. Some abuse it, others use it when someone is actually AFK, Harrasing, etc.

A time out feature could be useful but depends on the management of the FC, cause if you just kick someone without warning then they are bad leaders and don't mean warning in FC chat. If they serious about hey you out of line you need to stop then needs to taken to private tells and then continues then get kicked. Does your boss yell at you in front of everyone at work? If so refer to my previous comment about them being a bad leader. So that why I say a time out option could be useful depending on the management of the FC.

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Originally Posted by Antanias

Remove the offending individual(s) from the FC and allow them back only if they can behave. If they can't, they can go spew their bile elsewhere.

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Private rooms make that far less practical a solution than it used to be, particularly in a situation like Fornix's example B.

It wouldn't help the "Things are getting heated, perhaps you guys should cool off for a bit." But hypothetically, if You wanted the option to shun a single person in your FC, but didn't want to be as drastic as booting a person or Blacklisting them, a smaller FC could have a secondary Link Shell they can exclude people from. No one responding can kill a person's desire to talk pretty much.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

This moderation is very childish and can be abused very easily. What is offensive to one person might not be offensive to another. This is a feature with a high rate of abuse.

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Completely disagree.

I ran a league in DCUO and the "mute rank" worked very well. Putting someone in a position to think about what they said/did before actually kicking them is a great tool, very respectful, and a mature way to go about handling disagreements.

Just flat out kicking someone before you have a chance to find out what actually happened is a poor way to run a league. Everyone knows there are two sides to every story, and sometimes someone says something not realizing at the time it was offensive to someone else. Officers could use a tool like this to display fairness and enforce rules in an objective way.

This would be a great feature for officers of an FC. I hope something like it would be implemented in the future and think it's a great suggestion.

Start a strike penalty system. After so many they get booted or excluded from FC events for a period of time.

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Originally Posted by Fornix

An FC can easily be run like a dictatorship if desired anyway. Forcing someone to shut up just because you want, or else face gkick.

And although I've been fortunate enough never truly to run into a situation yet in which I felt muting a played in my FC would be required, although at times the urge did come close. I have encountered such scenarios in prior games. And often it's not so much a matter of muting because an officer wouldn't want to talk to them in such a scenario. But either because:


A) Two members are going at it against each other. Often over the most pointless thing. Where the urge came close was a recent example, a few members selling wedding bands whereas one person strongly opposed this concept. Things were turning heated for a moment. However, the level of discussion fortunately enough was maintained relatively mature. A few years ago I remember a heated argument between two guild members in WoW though over the game's shabby performance in Wine. A windows user told him to just suck up his love for linux and dualboot to play WoW. Things escalated quickly. The usual "will figure out where you live, and <fill in random threat>" lines were reached within mere minutes. Despite trying to get them to shut the hell up they kept going at it. So I gkicked both. Ultimately one ended up showing remorse for his manners, and got an invite back into the guild.

If there'd be some form of moderation available however, it'd be a lot easier to not have such a talk escalate to such levels. Not for the sake of being a dictatorial ruler over one's own guild reigning down upon your own members, but rather to protect them. From the need of being removed (temporarily) out of the guild. But also from risk of infraction (as yes, GM's do ban for what is said in private FC channels if someone reports it).

B) To quickly temporarily block spoilers. Sometimes excitement can go high, detailing about the plot of the latest blockbuster seen on opening night. Easily forgetting others are still to see it as well. A quick mute, followed by some chat to inform them to please stop spoiling, unmute can go a long way. Now often there's still another line of spoilers coming in, just because it's being typed as you're typing yourself.

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Muting someone wouldn't solve anything in a heated argument. If anything, would make them even angrier. If you're upset they used FC chat to do so, warn them to at least do it privatedly or deal with the consequences after a warning. That way you don't force mute someone, you instead give them options, up to them to choose what's better for everyone. You're free to kick someone from your FC, it was your decision to make one and other's to join, however you're not entitled to say who's able to chat or not (more technically, to let people express their opinions or not). If the situation requires someone being kicked, muting won't help anyway.

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Originally Posted by Antanias

Remove the offending individual(s) from the FC and allow them back only if they can behave. If they can't, they can go spew their bile elsewhere.

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That's probably a bad idea if they have a personal room in the FC house. That costs 300k...

there probably should be something in between not being able to do anything to someone misbehaving that you are willing to give a second chance and 300k room ransom.

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Originally Posted by Anneliese

That's probably a bad idea if they have a personal room in the FC house. That costs 300k...

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That's not the FC's problem if the owner of said room decides to be a total a-hole towards their FC in any way.

I don't think that's much of an active solution tbh. Yes it might quiet the moment down, but people talk when they have an opinion they want heard, albeit they don't always do it in the best way possible.

I think the fc leader and officers should be willing to step in and speak to the people involved. I recently had this happen where one member was openly discussing something similar to the selling of wedding bands and another fc member was very offended. They had it out a bit while I was stuck in the dungeon, but I got them to hold off until I got out. We did a party with the 3 of us with me mediating and they agreed to disagree. I stepped in not because I wanted to (I really wasn't feeling well that day) but because as fc leader it's my responsibility to. If I had taken the easy way out and muted one or both, I think they'd have been offended and probably left. I know I would if I were in their shoes.

To those mention in room prices, that is completely irrelevent. By joining an fc, it's saying that what you contribute or put in, is beneficial in some way to the group. Causing trouble and enmity is the exact opposite of what the fc is for, unless stated otherwise. By going against it, you are risking what you put in, whether it be a room, gil in the chest, or items. By causing trouble, you put all of it at ris of being lost

I left my last fc because, after standing up to another player and being thanked for it, even, the disrepectful and insulting player was defended by the fc master, citing that he "knew them in real life"

Still, you're first thought when a problem comes up shouldn't be to mute someone, regardless oof what is said. If they are really that rude, why do you want to keep them? And if they arent actually that bad a lot of the time, and thing get out of hand, let them take responsibility on their own.

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Originally Posted by Edeline

Muting someone wouldn't solve anything in a heated argument. If anything, would make them even angrier...snip.... If the situation requires someone being kicked, muting won't help anyway.

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Seeing if someone gets more angry can be advantageous. People can really show their true colors and surprise the hell out of you when they're angry. Muting them is not for kicking them. It's a purgatory. You don't do it with the intention of kicking them, you do it with the intention of finding out what was said and what happened.

Nothing irritates me more than racial slurs, jokes about disabilities, sexual preference cracks, etcetera. As people get comfortable with each other jokes like these or jokes similar in nature tend to surface. Saying something as simple and innocent as "that's retarded" can rub someone the wrong way. Free Company chat/voice chat is a tool shared by all, things are going to happen.

A time out chat is an easy way for officers and owners to take a few people aside in a completely objective fashion and say "Okay what happened?"

It's a tool for larger guilds with officers who are involved and accessible. Of course a bad league officer could abuse it, but they would abuse the tools they have anyway. Having this as a chat option wouldn't hurt anything at all and be a positive imo.

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Originally Posted by monochromicorn

...snip... If they are really that rude, why do you want to keep them?

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Some people just have a bad day once and a while. Some people are really active in their respective leagues, donate a lot of time and monies, and have some tenure. A good officer will think twice before just kicking someone and saying, "talk to me later".

More often than not, a good officer with good tools can make something good out of a bad situation.

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Originally Posted by Stihllodeing

Snip. More often than not, a good officer with good tools can make something good out of a bad situation.

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This person has a good grasp of the kinds of tools effective leadership can really take advantage of. Time out chat or muting is not meant to be a punishment, but a form of discipline, and despite the connotations, that is not a bad thing. Sometimes people just need a small bop on the head to straighten them out, and preventing them from making things worse by continuing an argument would help save relationships between members of a group. Concerns about the potential to abuse a mute function are not indicative of a broken tool, but of broken leadership, and if you find yourselves in a free company whose leaders WOULD abuse it, you probably wouldn't want to be in that free company in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Edeline

That would make FCs look like dictatorships. Forcing someone to shut up just because you want (could be easily abused). It's not on your end if that person says something he/she might regret, nor your choice to let it happen or not, but his/hers. Let them deal with the consequences.

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Well, this is just my opinion, but some kind of dictatorship in an FC is not always a bad thing, given how the leader (e.g. me) behaves. I was in a lot of "democratic" FCs before and every single one went down and broke. I am leading alone and the way I lead is "Give me opinions, I decide. If you like it, fine. If you don't, just go". Surprisingly, this works out well and I have not lost one former member yet.

Easy solution-

Change chat to battle chat problem solved you wont see the chat anymore, If you don't like the chat then why join or make a free company or Linkshell or even invite anyone.

If you cant handle something that is your problem that is my opinion.

It sounds like to much micro managing of what mature people / people that should get a little bit of a back bone and understand not everything said needs to be taken personally.

I can see the reasons for wanting this, there has been one or two incidents in my FC that I wish I had this ability. A person isn't "bad and worthless to keep around" just because they get a bit over-heated occassionally. if you're looking to mute someone more often than not, sure, kick em, but once here and there is something totally different. I've made great use of this in my WoW guild when things got heated there, and would happily welcome it in my FC controls

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Originally Posted by BiBi___

it's like timing out someone in a stream chat on twitch, or giving them a temp forum ban.

ie. things get heated, can stop someone from saying something nasty, that they might regret in the future.

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Speaking from first hand experience, sending said person a /tell telling them to chill out is far more effective. It's what we do in our FC and it works.

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Originally Posted by Edeline

Muting someone wouldn't solve anything in a heated argument. If anything, would make them even angrier. If you're upset they used FC chat to do so, warn them to at least do it privatedly or deal with the consequences after a warning. That way you don't force mute someone, you instead give them options, up to them to choose what's better for everyone. You're free to kick someone from your FC, it was your decision to make one and other's to join, however you're not entitled to say who's able to chat or not (more technically, to let people express their opinions or not). If the situation requires someone being kicked, muting won't help anyway.

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Muting both parties temporarily can most certainly help restore order in a heated argument. See it as a judge using his hammer as initial attempt to restore order in his court room. It gives the opportunity to get a message across to both parties involved, as well as send a clear message to other FC members that the current course of discussion was considered inappropriate, prior to approaching the parties involved by /tell.

What resolves absolutely nothing is kicking someone from the FC. Regardless of being free to do so, it adds absolutely nothing. It's a very poor way of dealing with problems, and it's poor design to have it as the only available option. Especially in this game where there's possible financial consequences involved as well (FC room ownership).

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Originally Posted by BiBi___

it's like timing out someone in a stream chat on twitch, or giving them a temp forum ban.

ie. things get heated, can stop someone from saying something nasty, that they might regret in the future.

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As a leader of a MMO group who's used this option, believe me, it usually just makes even more problems. "Why did you silence him?" "Going to silence all of us now?"

It's a lose/lose situation for leaders. :/

If your FC prides itself in being a safe place for it's members, there should be something like mute that can assist management to maintain that. If as a member, you can't trust or respect your leaders to use it properly, you should consider finding another FC.
Kicking a member from the FC is a poor only option. I think mute would be useful in some situations for example if the offending member/s are bound by duty and you can't pm them, or if things are escalating quickly.

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Originally Posted by Korilynn

As a leader of a MMO group who's used this option, believe me, it usually just makes even more problems. "Why did you silence him?" "Going to silence all of us now?"

It's a lose/lose situation for leaders. :/

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It's never created more problems than it has alleviated for me and I would've never considered using it as a lose/lose. Can it upset someone? Yes, but that should be expected.

What's also to be expected is that the players in your league have enough faith in management to make the right decisions and to initially respect their leaders' choices. If anyone or any clique in a league ever asked me, "Going to silence all of us now?" The ONLY answer from me would've been, "No, just you..." I might even temporarily restrict their privileges depending on their attitude.

I've had people question my authority and choices before, but I created a good track record for them to refer to. A big part of that track record is doing what needs to be done at the time and then verifying it was the right choice. I've rescinded rulings before, apologized for any misconceptions behind the decision, and took responsibility for them. THAT's what people expect from their league leaders. They expect you to do the hard things no one else wants to do. :mad:

My experience comes from running a league in DCUO with hundreds of members, a dozen people on at any given time, and thirty to forty people online in peak hours sometimes more. I took the league over after the founder had to take an extended break due to PTSD from being in the Army. He founded the league with the premise that "All players are important, all players deserve our time, and all players make up our league" If you expect people to buy into a philosophy like that, then you have to give them something to believe it. Lots of people found their league/guild with this idea in mind, but never bring it to fruition because of how frustratingly hard it is to actualize. However, the bigger guilds that don't operate with the guidelines of "OMG every man for himself xD yolo!" run their leagues much like a business. They have meetings, discuss the removal of a member in depth, brainstorm on ways to improve their league, and discipline individuals in an objective manner.

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Originally Posted by Ken_8O

If your FC prides itself in being a safe place for it's members, there should be something like mute that can assist management to maintain that. If as a member, you can't trust or respect your leaders to use it properly, you should consider finding another FC.
Kicking a member from the FC is a poor only option. I think mute would be useful in some situations for example if the offending member/s are bound by duty and you can't pm them, or if things are escalating quickly.

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I agree with all of that.

I would just warn the parties involved and if they keep at it I would just kick them out. FC's these days are way too tolerant of disruptive drama in between members.

I actually think this is a good thing. I run my FC on a respect and trust basis, so people that have earned their place with a lot of contributions has a higher rank and more benefits. If you are problematic to the point another fc member has to call on management then it calls for a demotion. Lowest rank members risk being kicked from the fc. If there was a mute option, that can be a good warning with my system for a first time offender that is a new member. So I like the idea.

As people have said if you don't trust your fc leader to be fair you should probably find another fc.