Some Days, I Hate These Servers.

[Sekh765]

[kodani]

[Stormcaller3801]

Bullshit. This isn't some situation where I was sitting there and watched people ruin things and then decided, long after it was all over, to come complain. As soon as it was damned clear this wasn't just a misunderstanding I went into chat to find someone to do something about this crap.

If a demo is the only way to get anything actually done around here, then having admin and moderators is a fucking joke. My immediate response was to get an admin, and to try and get that admin into the game, supposedly one of the two ways to get something done. If all that's going to end up happening is people shrugging their shoulders and telling me you can do jack all about it, then there's no point to there being more than one person and having everyone send in their demos to them. I'm not even sure there's a fucking point to sending demos in- because I tried that. And then after sitting happily in my little delusion that something would be done, and, sure, those games were ruined and people quit because of them, but someday, somebody'd do something about that guy.

And then I run into the same people doing the same crap, all over again, and fuck all has been done about them.

The only time I've ever seen any admin assert their authority was one "Gee, I'm sorry guys, but someone invoked the rules so I have to do something."

I didn't ask anyone to show up and ban somebody on my say so. I never have. The entire point, if you bothered to read it, was that all that happened was showing up and sitting there, doing jack all, and then deciding that because someone wasn't actively trolling while an admin was looking over their shoulder, they obviously hadn't done shit wrong. Starting a demo after someone's an ass and everything goes south does nothing. All you end up with is a bunch of people yelling and shooting each other and maybe some references to what might have happened but, oh yeah- you don't know because the demo was started afterwards, in response.

And I'm sure if I'd just said, "Don't worry Crimson, I'm making a demo- sure, attempting to actually play today is completely fucked, but sometime at some vague future point he might get what's coming to him," that would've made everything better.

If TFP policy is that with even the tiniest doubt nothing gets done, then you need to change your policy. Because this shit? It doesn't work.

[Witchiebunny]

Listen to us:

We never, EVER said that they weren't trolling as you said. HOWEVER unless we have proof, *there is nothing we can do*. The only time I could act on someone's word, we were a sub-100 member group, I had EVERY member on my friendslist, they were ALL my friends and I KNEW they knew the rules of the servers.

Now? We are just shy of 2,000 and in order to deal with a group of this size, we need visual proof because people will come and argue over the tiniest 5 minute ban if they feel it's unwarranted, making our life more of a hell than it has to be.

We're WELL AWARE that people tend to be behave when we're around. It's a common phenomena, called the "Keeping out of trouble" maneuver.

THIS IS WHY WE ASK OUR MEMBERS TO GET A DEMO because guess what? If we don't see it with our OWN eyes on the servers, and we act without proof then we have NOTHING to back up our ruling and we end up looking like the jackasses. If no one objected to this person playing around while Caig was on the servers, then he had no choice but to conclude that no one minded and to leave.

In other words, IF YOU WERE SO UPSET ABOUT IT MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING WHILE CAIG WAS THERE. Funny thing about gamers, if something's going on, if one person says it's fucked up and others agree, they'll usually PIPE UP ABOUT IT. It's actually a funny thing about people, honestly.

Now, if the person decides to behave when they notice an admin (and quite a lot of our trolls do) then there isn't much we can do about that, because at this point, EVERYONE knows who we are. This is why we depend on OUR MEMBERS to take demos of the situations that happen when we're not around so that we have that visual proof and can act off of it. If you don't know how to take a demo, we'll show you. If you flat out refuse, then you are the ones obstructing us now, not the troll and only have yourself to blame when nothing gets done.

Think before you throw your self-righteous hissyfit, would you? We have these rules and procedures in place for a reason, because guess what? You don't WANT to be subjected to the whims of our moods when we're making a decision on whether or not to ban someone. You want assurances that despite WHATEVER mood any of us are in, the decision we make will be based on evidence at hand and will be fair. If you refuse to do your part in aiding us by the procedures we have in place, well then that's on you.

So you have a choice: Rage at the trolling going on around you OR....

Take a demo. Send it to us.

Very simple.

Oh and hun? Shit does get done around here, though I'm sorry it's not done on YOUR timeschedule.

We deal with stuff as it comes. I never said it that the process is immediate, but it DOES work if you work with us. If you don't want to, that's on you but don't be surprised when your not working with us produces no results.

[Helios]

To expand on what Boss Bunny said...

Although these severs are primarily based in the United States of America, we are not bound to follow the laws of the Constitution in terms to rules for playing on our servers. However we do try to take some of the better laws and practices of this nation, and apply them here.

One of them is you are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

We're sorry that this happened, and yes we are trying to crack down on it, but at this point the thing to do is to send a demo to admins. Hearsay doesn't hold up in a court of law, and it's not going to hold up here anymore.

Trolls aren't as dumb as you think. They will go and see who the admins of a community are, and they will restrain from being pinheads whenever said admins are on.

If I got a complaint that someone was harassing someone on one of the servers, I'd go in and take a look for a few minutes, and if nothing happens I'm going on my way. It's not that I don't care, it's that I have better things to do than wait around all day because someone may or may not be saying things that aren't nice.

And that's where you come in. By getting a demo, or at least a screenshot of the offensive behavior, you catch the trolls with their hands in the ol cookie jar. Also providing name and Steam ID helps as well, and we can work a lot more efficiently towards getting rid of that mudak.

We do care about these things, and we are working to resolve these matters, they may not be quick enough for your liking, but it is getting done.

Rome wasn't built in a day bruddah.

[Nynnja]

[Stormcaller3801]

Yes, I'm sure things get done around here when you get demos made. Which is why Dragon's Pet never shows up on any servers anymore, right? No more random screaming of "NIGGER FAGGOTS" or anything like that? Yes. Must've just imagined seeing that.

You didn't read what I said, and you continue to simply argue that your hands are tied, and that somehow, I'm the one responsible for dealing with this.

And 'beyond a reasonable doubt?' Yeah, that's great. Too bad that's not what you're doing. What you are doing is very simple: either you get someone blatantly, unquestionably trolling, with absolutely no question about who they are or what they did, or you do nothing, by your own statements. Because you might have someone complain about a five minute ban.

That's not beyond a reasonable doubt. That's beyond any doubt. That's beyond all question. That's nearly impossible to get- and it's a pointless standard because it means the moment you have one thing wrong the whole thing goes to hell. Which keeps happening.

You have a complaint, go in and investigate. Don't sit there and ask someone to explain to you why it's gone sideways, when someone says "We need an admin on server #X," join server #X and see what happens. If you have one person explaining what happened, investigate by asking people- don't sit there and hope someone decides to narrate what's been going on for the last twenty minutes while you were waiting to find out why an admin was necessary and then waited for TF2 to load up. If you ask people what happened and their stories are all the same, it's pretty damn obvious that any complaints being made have something solid behind them.

Extend the bans across more than one server. In one game I listened to a guy explain how he'd changed his name because he'd been banned on another server earlier that evening. Establish communications across the entire group- make a separate, moderators/admin-only section on these forums that lists who did what, what complaints have come in about them, and what steps you took in response. One topic per name, so it's easy to keep track without cross-referencing a dozen topics or going back through eight pages of notes on invites, bans, and kicks.

And more importantly, make damn sure that the threat of admin or moderator showing up means something. You may want to make 100% sure that what you do is correct, and you may want to keep from looking like the bad guy, and you may want to avoid people whining about every penalty that you hand out, but guess what: you're hurting every other person who plays on the servers who has to deal with this stuff and comes to the conclusion that nothing happens to the people who screw up. You may not want to look like a jackass because you gave someone a warning, but in exchange you're looking like doormats and nobody bothers to send anything to an admin or try to record demos because they think nothing's ever going to be done.

Your system isn't working- from demanding that in games of up to twenty four people, nobody ever utters the word 'admin' or 'demo' when things go wrong, to expecting that someone will spontaneously start explaining what just happened, independently, and somehow be seen as perfectly credible. To hoping that demos get started before the most egregious of offenses, to being unwilling to do things because someone might complain.

[NikkyVix]

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[Arcalane]

[Sekh765]