Got kicked from OGS because I accepted game offers

[tinuviel]

I was watching when this situation happened. The OP came into the main chat to find out if there were negative ramifications to repeatedly cancelling games. A quick glance at the OP'S profile showed the repeated acceptance by the OP of another user's open challenges, who was cancelling them after asking the OP to find another opponent.

The moderator who was speaking with the OP then asked the OP to stop accepting the other user's challenges since that user had already asked the OP to find another opponent. The OP replied something along the lines of "Why should I? It's up to the other guy to change his challenge parameters if he didn't like it." (paraphrase)

The moderator speaking with the OP eventually took the conversation to private messages since the OP's lack of cooperation was disrupting the normal flow of conversation. The OP responded by flooding the chat with the copy/pasted private messages. This was the point at which he was banned from the server.

Meanwhile, I took the liberty of letting the other user know via private message that he or she had the option to block users like the OP from accepting their open challenges.

I hope this answers the question of what happened with regard to the situation originally posted on this thread.

-tinuviel
OGS moderator

[Xylol]

It is not fair to only blame me.
I was stubborn this is correct, I wanted to play that ranked game as long I meet the game restrictions.
There is a restrict rank option if my rank was the problem.


Tinuviel could you please paraphrase the "jumping of a bridge" "idiot" "hiding his ip" part which was said about me?
Could you please paraphrase the threatening I received in private chat?
I wanted everyone to be able to see this chat, therefore i "flooded" the chat with about 4 lines.

crodgers: ... I wish I had the foresight to save the public chat. Live and learn I guess.

I wish the same.


Another problem I'am facing:





If I want to apply to an unban I have to write to the E-Mail-Addres: IveBeenBadButIPromiseToBeBetter@online-go.com

This seems rather unfair as I don't think I was bad.

Thank all the people in here for their posts, opinions and most of all for their time.

[RobertJasiek]

So is, on OGS, accepting / joining an open game offer NOT a right by anybody? What is the purpose of open game offers then? Unless anybody may accept / join, the concept of making open game offers should be replaced by forcing anybody offering a game to set restrictions. OTOH, if anybody may accept / join an open game offer, somebody doing so ought not to be punished for doing so. (I am not talking about chat complications but about the design purpose of open game offers in general.)

EDIT:

The ban warning refers to IP. Does this mean that an IP can be banned? Such would be unethical because IPs can be assigned to internet users dynamically. Never must third persons be punished for somebody else's actions.

[daal]

So is, on OGS, accepting / joining an open game offer NOT a right by anybody?

I would infer from the above discussion that it is a right until one abuses that right. In this case the OP had the right to accept the game offer, and his opponent had the right to cancel the game. After this cycle had been repeated several times, the moderators made a judgement that the right to accept the game offer was being abused, i.e., not being used for the actual purpose of playing a game, but rather to harass the other user.

[Elom]

If it was made explicitly clear to Xylol by the Admininstrator that they had deduced that Xylol wanted so eagerly to, say, educate the player about the cool game setting features that he(?) went as far he did, it seems unusual to complain about being banned for something with such a level of simplicity. The only other possible reason we can infer so far for the 16k not changing the settings before challenging ,apart from not knowing how to properly use the setting features, is that he/she was displaying the same thing as Xylol-- "stubborness", wanting to "make" Xylol stop without changing the game settings-- which would be strange to complain about since Xylol was doing something very similar.

It is not fair to only blame me.
I was stubborn this is correct, I wanted to play that ranked game as long I meet the game restrictions.
There is a restrict rank option if my rank was the problem.


Tinuviel could you please paraphrase the "jumping of a bridge" "idiot" "hiding his ip" part which was said about me?
Could you please paraphrase the threatening I received in private chat?
I wanted everyone to be able to see this chat, therefore i "flooded" the chat with about 4 lines.

crodgers: ... I wish I had the foresight to save the public chat. Live and learn I guess.

I wish the same.


Another problem I'am facing:





If I want to apply to an unban I have to write to the E-Mail-Addres: IveBeenBadButIPromiseToBeBetter@online-go.com

This seems rather unfair as I don't think I was bad.

Thank all the people in here for their posts, opinions and most of all for their time.

It would be interesting if that was the name of a street where you must send mail to complain about a fine. I'd personally use it for a site named "Kindergaten Go Server" (no relation to Kiseido intended), and a different address for Adults/banned users who are already furious!

The fact that no one saved the chat sheds some light onto the state of both parties at the time.

So is, on OGS, accepting / joining an open game offer NOT a right by anybody? What is the purpose of open game offers then? Unless anybody may accept / join, the concept of making open game offers should be replaced by forcing anybody offering a game to set restrictions. OTOH, if anybody may accept / join an open game offer, somebody doing so ought not to be punished for doing so. (I am not talking about chat complications but about the design purpose of open game offers in general.)

Yes, which is why the first move should have been to inform the 16k that it's possible to change the settings. Much may have been avoided this way, as Xylol was not breaking any Crystallised/Black and White rules, he would be notified on the grounds of trolling and harassment, so an atari was played from the wrong side. But it doesn't matter what side the atari was played, apart from possible misconduct in communication, which we unfortunately do not have the means to analyse, it doesn't seem possible to fault the Admin for the actions taken.

Therefore it could only be a case of fury over what one believes to be chat misconduct being presented as fury over Syntax, and I'm tired of the repeated mix up of two very different issues.

[andreyl]

Am I the only one who thinks that there should be an option to cancel game offers?
This seems rather basic for a go server.

[Gojira]

not changing the settings is one thing but i would think if i told someone not taking my challenge again its rude doing it. Its polite to accept his wish thats the way to deal with this situation. The OP have the choice to do this its not an auto challenge. To force someone to change his settings is not right. You could ask if he didn't know how to do this or just let him be. But it could be that he just don't want to play this OP and i think canceling a game is a sign for that, so it's clear that you take it like: Okay then we don't play, your problem.

I guess blocking someone from the Server is a big thing and i think that it was not only for accepting the games.

[HermanHiddema]

Please, spare me. It was a simple comparison to show the severity of the behavior. This type of behavior cannot be allowed to persist simply because it takes place in an online environment. Had he behaved in this fashion IRL, the consequences would be severe.

Of course the admin sounded rude, Xylol skewed his version to make himself appear a victim. I wish I had the foresight to save the public chat. Live and learn I guess.

Regardless of whether the Xylol is right or wrong, regardless of how he acted, moderators/admins should always remain polite and professional. It really doesn't matter what the user did or said, moderators should not lower themselves to that level. That's just basic professionalism. Your comments and actions as a moderator of OGS impact how OGS is perceived. If you are rude, it reflects poorly on OGS, regardless of the circumstances.

[HermanHiddema]

I love playing on OGS,

nice to read that

but my interactions with moderators/admins have not always been stellar, sadly.

Actually, this sounds like a compliment to me rather than like a critical remark — I can’t interpret “not always stellar” other than as “stellar most of the time”

That is an accurate interpretation.

My interactions with moderators/admins have mostly been pleasant and positive, but there have been exceptions. Whether you want to consider that a compliment is up to you. Would you buy a car if the reviews said that "the brakes on this car work most of the time"?

[tinuviel]

Arguing with a moderator who is telling you to desist has a high probability of getting you booted from any server. We tend to be looser and more forgiving on OGS. So if someone has been banned from OGS for a reason like this, you can be certain that they argued long past a reasonable state of discussion.

In this case, the moderator did turn to sarcasm to cope with the nonsensical and reptitive argument of the OP before hitting the ban button. He summarized the OP's argument with "I can, so I should" (which I remember thinking was rather accurate) and then added that he wished trolls in general would apply that concept to jumping off bridges. (I admit to laughing out loud here.)

When a moderator says something to the effect of "cease and desist, or I will be forced to make sure you do," it isn't a "threat." It's a warning. Warning problem users is part and parcel of a moderator's work. Ignoring the warning leads to banning. Copy/pasting perfectly normal private admonishments into main chat is considered a blatant ignoring of said warning. Hence the ban. Of course, we see this kind of trolling on almost a daily basis. It's amazing how fast it gets old. Even so, we tolerate a great deal.

Had the OP emailed immediately to the address he considers beneath his dignity and apologized for failing to cooperate with the moderator, his ban would have been lifted immediately. It seems the OP choose this ineffective route instead.

I should also note the feature to block users from accepting challenges is really new. Maybe a month or two, so not everyone knows about it yet. It was one of the top requested features because of users like the OP.

-tinuviel
OGS moderator

[RobertJasiek]

It was one of the top requested features because of users like the OP.

There can be many reasons for wishing (or disliking) the feature. Has each person wishing it stated to wish it because of this and only this reason?

In this thread, I see by far too many assumptions conveyed as facts. Administrators and moderators (of a server) should not make assumptions that cannot be proven.

IveBeenBadButIPromiseToBeBetter@online-go.com contains another unproven assumption. Somebody having been treated wrongly by the server admins (e.g., being a third person victom of an IP ban) is treated badly again by telling him to have been bad already in the email address.

Without any need, OGS discourages new people from using OGS at all because they have to expect bad assumptions made about them.

The philosophy of running OGS seems wrong. - Welcome people instead of treating them badly by making bad assumptions about them from the beginning!

[Bonobo]

My interactions with moderators/admins have mostly been pleasant and positive, but there have been exceptions. Whether you want to consider that a compliment is up to you. Would you buy a car if the reviews said that "the brakes on this car work most of the time"?

Herman, I see what you mean, and I assume that we agree that striving for the ideal is a Good Thing™, but let’s remember that people are beings, while cars are things. I have yet to learn about a human whose actions and communication (= also actions) are, or have been, “stellar”, ALL THE TIME. (Not even the so-called “saints”.)

A car has to be maintained regularly in order to work safely, so I will take my little car to the service station next week.

Humans need to communicate and exchange their views on things in order to, so the mod team on OGS (of which I also am a member, though probably the most “lazy” one) “meets” on several channels and discusses the situations and members they encounter. They have their ethics which they try to meet — and <gasp> develop. It happens that moderator decisions are revoked if a “perpetrator” — or suspected perpetrator — talks to them (without just bursting out in insults) and explains their perspective, convinces them. Sometimes those complaints are not convincing, and while this, of course, is totally subjective, keep in mind that the mods talk with each other and try to “intersubjectivate” (since being “objective is impossible for any subject). The main goal is to keep OGS a friendly place for ALL players. Yes, they must be careful that they don't develop a “cocoon” syndrome, a mindset of “us vs. them”, and this needs … maintenance by the users, i.e. communication, exchange that does not “blame” but rather “suggest”, and as far as I can see, the OGS team is open to this. Remember, ALL of the team are amateurs in “people handling”, none of them, AFAIK, is a … therapist, social worker, psychotherapist or … priest, politician, military officer, sales expert or pimp yet “social intelligence” is not an alien concept for them.

There was more I wanted to write but it’s getting hot again, I need to get some work done, and I have forgotten what it was …

[tinuviel]

It is an assumption to assume moderators operate off of assumptions, since we have access to a great deal more information than the average user. We actually have a feature voting system (uservoice) AND we have received many written requests that are not all publicly available citing that exact reason for requesting the block user feature.

It used to be that our only option was to ban an uncooperative user for actions like the OP'S with regard to repeated accepting of challenges as a form of harrassment. We were glad that the block user feature would allow such users to continue to play on OGS. As such, I had thought that OGS was rather welcoming of a wide variety of player, even those who can be somewhat trollish, but whose actual play isn't a problem. Indeed, had the OP not continued to argue the validity of continuing to harrass the other user after he was asked to stop both the harassing (politely, the first couple of times) and the arguing, the OP wouldn't have been banned. A simple "okay, I'll stop" would have saved a lot of trouble.

Also, innocents getting caught in a banned user's banned status is really rare, and on the two occasions it's happened, they've emailed without problem.

Even so, the devs are working to improve how specific problem users are banned to further minimize the chance that an innocent newbie gets caught up.

And bonobo is right; as a team, we constantly review decisions and actions taken. We try our best to leave everyone as free to play as possible, and to provide recourse to players who have had action taken against them. Of course, if a user chooses not to use the recourse available, it would be unethical for us to assume contrition on his or her behalf, considering how the other users may suffer as a result.

-tinuviel
OGS moderator

[TegaiS]

Probably an example of not so "stellar" interaction: https://forums.online-go.com/t/why-does ... clock/4111

[RBerenguel]

Probably an example of not so "stellar" interaction: https://forums.online-go.com/t/why-does ... clock/4111

I thought I was alone in thinking this was quite a nasty wart... Lovely moderator 'response' too.

I'm away, can't move. My clock should be stopped, period. My opponent is not away, if it is his/her turn, he can move, and should do so. Isn't it easy?