Code of Conduct Update - September 25th 2019

[GM Capocollo]

To be clear, unless you are repeatedly, vexatiously forcing us to deal with violations of this new policy, the most that'll happen to your character is that we'll ask you what you want the new name to be, or tell you to make some costume changes to make your character more visually distinct from the source material and get back to us once you've done so. 

 

You won't lose the character or any progress you've made.  You won't have any specific changes forced upon you unless you refuse to cooperate with us or ignore us.

Edited September 27, 2019 by GM Capocollo

[ZacKing]

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

A fair distinction.  It would have been more correct for me to say that it gives trolls license to attempt to impose their will.  However, I still have my doubts at how effective a volunteer staff will be at properly weeding out false complaints.  I'm grateful for the work that the HC team does, but as they are unpaid and do this out of their free time, I don't expect that a lot of time will be given to reviewing each case, and depending on the volume, I fear that many reports may only get a cursory glance before a decision is made.

This is an absolutely fair and legitimate concern that seems to be getting hand waived away as "not going to happen".  This is a volunteer staff with limited time and limited resources.  Just look at the amount of threads expressing "concern" over the numbers of copycats in the game and the attitudes of those chomping at the bit to report them and you'll have an idea of how many reports are going to get flooded in.  To be concerned that a small staff is simply not going to have the time or desire to spend their time every day to review every report in every little detail is legit.  That is not a personal knock on anyone, and not calling anyone on the staff lazy.  it's just practical reality.  They should be working on maintaining and developing - not dealing with looking at characters that some "overly concerned" person thinks is "too close for comfort."  This is going to be just like it was on live - reports come in and the toon is auto-renamed and costume auto-reset first, ask for forgiveness later.  I also find it hilarious that it would even be suggested that people with no problem with others making cosplays are going to "jam up the system to prevent getting reported".  Read their posts, most if not all of them had said they don't and will never report anyone.  proof is in the pudding.

 

And saying "griefing didn't happen on live ever" is not true and impossible to try to claim, unless anyone here was a Cryptic or Paragon dev or CS rep that has access to the old data. 

 

I am glad to hear that the people sending the reports are going to be subject to review.  That is a great comfort in keeping the obvious care concerned trolls in check.

[Doc_Scorpion]

32 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

This is an absolutely fair and legitimate concern that seems to be getting hand waived away as "not going to happen". 

No, it's hand-waving freak-outery because people are absolutely bound and determined to be freaked out.
 

34 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

This is going to be just like it was on live - reports come in and the toon is auto-renamed and costume auto-reset first, ask for forgiveness later.

You were a GM on live?  Cool.  (If you weren't, well, we're back to hand-waving freak-outery again.)

 

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, GM Capocollo said:

You won't have any specific changes forced upon you unless you refuse to cooperate with us or ignore us.

... and that is actually LIGHTER enforcement than we had on Live, so, even less reason for anyone to worry.

[ZacKing]

5 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

You were a GM on live?  Cool.  (If you weren't, well, we're back to hand-waving freak-outery again.)

I'm glad you asked.  No I was not a GM and I didn't say I was but I am most certainly capable of drawing upon first hand experiences.  I had several friends and SG mates who this happened to when live.  Feel free to disbelieve it.  best example I remember is my SG mate who had a kinetics toon named Wonderous Woman.  Character was genericed several times and from the responses from the CS reps was for "copyright infringement".  Costume and bio had nothing to do with Wonder Woman at all and going by what is being tossed about here, it should never have even been considered. anyone can clearly see there was no similarity.  So either someone was being a troll and kept reporting them, there was an automated system of some kind to fuzzy search for specific keywords or other players kept legitimately reporting it.  My experience says it was the former.   in any case, it was auto reset without review.  and this wasn't an isolated case.

 

But again, reading responses like yours I can see where the concern some people who express concern about the policy comes from.  I'll take the homecoming team word that they have it under control and give them the benefit of the doubt.  let's be honest though - the system just like it was on live is open to abuse. 

[PaxArcana]

51 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

This is going to be just like it was on live - reports come in and the toon is auto-renamed and costume auto-reset first, ask for forgiveness later.

Except that is not how it ever worked.  Every report involved a GM reviewing the report, examining the character in question, and making the decision whether that character crossed the line or not.

 

Nothing.  Was.  Automatic.

 

I actually did have a character reported - and the report was both meritless and malicious, pure retaliation for reporting someone for griefing.  A GM spoke to me about the report several minutes later - I don't know if they reviewed tells, happened to be in the zone at the right time to see the exchange, or what - to make sure I wasn't going to exacerbate the situation, so I know that the report DID get made.

 

I was never renamed.  I was never Generic'd.  So obviously the process is not automatic.

[PaxArcana]

3 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Wonderous Woman

Yeah, that's a Trademark violation.  Your "friend" is lucky you I mean he didn't bite an account ban for repeatedly doing that.

[MunkiLord]

2 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

Yeah, that's a Trademark violation.  Your "friend" is lucky you I mean he didn't bite an account ban for repeatedly doing that.

I doubt it, a reasonable conclusion is only a moron in a hurry would mistake that for Wonder Woman or confuse the character as being a product of DC. That being said, it's just easier for a company to say no and move on. 

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

Given that some of the same people have loudly complained about the "lack of creativity" on the part of others (as if they had any authority whatsoever to decide how creative people must be), I highly doubt this interpretation.

And how certain are you that those complaints are genuine ... and not sarcasm?  To me, those posts look like over-the-top caricatures of what the anti-policy camp has repeatedly tried to slander the anti-copyclone camp as being like.

[PaxArcana]

3 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

I doubt it, a reasonable conclusion is only a moron in a hurry would mistake that for Wonder Woman or confuse the character as being a product of DC. That being said, it's just easier for a company to say no and move on. 

Hence why these sorts of things cannot be nailed down with precise definitions and numeric formulae: it's a judgement call.  Always will be.  🙂

[ZacKing]

1 minute ago, MunkiLord said:

I doubt it, a reasonable conclusion is only a moron in a hurry would mistake that for Wonder Woman or confuse the character as being a product of DC. That being said, it's just easier for a company to say no and move on. 

BINGO!  Give that man the cigar.  And proof of it all is that the name never got changed - just the costume.  Just look at the immediate reply to my post here and very very easy to see why the concern some have about abuse is legit.

[MunkiLord]

3 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

Hence why these sorts of things cannot be nailed down with precise definitions and numeric formulae: it's a judgement call.  Always will be.  🙂

 

1 minute ago, ZacKing said:

BINGO!  Give that man the cigar.  And proof of it all is that the name never got changed - just the costume.  Just look at the immediate reply to my post here and very very easy to see why the concern some have about abuse is legit.

Well taking into account Zac's reply then it seems the GMs agreed with the name being fine and the problem was the costume, or perhaps a combination of two. Whether or not I would agree I can't say as I obviously can't see the costume to make my own judgement call.

[Jimmy]

Alright, I think this thread has run its course, you're going around in circles now. Please refer to the myriad of staff replies if you're unsure about anything.