Post by Cleophie on Feb 7, 2008 16:03:45 GMT -5
This is an issue that's come up several times in the past, and we're redoing the rules now, so it's a good time to discuss and come up with some kind of attack strategy.
The problem is that we can't have members skipping runs or parts of runs to do other in-game activities, particularly NM camps, but also including things like meriting where the person is consciously choosing to skip the run for something that they can do at any time.
It's a hard issue, because while we need to keep as many people attending as possible, we have to respect that people do have other obligations, and that it may not be in our best interest in the long term to force them to pick between being a member of RB and being a member of their HNMLS. Just as we'd kick someone for leaving a run to go to a HNM pop/camp, most HNMLSs would definitely kick someone for leaving a fight where they're needed to go to Dynamis. I want to avoid putting our members in a situation where they have to choose which LS to be kicked from, because situations like this are a natural consequence of having two different LSs for end-game and Dynamis, and there's no winning situation for either side.
The way I see it, there's two ways to handle these kinds of situations while remaining flexible enough to avoid problems with our HNMLS members.
One is to have a slap-on-the-wrist punishment for the general case, and review particular cases for abuse and punish accordingly. The advantage of this kind of strategy is it leaves us a lot of flexibility to look at circumstances and decide an appropriate punishment. If someone's 10 minutes late to a run because their LS was fighting Nidhogg and killed more slowly than expected, then they'd get a slap on the wrist. If someone skips 3/4 of a run to camp King Arthro, then they get punished heavily and possibly kicked, because they showed willing and malicious disregard for the LS.
This is pretty much the strategy we've been using so far. It hasn't been working particularly well lately, because certain people feel that they can skip runs with impunity because it'd cause a lot of drama if we kicked them. I'm not sure what we can do to fix that issue.
Another strategy is to have a more substantial penalty that "legitimizes" the violation. The idea behind that is that the penalty is stiff enough to keep people from abusing it for their own gain, but manageable so that if their HNMLS is really doing something critical that they just can't miss, it'd be better to take the hit here than risk getting kicked for leaving their event. The penalty would have to be something substantial like a point penalty combined with 1-2 runs of immediate probation to discourage abuse.
I'm not advocating either position, I'd just like to see some discussion about what we can do, including more ideas. I will say that I don't think either of the extremist positions (zero-tolerance or zero penalty) are appropriate for us. Zero tolerance basically means that we'd be kicking a good portion of our membership eventually, because we've had members of Emi, FA and WSZ come into conflict with this problem before, and we can't really afford to lose all or most of our members from those LSs. Zero penalty doesn't work for obvious reasons, it wouldn't fix anything.
Regardless of the method we decide on, I think we need a larger range of potential punishments. Right now, our choices are between a small (1) point penalty or kicking the member from the LS, which tend to be either massive overkill or massive underkill for the majority of violators. It'd make sense to be able to penalize people with short (1 or 2 run) instant probation for violations like skipping runs, as well as potentially for other violations depending on the severity.
Thoughts?
The problem is that we can't have members skipping runs or parts of runs to do other in-game activities, particularly NM camps, but also including things like meriting where the person is consciously choosing to skip the run for something that they can do at any time.
It's a hard issue, because while we need to keep as many people attending as possible, we have to respect that people do have other obligations, and that it may not be in our best interest in the long term to force them to pick between being a member of RB and being a member of their HNMLS. Just as we'd kick someone for leaving a run to go to a HNM pop/camp, most HNMLSs would definitely kick someone for leaving a fight where they're needed to go to Dynamis. I want to avoid putting our members in a situation where they have to choose which LS to be kicked from, because situations like this are a natural consequence of having two different LSs for end-game and Dynamis, and there's no winning situation for either side.
The way I see it, there's two ways to handle these kinds of situations while remaining flexible enough to avoid problems with our HNMLS members.
One is to have a slap-on-the-wrist punishment for the general case, and review particular cases for abuse and punish accordingly. The advantage of this kind of strategy is it leaves us a lot of flexibility to look at circumstances and decide an appropriate punishment. If someone's 10 minutes late to a run because their LS was fighting Nidhogg and killed more slowly than expected, then they'd get a slap on the wrist. If someone skips 3/4 of a run to camp King Arthro, then they get punished heavily and possibly kicked, because they showed willing and malicious disregard for the LS.
This is pretty much the strategy we've been using so far. It hasn't been working particularly well lately, because certain people feel that they can skip runs with impunity because it'd cause a lot of drama if we kicked them. I'm not sure what we can do to fix that issue.
Another strategy is to have a more substantial penalty that "legitimizes" the violation. The idea behind that is that the penalty is stiff enough to keep people from abusing it for their own gain, but manageable so that if their HNMLS is really doing something critical that they just can't miss, it'd be better to take the hit here than risk getting kicked for leaving their event. The penalty would have to be something substantial like a point penalty combined with 1-2 runs of immediate probation to discourage abuse.
I'm not advocating either position, I'd just like to see some discussion about what we can do, including more ideas. I will say that I don't think either of the extremist positions (zero-tolerance or zero penalty) are appropriate for us. Zero tolerance basically means that we'd be kicking a good portion of our membership eventually, because we've had members of Emi, FA and WSZ come into conflict with this problem before, and we can't really afford to lose all or most of our members from those LSs. Zero penalty doesn't work for obvious reasons, it wouldn't fix anything.
Regardless of the method we decide on, I think we need a larger range of potential punishments. Right now, our choices are between a small (1) point penalty or kicking the member from the LS, which tend to be either massive overkill or massive underkill for the majority of violators. It'd make sense to be able to penalize people with short (1 or 2 run) instant probation for violations like skipping runs, as well as potentially for other violations depending on the severity.
Thoughts?
