Remove "offense" / "poor" language offences from ToU.

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Remove "offense" / "poor" language offences from ToU.

by noktynx » Wed Mar 09, 2016 12:56 am

The title should be self-explanatory, the Terms of Uuse ("ToU") should be amended (cut down) to reflect the below.

The very idea that words on the internet could lead to sanction as against a players account, merely on the basis by a claim of some other player that their feelings were hurt [etc.], is absolutely ridiculous in every way.

For the following reasons I recommend that the above criteria (language being actionable) be entirely removed from the ToU.

1) Any in-game sanction that does not result in substantive physical harm/severe gameplay interruption of players or chat flooding/spamming, should not be actionable under any circumstances. If the stability of the server is not affected, there is no real justification for sanctioning players in this way, for that sort of behaviour.

2) If an action results merely in a player "feeling" x or "not liking" Y opinion, then this should never be reason for sanction on the player who caused that result. Significant numbers of players simply do not up and quit a game (especially as addictive as WoW) on the basis of feeling offended or other such preposterous idea. It simply does not happen (to an even remotely significant degree). The only 'damage' is to their ego, nothing more.

3) Catering to the emotionally weak in this regard does more harm than good. Such players are often insular, petty and alone. They do little to contribute to the quality or diversity of the population. In short, they are face to face with natural selection, let it do its work, and pay them no heed. The population will be stronger and have a significantly more enjoyable/diverse/interesting experience for it.

4) This will allow more GM time to be made available to things that actually matter and substantively affect people, such as: fixing bugs, enhancing stability, cracking down on economic upsets (gold farming etc), and other matters. Whiny and childish requests about hurt feelings and being offended, and other such nonsense can be disregarded immediately to save time for things that actually matter.

5) Not a presently (in-game) relevant reason but, this is good for the wider world outside of this silly game as well. Stop reinforcing the idea that sniveling gets you things. This is bad for society, and teaches already unintelligent individuals, to continue with such behavior. I could go on ad nauseam about why, in fact, catering to the whimsical feelings of individuals does far more harm than good. This should really be logically inferred by even the most remedially intelligent individual: you can't cater to individual feelings, because it is impossible to adequately justify whose subjective feeling has more worth, except by reference to substantive physical reality. It is a wasteful exercise to engage with.

I would highly recommend slimming down the Terms of Use in this regard. Why waste time dealing with crybabies?

Regards,

Noktyn
noktynx
Tester
 

Re: Remove "offense" / "poor" language offences from ToU.

by Pottu » Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:42 pm

We are not in the business of toughening up players in the name of social darwinism or anything like that. The relevant part of the ToU reads:
While using any Nostalrius service, you will encounter a large number of users who share different experiences and come from different backgrounds. While certain language and images may not be offensive to you, consider the fact that the same language and images may have a completely different effect on someone else.


Offensive chat does not mean "Player A does not like this". Sanctions are largely handed out for racism, obscenity, spam, non-English messages and, in severe cases, preaching and insults. The server is here to allow everyone to play vanilla World of Warcraft. Remember that this is not a public service but a private one and that there is no freedom of speech.

As for your claim about time management, enforcing the ToU is done by the Game Masters, not by the developers. Even if we went ahead and allowed people to post wild in the chat, it would not speed up bug hunting and squashing at all.

The GM team.
User avatar
Pottu
Game Master
Game Master
 


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