So votekick >abuse< is practically allowed?

[Ryuko]

I would like a votekick option for 'trolling'. Harassment seems way too severe, but when I am booting someone out for trolling... it's the only option I have. It seems that little 'warning' about unjustified votekicking is actually not very effective at all. Unless people are kicking each other enmasse, GMs aren't going to notice a pattern of abuse on a person's record, and will instead just assume they had a reason. Last night, a friend of mine was votekicked out of ST by a mostly premade because they were trolling (pulling bosses before most people were there -- annoying a lot of the full alliances). He told them to stop, or that he'd votekick boot them, not realizing they made up nearly the full party (and thus had majority). So, they votekicked him instead.

[Jasiwel]

This hasn't happened to me yet, thankfully, but it's really freaking stupid. The phrase "different playstyle" can be so interpretable that you can literally kick anyone at any time for that reason. It makes premades in DF even worse than before. This is a serious problem SE needs to address.

[StarHate]

No such thing as a perfect system. That language lets the GM use their own judgement in if it was abuse or not. Different play style is the polite way of saying "We understand people don't get along, but we can't reasonably list the infinite number of valid reasons there might be to kick someone, so instead we will judge it on a case by case basis"

[Enkrateia]

Greetings!

To begin, I have removed several posts commenting negatively about the company or the service itself, as well as a side discussion about the use of spell checking. Those suggestions have been heard, but take away from the concerns in this thread, which is a criticism of policy and confusion resulting from a message sent by a GM.

I have escalated several of the concerns with the messaging to the appropriate group for review and ways to improve their messaging to prevent confusion like this.

However, there is one topic in this thread that seems to be an underlying point of contention: reasons for dismissal that are not strictly "AFK", "Offline", "Harassment", or "Cheating". I would like to address this.

The response from the GM touched on this, although it was missed due to the focus on the first part of that sentence. The reasons for dismissal are not all encompassing, which means that there may be valid reasons for dismissal outside of those four examples. Good examples of this that have been provided in this thread are the refusal to fulfill one's job function. Because of this, it is possible that the reasons provided for dismissal may be found to be accurate if they are used against you. As well, the feelings one may have about the reasons may differ from the feelings of those who voted to dismiss. For example, cultural differences in language may have one person using language they find fairly benign while another person takes great offense to it.

Because of these subjective discrepancies, the final decision on if a violation of the use of the vote dismiss feature is left to a GM after an investigation. In general, abuse of the vote dismiss feature is considered to be a grief tactics violation, which falls under section 3.2 in the Final Fantasy XIV User Agreement. However, it is only after a GM investigation that it can be determined to be a violation of the rules. If you feel that the vote dismiss feature has been abused, please do report it to the GMs through the Help Desk in game, and we will investigate.

LGM Enkrateia

[Amberyl]

Good examples of this that have been provided in this thread are the refusal to fulfill one's job function.

Hope you've got the manpower to cope with the ambiguity that statement entails. Because the amount of misuse reports you're gonna get is going to skyrocket when wind of this hits the servers, lol.

[Enkrateia]

Hope you've got the manpower to cope with the ambiguity that statement entails. Because the amount of misuse reports you're gonna get is going to skyrocket when wind of this hits the servers, lol.

There is not much ambiguity to that sentence. If a person is intentionally acting in a manner that is detrimental to the completion of the duty, then the use of the vote dismiss feature is unlikely to be a violation. If the concern is that this will be used as an excuse to abuse the feature, if our investigation determines that they did perform their duties in an appropriate manner and were kicked due to unrealistic expectations, then it could be found to be an abuse of the vote dismiss feature. A GM investigation will make the final determination about if the feature was used appropriately.

LGM Enkrateia

[Amberyl]

If a person is intentionally acting in a manner that is detrimental to the completion of the duty, then the use of the vote dismiss feature is unlikely to be a violation.

When playing as a DPS, I regularly see DF players attempt to kick-vote inexperienced or under-geared tanks and heals and use words very much akin to the above as their justification. This happens most in non-levelsync'ed content, where players are new to the game, and may not even understand how to lodge a grievance with a GM.

Your acceptance of kick-votes deviating from the specified text in the client encourages a kick-now-and-see-if-it-comes-back-on-us attitude. If you're going to allow such terminology in the justification of kick-votes, then it should be a written option in the client.

[Enkrateia]

When playing as a DPS, I regularly see DF players attempt to kick-vote inexperienced or under-geared tanks and heals and use words very much akin to the above as their justification. This happens most in non-levelsync'ed content, where players are new to the game, and may not even understand how to lodge a grievance with a GM.

Your acceptance of kick-votes deviating from the specified text in the client encourages a kick-now-and-see-if-it-comes-back-on-us attitude. If you're going to allow such terminology in the justification of kick-votes, then it should be a written option in the client.

This does leave us with 2 possible options.

Option 1: We only consider reasons for dismissal that are specifically stated to be an abuse of the vote dismiss feature. On the plus side, this does provide a clear and definitive set of guidelines for the use of the feature. On the downside, it is limited by the creativity of customers to find ways of disrupting a run outside of what is listed. Otherwise, the list of possible violations will be too extensive to be used efficiently or will be too vague to provide a definitive set of guidelines.

Option 2: Commonly reported reasons for dismissal are listed, although the tool can be used to dismiss anyone for causing a disruption to the duty. On the plus side, the feature can be used to remove disruptions and increase the chances that the duty can be completed. On the downside, it means that there is not one definitive list for reference on when the use of the feature is justified.

Neither option actively prevents abuse of the feature. Abuse of the feature is prevented due to account actions taken by GMs after an investigation to encourage customers who do misuse the feature to discontinue that behaviour. Currently, option 2 is what is currently in place, since a GM needs to investigate either way, and allows the GM to consider new types of disruptive behaviour that arise instead of waiting for a change to the tool while keeping the tool interface easy to navigate and use.

I think what I may not be clarifying in my replies is that this allows for a broader scope to the use of the tool than just one stated example (not fulfilling job duties). It's never just "one more reason"; the possible reasons for proper use of the tool are limited only bt the creativity of those looking to disrupt duties. Once we list something there, some new way of disrupting runs is bound to arise, and this allows customers to try to make sure runs go smoothly while still allowing for GMs to consider if the feature itself was used in a proper manner.

LGM Enkrateia

[Hikoko]

OP, what's the background of your case? Before agreeing or disagreeing that the current system doesn't work I'd like know how it was misused against you.

I have kept details of my specific incedent out of this discussion for a good reason. I don't want you to judge whether it was misused against me, I want you to judge whether it is a good policy (such as, one that does not allow abuse easily) that a simple disagreement in playstyle is a legit reason to votekick, as the GM told me.
I'll repeat that "(no) cutscene-skipping" and "gear not deemed high enough" are both named examples that fall under this section.

Good examples of this that have been provided in this thread are the refusal to fulfill one's job function.

This is called harassment and that should fall under the "Harassment"-section, shouldn't it?
The problem of "refusing to play one's job function" is not the issue of this thread.

The issue is that "Player disputes" and "Differences in playstyles" seem to be a legit reason to kick a player. If two (or more) players have an argument, and neither of them is right or wrong (they simply disagree), why is one group allowed to kick the player? If said player did not violate the terms of the User Agreement, why is it not a violation to kick him?

In case this is regarded as a violation, then why does the GM tell me otherwise and why are there numerous comments about GMs not ruling as one would assume is appropriate alone in this thread?
I would say because the offical policy states it's not a violation and the GMs take it for what it is.

If the concern is that this will be used as an excuse to abuse the feature, if our investigation determines that they did perform their duties in an appropriate manner and were kicked due to unrealistic expectations

This was not the concern of my opening post. The concern is that players who want to kick someone for whatever reason (loot, player dislike, racism or whatever you can find) "simply" have to make up an excuse that falls under said category of "playstyles" or provoke an argument ("player dispute") and then kick the player without facing punishment - with no harm done on the kicked-player's side.

I should have named the thread "So votekick >abuse< is practically non-existent?", maybe it has lead to some confusion.

Your acceptance of kick-votes deviating from the specified text in the client encourages a kick-now-and-see-if-it-comes-back-on-us attitude. If you're going to allow such terminology in the justification of kick-votes, then it should be a written option in the client.

That would be a first step to clarify things, but it would not fix the issue I (and as far as I can tell some others) see in the general policy.


edit: no system is perfect, everybody knows that. I just think the current system/policy has a major flaw that shouldn't have happened in the first place, that being what I have been talking about all along.

[Alukah]

OP, what's the background of your case? Before agreeing or disagreeing that the current system doesn't work I'd like know how it was misused against you.