The 3-Strikes Policy - Is it really a good thing?

[Vaern]

I know nothing about the Law in real life, but does your record get cleaned every X years/set amount of time for minor offenses ?

[Saefinn]

I feel it should depend on the offense. People are human, they mess up and learn and can be different people entirely in the space of a few years. Sometimes they do something without realising it was wrong.

For sure they should be warned but I think it's better as a probationary thing.

Serious rule breakages for sure keep them there.

For some reason I doubt that. Not sure why.

I mean he showed admission of guilt in using FFlogs, which I am pretty sure Yoshi P once clarified as using third party tools.

[Kaurhz]

The 3-strike policy is a good thing yes. You shouldn't be in a position where you have broken the Terms of Service in 3 different instances. You should've learned your lesson after the first time, and most certainly after the second.

[Darkmoonrise]

When reading such threads and noticing the difference between EU/JAP/US mentalities, I cannot prevent myself laughing when thinking about the mess that data center travel will introduce

[MagicAura]

It's hard to throw an easy judgement on the 3-strike system because so many of us are very different with varied backgrounds and emotional states.

I started playing June last year. I reached Titania sometime in my second month. I was a DPS, had already watched a very confusing video, my experience with the various AOEs the bosses used was super low (almost inexistent), my reflexes weren't up to scratch because I always did trials only once and never did daily trial roulette, and in general I was a very confused person throughout. So during that trial I missed the stack marker and stood very confused in the middle of nasty AOE trying to figure out what was killing me and how. Someone took to themselves to berate me about "reaching that point in the game and not knowing what a stack marker is". He continued until the end of the trial (yes I stuck through it because I didn't even know I could leave) until after the end he left. I guess it was giving him some satisfaction and/or he thought he was going to make me want to learn if he told me again and again how terrible I was.

Coming from an abusive childhood and being a survivor with myriads of different mental health issues, his tirade had the effect of reducing me to tears, me begging him to stop the abuse, and then wanting to quit the game forever. I didn't quit in the end (and I'm glad for that), but also I didn't report him because I recovered my wits a week later. He should have been reported though, if for nothing else for him to learn to be more tolerant towards other people and not treat humans as if everyone is exactly the same (aka the "I am fine, therefore you should be fine too" syndrome). And I don't believe that's something that should have been struck through after X amount of time, because we as people forget easily and it's easy to say "I promise this was the last time".

My argument here is that there is no objective way of categorising infractions because each of us responds in a different way and if you start categorising like this then you are sure to leave vulnerable people out or make them feel like they don't matter.

Take another example that happened to me in January this year. I always greet the group with a "hello" but say nothing else unless there is some discussion. One person decided it was okay to respond to my hello with the F-bomb. Is that a minor infraction? A major? Something in between? Some people shrugged and said "so what". And yet I was left shaking and unable to play (and also unable to initiate a vote kick as 5 minutes had not yet passed). If you judge this minor then you belittle my experiences and mental states.

In summary, I believe the 3-strike system works well as a deterrent and I choose to believe that the GMs don't blindly enforce it but take into consideration the context of each situation and long-term history. I also believe that treating the people one is grouped with respect and kindness and adapting one's own expectations is the only way to practice the "live-and-let-live" philosophy.

[Oichi]

I also believe that treating the people one is grouped with respect and kindness and adapting one's own expectations is the only way to practice the "live-and-let-live" philosophy.

This. As simple as that.

[Solarra]

I think it is overly-harsh to have every strike on your account permanent. Since a strike can be given for fairly innocuous actions like spamming emotes, using flashy abilities near other players or dropping a swear word into chat as well as more serious stuff, I would definitely like to see them expire after a reasonable amount of time, like the penalty points on your driving licence do.
Three strikes and you're out seems fair enough to me.

[kinglyonheart]

I don't think it's completely out of line to have "categories" of strikes.

Type A strikes are minor infractions. 3 type A strikes lead up to a type B strike
Type B strikes stay on your record for 6-12 months and are for repeated infractions or more severe infractions.
Type C strikes are for major infractions and remain on your record permanently.

Something along those lines (obviously just a concept and it would need refinement) would probably make players a lot more comfortable. Unilateral infractions on warnings doesn't quite feel right because someone being reported for saying "ah, (swear)" in a dungeon (which i think is ridiculous is breaking a rule anyway because we have a profanity filter) should not be equated to someone pointedly harassing another player with hatespeech, tbh

[TurtlesAWD]

I think you'd have trouble justifying the 3 strike system even if they were handed out in a completely consistent way by a completely fair and uniform arbiter, but this couldn't be the case realistically, and the discussion of the week has basically highlighted that.

Ultimately the current system only serves to have a chilling effect on in-game socalization. Never say anything to anybody, you never know who is listening and how they might take it, even for a conversation they're not a part of. Just use discord.

[Saefinn]

I think you'd have trouble justifying the 3 strike system even if they were handed out in a completely consistent way by a completely fair and uniform arbiter, but this couldn't be the case realistically, and the discussion of the week has basically highlighted that.

Ultimately the current system only serves to have a chilling effect on in-game socalization. Never say anything to anybody, you never know who is listening and how they might take it, even for a conversation they're not a part of. Just use discord.

Not even to that extreme. I'm a heavily social player in the game and almost am 8 years in. I've never felt my in-game socialistion has been negatively impacted. Because most of the time it's common sense. Because most social interactions between people isn't offensive or bad or something people can really report you for (and the ToS at least says "a reasonable person finds offensive" which I think gives wiggle room to say 'no' to people who're offended for something really stupid or people who trying to use this ruling maliciously).

When you don't know somebody you don't generally have an "anything goes" with what you say, for certain topics you might get to know a person better first. EG. I have an offensive humour, but I will always gauge my audience as my intention is to make people laugh, not to offend. Once you get to know somebody, you can know what you can get away with.

What happened recently was shown to be an error in judgment by a GM that was reversed. If anything I find what happened to be encouraging, because it's a human run system, humans make mistakes and I feel the system needs to be able to react to error rather than sticking by a decision once it has been made.