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    Some Troubling Concerns

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    Zurui


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    Some Troubling Concerns Empty Some Troubling Concerns

    Post by Zurui Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:03 am

    Hey all,

    For those that don't know me, my name is Izumi. I'm one of two founders responsible for the creation of this site. Those that have been here for a while may have noticed my inconsistent activity during my time as administrator, and that I've since revoked the role. Well, this is partly because of my job, and partly because of certain concerns that have become apparent to me since I started this website.

    As many of you know, I come from a site called TNRPG where things became very unfavorable to quite a few members. Some of those members quit, others learned to deal with it, and a few of us banded together to create Gladius. Naisu and I were the heads of this group, having the most experience as moderators of Naruto RP forums via mostly our time on TNRPG. We knew the problems of that site in great depth, saw what lead to them, and created everything here with the purpose of not only being a fun and enjoyable game, but also something that would never turn into the kind of place we had come from.

    Naisu left early on in this site's development, because other staff members below he and I supported a kind of verbal abuse in chat rooms that he simply could not tolerate. Because he and I refused any sort of overriding, unilateral authority (we saw it abused heavily on TNRPG), he hadn't the power to change it and decided to leave instead. He's attempted to return a time or two since then, but the chat rules hadn't changed and so he has remained gone.

    This is the first issue I've noticed with this site and admittedly, it's a troublesome one. You don't want to limit people's freedom of expression, but you also want to avoid the kind of toxicity that stops people from wanting to talk in the chatbox. Now this has improved since those days, when we decided to enact a warning and banning system to try and keep things civil in the chat. If you are being openly insulted or treated in a way that you do not like, you tell the person to stop and if they don't, you report it to staff. Staff should then give that person a warning and log it. The second time this happens, that person receives a temporary ban and the third, a permanent ban.

    This is all well and good and allows people to adjust to chatbox standards, which haven't been made very clear and open to the public. Unfortunately, we're now seeing immediate bans without warnings and without discussion. This is a concern not only because members may be given no time to adjust, but also because staff is blatantly ignoring set standards. Ignorance of previous standards is one of the things that led to the degeneration of the site we fled from.

    Once Naisu left, I took over as sole admin and relegated my authority to simply breaking ties between staff votes. I wanted this to be a site more open to the ideas and standards of others, rather than myself, because one person isn't always going to be right, and anyone taking my place may not want the same direction that I did, so this was a safety precaution.

    We went on to write the basic rules and systems, most of which I did myself, all with a connected general balance in mind to prevent any one area from being unjustly overpowered compared to another. I couldn't write all the systems, obviously, so others were made and they sometimes didn't mesh very well with the others. This brings us to the crafting system. Engineering, in specific, has very little guidelines on what is acceptable when compared to other systems, leading to single registrations that blatantly nullify the need of entire systems. This has been a point of concern for me since the first registrations were made, when buildings that erased the income limit of lands (a serious balancing factor) or allowed for the regeneration of limit break points, which are only so powerful because they are (or, used to be) nearly impossible to regain once used. This is a field that's presently being allowed to diminish every other aspect of the site, making it heavily imbalanced.

    In fact, it was this issue with Engineering that caused my resignation as admin. This was the last, and biggest, in a long line of disagreements over balance issues with the moderators and it became obvious that we simply had different ideas of what is balanced. Several times in the past I even brought up the similarities between how things were being done or discussed here and how they were on TNRPG. This is a phrase that came up a lot, because my primary concern with overseeing this site has always been to prevent it from becoming like TNRPG.

    What was it that made TNRPG so bad, though? It's a site where many people still faithfully RP and have a good time, after all. It was the staff's attitude and their way of going about things. Staff on TNRPG grew to become a group of friends that sought to make their site enjoyable for them. This is not inherently a bad thing, but they became concerned only with each other while neglecting the regular members. They would still check registrations, of course, but we could see a slowly increasing gap between the power level allowed by staff registrations versus those with member registrations. Eventually, it became such that staff got restricted-level customs via registrations while non-staff were denied even basic techniques on the grounds of "too similar to another technique", "too powerful", because they didn't like the member, or without giving a reason at all.

    This is why we came up with a set of standards for staff when checking customs. The argument of another person having something of similar power, which was forbidden on TNRPG, was officially validated here. We did not want a member being denied something that staff could get and if they couldn't, then the staff registration needed to be changed so that there would remain a balance. We forbade all staff from denying things without also offering a reason, and we set a guide of what techniques could be made while considering previous ones, to prevent a "copyright" fiasco like we saw on TNRPG.

    This last standard is what spurred me to make this post. I woke up this morning to find that a standard custom technique of mine had been denied on grounds of being too similar to a canon technique. I then pointed out 9 key differences between my custom and the canon technique, but it was no use. While this isn't yet as bad as what we saw on TNRPG, where a staff member would register an idea as basic as drawing a blade and then deny every Kenjutsu custom that had even a mention of a draw or the same with ventriloquism or seals which interacted with genjutsu. It is, however, the start of the same pattern. You'll begin to see more and more customs being denied as the idea of what is 'copyrighted' expands further, while this rule will, over time, apply to staff less and less. Even if not for the imbalance with staff customs, this is an ideal that stifles the creativity of the site. Now I don't know if this particular thing has happened to anyone else yet, so perhaps it's as of yet merely a minor issue.

    This is, however, yet another standard that staff are choosing to ignore, as they are doing with bans, Kage slots, and restricteds. You see, the In Character way in which TNRPG staff controlled the site was by taking up every available Kage slot. For this reason, we created a rule that no more than half of the Kage at any given time can be staff. Now this wasn't an explicitly written or publicly known rule, because we had the intention of letting members taking over even staff-run villages as time went on and only act as Kage when necessary, to avoid the kind of outcome we saw on TNRPG where only staff could run villages and handle exclusives, while crushing any members that attempted to do the same. As far as I know, this hasn't happened yet, but already all Kage are played by staff, so it's not looking too good.

    Another way was by giving themselves restricteds, thereby ensuring that their personal group contained the most powerful abilities and items in the game. This prevented members from getting those things, of course, because staff would not distribute their personally owned restricteds to anyone not in their group. Some would even use those restricteds to crush member characters that started to get a little too powerful. As with the situation before, this hasn't happened yet, but at present, all restricteds not available at character creation belong to staff. Even as a person who watched these restricteds being distributed, it's eerily convenient to me that everything that's been given out is now in the hands of staff. It's certainly great that some things can be started at character creation, but these shouldn't be the only restricteds that members can get. Quests, events, and lotteries should award them to everyone and not just staff.

    Again, I stress, these issues have not evolved to the point that TNRPG has, but considering how Naisu and I started this site, it's a huge move in that direction. I was a part of the staff on TNRPG before they went that way, I saw how it happened to them, and I know how it ends. I argued this same thing with the staff there, so they removed me from their group and continued to mock or ignore my concerns. They did the same whenever Naisu, Nyg, Zach, Tsuyo, or any others brought up their concerns and so, seeing this here, I don't expect even my former staff to realize what they're doing. It's up to the members to keep bringing these things to staff attention, in the same way that I am, and hope that they start to change things back to the way they were intended -or even better!- before it turns into the mess that we made this site to escape from.
    Uchiha Akihiro
    Uchiha Akihiro


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    Some Troubling Concerns Empty Re: Some Troubling Concerns

    Post by Uchiha Akihiro Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:50 am

    Izumi wrote:Staff should then give that person a warning and log it. The second time this happens, that person receives a temporary ban and the third, a permanent ban.

    This is all well and good and allows people to adjust to chatbox standards, which haven't been made very clear and open to the public. Unfortunately, we're now seeing immediate bans without warnings and without discussion. This is a concern not only because members may be given no time to adjust, but also because staff is blatantly ignoring set standards. Ignorance of previous standards is one of the things that led to the degeneration of the site we fled from.

    Personally, I find this troublesome. What happened earlier today, if it happened as it looks like it happened, is certainly troublesome.
    I personally don't think it was enough to justify a ban. But what matters the most isn't whether or not this person was banned. It's that this person was banned without telling the members how and why it happened. A ban doesn't only fit the purpose of punishing a member. It fits the purpose of setting a standard for members to follow.
    As as far as the members see, a ban was issued with no standard set. I don't find this acceptable. If a member is banned, we should know exactly why.

    Should members really be banned without warnings when we don't even have specific rules for the chatbox? I'm not saying she didn't do something wrong, I'm saying the way of handling it was wrong.

    -----------------------------------------------

    Izumi wrote: This brings us to the crafting system. Engineering, in specific, has very little guidelines on what is acceptable when compared to other systems, leading to single registrations that blatantly nullify the need of entire systems. This has been a point of concern for me since the first registrations were made, when buildings that erased the income limit of lands (a serious balancing factor) or allowed for the regeneration of limit break points, which are only so powerful because they are (or, used to be) nearly impossible to regain once used. This is a field that's presently being allowed to diminish every other aspect of the site, making it heavily imbalanced.

    I cannot emphasize enough just how much I agree with this. It should be self-explanatory really.

    Rules wrote:These points are distributed at the registration of your character, and once a point is spent, it is gone forever. There may be opportunities to acquire more points, but these cases are extremely rare, so use your points wisely.
    And yet we have a village which allows its members to restore all points once every IC year. Even if it's once every IC year, I really dislike this.

    Engineering needs to have limits placed upon it. There are some things it just shouldn't be able to mess with and those things are the pillars which balance the site.

    ----------------------------------

    As for the copyright technique thingy, I haven't read it and considering it's late I won't today. I'll comment again tomorrow, just wanted to leave my 2 cents here before bed.


    EDIT: For the sake of honesty, I should say I came up with an engineering project for Kameko which also restores points for the sake of being able to compete. But I'd much rather see that kind of stuff out of the site.
    Bryn
    Bryn


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    Some Troubling Concerns Empty Re: Some Troubling Concerns

    Post by Bryn Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:24 am


    This is the first issue I've noticed with this site and admittedly, it's a troublesome one. You don't want to limit people's freedom of expression, but you also want to avoid the kind of toxicity that stops people from wanting to talk in the chatbox. Now this has improved since those days, when we decided to enact a warning and banning system to try and keep things civil in the chat. If you are being openly insulted or treated in a way that you do not like, you tell the person to stop and if they don't, you report it to staff. Staff should then give that person a warning and log it. The second time this happens, that person receives a temporary ban and the third, a permanent ban.

    This is all well and good and allows people to adjust to chatbox standards, which haven't been made very clear and open to the public. Unfortunately, we're now seeing immediate bans without warnings and without discussion. This is a concern not only because members may be given no time to adjust, but also because staff is blatantly ignoring set standards. Ignorance of previous standards is one of the things that led to the degeneration of the site we fled from.

    I wasn't here when whatever triggered this happened and I've only gotten the gist of it so far, but I agree that automatic banning is not an acceptable behavior.


    We went on to write the basic rules and systems, most of which I did myself, all with a connected general balance in mind to prevent any one area from being unjustly overpowered compared to another. I couldn't write all the systems, obviously, so others were made and they sometimes didn't mesh very well with the others. This brings us to the crafting system. Engineering, in specific, has very little guidelines on what is acceptable when compared to other systems, leading to single registrations that blatantly nullify the need of entire systems. This has been a point of concern for me since the first registrations were made, when buildings that erased the income limit of lands (a serious balancing factor) or allowed for the regeneration of limit break points, which are only so powerful because they are (or, used to be) nearly impossible to regain once used. This is a field that's presently being allowed to diminish every other aspect of the site, making it heavily imbalanced.

    Literally everything in this paragraph I said as soon as it happened. At the time it turned into a big long discussion that ended with a compromise that turned into something close to what we have now. I agree completely and totally that some of the things Engineering and by extension some certain systems are capable of is a bit off the walls, however I don't think village income is as big of an issue. With an economy system, there will inevitably be some people who find ways to make more money. Adding in actual physical resources that can be counted and improved as well as minor nations to conquer and fuel this system is going to create huge village incomes just on its own. With an in depth system like that comes risks, and these are it.

    This is especially true when the regular system has a building devoted solely to making money through investment, as that directly encourages trying to make other buildings that make money. This isn't an inherently bad thing, but anything that generates direct village income needs to take up a building slot or act as an artificial resource outside the village that can be targeted and destroyed. Things that generate income to a player character can be allowed, but within reason. People shouldn't be bringing in millions from one building, basically, and with allowing passive income such as this to exist then the costs and upkeeps for such buildings also needs to be appropriate. 150k for something that can generate a passive 100k income is absolute crumbs compared to what it should be. There is no way costs should be recouped in two or three months, depending on the total invested at the start. Most people will begin with a few hundred thousand invested after this timeskip though, of that I'm sure. I'm proof of that with Kameko, and I'll freely admit that I'm using the system to my own personal gain. It is what it is, I've made my arguments and the discussions have been settled. If we're gonna bring it up though, then yeah, there's some issues with a few things. Buildings need to have sufficient cost and upkeep to justify what they bring in, 5k ryo a month is absolute jack shit when compared to what it can bring in. I've actually brought that point up recently, I believe.

    Village income should get higher and higher as time progresses though, as this is still a game and we've chosen to make it a fairly in depth one. Things such as war will be using squads of npc, ships, trade interference, resource destruction, there's a lot that's gonna happen in a full scale conflict. These things also need funded, because fighting a war with eight groups of npc in a system supposedly designed to use them for such a thing isn't a very exciting war, or even a real war to be honest. The general trend of the site in the last few months has been to speed things up along pretty much every axis which is something I'm on the fence about. I can see the reasoning behind it, but I'm wary of the consequences which is, well, this.


    This is why we came up with a set of standards for staff when checking customs. The argument of another person having something of similar power, which was forbidden on TNRPG, was officially validated here. We did not want a member being denied something that staff could get and if they couldn't, then the staff registration needed to be changed so that there would remain a balance. We forbade all staff from denying things without also offering a reason, and we set a guide of what techniques could be made while considering previous ones, to prevent a "copyright" fiasco like we saw on TNRPG.

    This last standard is what spurred me to make this post. I woke up this morning to find that a standard custom technique of mine had been denied on grounds of being too similar to a canon technique. I then pointed out 9 key differences between my custom and the canon technique, but it was no use. While this isn't yet as bad as what we saw on TNRPG, where a staff member would register an idea as basic as drawing a blade and then deny every Kenjutsu custom that had even a mention of a draw or the same with ventriloquism or seals which interacted with genjutsu. It is, however, the start of the same pattern. You'll begin to see more and more customs being denied as the idea of what is 'copyrighted' expands further, while this rule will, over time, apply to staff less and less. Even if not for the imbalance with staff customs, this is an ideal that stifles the creativity of the site. Now I don't know if this particular thing has happened to anyone else yet, so perhaps it's as of yet merely a minor issue.

    I haven't really seen this issue and have approved a few similar ones myself. I helped someone near the start of the site, I don't remember who it was off the top of my head, impart some of what one of my own techniques did into their own to try and make it fit the systems. However, if something is too similar to something like LRA, I'm going to deny it because nobody is getting a knock-off LRA. This is the same technique that I helped incorporate some ideas from my own stuff into, and I've seen very few actual denials since the site began. Now, today I spotted a registration that's essentially a copy/paste of one of my own and I intend to discuss that with the person who registered it as well as the staff member who approved it when I have the time to do so. Anyways, I feel like we, at least in general, do a fairly good job at helping with jutsu. But we're all human so I'm sure all of us have overlooked something, I know I have. I haven't looked at your specific technique so I don't have much of an opinion on that part of it personally, I just wanted to say this.

    This is, however, yet another standard that staff are choosing to ignore, as they are doing with bans, Kage slots, and restricteds. You see, the In Character way in which TNRPG staff controlled the site was by taking up every available Kage slot. For this reason, we created a rule that no more than half of the Kage at any given time can be staff. Now this wasn't an explicitly written or publicly known rule, because we had the intention of letting members taking over even staff-run villages as time went on and only act as Kage when necessary, to avoid the kind of outcome we saw on TNRPG where only staff could run villages and handle exclusives, while crushing any members that attempted to do the same. As far as I know, this hasn't happened yet, but already all Kage are played by staff, so it's not looking too good.

    Another way was by giving themselves restricteds, thereby ensuring that their personal group contained the most powerful abilities and items in the game. This prevented members from getting those things, of course, because staff would not distribute their personally owned restricteds to anyone not in their group. Some would even use those restricteds to crush member characters that started to get a little too powerful. As with the situation before, this hasn't happened yet, but at present, all restricteds not available at character creation belong to staff. Even as a person who watched these restricteds being distributed, it's eerily convenient to me that everything that's been given out is now in the hands of staff. It's certainly great that some things can be started at character creation, but these shouldn't be the only restricteds that members can get. Quests, events, and lotteries should award them to everyone and not just staff.

    Most of this is unfair I feel. The members of staff that actually possess restricted things began as members and won a lottery at the opening of the site or, in my case, had the classification of what they chose changed after creation. That's hardly what I'd call breaking the rules when we're doing another lottery literally tomorrow that's open to the entire site AND have introduced a system meant for the sole purpose of distributing restricteds to people who want them rather than arbitrarily choosing them for a plot event and handing it over to the guy who we like more. That's how Kye's happen, and I will do everything in my power to prevent another Kye. Additionally, the two IC kage started out as members with one of them being a kage BEFORE she became staff. Stripping her of that role because of a new label is not only wrong, it makes no sense whatsoever. Copy is only kage because the MEMBER who was going to do it before him quit, and I'm not entirely sure but I think the MEMBER Yomi is either kage now or is looking to try for it. You're also forgetting the other part of that agreement that we'd let members take over when there were members who were A) capable enough of doing the job and B) actually wanted to do the job. None of the staff members who were originally a kage are a kage anymore, just to point that out. Konoha doesn't have a kage, not yet anyways, but that may very well be changing soon too. Members haven't really had much of an opportunity yet to try and do anything like that until recently, and we're starting to see people do stuff on their own without staff explicitly introducing plots to perform that function. That's exactly what we wanted to happen, so let's give it a few more months before we go claiming any form of staff bias eh?


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    Post by Halcyon Yomi Sun Oct 14, 2018 3:04 am

    Just a small clarification on the Mizukage: This was entirely based solely on player discussion. Though my character would've been the prime candidate after Kotsubo dropped off of the site, I have two reasons to basically say no to being a kage: 1) it simply wouldn't fit atm as Yomi is what can be called a wildcard, not someone who's willing to settle in a more diplomatic role. 2) after some discussion, it was agreed by all possible kage candidates, that exactly because Takeo aka Copycat is someone who shows integrity by splitting his characters and mod duties, not to mention the outlook he had for his character simply fit perfect imho to be kage.


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