Freedom and Society

[Myrdral]

Humans have free will. One may think or act as they choose. A society or community is a group of inidividuals who. among other things, work together for mutual benefit. This arrangemet comes with a set of expectations for individual behavior. Individuals each have a different set of expectations for other individuals. When enough individuals share the same behavioral expecations, it becomes publicly expected behavior. Public expectations for behavior are often in place for very good reasons, as they often were put in place by the group's majority or most educated and wise. Therefore, violating public expectations is normally met with opposition from the community. Unfortunately, humans tend to greedily grab power wherever they can. This results in some powerful individuals abusing their power to suppress the education and expectations of others.

Recent community topics of balance, racism, sportsmanship and more have turned into individual disputes due to lack of clarity from our community on it's expectations for individual behavior. There are clear expectations for chat rules outlined by a few individuals with power that may or may not be representative of the community as a whole. For example, it is unlikely, yet possible that 95% of us think that profanity and racial slurs(even the ones which have been disempowered to some degree) are acceptable. It is also quite possible that those same 95% of us who possibly think racial slurs and profanity are acceptable are uneducated and naive. It is not really their fault if this is the case, as education and wisdom are often witheld from the general community and reserved by those who wish to retain great deals of power. A community of equals must offer equal education opportunities to all of its members and equal opportunity for each individual's expectations to be shared with others. Only then can we discover what our educated and wise community wants as a whole.

It is your responsibility as a member of the community to share your behavioral expectations. It is the responsibility of the person's in power to give the best possible chance for these expectations to be shared. It is the responsibility of the persons in power to create a method for discovering what the community wants as a whole. Educating the community to make their own decisions and find their own wisdom is everyone's responsibility. We need more 'personal trainer team' participants and more freedom of speech in the forums. Respect and consideration for others is essential.

[Panchovilla]

This is a result of what society has become over the years and a result of the FA community growing, for example...look at some of the larger gaming communities...not just in the RTS genre, but say the FPS community(Which in my opinion is the worst of the worst when it comes to behavior and what society has become as a whole) and like you said, its up to us as a community to express what we feel should be appropriate behavior but not make it so that political correctness out right takes over, and its the duty of the admins/mods to maintain civility in conversation, but not overstep their bounds each time a lively debate is in progress or if he/she doesn't share the same opinions as the community. This whole project wouldn't be possible without Zep and the host of others that have contributed to it so he does have alot of say into what goes on here and I can respect that, but he can't use that fact to throw his weight around and threaten the community when something he doesn't agree with is said. I firmly believe that this is the best community out there in terms of supporting new players and general kindness towards others in the community, lets have this tradition continue and not let the bad apples ruin it for everyone in the end a majority of them are nothing but "Keyboard Warriors" with nothing else to do but flame others, and when it comes to mods and Admins...you can't gain respect without earning it, you can't expect it and you can't just locking or editing posts with out a real reason...just because you don't agree with some one, doesn't give you that right to silence him because of ego or pride.

[Ze_PilOt]

This is a private place. And as any private place, it runs as the owner wants to.

The frontpage is saying "community driven". By community, it means "not GPG/THQ/...". All the contributors and I are that community driving the project, not you.

If I think that someone is driving me crazy, or hurt the community in some way, he will be ban.
Yeah, it's an "abuse", but what do you REALLY want ?
-Some guy banned for a week or
- Me pissed of by these guys, and by extension this project, and stopping working on it ?

Maybe I'm taking this too personally, but let's see how you react after putting countless hours into something.
And it's not really smart (to say the less) to try to piss some admin or moderators. What do these guys really expect from that ? Some pity after they are banned ? We won't give them, that's why the posts are edited and/or deleted.

And I must say, it's a really, really small part of the community.
This is a really great community (I wouldn't doing it if it wasn't the case), and if continuing this project means getting rid of bad apples, so be it.

Someone told me "continue like that and someone will do his own FAF and everybody will leave yours".
I've replied that if somebody else was willing to do it, I will be more than happy. After all, I did it because nobody else did.
If I get a better lobby for less work, I would be happy. That's also why I hope PA will be the successor to FA we all wait.


A lot of people saying that it was wrong were proven wrong, The community is growing, the game, in my opinion, is improving, and recently we see more and more competitive players. So I will continue to make FAF as I believe it must be.

[Myrdral]

My OP was a little lengthy so here is a TLDR. All parties should show respect and consideration if they wish to receive the same.

[Ze_PilOt]

Of course, but it goes the other way around. They need to respect the rule first, then we will respect them if they cross the lines a little.

[Myrdral]

Of course, but it goes the other way around. They need to respect the rule first, then we will respect them if they cross the lines a little.

I will more highly prioritize respecting the rule first and hope others do the same!

[NinjaTurtle]

How sad to see this thread go off-topic into a personal dispute of sorts before even having started truly!

I wish to get back to Myrdral's original question with some specific answers. Disclaimer: I'm an utter noob, and this is coming from the perspective of such one, who has never been involved in online gaming between Q3A and the time he found out about this community-driven project. This very openness, even more than the great and unique gameplay of SupCom, has convinced me to "get into this" despite my old reservations against anything "MMO", and I believe a solid and friendly community is the only thing that can make FAF stand up to a huge, industrialized mainstream online gaming scene, its single great raison d'être.

Most of my complaints - no need to further elaborate the great things about FAF at this place - relate to the behaviour some people show in joining or hosting custom games and in the game lobby.

A great deal of people seem to intentionally join games with an expected ranking clearly below their own, e.g. 1000+ joining "noob under 800"; at the same time, many people seem to host games where they are exactly at the top of the expected ranking, e.g. a 789 host for said "noob under 800" game. The only explanation I have for this is that such people a) don't understand how the rating system works, especially that their ratings won't improve by beating players clearly under their level, or b), that they enjoy beating players clearly under their level just for its own sake. Such behaviour is very common and, not only to me, very annoying.

This isn't being helped by hosts of custom games who are not aware of the responsibility of such a function. A host must, in my opinion:
-enforce stated ranking expectations, and explain the admittance of "wrong" players in cases where he deems it appropriate;
-care for a good balance in team games, ask if the match-up is okay before game start, and actively ask people to swap teams or spots if he thinks the relevant choice will hurt the game in a big way;
-note whether a game will be ranked or unranked in the game's name, and if he opts to use rare mods or options;
-care for latency and ask players with bad connections to leave or reconnect, instead of simply kicking them;
-generally ensure that a productive and respectful mode of conversation is being used in the lobby and throughout the game (especially when players die).

Players, at the same time and in my opinion, have the responsibility to treat every other player in a respectful way, including
-some minimal explanation or apology if leaving the lobby after a prolonged amount of time;
-some minimal explanation when asking for or denying to yield a certain position or team allegiance;
-stating the use of teamspeak etc., if applicable
-criticizing team members in team chat and in some constructive manner during play, rather than flaming the retarded noobs
-stating any non-standard "special tactics" they wish to employ in team games in team chat at the start of a team game, and co-ordinate strategies in case their position does not come with a self-explanatory emphasis on land/navy/air

Relating to the chat and forums, I would advise against any measures, no matter how well intended, that could be perceived as censorship. This would hurt the whole "free" feeling of FAF as a whole. For example, I cherish being allowed to write a little "f***" or "shit" now and then - this freedom makes it necessary for me to think about my use of such words myself, and I rarely see any players truly abusing this freedom.

Last but certainly not least, I see great potential in the way "newbies" and "pros" interact with each other in FAF. I have the feeling that there is a large span between these extremes: I know many players who, not unlike me, started with FAF just recently and with a good deal of idealism. On the other hand, there are the seasoned veterans of GPGnet, who sometimes seem to think of themselves as being just a little "more equal", to quote Orwell. In my experience, this leads to a lot of "noobs" quickly trying to emulate the behavior of the "pros", writing guides and flaming noobs, which in turn tends to piss off other newbies who are content with their status and just wish to play for fun. I venture to assume that FAF was made by and for this "pro" faction, but also that a constant stream of new players will be needed to keep it alive. If that is correct, the "leadership" must be interested in encouraging a little more communication and understanding between these supposed groups. However, I think that the "personal trainer" initiative and the tutorial replays are a very efficient and important step into this direction. The day when new players join FAF and immediately feel welcome and "taken care of" will be the day the F after FA becomes truth. On a side note, I must give Myrdral credit here - he did exactly that for me and probably many others.

I wish to support these thoughts with a practical suggestion: To formulate a set of reasonably short "FAquette" as a normative, yet not 'legally binding' guideline for behaviour inside FAF. Every member should have the opportunity to participate in its creation; it would need to be aggressively "marketed" in the community from the start, so that its final version would be considered the "standard" on the issue. Final say should be with some committee, Ze_Pilot or whatever; I have no problem in accepting some sort of "presidency" to reside with the man who made all this possible through his hard work.

Two cents, or maybe a bit more...

NinjaTurtle

[Softly]

While quite long I think the above post describes exactly my view on the community and FAF.

[NinjaTurtle]

sorry, I sometimes do get carried away good to read that from such an experienced player!

[Eukanuba]

I think we're lucky to have a largely-friendly group of good-natured people, perhaps it's the size of the community, perhaps it's that this type of game has an older and arguably wiser userbase than some other genres. As for acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, my general attitude is that it is not cool to flame anyone and it is not cool to swear at anyone. A bit of swearing as part of the conversation though seems to be fine and natural, just as long as it doesn't get ridiculous or start to be happening for the express purpose of disrupting or offending.

Any sort of racially-charged terms are a complete no-no. Even if you don't mean it and even if you can joke about it with friends, for all you know the person you're playing against is a person who suffers genuine racial abuse on a daily basis. FA is what we do in our leisure time, and we're hopefully all mature enough to know that spoiling somebody's free time through being an asshole is not cool.

Not sure where I stand on words like "fag" though. It strikes me as a word that can be used with obvious and intentional humour and taken as such, but then the same scenario applies as above, so probably best to avoid it unless you know the people you're playing with well.