[Discussion] Gameplay-related rulings clarification

[The Ambis]

It's not forgotten, though I've done literally nothing on this since my last post here. If it reassures you, I have a tab permanently open on this page on my personal laptop as a reminder to follow this up at some point.

Alright, thank you Sedge.

[Sedgistan]

This is now actually being followed up with an internal discussion, on the three main points we could potentially do with documenting:

1) Puppet movement during update ops.

2) False flag impersonation.

3) Niche "move region but not recruitment" cases.

[The North Polish Union]

Related to the ruling that moderators should not use their moderator nation to participate in R/D, can I ask whether this extends to other site staff such as Issues Editors and the GA Secretariat?

Can Westinor as an Issues Editor jump from that nation? In the recent invasion of Solidarity, former GenSec member Sierra Lyricalia was a pre-raid resident of the region, if SL had still been active GenSec to what extent would it have been appropriate to participate in countering the invasion using that nation?

[Sedgistan]

There's never been any consideration of that before, and therefore there are no particular restrictions. If you or someone else feels it needs discussion, I'd suggest a separate thread for that - I'd prefer to keep this one on the niche gameplay rulings that were raised earlier in the thread.

[Sedgistan]

On the back of this discussion, we have made the following three changes to the OSRS:

1) The Regional Happenings Spam rule that read as below has been removed entirely:

*Regional Happenings Spam: Moving between regions for the purpose of spamming the Regional Happenings is prohibited.

2) A small change has been made to the Impersonation rule from:

Impersonation: Any attempt to maliciously impersonate another nation or region, including employing a similar name is illegal according to the FAQ. Note that the impersonation must be "malicious" to be a prohibited action, and we generally require the report to come from the impersonated party.

*Impersonation of moderators or administrators can lead to immediate deletion. Note that using Moderation's Custom Warning Tags in your posts is deemed impersonating a moderator. *** Don't use the moderation red-text warning tags. ***

To:

Impersonation: Any attempt to maliciously impersonate another nation or region, including employing a similar name is illegal according to the FAQ. Note that the impersonation must be "malicious" to be a prohibited action, and we generally require the report to come from the impersonated party. We do not normally consider impersonating another nation or region for gameplay advantage to be inherently malicious (e.g. "false flag" operations).

*Impersonation of moderators or administrators can lead to immediate deletion. Note that using Moderation's Custom Warning Tags in your posts is deemed impersonating a moderator. *** Don't use the moderation red-text warning tags. ***

3) The "Regional Advertising Spam" rule has been updated from:

*Regional Advertising Spam: Regions can advertise themselves either via Telegrams (which must have the "recruitment" checkbox ticked before sending), or in the Gameplay forum as per the requirements in the Guide to the Gameplay forum.

Posting regional advertisements on the Regional Message Boards of other regions is not permitted. Minor violations of this should be handled by a region's Regional Officers; egregious and multi-regional violations should be reported via GHR for Moderators to handle.

To:

*Regional Advertising Spam: Regions can advertise themselves either via Telegrams, or in the Gameplay forum as per the requirements in the Guide to the Gameplay forum.

The rules on sending recruitment telegrams can be found in the FAQs. Most importantly, they must have the "recruitment" checkbox ticked before sending. Note that there are niche circumstances where a telegram encouraging a nation to move region may not require the recruitment checkbox be ticked, such as a region schism resulting in the community splitting between two regions, a telegram asking a member of your region's military to deploy to another region on a mission, a region relocating its community to another region, or a welcome telegram that encourages nations to move to another region. We strongly encourage you to seek a ruling on your situation first via GHR if you are unsure whether one of those exceptions applies to a telegram you intend to send.

Posting regional advertisements on the Regional Message Boards of other regions is not permitted. Minor violations of this should be handled by a region's Regional Officers; egregious and multi-regional violations should be reported via GHR for Moderators to handle.

[The Ambis]

Thank you Sedge!

[Onderkelkia]

On the back of this discussion, we have made the following three changes to the OSRS:

[...]

2) A small change has been made to the Impersonation rule from:
[...]
To:

[...] Note that the impersonation must be "malicious" to be a prohibited action, and we generally require the report to come from the impersonated party. We do not normally consider impersonating another nation or region for gameplay advantage to be inherently malicious (e.g. "false flag" operations).
[...]

[...]

Under what types of circumstance would impersonating a specific nation/player be considered legitimate as being for gameplay advantage?

Giving licence for individuals to purposefully impersonate other individuals strikes me as problematic and unnecessarily risky. Moreover, to my mind, using another person's identity/persona to do something to get advantage against them is, contrary to what this states, deliberately harmful in its essence - the issue of the deliberate use of the person's identity/persona, in a way they would not wish, is fundamentally more important than the gameplay end.

On the back of this discussion, we have made the following three changes to the OSRS:
[...]

3) The "Regional Advertising Spam" rule has been updated from:

[...]
To:

[...] Note that there are niche circumstances where a telegram encouraging a nation to move region may not require the recruitment checkbox be ticked, such as a region schism resulting in the community splitting between two regions [...]

[...]

Compared to the other types of scenario listed (e.g. communication of military orders or a region collectively moving), regional schisms strike me as more likely to be contentious. I am not sure that moderation should be endorsing specific situations as crossing the threshold to constitute a regional schism.

[An Impostor]

On the back of this discussion, we have made the following three changes to the OSRS:

[...]

2) A small change has been made to the Impersonation rule from:
[...]
To:

[...]

Under what types of circumstance would impersonating a specific nation/player be considered legitimate as being for gameplay advantage?

Giving licence for individuals to purposefully impersonate other individuals strikes me as problematic and unnecessarily risky. Moreover, to my mind, using another person's identity/persona to do something to get advantage against them is, contrary to what this states, deliberately harmful in its essence - the issue of the deliberate use of the person's identity/persona, in a way they would not wish, is fundamentally more important than the gameplay end.

I agree with this. That should be for impersonating regions only, or even nothing at all.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Thanks for following through with rules-wording updates.

[Sedgistan]

We're looking at the wording of the impersonation of nations bit that Onder raised - should have something back on that soon.

We're comfortable with the "regional schisms" bit; it does also reflect how we've handled things for years already, so it's not a new policy - just documenting an existing approach. If we get any reports on this at all, they're incredibly rare. Schisms are rare, and tend to happen in relatively gameplay-insignificant noobish regions.

Obviously if UndercoverQuebecshirePuppet1 resides in The Communist Bloc for a few weeks and then declares loudly that it is leaving along with fellow TCB stalwarts DefinitelyNotTimOpolis and IcantbelieveitsnotHumanSanity to found a splinter region because of dissatisfaction with the regional leadership, and recruitment bombs TCB to get them to move to The League of Communist Nations, we would not consider that a genuine exemption from the requirement to tag a TG request to move regions as a recruitment telegram.

[Sedgistan]

How about this as wording on Impersonation?

Impersonation: Any attempt to maliciously impersonate another nation or region, including employing a similar name is illegal according to the FAQ. Note that the impersonation must be "malicious" to be a prohibited action, and we generally require the report to come from the impersonated party. We do not normally consider impersonating another nation or region for gameplay advantage to be inherently malicious (e.g. "false flag" operations), but malicious impersonation of specific players remains prohibited. (i.e. you can create a nation named "TNP Security Officer" in an attempt to impersonate the TNP Security Council, but you may not create a nation named Onderkelk1a, and pretend to be Onderkelkia.)

*Impersonation of moderators or administrators can lead to immediate deletion. Note that using Moderation's Custom Warning Tags in your posts is deemed impersonating a moderator. *** Don't use the moderation red-text warning tags. ***

[Onderkelkia]

How about this as wording on Impersonation?

Impersonation: Any attempt to maliciously impersonate another nation or region, including employing a similar name is illegal according to the FAQ. Note that the impersonation must be "malicious" to be a prohibited action, and we generally require the report to come from the impersonated party. We do not normally consider impersonating another nation or region for gameplay advantage to be inherently malicious (e.g. "false flag" operations), but malicious impersonation of specific players remains prohibited. (i.e. you can create a nation named "TNP Security Officer" in an attempt to impersonate the TNP Security Council, but you may not create a nation named Onderkelk1a, and pretend to be Onderkelkia.)

Thank you - in terms of my previous point, content with the substance of the revised wording.

Suggest varying examples (or making generic in some way) in case a random reader a few months/years from now decides to take inspiration from it.

[Sedgistan]

Thanks. That change has now been made, albeit with Examplestan substituted in for your name.

Unless anyone thinks otherwise, that should be everything raised in this thread that needed a follow up dealt with.

[Dreadton]

Apparently I rushed and posted elsewhere



When I was perusing the rules for a report, I saw this change then found this thread. The issue I have is the use of an actual region as the example along with a role that is not uniformly used among all regions but one of prominence in that region. A generic region and title should be used instead. Such as Examplelandia and Governor

[Reventus Koth]

I actually agree with Dreadton in this instance. While it was humorous to me that Sap not only made the example nation in the rules but then proceeded to take it to its natural conclusion, there's a reason you didn't commit to keeping the "Onderkelk1a" example in the rules, and it's because it unintentionally singles out one person (or in this case, group) as being a valid target of faux-impersonation. I would understand why TNPers don't find it so funny.

[Sedgistan]

I have substituted in 'Testregionia' and a more generic reference to "government".

[Angeloid Astraea]

How about this as wording on Impersonation?

Impersonation: Any attempt to maliciously impersonate another nation or region, including employing a similar name is illegal according to the FAQ. Note that the impersonation must be "malicious" to be a prohibited action, and we generally require the report to come from the impersonated party. We do not normally consider impersonating another nation or region for gameplay advantage to be inherently malicious (e.g. "false flag" operations), but malicious impersonation of specific players remains prohibited. (i.e. you can create a nation named "TNP Security Officer" in an attempt to impersonate the TNP Security Council, but you may not create a nation named Onderkelk1a, and pretend to be Onderkelkia.)

*Impersonation of moderators or administrators can lead to immediate deletion. Note that using Moderation's Custom Warning Tags in your posts is deemed impersonating a moderator. *** Don't use the moderation red-text warning tags. ***

I'm sorry to drag this discussion out of the grave, but a nation called TNP Security Officer was just DEATed for what appears to be impersonation. This is extremely confusing, obviously, since it appears to be the exact case that the OSRS says is okay. Has the staff's position changed? If so, can the text be changed to reflect that before anyone else runs afoul of the staff's new position on Impersonation?

[United Calanworie]

From a quick look at the deletion notes, it was actually deleted for persistently uploading the flag of the South Pacific despite it having been removed per request of the flag's maker, not impersonation.

[Angeloid Astraea]

From a quick look at the deletion notes, it was actually deleted for persistently uploading the flag of the South Pacific despite it having been removed per request of the flag's maker, not impersonation.

Flag creators can request the removal of their flags from other players' nations? I wasn't aware of that! Thank you for the clarification either way.

[United Calanworie]

From a quick look at the deletion notes, it was actually deleted for persistently uploading the flag of the South Pacific despite it having been removed per request of the flag's maker, not impersonation.

Flag creators can request the removal of their flags from other players' nations? I wasn't aware of that! Thank you for the clarification either way.

Yes.

[The Sapientia]

From a quick look at the deletion notes, it was actually deleted for persistently uploading the flag of the South Pacific despite it having been removed per request of the flag's maker, not impersonation.

I've already filed a GHR, but since this was brought up here I figured I'd clarify on this. The flag that got me deleted was not the flag of the South Pacific, but a flag created by Vleerian with 100% custom, original assets with a dope lil cyberpunk satantic star aesthetic.



That was overlayed over the telegram I got from the mods to look like this.



I cannot image that anyone could in good faith argue that the parody, not for profit flag, created with entirely original assets, released for use by the creator, violates any copyright issues whatsoever. Considering where the star and palm tree idea came from, that's not exactly original either. I also know that the flag I was using was not requested to be removed by Vlee.

I uploaded the raw TSP flag once, it was removed. I wasn't told why it was removed, so I assumed it was for malicious impersonation. Edited the flag so it could in no way be considered impersonation, and then after I was told this was for copyright violations I have not uploaded a TSP flag.

[Crazy girl]

This is a discussion thread, please read this: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=51022

Most notably this section:

Discussion threads. These should clearly labelled with [DISCUSSION] in the thread title, and are for discussion of moderation policy. You should not use Discussion threads to re-open discussion on specific incidents that have already been handled - they are for discussing wider policy.

I recommend you await a response to your Getting Help Request, which is the correct avenue for this.