4 ms·

Except the rules are _not_ clearly defined. The list of "bad words" isn't listed for you, and the matching of bad words is not necessarily well tokenised. You

by shakna 4y ago

Except the rules are _not_ clearly defined. The list of "bad words" isn't listed for you, and the matching of bad words is not necessarily well tokenised. You're not always sure what you've said or done, to be removed. And in some cases, they won't tell you what sin you have committed, either.

amatecha 4y ago
If there was a legally-protected right to access the service you pay for unless violation of agreed-upon rules has occurred (barring other situations like "company going out of business" or "gaming shutting down forever"), this would almost undoubtedly elicit the need for better-defined rules and substantiation of claims when bans occur.
- t0suj4 4y ago
  If random bans get more common the developer risks a game of whack-a-mole with private servers and cracked clients if not players packing up and leaving for a competitor. Legal protection sounds like it would actually benefit the cheaters given how long an average court case takes. In my experience, private servers deal with cheaters and bots better than Activision/Blizzard
  - RulerOf 4y ago
    >the developer risks a game of whack-a-mole with private servers and cracked clients This would be Felony Contempt of Business Model[0], which would be enforced with every move in the legal playbook. >Legal protection sounds like it would actually benefit the cheaters given how long an average court case takes. I see the thought here, but it would do so by providing transparency to the license-revocation (banning) process, which greatly benefits customers who are getting screwed as hard as OP is. This in turn should lead to fewer cases of paying customers getting screwed. >In my experience, private servers deal with cheaters and bots better than Activision/Blizzard This is the case because they're moderated better. The companies are raking in cash. They can hire people to fix the problem. They don't because the current model maximizes profits. [0]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-busine...
seattle_spring 4y ago
You're really bending over backwards trying to defend people who get their kicks ruining things for others.
- harry8 4y ago
  It's just like sticking up for the rule of law and equality before it is sticking up for rapists and murders, right? "You want E2E encryption? Why are you sticking up for the terrorists and child porn rings?" Terrible, terrible argument all around.
scott_w 4y ago
> The list of "bad words" isn't listed for you is totally different to: > You're not always sure what you've said or done Listing the "bad words" ahead of time (or even at all) is self-evidently not workable because people will just use different works to abuse/harass/bully people while evading the banned words list. That said, it's important to tell the person after the fact "you're banned because you harassed / bullied someone" or "you were caught using anti-cheat software." Maybe some date ranges so the person understands what they did and why they won't be reinstated. BUT you don't need to list out the _exact things_ they did because you're just opening up the toddler argument of "why is that so wrong?" which is just bad actors trying to waste your time and "legalese" their way back into the system.
- shakna 4y ago
  The lack of listing is fine, so long as the second half of the sentence, which you didn't quote, doesn't apply. If the system matches on substrings, then you need to know what to avoid - you can't even self-censor, if everything is ambiguous. You end up with the memes of getting banned from Club Penguin, otherwise. Except, Club Penguin does as you suggest - it tells you that you used a "rude or inappropriate word". Even if the regex is matching something that it shouldn't.
  - scott_w 4y ago
    I do agree that insta-banning for _just_ using a rude word without warning is huge overkill. Giving fair warning (and telling them their account will be banned if they repeat offend) should be the baseline. The fact that it's not, in too many cases, is definitely something to criticise.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  > you're just opening up the toddler argument That's not the only thing you are doing. You are also creating an opportunity for false positives to justifiably challenge their bans. If you are going to keep the user's money, I think you absolutely have to provide recourse for false positives because otherwise what you are doing is simply theft.
- 4y ago

by shakna 4y ago

amatecha 4y ago

If there was a legally-protected right to access the service you pay for unless violation of agreed-upon rules has occurred (barring other situations like "company going out of business" or "gaming shutting down forever"), this would almost undoubtedly elicit the need for better-defined rules and substantiation of claims when bans occur.

t0suj4 4y ago
If random bans get more common the developer risks a game of whack-a-mole with private servers and cracked clients if not players packing up and leaving for a competitor. Legal protection sounds like it would actually benefit the cheaters given how long an average court case takes. In my experience, private servers deal with cheaters and bots better than Activision/Blizzard
- RulerOf 4y ago
  >the developer risks a game of whack-a-mole with private servers and cracked clients This would be Felony Contempt of Business Model[0], which would be enforced with every move in the legal playbook. >Legal protection sounds like it would actually benefit the cheaters given how long an average court case takes. I see the thought here, but it would do so by providing transparency to the license-revocation (banning) process, which greatly benefits customers who are getting screwed as hard as OP is. This in turn should lead to fewer cases of paying customers getting screwed. >In my experience, private servers deal with cheaters and bots better than Activision/Blizzard This is the case because they're moderated better. The companies are raking in cash. They can hire people to fix the problem. They don't because the current model maximizes profits. [0]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-busine...

seattle_spring 4y ago

You're really bending over backwards trying to defend people who get their kicks ruining things for others.

harry8 4y ago
It's just like sticking up for the rule of law and equality before it is sticking up for rapists and murders, right? "You want E2E encryption? Why are you sticking up for the terrorists and child porn rings?" Terrible, terrible argument all around.

scott_w 4y ago

> The list of "bad words" isn't listed for you is totally different to: > You're not always sure what you've said or done Listing the "bad words" ahead of time (or even at all) is self-evidently not workable because people will just use different works to abuse/harass/bully people while evading the banned words list. That said, it's important to tell the person after the fact "you're banned because you harassed / bullied someone" or "you were caught using anti-cheat software." Maybe some date ranges so the person understands what they did and why they won't be reinstated. BUT you don't need to list out the _exact things_ they did because you're just opening up the toddler argument of "why is that so wrong?" which is just bad actors trying to waste your time and "legalese" their way back into the system.

shakna 4y ago
The lack of listing is fine, so long as the second half of the sentence, which you didn't quote, doesn't apply. If the system matches on substrings, then you need to know what to avoid - you can't even self-censor, if everything is ambiguous. You end up with the memes of getting banned from Club Penguin, otherwise. Except, Club Penguin does as you suggest - it tells you that you used a "rude or inappropriate word". Even if the regex is matching something that it shouldn't.
- scott_w 4y ago
  I do agree that insta-banning for _just_ using a rude word without warning is huge overkill. Giving fair warning (and telling them their account will be banned if they repeat offend) should be the baseline. The fact that it's not, in too many cases, is definitely something to criticise.
shkkmo 4y ago
> you're just opening up the toddler argument That's not the only thing you are doing. You are also creating an opportunity for false positives to justifiably challenge their bans. If you are going to keep the user's money, I think you absolutely have to provide recourse for false positives because otherwise what you are doing is simply theft.
4y ago