Make going around accusing players of being iStomp a tempbannable offence

I find it sad to see that people have actually been messaging random builders and accusing them of being istomp alts. This to me just seems like harassment which is already against the rules.

As for the distrust of builders in general, sadly with all the istomp alts going around people are going to distrust builders.

 

Concerning some of the posts in this thread - please keep this thread both on-topic and free of beginning flame wars. I do not want to see any flaming and harassment on a discussion thread that is against those two things.

Concerning the topic of this thread - randomly accusing other players of this is harassment and defamation from my point of view. However, I know that I might not always see it when it happens. It is sad to see that players decide to accuse new players without any evidence instead of telling a staff member of their suspicions and keeping it out of global chat or PMs to the new player.

 

+1
If you think someone is a alt of istomp,
You dont have to contact just PM a GA+

Contact any of the staff members online. Yes Moderators cannot IP check, but they can also get into contact with higher staff members currently not online at the time.

 

-1 I am batting a perfect game calling out Istomp's alts. If I know it is an Istomp alt, I am not going to sit back and let other players get scammed because they don't realize it. Staff has to follow restrictive guidelines before they can ban which means he usually has plenty of time to scam players (unless he breaks down and curses out global). I will continue to warn players of his alts in global. Implementing this will make warning other players a bannable offense. There are already rules against harassment; this is not needed.

 

You're just making it difficult for newer players though. Imagine if you're a new player and now everyone is calling you iStomp and telling you to go away - How would you feel? If I was that player I would just quit, because the community is seemingly terrible.

If iStomp wants to financially hurt players, he'll just do it in other methods such as TPing players to PvP or PMing players in private offering to sell them features. Accusing players in global adds nothing of value else than making the community seem toxic, making players quit, and giving iStomp what he wants - Drama. If you really think someone is an iStomp alt, just PM a staff member.

 

This is a very valid point because the harrassment of new players is a terrible offense. I dont like to see builders being put off for any reason.

At the same time, most especially on offpeak hours, the server is kind of under seige by one particular manchild with a vpn who has caused issues for new and old user alike. So recently caution with builders is absolutely warranted. And I must admit that in many cases it has been very obvious, users have been very accurate in their information and staff has been constrained by the procedures which normally make their rulings fair.

I think there are better ways of handling this than public accusations. Personally I have been privately pming users I thought might be undertaking risky behavior with builders to be careful. And not asserting that one builder or another was an alt or not, just reminding the user or informing the user of this current issue and to guard themselves accordingly.

However I dont think making it a tempbannable offense is really a good way to handle it. It doesnt take into account that some of this is helping inform others when mods cannot handle the situation inmediately. And it creates more havoc and antagonism for the staff than they are already under.

Instead I recommed informing and helping any accused builder that if they feel harrassed they can take screenshots and file a user complaint and the staff will handle it. It isnt a perfect solution but this isnt a perfect situation right now due to that manchild without a life and his vpn.

 

Um what part of perfect game don't you understand. I don't accuse randoms. When I say it is Istomp, it is because I know it is him. I am not going to not warn players.

Again harassment already covers this issue. -1

This is what I am referencing:

[Tr] ObviousIstompAlt: Selling features. Pm me.
[G] [Mayor] LJKAzrael: Don't buy features from him it is a scam.

This should be bannable?

 

How do you know it's iStomp? It might just be an innocent builder. Not to mention, if you think it's iStomp, just PM a staff member - Don't put it in global.

Also, harassment doesn't cover this issue, as I still see players consistently accuse others of being iStomp without any warning.

 

@UnitedStates2, Istomp and I chat when he comes on about half the time. He is smart enough to not give me anything that could get him banned. The guidelines staff have to follow afford him plenty of time to scam. I will warn in global during this situation.

If you see this happening, screenshot and file a complaint. We don't need a new rule.

 

Yeah, but as I said, iStomp would just move onto more subtle ways, such as TPing players to PvP arenas and moving onto different accounts if you keep warning every time. All this does is just create drama, something iStomp wants.

He isn't suggesting to create a new rule, just to have staff enforce punishments for things like this - Creating a new rule would be pretty dumb as it's already covered by the trolling and harassment clauses.

 

It's already against the rules to accuse someone of breaking the rules. Accusing someone of being an alt of a banned player is accusing someone of breaking a rule. It's already illegal.

Just because a special snowflake might know perfectly each and every iStomp alt does not mean everyone else will. We've seen already lots of builders getting false accusations - scaring them away from the community. I'm pretty egotistical but even I am not going to refute a suggestion saying something that's harmful if incorrect should be allowed for everyone just because I'm always right

 

Honestly, I completely disagree with this, as yes, maybe some of the time in chat there is an iStomp alt. But as you can see in the screenshot that is provided as evidence in the main suggestion of this thread, you have a builder saying to another builder "I will pay you 40k to say you are an iStomp alt in global" Now any new player who doesn't already know the situation with iStomp is just going to believe they will get free money by basically saying they are another player in global, so when the builder says this believing they will get 40k, they just get banned instead, chat goes crazy with people saying things such as "Bye iStomp" and stuff like that, and iStomp got what he wanted, to cause drama, harass other users, and get people banned; meanwhile iStomp may still on the server pming another innocent builder asking them to say the same thing.

How exactly would you define an "ObviousIstompAlt" or "know it is him"? If a builder comes online saying selling donation features for 4.5k/usd, does that immediately make them an alt? Maybe they just don't know the going price for features. Or if they say "buying a melon sword" maybe they just have no idea how much they are worth and wanted to get one as they heard people talking about them. So to have users saying "Don't buy or sell to/from them" after their message isn't very nice and will just put new players off ECC.

How about warning staff first so they can get it dealt with if it does turn out to be an alt? Just defaming users in chat whom you have no clue whether or not they are alts is defiantly not the right way to go about this. If you think someone is an alt, and you see them acting suspicious, surely pming a staff member would be the best bet? As if the user is an alt, they will get banned, hopefully before they were able to scam anyone. And if it wasn't an alt, then everyone can go back to what they are doing, and the builder who you are suspicions of has not been meaninglessly slandered.

Yes. For the reason that you are breaking a number of server rules by doing this:

Spoiler: Clause 3 - Harassment

• 
  
  
  • Harassment constitutes as any form of action (chat or game play wise) that makes another player feel threatened or otherwise ruins their game play.
    • Griefing in the wild does not constitute harassment. Harassment in the wild is strictly chat/command based.
  • This includes, but is not limited to; blackmail, bullying or any other form of harassment that occurs through our chat system.
  • Attempting to kill other players in any non-PvP zone also constitutes as harassment, and succeeding in killing other players in non-PvP areas is a very severe offence that will result in a ban.
  • Harassment is absolutely inexcusable on EcoCityCraft. If you are engaging in this behavior expect to be removed from the server with little to no warning.
  • Disrespecting staff falls under this rule - They are players too.

^^This rule states that if you are harassing another user, then that is against the rules. And what are people doing to builders everytime they speak in chat? Yes, basically harassing them. So that is 1 rule already broken.

Spoiler: Clause 3 - Inappropriate/Touchy Subjects and Discussions

• 
  
  
  • Accusing other players of breaking any of the Server Rules is not allowed. Use the proper means to address these concerns such as speaking to a staff member or filing a complaint.

You are accusing the users who you say are "scamming" or "iStomp alts" of breaking the rules, which is another rule broken just by saying something like "Don't buy features from <user> they will scam you!"

Last time I checked, breaking any of the rules was a bannable offence? So yes, for saying things like this in global and not pming a staff member about it instead should lead to a temp ban.

 

If this is already bannable, what is the purpose of this suggestion? Just follow the current system. If you see this file a complaint.

Is this suggestion to bypass the current warnings given and immediately tempban?

However the cards fall, this will change nothing for me.

 

Haven't yet read the replies to this thread, but this is already against the rules - accusing a user of being an alt account of a permabanned user can be seen as harassment and slander. If you see this happening simply take screenshots and file a complaint.

 

If it is against the rules, staff are obviously not enforcing this.

 

I also believe that this is technically covered under the rules perfectly well. But I see your point as this is clearly going on anyhow. But the staff are really chasing their tails at the moment with the issue of this user coming on as alts, not knowing who or who is not an alt, having to gather proper evidence to ban these players who are breaking the rule regardless of their true identity on top of all the regular stuff they deal with. I think the best way to help the builders in this situation is to inform any that claim they are being harassed how to gather proper evidence and file a complaint. This will give the staff a chance to handle it outside of the total havoc happening in game at the moment. Teaching builders how to advocate for their existing rights is probably a lot more effective than piling new issues on the moderation to handle in game during this trying time for them.

 

iStomp isn't bad to the point where staff literally have no time to enforce rules, it's just something that's not being enforced as united said.

 

I agree that there are certainly times in which the moderation probably could address it better and should do so, but at the same time there have definitely been times were there was so much havoc being caused that I don't think staff had the time to properly address this as well as investigate the issues at hand. I believe @LJKAzrael was on as was I during at least one of these times and can probably confirm that it was near anarchy for a little while despite the mods working against it. Although I don't necessarily think him calling out istomp alts to be the best way to handle it, at all he was certainly there to see the craziness going on during off peak and I believe his accusations probably alerted a few players to the danger at hand although they should have not been made in global.

And in any case you can't possibly tell me that a builder couldn't collect the evidence, post it on the complaints section, and it wouldn't be handled as justly as any other harassment case. I just don't think that we need a special rule for this occasion as it is already perfectly against the rules and as many moderators have pointed out, they can't catch everything all the time. File a complaint. Now builders may not know how to do so correctly and moderators may not be able to individually help each of them but this is where more experienced users could come in and help explain to any builder complaining about harassment about how to collect evidence and file a complaint. It is an old banned user making this mess, good active players can pitch in to help clean it up.

 

I agree with everything you say here except the first sentence, if the way I wrote my previous statements implied that I didn't then that's my bad, but I just don't agree with the point about how mods don't have time to handle it. I may be wrong, but I believe iStomp only logs on during off-peak, which most of the time is quiet, as someone who was actually a moderator during the last 'wave' of iStomp alts, I can confidently say that there was always time for me to deal with the alt and with the users accusing players of being istomp.