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Enforcing rules before announcing them

AKradianAKradian
Reactions: 40,340
Posts: 6,342
Member, Private Tester
edited April 2017 in Off-Topic Discussion
I believe that a law has to be "on the books" before people can start getting punished for breaking it.
Anyone disagree?

On March 31st, forumer Aggraphine was banned from these forums.
In response to players complaining that the ban was unfair, CM Arwoo said
Arwoo wrote: »
The result of this particular forum account's ban was due to their abusive behavior across various platforms and failure to comply with our rules.
(snip)
Forum bans are rarely the result of a single action and are the result of an accumulation of offensive behavior or abusive actions.

Checking the forums' Code of Conduct (both versions: the one in General and the one in Forum Rules) shows that they still, to this day, contain the words "on the forums" at key points, indicating that they only refer to what one posts here, not what one does on other platforms.

The CM can, of course, change the rules at any point.
However, I think that punishing people for breaking rules that have not yet been announced, is wrong.

Furthermore, if a ban is the result of an accumulation of offensive behavior, the (admittedly unwritten) policy up until now has been to issue warnings of increasing severity with each instance of offensive behavior, and only ban people if they persist in their behavior despite these warnings.
Aggraphine only ever received a single warning, for a joke VFM application on these forums. He was never informed that being abusive on reddit was breaking any forum rules, written or otherwise.

Bottom line: In my opinion, Aggraphine should be unbanned.

P.S. Please do not derail this thread into a discussion about the new rule itself, as I fear that would lead to a swift deterioration and thread lock. Try to focus on the issue I raise, namely being punished for something one could not know was forbidden.
UzumeFennekinBellamazedTanyaPeekAtChuSlicedTimeIts2Sharp4UIcewave21SpiritofMirMaryseand 1 other.

Comments

  • TwizzzlersTwizzzlers
    Reactions: 2,235
    Posts: 143
    Member, Private Tester
    edited April 2017
    The VFM wasn't a joking matter. I saw that he wrote something that was beyond the purpose of the post. He was writing silly things but in all reality the post was made to be professional and shouldn't be a joking matter when doing these kinds of important posts. In my opinion I think it was wrong that he did that but I'm not taking any sides. If Arwoo is the CM he has every right to decide if he should stay or go. Enough said.
  • AKradianAKradian
    Reactions: 40,340
    Posts: 6,342
    Member, Private Tester
    edited April 2017
    RaysOffice2016 wrote: »
    The VFM wasn't a joking matter. I saw that he wrote something that was beyond the purpose of the post. He was writing silly things but in all reality the post was made to be professional and shouldn't be a joking matter when doing these kinds of important posts. In my opinion I think it was wrong that he did that but I'm not taking any sides. If Arwoo is the CM he has every right to decide if he should stay or go. Enough said.

    Be that as it may, he was not banned for the VFM application. He only got a warning for that.
    He was banned, as Arwoo said, for "being abusive across various platforms" - in other words, for the posts he made on reddit.
    Bellamazed
  • TanyaTanya
    Reactions: 1,230
    Posts: 91
    Member
    edited April 2017
    Agreed that if Nexon monitors what is said over all external fan sites and be able to ban people based on what is said on such websites, it should be clearly stated in their code of conduct or terms of use.

    I think the main problem in all of this is that Reddit is considered to be an "official" Maplestory fansite - which is a super grey area. Even though Nexon doesn't really take care of it, they have fan page guidelines that kind of covers it: "Website must not link or contain content that violates Nexon Terms of Use and End User License Agreement." and "Website content must not contain defamatory content towards Nexon and Nexon games." It is not clear whether this gives them authority to ban people who are posting on the website - one would assume it would mean they would remove it as an "official maplestory fansite" - but who really knows for sure. So this rule is here - its just super vague, doesn't seem clear on consequences and is also buried in the "submit your personal fansite" page where no regular user would think to look. The only thing for sure is that /r/maplestory is an official maplestory fansite and as long as they are "official" they are covered by these vague guidelines.
    JettLuvsU
  • ArwooArwoo
    Reactions: 17,755
    Posts: 498
    Member
    edited April 2017
    Before I lock this thread for discussing a banned player on the forums (which is not permitted), allow me to clarify. While we do not tolerate players harassing or attacking officials on fansites, there is little we can actually do.

    This is mostly due to us not having the authority to warn or ban users on platforms that do not belong to us. Acquiring evidence linking accounts on fansites to official ones can also contribute towards limiting our actions.

    However, we do reserve the right to remove players who display extreme toxicity and hostility from our platforms. The user had already acquired a steep warning from a thread created on the VFM Application section.

    In addition to the warning, continuation of their abusive behavior ultimately resulted in a ban.

    Due to the above, we will not be appealing this particular forum ban.

    Arwoooo~
    TwizzzlersMegaScience
This discussion has been closed.