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If you don't understand someone's position in the comments try and PM them and ask directly or if you must interpret use the most charitable position.
I also would suggest NOT including any player names, including staff members. This allows us to separate emotions and preconceptions of everyone involved and prevent harassment.
As of the past few months others and I have observed rule 1.
punishments becoming more and more frequent. This has almost exclusively been interpreted as "Staff Disrespect/Flaming" Many of these have also skipped stages in the punishment process expediting harsher punishments. For those unfamiliar in full text the rule is as follows:
• b. Content that is publicized via world yell, public chat, or clan chat that is deemed inappropriate, demeaning, or disrespectful per a staff member’s discretion is not permitted and will correspond with the punishments stated above.
Now if you don't know, I do have some IRL experience (5 years) with understanding and interpreting legal statutes.
It is my opinion that this is intended as an umbrella statement that fills in the gaps of sub-section a) to allow staff to punnish someone for demeaning or disrespectful comments that don't fit in the aforementioned categories in sub-section a). As of recently however this rule has been frequently used as a justification to punnish those who've disrespected, demeaned, or hurt the feelings of select staff members.
It is of my opinion and that of many others who play Alora that staff members act as the police and government of the game. To maintain order and facilitate administration. If we draw a comparison to the real world, police and other government administration are not free from criticism, insult, degradation or disrespect. This enables accountability.
In fact satirical or insulting forms of commentary towards these officials is one of the most common and popular forms of modern comedy. Now as volunteers I believe staff should be able to be insulated from the most extreme instances of this. With punishments for racist/sexist/etc comments still being on the table. I do believe much of this could be resolved by allowing staff to use the ignore list in otherwise significant examples of disrespect.
I would like to make it clear that this is a difficult issue and I don't have a perfect solution for it. I do personally believe that currently the interpretation is too vague.
A staff member should be able to communicate with someone who is upset, unfriendly, or disrespectful or at the least delegate that situation to someone else to de-escalate.
Also a player, who may be emotional or overreacting should be able to communicate without feeling as if they're stepping on eggshells not to say anything that could be interpreted as disrespectful or rude to a staff member. All of the communities favorite staff members have been able to navigate this situation with grace and rarely if ever needing to utilize punishing people with this rule. A great example of this was the Infamous Fally Riots and subsequent riots inside of the theatre against a former admin. Often by being funnier, more thoughtful or just killing them with kindness each of these staff members have been favorites in the community because of this. This does describe a plurality of the current staff team by the way imo.
Perhaps I'm biased or misguided on this and much of the community disagrees. However, I encourage you all to take yourself outside of your own preconceptions and think about how you would feel on the players side - would you be likely to reform and continue playing this game or would you be resentful. Hopefully one of y'all is smarter than I and has a better perspective or solution but I'm watching many people leave the game and I think this may play at least a small role in that.
