[DISCUSSION] Application of the Defamation Rule

[NERVUN]

Just as a general note, and then I've got to get back to work. I would like it known that while we cannot act here based on offsite evidence, that does not mean that we ignore it either. We do keep an eye out and/or investigate here to see if we CAN find something to act upon, so please do not think we just wash our hands and walk away. In many cases it is incredibly frustrating to see the work that goes on offsite and the care and the detail and... be unable to use it. But back in the day when the first Mods roamed the Earth and the rules came down written on stone tablets, the admins decided that Moderation cannot be done on a whim. Our site wouldn't operate based on who was friends with whom, but by set rules and rules of evidence of wrong doing that could be checked by every single Mod. That is, in cases like this, annoying as all hell. But it also means a system that is less based (hopefully) on favoritism and whim.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

To use your metaphor: Actually ask the FBI to do an investigation?

I could be wrong here, but I doubt that the NS admin has ever asked for even partial administrative access to an offsite forum in order to even attempt an investigation.

From the way that NS Admin seems to handle these cases, the policy seems to be "Delete the messages and immediately decontaminate in the hopes that it goes away forever."

Would you guys be willing to grant us that?

Be careful how you answer... After all, the off site stuff is valuable because you don't have us and the OSRS breathing down your necks. We'd also run into the issues of Region X has given permissions, but Region Y hasn't. Thus if stuff is on Region Y, we're back to the drawing board. Also... there's protections for us built in. Let me explain, if I went into the controls right now and DEAT'ed you (No, I'm not gonna), that would be logged. Sooner or later someone is going to come asking me WHY I felt it necessary to squish your nation. If I said, "Well, he posted a threat on the RMB" I'd have to prove it. "Oh, I deleted it," would't work, there's a record of that as well. It's why the Mod team as a whole can trust each other because there's no way for us to cheat the system. It's all recorded and we can be called to account on it. I simply don't know your system if it has this kind back up on it. That too is something to consider. Finally, there's the problem of us sharing information too. Our TOS forbids us from sharing ANY information about our users with anyone who is not law enforcement acting within that system. So let's say your region comes to me to say they have someone and they want me to check to confirm that User X on your board is indeed Nation Xistan here and thus lower the boom... I couldn't do any such thing. In other words, we could take the info... but we couldn't really supply any. Is that too, ok?

This isn't to say that I, personally, wouldn't welcome a way to verify such information but I admit the climb is gonna be steep.

I think most of those things are workable. To repeat myself, certainly not easy, but workable.

If region Y does not wish to cooperate, then you do not act in that case. While we do have an issue with some communities sheltering these people, I think we can agree that that's a bit beyond your realm...and as noted, I don't think there's an expectation for NS to hunt this down offsite, moreso to act on it when dropped on your doorstep by a community that *is* willing to do whatever they need to in order to assist you.

If you need to make internet archives, personal copies, whatever of information in question, that sounds pretty doable too. Those are things that are already commonly done in our own region to region administrative collaborations in order to preserve evidence.

I also don't think there's any major push to have you share info here, to have "hey can you check if x is y." In a perfect world, sure, but privacy restrictions are understood. Again, the most pressing issue is that even when stuff is delivered, wrapped bundled and proven, to moderation, you at present do not act on it. The pressing need is not for you to come back and say to *us* say, "yep that IP match looks right compared to what we have," it's for you to be able to consider cases where evidence is already collected, where we have acted, and where we'd like your help in preventing a predator from striking again using NS as a medium to find new victims.

What prevents changing the TOS, if necessary, to allow you to address this issue? It really seems like, from the perspective of the general public here, all the limits being named are limits...that the team and site owner control and can change.

The team cannot change the TOS. The TOS is set by the site owner through [violet] (And I could be wrong about that, [v] may as well be given marching orders). All of the rules are in response to THAT. Also... legal stuff from what I'm told. Parts of the TOS are set up due to various laws. How much, I dunno.

I've heard several times now that [v] is watching this topic already, and I'm sure there's willingness for us to go to Max if the team doesn't do so itself. The point remains the same - the barriers being places on NS administration seem to be being placed largely by NS administration.

While some legal restrictions are understandable, especially in regards to privacy of data as mentioned above, it's my understanding that it's pretty darn common for TOS' to say, at the end of the day, staff reserves the right to remove you from the service for any reason they wish. Or, as often put by Moderation - "Max's site, Max's rules." I struggle to see why removing users based on any standard you wished to set would run into legal issues, whether that reason is "we believe them to be a harasser" or "their flag is purple."

Just as a general note, and then I've got to get back to work. I would like it known that while we cannot act here based on offsite evidence, that does not mean that we ignore it either. We do keep an eye out and/or investigate here to see if we CAN find something to act upon, so please do not think we just wash our hands and walk away. In many cases it is incredibly frustrating to see the work that goes on offsite and the care and the detail and... be unable to use it. But back in the day when the first Mods roamed the Earth and the rules came down written on stone tablets, the admins decided that Moderation cannot be done on a whim. Our site wouldn't operate based on who was friends with whom, but by set rules and rules of evidence of wrong doing that could be checked by every single Mod. That is, in cases like this, annoying as all hell. But it also means a system that is less based (hopefully) on favoritism and whim.

The problem with that, as eternally brought up, is that almost none of the problem players in question are dumb enough to leave tracks on site. You can make all the notes in all the files, but unless they fuck up, no bueno.

It's frustrating for us to hear for years that the staff and admins that make and enforce the rules can't do anything about this issue, because of the rules they made, and they can change. There has to be a way to meet here, where NS does not pass an impossible burden onto administrators of the offsite system it *encourages*, to deal with this singlehandedly.

No one is asking things to work on a whim, without confirmation, or based on friendships and trust. We're asking for you to be willing to address evidence, facts, and data. Not to take Joe Bob on his word that Mark is a harasser, but to take Joe Bob's 12 sheets of evidence showing so, and consider it. What you're saying and what we're asking for are not mutually exclusive things, by any means.

...Or, at the very least, not censor Joe Bob from informing others.

[Todd McCloud]

To use your metaphor: Actually ask the FBI to do an investigation?

I could be wrong here, but I doubt that the NS admin has ever asked for even partial administrative access to an offsite forum in order to even attempt an investigation.

From the way that NS Admin seems to handle these cases, the policy seems to be "Delete the messages and immediately decontaminate in the hopes that it goes away forever."

Would you guys be willing to grant us that?

Be careful how you answer... After all, the off site stuff is valuable because you don't have us and the OSRS breathing down your necks. We'd also run into the issues of Region X has given permissions, but Region Y hasn't. Thus if stuff is on Region Y, we're back to the drawing board. Also... there's protections for us built in. Let me explain, if I went into the controls right now and DEAT'ed you (No, I'm not gonna), that would be logged. Sooner or later someone is going to come asking me WHY I felt it necessary to squish your nation. If I said, "Well, he posted a threat on the RMB" I'd have to prove it. "Oh, I deleted it," would't work, there's a record of that as well. It's why the Mod team as a whole can trust each other because there's no way for us to cheat the system. It's all recorded and we can be called to account on it. I simply don't know your system if it has this kind back up on it. That too is something to consider. Finally, there's the problem of us sharing information too. Our TOS forbids us from sharing ANY information about our users with anyone who is not law enforcement acting within that system. So let's say your region comes to me to say they have someone and they want me to check to confirm that User X on your board is indeed Nation Xistan here and thus lower the boom... I couldn't do any such thing. In other words, we could take the info... but we couldn't really supply any. Is that too, ok?

This isn't to say that I, personally, wouldn't welcome a way to verify such information but I admit the climb is gonna be steep.

When the interest of the investigation is public or personal safety, yes. The thing is, if offsite evidence is to be considered, one should be rather specific in what they are asking for, as we are trying to provide the evidence for your benefit and not the other way around. And if the moderation team here is satiated, then by all means should one be allowed to discuss events such as this which are pertinent to the safety of others in a public forum.

I find it kind of odd, circling back to the OP, that stuff shared on an offsite forum in which some admins are onsite forum moderators or admins is restricted to the point of warning anyone who distributes it, and that is more admissible than actually sharing something that should be shared. Otherwise it's kind of talking out of both sides of the mouth.

[Todd McCloud]

Just as a general note, and then I've got to get back to work. I would like it known that while we cannot act here based on offsite evidence, that does not mean that we ignore it either. We do keep an eye out and/or investigate here to see if we CAN find something to act upon, so please do not think we just wash our hands and walk away. In many cases it is incredibly frustrating to see the work that goes on offsite and the care and the detail and... be unable to use it. But back in the day when the first Mods roamed the Earth and the rules came down written on stone tablets, the admins decided that Moderation cannot be done on a whim. Our site wouldn't operate based on who was friends with whom, but by set rules and rules of evidence of wrong doing that could be checked by every single Mod. That is, in cases like this, annoying as all hell. But it also means a system that is less based (hopefully) on favoritism and whim.

With all due respect, that is a paralyzing policy to have, because most of these harassers are clever enough to know that they shouldn't do their work on this site. Furthermore, a lot of this stuff occurs over social media these days and platforms that are certainly not NS-related but come about because NS is the central theme. That's changed tremendously in recent years, because when those stone tablets were chiseled out, all we had were IRC, MSN, ICQ, and AIM, and those platforms didn't have all the bells and whistles people enjoy today. It's a different flair and different tech out there, and if the world adjusts, so should the constructs of how one keeps it safe.

Heck, one of the greatest documents of all time needed to be changed 27 times in the span of roughly 240 years. We're using a technology that rapidly changes, and that should be taken into consideration.

[Unibot III]

How?

"but in the case where behavior is such that prominent groups of individuals have seen fit to remove players from various regional offices" Who are these prominent people? How are they vetted or chosen? Why THIS group as opposed to THAT group? Is it going to be based on region size? How? What if that group's been compromised? And where is the line, if someone was removed for puppeting... that's not really our call, or anything we're interested in.

We're banging our collective heads on this now too, but it really does come down to we cannot vet the evidence because it's not on our site. It's... like the FBI calls up the Japan National Police Agency and asks them to arrest me and then convict me for a crime that happened in the US based on evidence that the FBI will fax over, but will not allow for the NPA to see, handle, or conduct its own investigation. I'd love for a way to get past that, but damned if I know how...

Narrowing the scope of the defamation rule does not require moderators to "act." In fact, it wouldn't even be novel, just a reversal of a new development back to the old status quo.

I feel as though the focus of this discussion here has been dominated on the subject of moderation action, rather than the application of the defamation rule.

[Astarial]

I had a post on the subject of "oh, what can we possibly do?", but Unibot is right here too. This is all a distraction from the original point - your ham-fisted gag order that prevents us from speaking out even when a serial harasser admits it on-site.

[Kylia Quilor]

I absolutely agree that this sort of thing should be allowed to be discussed. Beyond that - as discussed, it is very hard to police offsite spaces when you're the NS admins, and I don't have a great solution there. But if I was Queen, Founder, Discord Server Owner and RootAdmin of Kantrias found out that <prominent Kantrian Here> was engaging in serious misconduct that needed major action, I think it is fitting to be allowed to say to GP at large, as has been discussed: "After investigation, the Kantrias Admin team has found that X is guilty of Y, here's the results of the investigation in detail, ask for specific evidence if you need it via discord, <insert my discord username>' without being hit by a mod hammer.

[Mousebumples]

As other mods have stated/alluded, there is a discussion on this in the Seekrit Mod Lair on-going as we speak. If I remember correctly, the current defamation rule came about because one player was following a different player from thread to thread and saying stuff along the lines of, "Why should anyone believe you when you say X since you've done Y in your home region?" (i.e. using defamation to discredit political opponents)

I don't think that that sort of behavior is or should be appropriate, but I (personally) tend to agree that as our hands are tied with regards to what action we are able to take on the site against individuals who have documented harassment (or similar) activities on off-sites and Discord/etc. Granted, my view on this may be colored by my own involvement in a Gameplay oriented region, even though my recent vacation made me unavailable to participate in the recent aforementioned investigation.

This is definitely a discussion thread, so I guess my question for the general crowd is as follows:

In the interest of being more productive in our discussion - i.e. less gnashing of teeth that X is not currently allowed - do any of you have suggestions on how the current phrasing of the rule in the OSRS should be rephrased?

Jurisdiction: NationStates moderators are responsible for problems and issue with the game and interactions on our Nationstates forum. We have no jurisdiction over any offsite forums, and make no guarantees about their content. While some Mods may also be channel ops on NationStates-related IRC channels, they are not operating in an official NationStates capacity in that role (with the exception of #themodcave on gamesurge.net). Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.

Bearing in mind that it's unlikely for the rules to change to allow NS Staff to act on off-site misbehavior (similar to how Canada won't prosecute you for breaking laws in the United States, etc.), what sort of phrasing would permit notification or abstract discussion about serious levels of misconduct (such as those that have come up as of late, with regards to harassment, etc.) without crossing the line into using said accusations to discredit a given player at every turn?

[Kylia Quilor]

If I remember correctly, the current defamation rule came about because one player was following a different player from thread to thread and saying stuff along the lines of, "Why should anyone believe you when you say X since you've done Y in your home region?" (i.e. using defamation to discredit political opponents)

Couldn't that just fall under harrassment?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Hey mouse, Canada may not prosecute you for crimes in America, but they also won’t let you cross the border if you have a criminal record, and have no fear of extradition. You know, in order to protect the people over in their country.

It’s more comparable to asking for a little border control, after you’ve been given the opportunity to verify the evidence.

[Unibot III]

@Mousebumbles: If players can hold back their laughter with regards to the obvious irony till after tonight, I could take a shot at rewriting the rule involved. There’s a few conceptual challenges involved. Some of these matters would be more easily addressed if subforums had their own sub, “community” rules - but that’s a topic for a different time.

My thought would be to allow accusations of personal misconduct to be discussed, but place a higher standard for thread detailing and defamation on them than other subjects. So that it’s fine to open a thread to discuss it, but not discuss the same case in five...

Discrediting players isn’t really a concern - that will happen no matter what the rule says.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Hey mouse, Canada may not prosecute you for crimes in America, but they also won’t let you cross the border if you have a criminal record, and have no fear of extradition. You know, in order to protect the people over in their country.

It’s more comparable to asking for a little border control, after you’ve been given the opportunity to verify the evidence.

Mouse has asked that people take a try at writing a new defamation rule, so I'll make a parallel request: what would the rule you're asking us to enforce actually look like?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Hey mouse, Canada may not prosecute you for crimes in America, but they also won’t let you cross the border if you have a criminal record, and have no fear of extradition. You know, in order to protect the people over in their country.

It’s more comparable to asking for a little border control, after you’ve been given the opportunity to verify the evidence.

Mouse has asked that people take a try at writing a new defamation rule, so I'll make a parallel request: what would the rule you're asking us to enforce actually look like?

I’ve already detailed my idea of a workable process above in reply to Nerv. I don’t imagine you’d need a specifically worded lawyerable rule for it beyond noting that staff reserves the right to remove players from the game for any other reasons it may deem necessary (again, common TOS-speak catchall for other cases where action is appropriate that do not explicitly fall under the rule set), and then deem such cases special cases worthy of special action to protect the safety of players of this game.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Mouse has asked that people take a try at writing a new defamation rule, so I'll make a parallel request: what would the rule you're asking us to enforce actually look like?

I’ve already detailed my idea of a workable process above in reply to Nerv. I don’t imagine you’d need a specifically worded lawyerable rule for it beyond noting that staff reserves the right to remove players from the game for any other reasons it may deem necessary (again, common TOS-speak catchall for other cases where action is appropriate that do not explicitly fall under the rule set), and then deem such cases special cases worthy of special action to protect the safety of players of this game.

The problem with what you've suggested is that you haven't given us any sort of standard to work with. "Special cases worth of special action" doesn't do anything to create an enforceable standard which players and moderators can understand. I'm looking for something fleshed out.

[The North Polish Union]

I don't know that the defamation rule needs to be rewritten at all. Of course, if anyone can come up with a solid revision of it and the moderation team chooses to accept that I won't be complaining. Context is important and NS Moderation has chosen in several instances to take a case-by-case and context-based approach in the past while still setting objective standards by which it can easily be publicly determined whether or not a post merits a report thread.

To give just one example, NS Moderation has chosen to rule that the word "kafir" is trolling when used in its modern-day colloquial usage while still permitting its use in a classical Koranic Arabic sense. That is to say, the mod team has chosen to recognize a distinction between a post saying "Player X is a kafir" and a post quoting a verse of the Koran that uses the word "kafir" to back up an argument. Indeed, the obvious distinction here is such that (I would argue) the majority of posters with no familiarity with Arabic (such as myself) are able to make that distinction with ease.

In the same way, the distinction between a post saying simply "Player X sexually harassed Player Y and Player Z offsite" and "Player X sexually harassed Player Y and Player Z offsite, here is a substantial amount of evidence and Player X has been removed from regional office for engaging in such behavior" seems perfectly clear to me.

Again, context is important. Just as I disagree with Moderation blanket banning all discussion of offsite misconduct I also believe that unchecked permission of offsite misconduct is dangerous and am not suggesting that Moderation policy be changed in that way.

However, is is important to note that the Defamation Rule as it stands only prohibits "accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates" and not "any and all discussion of proven misconduct outside of NationStates." I feel that the Moderation team has interpreted the word "accusations" as being far broader than it is and this has created a paradigm where individuals cannot be as easily be publicly held to account for very real instances of misconduct as they could be otherwise, thereby creating an environment where such misconduct is more easily enabled.

[Swith Witherward]

I am not a Mod. The opinions expressed herein are based on training for my roles "IRL".

In my opinion, we (collectively, users and staff) are attempted to cover too much outside of reasonable jurisdiction. Mods are volunteers and not part of a law enforcement agency. We seem to be unfairly asking them to function in that latter capacity.

How I think the system currently works:
While Moderators frequent apply due diligence (an act with a certain standard of care) to their investigations and determinations, they typically do not disregard due process (a fundamental principle of fairness in all legal matters). Their determination is made using hard evidence from our site. This evidence can not be tampered with by the average poster unless that user edits their post prior to Mod review. (This is why Mods sometimes make a ruling based on a copy of that post in Moderation, or by using the captured, unedited post found in subsequent replies in that thread.) The determination is based upon interpretation of the OSRS (spirit of the law), consultation with other Mods, and the evidence presented. This method seems to apply to reports made via GHR as well.

Offsite evidence:
Mods can not accurately gauge evidence provided from offsite resources. They are unable to determine whether or not the evidence is factual. They lack the necessary tools and authority. Further, what appears as harassment in print might be an attempt to defame someone. All offsite evidence is hearsay; logs can be altered, posts can be taken out of context; cohorts or victims can be coaxed into false testimony.

We can not expect NS Moderators to police activities outside of our site:
Reference the OSRS "Note on Mod Appression and Mod Bias", "Privacy", and "Jurisdiction". These seem unfair to some people... until you take terms of service into account.

We agree to NS' terms of service when we sign up here. NS is responsible for upholding and enforcing those terms here. When we sign up for services via other providers (Zeta, Proboards, Discord, etc), we agree to their TOS; they are responsible for upholding those terms on their end. The TOS frequently refers users to rules that define acceptable behavior. When a user crosses the boundary established by a service provider, they can be reported to that provider's site admins.

At no point does a Discord user violate the NS TOS or OSRS while using Discord. Different site, different governance, and the contract exists between the user (you) and the provider (Discord). A case reported through Discord can take into account only activity which takes place using their services. Discord will not take NS activity into account.

How this applies to the current situation:
Anything external to NationStates is outside of NationStates scope of influence. Accusations of offsite behavior should not be made public on NS, whether substantiated or not. These offenses should be reported directly to the service provider (Discord, Zeta, Proboard etc) for the matter to be investigated by them. If it is determined by that provider that the claim is false or frivolous, the accused can not recoup here on NS for the defamation done to them... Discord Admins will not make an account here on NS in order to clear that person's name, in other words.

However, if you are having issues with someone offsite and you fear they will continue to harass, grief, or harm you on NS, you should be allowed to alert NS staff in order for them to keep a close eye on things. This should be done in private.

This is definitely a discussion thread, so I guess my question for the general crowd is as follows:

In the interest of being more productive in our discussion - i.e. less gnashing of teeth that X is not currently allowed - do any of you have suggestions on how the current phrasing of the rule in the OSRS should be rephrased?

Jurisdiction: NationStates moderators are responsible for problems and issue with the game and interactions on our Nationstates forum. We have no jurisdiction over any offsite forums, and make no guarantees about their content. While some Mods may also be channel ops on NationStates-related IRC channels, they are not operating in an official NationStates capacity in that role (with the exception of #themodcave on gamesurge.net). Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.

This is spot on, IMHO:

Jurisdiction: NationStates moderators are responsible for problems and issue with the game and interactions on our Nationstates forum. We have no jurisdiction over any offsite forums, and make no guarantees about their content. While some Mods may also be channel ops on NationStates-related IRC channels, they are not operating in an official NationStates capacity in that role (with the exception of #themodcave on gamesurge.net).

This needs work:

Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, [b][u]accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.

What qualifies as non-NationStates? What qualifies as NationStates business? There is too great a grey area here, and that makes it easily exploitable. Further, it sounds as though misconduct can not be reported at all. This means that players can not report staff abuse of power offsite without fear of reprisal. It also means that someone can not alert the Mod team to potentially harmful activity or behavior brought from another site (stalking, for example).

What I suggest:

Personal grievances arising from off-site activity have no place on NationsStates. Publicly aired grievances will be held to the standards outlined in the OSRS. In particular, public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates may be punished as defamatory. Frivolous complaints may be actionable.

This gives users the ability to privately report or alert without fear of reprisal, provided the claims are not frivolous.

That is the key word - Frivolous! I'm cheating here by using recently amended regulations for [the auxiliary I volunteer for]

Frivolous Complaint
A Frivolous Complaint is one or more allegations contained in a signed complaint which is:

1. Filed in a negligent manner without basis in fact of a violation of [agency] Standards, regulations, or statutes;
   
2. Determined to have been brought forward in bad faith to cause harm, harass, annoy, or embarrass a member or to disrupt [the missions of agency]. Harm includes, but is not limited to, maliciously attacking a member’s reputation, publicly posting harmful or false information, or making false claims about or against a member or the organization.
3. Vague, groundless, or false;
4. Determined to be created to detract from a regulations violation committed by the complainant.
5. Repeated submission of an allegation to the [agency] that was previously presented and closed as dismissed, invalid or unsubstantiated.
6. The filing of multiple complaints by the same member that are dismissed or unsubstantiated. These complaints need not be regarding the same incident or issue.
7. Not clarified or amended by the complainant within a reasonable period after an IG request for information that would distinguish the complaint from a frivolous
   complaint.

Again, these are suggestions and personal opinion.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

The problem I and other folks have with the issue of sereration/justistiction, Swith, is that NS blatantly directs its users to create and use these sites. It is often an explicit suggestion made by site staff that communities create and maintain their own forums, for purely NationStates purposes such as regional government, that are a part of the game without an allowed space on the official forums. These, thus, at least in the eyes of users, do not exists as an entirely separate entity, in a vacuum. Their existence as a whole is not just allowed, but explicitly encouraged by the site, which serves as a hub for linking these places and directing users towards them.

This is where the belief of some measure of responsibility is rooted. The site does nothing to prevent the linking of communities that have refused to act on, or even encouraged, harassment on these forums. It does nothing to work in collaboration with the adminstrators of these places, that it encourages to exits, to handle specific threats to users, who return to the hub and find another offsite forum to offend on. As long as NS serves as the central hub, the common point in this issue, the focus of activity and membership, it’s frankly impossible for any community or group thereof to effectively work to combat this. We simply do not have the reach, the authority, the visibility, to do so.

Letting us talk about it here grants us a portion of the reach and visibility, at least, and readers can judge the authority for themselves. It’s not a final answer, to most, but it’s a step. The issue remains that these users can create a new identity and use the site to find a community naive to them, as long as they remain allowed to use it, but at least we can tell those who will listen and look. Anti-defamation went into overkill in preventing that measure of self-policing. If staff wants us to fully self-police, this is an important tool we need to do so. As mentioned above, cases where it becomes harassment in and of itself can be handled under that, separate policy. It’s ridiculous that we can’t even mention someone intentionally trying to break NS rules with no on site trail, much less that we can’t note that we’ve removed someone from our community.

Staff may be the big-shot adminstrators, but many of us are adminstrators of our own right, of communities of hundreds of people, and have been so for years. We’re fed the fuck up with dealing with these situations again and again and again, with NS serving as an open hunting season for these issues to become serial, and with no willingness of Ns Adminstartion to cooperate with the offsite adminstration they encourage in order to deal with the fact that their site has repeatedly been used as a medium by sexual abusers known to major offsite communities and reported to moderation to find and target more victims, sometimes minors, on other offsite NationStates forums.

[USS Monitor]

This needs work:

Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, [b][u]accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.

What qualifies as non-NationStates? What qualifies as NationStates business? There is too great a grey area here, and that makes it easily exploitable. Further, it sounds as though misconduct can not be reported at all. This means that players can not report staff abuse of power offsite without fear of reprisal. It also means that someone can not alert the Mod team to potentially harmful activity or behavior brought from another site (stalking, for example).

I see your point here as it applied to GHR. We don't want people cluttering up the GHR page with frivolous "he said, she said" nonsense, but it's fine to alert us if you have reason to suspect that someone is dangerous and you'd like us to investigate whether they are engaging in predatory behavior on NS.

What I suggest:

Personal grievances arising from off-site activity have no place on NationsStates. Publicly aired grievances will be held to the standards outlined in the OSRS. In particular, public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates may be punished as defamatory. Frivolous complaints may be actionable.

This gives users the ability to privately report or alert without fear of reprisal, provided the claims are not frivolous.

I'd prefer "public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates will be punished as defamatory" rather than "may be." Letting people air their offsite drama on the forums is too open to abuse and witch hunts, and I don't want to be dragged into judging which accusations are legit.

I don't know that the defamation rule needs to be rewritten at all.

It would. My warning against Escade is consistent with the OSRS as currently written.

However, is is important to note that the Defamation Rule as it stands only prohibits "accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates" and not "any and all discussion of proven misconduct outside of NationStates." I feel that the Moderation team has interpreted the word "accusations" as being far broader than it is and this has created a paradigm where individuals cannot be as easily be publicly held to account for very real instances of misconduct as they could be otherwise, thereby creating an environment where such misconduct is more easily enabled.

It doesn't say "false accusations" or "unsubstantiated accusations." It just says "accusations."

[Aurum Raider]

What I suggest:

Personal grievances arising from off-site activity have no place on NationsStates. Publicly aired grievances will be held to the standards outlined in the OSRS. In particular, public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates may be punished as defamatory. Frivolous complaints may be actionable.

This gives users the ability to privately report or alert without fear of reprisal, provided the claims are not frivolous.

Under this clause, public accusations of misconduct will be punished as defamatory, and whether or not their viewed as frivolous will be irrelevant.

My suggestion would be more along the lines of

Public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates, that are made with clear intent of bringing harm to another person, will be punished as defamatory. Furthermore, accusations that can be certifiably proven false will also be punished as defamatory.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I'd prefer "public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates will be punished as defamatory" rather than "may be." Letting people air their offsite drama on the forums is too open to abuse and witch hunts, and I don't want to be dragged into judging which accusations are legit.

On the other hand, not letting it be brought up at all lets predators use this site as a medium to strike again, with no present possible recourse.

Personally, I’d rather deal with the potential for an occasional mess of a witch hunt that needs handling, than with the reality of the present where silence on the matter allows it to continue to happen.

If twitter banned its users from making such accusations, then we wouldn’t be breaking into the rot inside the entertainment industry right now. Censorship here helps this rot remain inside NS.

[Eluvatar]

I could be wrong here, but I doubt that the NS admin has ever asked for even partial administrative access to an offsite forum in order to even attempt an investigation.

As I understand matters, following the NS++ botnet incident Afforess was asked to permit an admin to log into the VM that was then running the 'assembly' backend for NS++ to look around. I was not a NationStates administrator nor a maintainer of NS++ at that time, so my knowledge is only second hand and I don't have the relevant records in front of me so take this as you will. I submit this not of argumentativeness but to make sure the record is clear.

[The North Polish Union]

I don't know that the defamation rule needs to be rewritten at all.

It would. My warning against Escade is consistent with the OSRS as currently written.

However, is is important to note that the Defamation Rule as it stands only prohibits "accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates" and not "any and all discussion of proven misconduct outside of NationStates." I feel that the Moderation team has interpreted the word "accusations" as being far broader than it is and this has created a paradigm where individuals cannot be as easily be publicly held to account for very real instances of misconduct as they could be otherwise, thereby creating an environment where such misconduct is more easily enabled.

It doesn't say "false accusations" or "unsubstantiated accusations." It just says "accusations."

I would disagree. I would say that accusations, when they are proven and thus acted upon in a way consistent with their proof, cease to be merely "accusations" and pass into the realm of more substantive (and legally discussable) fact, and in the cases being discussed here that threshold has clearly been passed.

What I suggest:

Personal grievances arising from off-site activity have no place on NationsStates. Publicly aired grievances will be held to the standards outlined in the OSRS. In particular, public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates may be punished as defamatory. Frivolous complaints may be actionable.

This gives users the ability to privately report or alert without fear of reprisal, provided the claims are not frivolous.

Under this clause, public accusations of misconduct will be punished as defamatory, and whether or not their viewed as frivolous will be irrelevant.

My suggestion would be more along the lines of

Public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates, that are made with clear intent of bringing harm to another person, will be punished as defamatory. Furthermore, accusations that can be certifiably proven false will also be punished as defamatory.

I think this is a good revision, but I would change it slightly to something slightly narrower like:

"Unsubstantiated public accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates, that can be reasonably interpreted to have been made with clear intent of bringing harm to another person, will be punished as defamatory. Furthermore, accusations that can be certifiably proven false will also be punished as defamatory."

The second sentence admittedly does potentially allow for punishment of false statements that are not necessarily rulebreaking ("NPU has 11 fingers!" "Unibot is Brazilian!" "Monitor is actually a galleon IRL!" ) but again I think the distinction between harmless and harmful statements will in most cases be clear enough. Although I would like to further narrow the second sentence I'm not sure about how to go about doing so without taking the risk of narrowing it too much.

[Todd McCloud]

I could be wrong here, but I doubt that the NS admin has ever asked for even partial administrative access to an offsite forum in order to even attempt an investigation.

As I understand matters, following the NS++ botnet incident Afforess was asked to permit an admin to log into the VM that was then running the 'assembly' backend for NS++ to look around. I was not a NationStates administrator nor a maintainer of NS++ at that time, so my knowledge is only second hand and I don't have the relevant records in front of me so take this as you will. I submit this not of argumentativeness but to make sure the record is clear.

Well, he was referring to an off-site forum. And it is currently owned by ns (but at the time it wasn't, so that is true I believe). And the administrators there bust their behinds keeping the peace and helping users out without any sort of recognition by this site whatsoever, even insofar as a site acknowledgement. And issues have come about that required opinion from the other mods on an actionable case where it was suggested an outside entity be involved. This should be side barred and likely not a topic for here, but there's still nebulous rules when it comes to moderating that wiki.

[Unibot III]

I went in a different direction with the rewrite...

Jurisdiction: NationStates moderators are responsible for problems and issue with the game and interactions on our Nationstates forum. We have no jurisdiction over any offsite forums, and make no guarantees about their content. While some Mods may also be channel ops on NationStates-related IRC channels, they are not operating in an official NationStates capacity in that role (with the exception of #themodcave on gamesurge.net). Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates Moderation subforum(s), Getting Help page, or #themodcave. Discussion of player misconduct from outside of NationStates will be subject to a greater standard of rule enforcement, including thread hijacking and defamation, than regular discussion. If you wish to bring something to the community's attention, one thread, not five, will do. At their discretion (and theirs alone), please respect the confidentiality of victims of harassment and abuse.

Essentially, you wouldn't be in the wrong to share and discuss allegations of player misconduct with the community (whereas that's treated as defamation now, even if it's not defamation.) You would be in the wrong, however, to continue to share and discuss the same allegations over the course of multiple threads. The rewrite is trying to strike a balance between a Gameplay forum that isn't allowed to process sensitive matters as a community (our current gag rule) and a Gameplay forum that seemingly doesn't move on at all (a concern, legitimate or not, of some that are defending the status quo).

[Fartsniffage]

It would. My warning against Escade is consistent with the OSRS as currently written.

The NSG mod team have said repeatedly that every ruling is a judgement call based on the circumstances of the transgretion. Does this not apply here? Do you just blindly follow the OSRS in this and only this?

I don't see the need for a rule re-write, just for the moderation team to use a little discretion. If we don't trust the mods at least a little then why are we here?