Nyx likes to jail people for reporting bugs.

[Cornbread]

I would rather deal with this kind of infantile fallout now, than to suffer a year or more of the same back and forth of intermittently reinforcing the ego of a player who thinks they can treat authority as they see fit.
+V

I would encourage you to take a step back for a bit and focus more on treating the players as equals on the shard. People shouldn't be looking to you as "authority" on the shard. It comes across as crude and power hungry. Hopefully everyone is here for the same reason of just having fun.

Seriously? That's like telling a cop they aren't authority. They are here to enforce the rules and also protect and better the shard. They are the authority, if it weren't for them then this place would be full of exploiters and no one would enjoy being here. We may not always agree with them just like you don't agree with the cop who gives you a speeding ticket. These people have been here for many years and were appointed to their position by +Colibri because they exemplify the values he wants people to have within the shard.

The way they now will publicly address these childish situations in a manner stating the facts and providing screenshot proof of the ignorant behavior displayed by the few is great. This is exactly what should be done, it's a nice sense of transparency that is so often lacking. I also get a big kick out of some idiot talking about how they're a "google god" and can take down the shard . Or whatever other stupid claims they make over a free to play game that they chose to play. If it weren't for the people like Colibri and his staff we would have to pay to play something like WoW with all the Chinese sweatshop kids.

[+Nyx]

I would rather deal with this kind of infantile fallout now, than to suffer a year or more of the same back and forth of intermittently reinforcing the ego of a player who thinks they can treat authority as they see fit.
+V

I would encourage you to take a step back for a bit and focus more on treating the players as equals on the shard. People shouldn't be looking to you as "authority" on the shard. It comes across as crude and power hungry. Hopefully everyone is here for the same reason of just having fun.

PS - Think this one is ready for the vault. Great discussion though +V.

Enforcing the rules of the shard as a staff member IS a position of authority for this realm. There isn't any changing that. We can't really be equals with players, because we are the ones in charge of everything from jailing them for rule violations to creating new content and providing staff services. We are told to keep players at a distance and not treat them as besties, to keep a level of detachment from them. Saying that staff members have authority is a statement of fact, yet somehow you find it crude and power-hungry? I think I need to break out the epic eye-roll .gif again.

I don't think you realize that the only way to keep a player that is as emotionally unstable as this person turned out to be from having a blowup like this is to never punish them or say anything they disagree with at all. When that's the case, they just start walking all over everyone, they feel immune to the rules, and they get worse and worse. Other players quit to get away from them. We have seen it dozens of times over the years and tested all sorts of different methods of handling people like this. Absolutely none of them ended in any sort of peaceful resolution because people like that don't want peace, they want drama. Not punishing or going very lightly on them also means that the staff are subjected to even more verbal abuse, insults, and harassment. If any human being is regularly verbally abused and harassed at their place of work, you can bet your buttons that they're going to be miserable and eventually quit. For us, it's even worse, because we don't have the added pull of bringing home a paycheck for dealing with that nonsense. We are volunteers on a video game. This is our hobby. We don't have to put up with such abuse, trying to make the staff tolerate it just ends up in all the good staff quitting. Which is exactly why the codex states in multiple places that one is not to treat the staff that way. The penalty for any disrespect to a staff member is 50 tasks for each instance of disrespect. I had already cut the jerk a break by giving him only 20 since it was a milder form of disrespect. Fat lot of good going easy on him did me, which is exactly my point. When we go easy, we get absolutely no benefit from players like that. Their end goal isn't resolution. It's maximum attention and drama.

[Lowne]

I've got no dog in this hunt but wanted to compliment +Nyx and +Veritas on their patience and stance on transparency regarding problem players/disagreements.

I'm not trying to suck up and my opinion, especially being as new as I am, means little but...

I would have banned his arse after the "PMS'ing" comment.

You can act like an adult and be appreciative of the work that folks put into this or you can pack your bags and get the heck out. Now, if the +Staff around here were power hungry I would have a different opinion and I would leave rather than show my bare bum with childish BS. I've seen no evidence of Power Hungry Staff members here in this case or on the Shard since I joined.

[louis077]

Of course its a fact that you are in a position of authority. Think you misinterpreted my statement a little. There is a fine line between treating someone with respect and going with the "my way or the highway" approach. People shouldn't fear admins and have to watch every little thing they say or do.

You are probably right that the vast majority of the crazies can't be helped. I like to think that some people just need a little talking to set them straight.

Guess I'm more of a glass half full kind of guy. After years of being an admin on a shard I might say otherwise.

[Dramoor]

I think it is more of the situation of he paged, he could have waited for them to respond to it. There wasn't really a need for him to start blabbing in WC about it after he had already paged and within a few minutes they would have seen the issue. Being impatient is not an excuse for going on a tirade like that guy went on. Guy went from reporting a bug, to a woe is me, to threatening the shard, to trying to demean the staff, to harassing/removing information on the player run wiki for "revenge" because his page wasn't answered as fast as he wanted it to (and praised for finding an issue).

I am sorry but if you have a page in the queue, and the staff talk in WC (Which they could be on portal making sure people aren't causing issues/policing wc) and you ask them to answer it....That is kind of rude....It is like if a person asks you to get something for them later....Then every 5 minutes they text you "did you get it" "I hope you know I need that" "Did you get that thing I asked you for".


It gets old....Fast...Especially more for the staff that have to handle that probably 40 times an hour/day.

[Xavian]

Guess I'm more of a glass half full kind of guy.

Your glass may be half full but you have the same amount in your glass as the dude who's glass is half empty.

[Unbeliever]

louis077, if you're really just coming at this unfortunate occurrence as an extreme optimist, let me say this: Try getting to know some more crazy people. They will set you straight. Obviously +Veritas and +Nyx have been put through the ringer by more than a few because they're 100% right in what they've said about how these things go. After you've seen the same thing happen over and over enough times, you can tell the future just by looking into the past. That said, I've been here a while now and I've seen that the admins don't instantly take a hardline with players over any little infraction or slight. They use their judgement in each case and it seems to be excellent IMO.

After 14 years of the virtually unchecked aggressive and antisocial behavior that dominates most UO servers, I am extremely grateful for Excelsior's staff. The server benefits greatly from their efforts in keeping it clean. To view their actions as heavy-handed or "crude and power hungry" is looking at things through a very narrow and quite fogged lens. There are a lot of really friendly players here and very little riff-raff, and that's due much more to the staff's enforcement of rules of conduct than it is to the winning personalities of all UO players everywhere.

[Birko]

Unicorn chaser and thread lock please.

[+Veritas]

Yeah, it's about that time. Locked.