m. It's getting hot here. I knew this was going to be a controversial
issue the moment I read Gorboth's initial proposal for a probation/
clemency program.
I immediately replied to him and predicted that the biggest challenge
would _not_ be the actual program itself - to identify and eliminate
those who would apply but were unsuitable, to oversee and manage those
who were suitable and allowed to return - but to handle the reactions
of the wiz and player community.
It's an unfortunate but very human trait to be slow to forgiveness, to
feel that 'he had it coming to him, why give him any breaks', to
resent what appears to be special treatment of those who least deserve
it. That, however, doesn't mean we should refrain from striving for
something better.
Let's look at the problem a bit.
Which people do we /not/ want as part of the game?
Well... the answer to that question can be dressed in many different
ways, mostly defined as violations of rules, but... to avoid specific
edicts a bit, let's just say that it's people who detract from the
gaming experience for others, who for various mostly egoistic reasons
refuse to conform to the boundaries of the game parameters as defined
by the very rules of conduct referred to above.
This has nothing to do with 'evil' or 'good' as style of character,
though as we all mostly share a Christian social heritage regardless
of personal faith we often tend to precede 'good' with 'lawful' and
'evil' with 'chaotic' even though they actually are independent. Think
about it for a bit, I'm sure you can find lots of examples of morally
good people who are bad at respecting written rules, and conversely
people who obey the written word to the letter but still manage to be
utterly miserable assholes even so. It's my understanding, but please
understand that I do /not/ wish to turn this into a discussion of
religion and the effects of religion on society, that the good book
and later interpretations and authorities of the same tend to
encourage the opinion that 'good' = obeying written rules, and thus
all else is 'evil' by definition, at least in western societies.
This has the effect of 'evil' players most often being the ones doing
handstands and summersaults on the very border of permissible
behaviour, and, from time to time, stumbling across. It also has the
effect of making the wrong kind of people, those we don't want here,
attracted to or at least most easily identified with 'evil' style of
play just because they don't respect the rules. This despite the fact
that, as I tried to explain, respect for rules as such has nothing to
do with either 'good' or 'evil'.
We want to salvage the kind of people who perhaps misunderstood the
severity of their actions at a time, but who basically are net
contributors to the game as such, people who add to the gaming
experience. Knowing whom to keep and whom to bar is very tricky,
particularly as people change over time and... well, the only way we
have of doing that is talking to them and making some kind of gut
decision.
Well, obviously we could also go for the 'once out, always out'-style
of thinking too, but as repeatedly stated neither I nor Tintin think
that's a tenable moral standpoint.
The admin is not pro-evil, if anything we're way too pro-good as like
I explained 'good' players tend to be 'lawful' and thus cause very
little in the way of problems for us. We don't play personal
favourites, again if anything there's definitely one or two out there
who's earned our special attention in quite the opposite direction,
very much to Gorboth's grief in trying to convince us otherwise.
I think Gorboth is on the right track here. He's doing a good job
in identifying those who should be allowed back. He's also definitely
going to make the occasional error of judgement, that's inevitable.
That is also not a disaster. This is just a game. That is not letting
a convicted child molester back into society ruining someone's life
permanently later on. At worst it's a "too damn bad" followed by
a demote. Let's keep this in mind and personal bias out, please?
/M
PS,
As been observed previously, please do not make assumptions about
reasons for player deletions. More often than not the story behind
such a drastic decision is long and complicated. Lindros, as an
example of a flagrantly mistaken assumption earlier, was not even
remotely deleted for player killing.
Next message re:Budwise 
Previous message Rhynox
