Disable a Player's FC Chat privilege

[Darki]

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.

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.

[Fornix]

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.

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).

[Korilynn]

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.

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. :/

[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.

[Stihllodeing]

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. :/

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.

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.

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.

I agree with all of that.

[Kasathar]

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.

[Terrini]

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.