Hi All,

While I do not play Alter Aeon, I feel I should address one point regarding LordLundin.

I myself have worked with LordLundin on a few projects, and have had several private correspondences with him over the previous year. While many of his messages seemed Benign, he did express interest in several very gruesome dark web videos, and showed views that were very racist, and quite frankly, so disturbing to me that I terminated all communication with him and disaffiliated myself from all projects that I had previously contributed to.

In a way, I am not surprised that LordLundin was banned from Alter Aeon for such conduct. I am, however, surprised that it has taken this long for this information to surface.

Then it was a collaborative effort. Either way, I chose not to communicate with you because of the beliefs you hold and because of your psychopathic behavior. End of discussion.

Some of you, upon seeing my name, will have your preconceived biases regarding what I am going to say. You may know that Teros/Athlon and I have become good friends, and you might think this will color my post. So there are two things I'd like to say first.
1. Athlon and I have very different approaches to interacting with people. He is cynical; I am the eternal optimist. And so we often privately discuss and debate the best way to handle a situation. I help him consider how to soften his approach. And he helps me express what I am truly thinking without being too blunt. It is a dynamic that works well for us. So no, I'm not just going to agree with him because he is my friend. Quite often, I play devil's advocate with him. I may not deeply care about an issue, but I want him to see how his opponents might feel about said issue.
2. I am writing this post, primarily, as a former game administrator. I was an RS Games administrator from 2012 to 2016 and only left the staff due to a conflict of interest when I began working for a company with which they were doing business. Additionally, it was I who came up with the idea for the RS Games moderation system. You are reading a post from someone who advocated a logging system and discussed how to both utilize it and prevent said logging system from being abused. I wrote all rules pertaining to both public and private chats. And I decided which offenses would be bannable vs. those which would simply be mutable. I advised moderators on how to respond to player queries regarding mutes and bans, and I responded to players when they appealed measures taken against them. Lastly, I responded to player feedback when the coders of RS were too busy or mentally exhausted to do so. So, in addition to being an administrator, I also know what it's like to work closely with game developers. I will admit that RS Games has a chat system which is different than that of Alter Aeon. Chats on RS are limited to PM's or the people you are playing with. Players can chat with people who are waiting for a game, but people rarely do so unless they're just saying hi to other players or spamming. For this reason, chatting in a game's waiting room became an unreliable way to communicate with other players. So the decisions Dentin and his administrative staff use may be slightly different. But core principles, I'm sure, remain the same.

On banning toxic players:

As a friend, it's easy for me to say that I wish Teros were still on the mud. Our characters had complementary play styles, and I enjoyed both interacting with his friends and introducing them to mine. I never had any problems with Ignotus. Mutual friends speak highly of him as a person, and I enjoyed his Donald bot, politically incorrect though it often is. But the administrative part of me feels differently about these bans. When I looked at penalizing players, I always asked myself the following questions.
1. What does this player's logs show? How is this player being perceived by my player base? Keep in mind that when administrators look at logs, they're doing so from the point of view of a complete stranger. Judgments are made based on logs and how a player comes off both publicly and privately. They're not thinking, Player X is my close friend with whom I could spend hours talking.
2. How does this player interact with other players? Are their patterns? Are their trends of negative behavior or rule breaking? Is the behavior continuing after the player has been asked to stop?
3. How does having this player around effect the atmosphere of my games? How have other players responded to this player? Is this player deliberately trying to stir up trouble or trying to convince others that my games are not worth playing? In other words, has this player become toxic.

If I were to put my player hat on, I'd agree with Rhorae/Loxias in regards to his views on negativity. If you don't enjoy a game, leave for awhile. You can try to make your viewpoints known to a dev, but if you aren't seeing changes in the time frame you were hoping for, it may be time to move on. Leave the figurative door open. Don't burn bridges. From an administrative point of view, the more I see a player complain after I've tried to address their complaints, the harder I find it to be civil to that person. In those moments, I'm not thinking of how nice somebody is as a friend. I don't know the player from Adam. To me, the player is just as important as anyone I pass on the street. At work, I'm being paid to go above and beyond for my customers. As a game administrator who runs games on a voluntary basis, I think I'm allowed to feel slighted when it appears that someone can't show me respect. I would always take my time responding to troublesome players. And I always tried to respond to them in the way I'd want to be responded to as a player. But after awhile, trying to be nice to someone who isn't treating you with respect can wear you down. This is especially true when you come home from working an eight hour shift to a slue of negative comments. I can say that when I was unemployed, I was able to muster up more patience when dealing with players. When I began working though, my patience became somewhat limited. Because by the time I got home, I had already given my best self and energy to my job. And then, on weekends, I had my husband and family who wanted my attention. Those things had to come first, and by the time I got down to running the game, the mental exhaustion was... insurmountable. So I give Dentin a lot of credit. Being a game admin for four years took more energy than most may realize. RS was my baby during those four years, and I wasn't even a coder. To know that Dentin has both coded and run his own game for five times the amount of time that I was on RS staff makes me have a ton of respect for him.

On using logs to justify a ban:

This is one of those times when being an admin is tough. You've read the logs. And even if something isn't explicitly stated in the rules, a player has been around long enough that they should know how to conduct themselves. One thing Teros/Athlon has always reminded me of is that numbers don't lie. Logs given an admin numbers. IE, how many players have seen this player's negative behavior in private form? How have other people responded, both in public and in private, when encountering this behavior? Logs give you facts, something of which Athlon/Teros is also fond. Logs give you a complete picture, not just what someone's friends might see on one particular channel. So you ask yourself, do I ban someone for something that hasn't explicitly stated in the rules? As a player, I get that waking up to find out you've been banned sucks. But I also know what it's like to go, I simply don't have the time to police this player. I don't have time to institute a rule, wait for them to break it, and hope that I'll be around when they've broken it, or that I remember to look at their logs to see if they've broken my new rule. What I do have are numbers and facts which can aid me in my final decision. Policing this player doesn't feel like a productive use of my time, and I may not have anyone else who is both available and someone I trust to help me. And I also know what it's like to have friends of a player emailing you to ask, why has my friend been banned? As an admin, you then face another challenge. You ask yourself, is there a way for me to tell this player what they'd like to know without breaking rules on privacy? Often, the answer is no. And so you might privately feel torn. And you might privately express how that internal conflict feels to other trusted staffers. But players don't see that, so to them, you look like a hard ass. And that perception sucks.

On showing logs to banned players:

There is one point which I can agree with Ignotus on, however. And that is, having access to logs which show a player's negative behavior can help to smooth out any remaining disputes which may exist even after a player is banned. With that being said, coming up with a compilation of logs takes time. To do this, (and I've done this before), you have to find the excerpts which are most relevant. You ask yourself, what points from these chats should I include in my response to the player? Should I include this part? Should I leave it out? How do I diplomatically explain my reasoning on what I've read in a thorough, concise manner? There have been cases where I have not responded to player requests for such logs, and it was because I simply didn't have the time needed to compose a well thought out, diplomatic response. I am not proud of this fact, but I do understand why it happened. As humans, it is not in our nature to volunteer our time to write to someone whom we feel has disrespected us, especially not with the kind of long, detailed explanation Ignotus was asking for.

On game changes which have not yet been implemented:

As I read this thread and the responses of Rhorae, Lokar and Dentin, I am taken back to a time when I was alpha testing an RS Games iOS app prototype. The thing looked amazing. It was exactly the app I had envisioned would complement our games. But due to some challenges Mike was facing at the time, we were never sure if the app would get released. As a side note, the app eventually did get released but in a form which was very different than what the original app looked like. And as I had begun working for you-know-which company by this point, I could not be involved in any part of this newer app's development. At any rate, Mike and I faced a challenge at this point. How much should we tell players? Initially, Mike would become exasperated upon being asked if we were going to release an iOS app in future. Then he'd wait awhile and respond with something like, we have no plans of releasing an app at this time. After we talked, however, I decided that our new position would be, we have something in the works but are unable to disclose more at this time. Ultimately, an app did get released, even if it wasn't the one I had envisioned. But it took years for that to happen. What I learned from that experience is this. It can be really hard to decide what to disclose. You don't want to give players false hope. And given that you're doing this work on a voluntary basis and have other pressing obligations, it's hard to give anyone a general time line. In Mike's case, it was good that he didn't hold himself to a time line, because his changes took years to be released. And even now, what players see was not the app Mike had, ideally, wanted to release.

On transparency and interacting with players:

As a player, waiting for new changes can be on your mind frequently. When you love a game so much, it's easy, and only natural, to become impatient. But if you're not being given a time line, it's not necessarily because an admin is trying to be unreasonable. They simply may have none to give. And because they value the player base so much, they don't want to disappoint you. Of course, players become disappointed when they don't get the answers to questions they're looking for anyway, and it can sometimes feel like a lose lose situation. Also, I agree with whoever said that devs are more focused on coding than they are on interacting with people and writing docs. I believe it was Dentin, actually. You may be a social butterfly, but realize whoever is coding the game you're playing may not be. And so, being transparent while also keeping unreleased changes confidential may not be something a coder has mastered. And because a game's main dev is not your friend, they're not going to come right out and say to you, I struggle to do this. They might, if they're comfortable being vulnerable with complete strangers. But doing so would be highly unlikely.
In my case, Mike did the coding and Kevin and I were often in charge of player relations. This was a system that worked well for us during my time on staff, and we would often show Mike what we were going to say before formally responding to a player. By doing this, we learned what to say and what not say, and we needed to consult Mike less and less when certain situations would arise. It is not my place to give unsolicited advice. I ran things a certain way during my time at RS; Dentin has his way. I respect that. What I can say is that when administrators find a balance between transparency and privacy, it can be a beautiful thing. And when you have people you trust who can help you work on that particular balance and trouble spot, it is even better. This kind of balance can take years to achieve, and a lot of work goes into maintaining this type of dynamic behind the scenes.

I will end my post here. I apologize for my lack of brevity. I have been known to be quite verbose. If you are still reading, I'm sure you'll have comments and questions, and I cannot anticipate all of them. What I can say is, at the end of the day, I see both sides. And I always try to assume positive intent until I see otherwise, for better or worse.

@Criela I do agree, Athlon can be a bit of a jerk sometimes. He could easily refrain from some of the stuff he says, just like I could have done the same. However, for him, there's usually a good reason for talking this way.
As for me, I probably burnt more bridges in my posts than I've tried to settle things. What I said about Google employees was wrong, and in retrospect I regret saying it. I also regret the way I talked to Dentin, and everyone who's on his side of the matter. I don't think any of the things I say is warranted in any way. Truthfully, I have anger problems. It's not hard to say something and get a rise out of me for saying it, as proven in this topic alone. Several people have messaged me off the forum already to let me know that I needed to tone it down a bit. I no longer have some of the opinions that I have to an extent, but I can't say I'm on Dentin's side either, because of some of the points that JLove brought up. All the same, I'm going to try and keep my opinions as civil as I can from here on out.

JLove,
As someone who has worked on three administrative projects over the years, overseeing both the interactions of sighted and blind players, and also as a long-time gamer, I agree with you. Merely banning someone for being an asshole is not necessarily the best course of action. I don't think any good admin would agree with this precise reasoning. But, there is a difference between being an asshole and being toxic. I was thinking today about how banning isn't a science. It is an art. No case is the same, especially when it comes to players who are perceived as extremely disruptive. You may make decisions, as an admin, that are controversial when it comes to how you manage your player base. You'll see a situation and think, well someone could easily reason this way. However, difficult though it may seem, I'm going to take such and such stance. And here's why. In other words, although Dentin has taken a certain stance, he could privately reason that your opposite opinion is just as valid. But ultimately, administration involves making a decision and then observing what happens as a result of your decision. Sometimes you like what you see; sometimes you don't. Only time will tell what will happen as a result of these two bannings. Another thing which I was thinking about today is that in an ideal world, an admin would never have to ban a player. As admins, we like people to coexist peacefully. We try to take preventitive/warning measure before banning a player. I believe that most admins want to accommodate the needs of their players if at all possible. So banning someone, regardless of the reason, is never an easy decision.

It's hard to comment on this particular situation without seeing logs, given that the dynamic of Dentin's player base is different. And therefore, what he sees in his logs will be different. So my response to this question could only be from a devil's advocate point of view. I just don't have enough data to give a definitive answer on why this particular situation is okay. But, I'll do my best to explain, based on the data which I have purely as a player, to explain how someone could have reasoned that banning Ignotus was fair. Let's say, hypothetically, that Mike, the senior admin who I primarily worked with, had come to me and said, I have a feeling this player is becoming toxic, but I don't have time to read through his logs. For the sake of this scenario, let's say Mike, a guy I've been friends with since 2008, runs AA, and I'm looking into Ignotus's situation for him. Let's say I don't know Ignotus at all as a friend.

The first thing I'd do is look at where my veteran/long-time players primarily hang out. As I've been playing AA for three years, I can tell you where they mainly hang out, "private" channels. These channels may be private, but they have lots and lots of players. Veteran players often find moderated/public channels to be annoying and useless places to chat. They get tired of newbies asking what they perceive to be stupid questions. And they have less tolerance for these questions because they may not be acquainted with most of the people who post on these channels. It could also be argued that although these channels are private, some are, or have been, in a sense, semi-public. That is to say, what is said on them is not expected to remain secret. Passwords are only put in place to make sure that channels are not moderated and that newbies and "idiots" can't get in. To explain why some veterans are annoyed by the moderation of public channels, I will show you the standard message which shows on every publicly moderated channel:

This is a Moderated Channel -----
- don't spam
- don't troll
- don't start or continue flamewars
- no sexual topics and content
- no screen reader noise spam
Channel Disclaimer --------------
- don't use color overrides or channel color aliases
- limit profanity
- don't piss off avatars
- don't recruit for your clan or troll other clans
- don't recruit for other games
- no chatbots unless they're explicitly approved by Dentin
- don't be mean
Note that this channel is not a public channel.  It is a private
channel owned personally by Dentin.  You have no right to use this
channel and can be banned for any of the above, as well as a host
of other reasons.
If you feel you have been banned or disconnected inappropriately,
please send a note to Dentin explaining the situation.  Be clear
and specific or your note may be ignored.

In an effort to remain objective, I will point out that Dentin's channel disclaimer does not appear on every moderated channel. It is only the messages before his disclaimer which appear atop of a moderated channel's info. However, any moderated channel reserves the right to use and/or enforce any of Dentin's rules for Gossip. They shed some light on how Dentin and his moderation team prefer to have moderated/public channels be run. Not every such channel enforces these rules. For example Boom, which is run by someone who is a veteran player, has seen sexual topics discussed on a number of occasions. But veteran players typically don't want to worry about which channels enforce these rules and which don't. It's much easier to join a private channel which remains completely unmoderated.

One of the channels Ignotus was co-owner/admin of (and I can say this because I am connected to this channel as well), sees way more traffic than the main public channel of AA, gossip, ever sees. It has 65 allowed characters. I'm pretty aware of which characters are alts of other players. If we subtract those, we get 52 players. Let's say 50, assuming that I could be unaware of one or two alts. Pulling up channel stats reveals the following:
Creation date: Sun Feb 16 12:49:04 2014
Usage count - current: 7414
Usage count - total:   1834174
Minimum to-use level:  0

Now, people have stopped posting on this channel, we'll call it KC for short, because many are chatting on a different mud instead, using a channel owned by the exact same person with the exact same name. Let's look at this channel's info for a more accurate current usage total:
Creation date: Sat Nov 11 15:48:23 2017 EST
Usage total: 28684 (7527.3 KB on disk)
Keep in mind that this usage total can be added to the 7714 messages in the previous section for a more accurate current usage total. Also, these numbers show just how active a channel can be at any given time. Almost 29,000 messages in 11 days is no small feat. I will delve into current usage more later in this post.

Now, let's look at the stats of the "Gossip" channel, which is AA's highest used public channel:
Creation date: Sat Nov  3 18:37:26 2001
Usage count - current: 12414
Usage count - total:   3780736

So, the private channel in question, kc, has been around 3 years, vs. Gossip's 16 total years. And in three years, or 1/5 of Gossip's channel existence, this KC channel has racked up more than 50% of Gossip's total message count. Some veteran players can and do assert that other channels see far less activity. Let's take these two well-known private, popular channels as examples.

Channel name: Tr***e
Creation date: Thu Oct 16 15:42:19 2014
Usage count - current: 1385
Usage count - total:   195912
Minimum to-use level:  0

Channel name: B***
Creation date: Wed Dec  7 22:59:18 2016
Usage count - current: 856
Usage count - total:   30728
Minimum to-use level:  0

These numbers may be low, but it's also worth noting that private channels come and go on AA. They are active as long as their main owner is active. The moment a channel's main owner goes inactive for a significant span of time, that channel will go inactive and remain inactive, for the most part, until when or if its main owner returns. And if a channel has been inactive for a long time, it gets deleted. So there are two things to keep in mind here.
1. Certain channel stats/numbers are hidden from player view because said channels have become inactive and were thus deleted. These channels may have been highly active at one point. But just because they've gone away does not mean that new ones can't and don't take their place eventually. Often, these new channels are composed of the same people. They have new names and are run by different administrators, but overall, said groups of players are just picking up where they left off when their previous channel was deleted. So tracking true numbers for these well-known veteran groups can be hard to do. From an administrative point of view, compiling true numbers may involve piecing together data from various sources. So although an admin or moderator may have seen patterns of negative behavior, it can be difficult and time consuming for that person to explain using numbers as the basis for their explanation. This is not an excuse. It is simply an explanation of why this behavior occurs.
2. A channel's total usage count isn't always the most important factor in determining a channel's true activity. Because, in a given month, a previously inactive channel can become extremely active when its owner becomes active again. The channel will then die down again when its owner goes back into hiding, figuratively speaking. (See my KC example above for an explanation on just how active a private channel can be, even temporarily.)

To determine whether a player is toxic, I would then ask myself,
1. How much influence does this player have? How many private channels does this player talk on? How many public channels? How active are these channels?
2. Who is this player trying to influence? What is their agenda? Are they continuously consulting with a certain type of player? Veterans? Newbies? If so, a significant subsection of my players could be affected by his comments.
3. How are players responding to what this player is saying? Or, what impact are this player's comments having on a certain subsection of players?
4. Is anyone complaining privately to me, or other staff members, about this player? If so, why?
5. How do other staff members view this player? If their opinions of this player are negative, why are they negative? Are the negative opinions based on feelings, or are they based on solid facts?

In researching the answers to these questions, I would, undoubtedly, begin to form a complete picture of this player's usage patterns and interaction style. Often, while perusing through private logs, I find statements which will significantly impact a judgment I had previously made regarding a player. There were times when I said to myself, this player isn't really that bad. Why are people complaining? Their complaints are unjustified. And then I find statements in their logs which can be very concerning. I can only conclude that whatever was in these logs was so compelling that Dentin saw fit to ban Ignotus. But as for defending this particular ban, I don't have enough data to condone or condemn it. I can only guess as to why it happened.

But again, if I am on a private channel with veterans, not newbies, then why does it matter?  Especially if those vets aren't playing the game really, they're just chatting.  By toxic, I would assume that you're meaning a player that is trying his or her best to remove other players from your game; if vets are using a channel just to chat, then they're not going to remove themselves, since their goal isn't to play the game anyway.  I also maintain that people will tune out what they don't want to hear or they consider as ignorance, and the rest they'll do with as they please.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

@ethin welp, best gore isn't even dark web. Lmfao.
I'm not going to argue for or against alter. I'll reminiss at best because I'm drunk as fuck and won't bother to spell. Heh

Dude, i've heard the same stories. I love those. But some of them are just stories. If you use a proxy and take other major sicurity measures to hide yourself, you'll be fine. Hell, you probably would without, but if you wanna be safe, get a crap load of sicurity software and your fine.

Hi.

This stuff doesn't interest me in the slitest.

I like the deep web when it's in stories and all that but I'd not use it and don't care about it enough to want to try it.