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That sounds like an awful lot of work for not much gain. Again, I'm not sure there really is a problem here.
Moreover, let's be honest here: Spullla's thread is by far the most active of the spoiler threads. If it came down to choosing which team to follow, I don't think it's out of line to say that the overwhelming majority of lurkers would follow Spullla. That's unfair to other players, who lose out on lurker interactions, and it's unfair to lurkers who want to watch the game play out from the 3rd person omniscient viewpoint. In fact, the only people who could possibly benefit from it would be Spullla themselves, who would have a huge pool of people to use as a sounding board. The password solution would only exacerbate the problem it was supposed to solve (ie lurkers influencing the outcome of the game).
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FYI Speaker, Jowy, and I had a discussion ingame and, apparently, none of our teams has gotten extraneous info from lurkers, so hopefully that's a step towards reestablishing the trust we have.
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I don't think it's clear that anyone got any advantage whatsoever.
Nor should that make a difference with respect to establishing a lurker code of conduct.
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Tbh I think its a bit of an over-reaction and the information deemed to be 'gleaned unlawfully' seems pretty minor in my eyes.
The problem stems from 'creative differences' over what suggestions/contributions are allowed and which are not. This has been rumbling on a while and it will not be resolved, someone will always be unhappy.
I don't see any need to make any drastic changes as of yet - none of the 'priviledged info' has been remotely advantageous and I think the piece which was deemed worst was not to do with the game but the spoiler thread! I think that got some people paranoid that if they were told privately about this then they could have been told other things but I think that's a bit much.
My suggestion was only to show how drastic things would have to be to change things. I'd rather it is kept as is but we shall see.
"You want to take my city of Troll%ng? Go ahead and try."
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As far as I can tell the problem isn't about the line between what is and isn't technically a spoiler. The leaked information is obviously a spoiler. The thing is that it's so small that whoever was responsible didn't think it mattered, which is wrongheaded.
New rules won't help this. It just needs to be clear that you don't post spoilers and that's that.
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Krill,
Just so happened I had been in the middle of typing up my feedback to your rules when it went down. Here is what you posted w/o any comments:
Krill Wrote:1) Lurkers can respond to civ4 mechanics questions (eg how many turns for a worker to chop a forest? Why didn't my cottage grow? How does the AP work?)
2) Lurkers can congratulate players on achieving a goal (eg Well done on getting that city spot)
2a) However, don't reveal unnecessary information on your comment (eg Well done on getting that city spot - I really thought that Greece was going to get it)
3) Lurkers can participate in option discussions but only after the player has articulated the options and only to the extent of pointing out additional strengths / weaknesses of options that the player might have missed.
3a) Lurkers can NOT suggest additional options that the play might have missed
3b) Lurkers can NOT express opinions about various options
3c) Lurkers can NOT ask questions regarding player decisions, until they have been posted and checked in the No Players thread by at least 2 other lurkers.
4) Lurkers can express opinions on player agreed rules, but should also point out that rules agreed by the players should be discussed by the players
5) Lurkers can ask a team to explain their opinion about ingame situations and developments, but must do this without writing leading questions, or implying information gained from other spoiler threads.
6) Lurkers cannot ask sequence questions.
7) Lurkers can ask for screenshots
Suffer Game Sicko
Dodo Tier Player
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SevenSpirits Wrote:As far as I can tell the problem isn't about the line between what is and isn't technically a spoiler. The leaked information is obviously a spoiler. The thing is that it's so small that whoever was responsible didn't think it mattered, which is wrongheaded.
New rules won't help this. It just needs to be clear that you don't post spoilers and that's that.
Basically this. I asked people to stop posting, and I then got told by one person that they wouldn't follow the request. I had no choice but to either allow lurkers to continue posting possible spoiler information, or to ask the admins to lock the threads. Is that an overreaction? I think it would have been, but given the choice I was presented with, I felt, and I still do, that locking the threads and sorting this out right now without any further contamination, is in the best interests of this game, and this community.
While the discussion was contained in the lurkers thread, everything was in hand. Escalating the situation didn't help. So now here we are, trying to sort out what is and is not acceptable behaviour by lurkers.
And that comes down to spoiler information, and lurker interference in the game. There has recently been several occasions where lurkers have started suggesting new ideas to players, and started to affect the course the game was taking. This is not on, it is not acceptable behaviour. If you want to play in one of these games, join one of the games, and don't lurk them. Let the players play the game, and use their thread to educate and entertain the lurkers.
If the lurkers have any questions, post them in the lurkers thread and get answers there from other lurkers that may understand the situation better than you. And that is another thing, what questions are and are not acceptable to ask? We already know that leading questions are right out. What else is unacceptable?
At the very least, this is what has to be right out:
Leading questions, ie when will you settle iron city?
Tactical and strategic advice, ie, providing teams with new ideas about what to do in game, or how to handle diplomacy.
Opinions on what teams have done (other than "Congratulations on x").
EDIT: Pindicator, thank you. FWIW, those were a rough start, with some edits based on Ruffs' lurker code of conduct. The intent is to make self policing rules that don't rely on the game admin doing everything,
Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23
Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6: PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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How about ban the guy who's posting spoilers lol
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I have no arguments with what you say Krill. I am just unsure what is possible to make it better.
The vast majority of people in this community play it safe and follow the rules set out. A minority don't but I don't know how we can stop them without hurting a lot of decent people who enjoy reading the threads. I know that without the PB2 threads being open for me to read, I would not have joined this community.
It is not feasible/possible to have something on the forums where every post made in the spoiler threads must be moderated before they become visible on the thread, as it would be a hugely demanding job for the mods to undertake.
I understand your frustrations but what can you do that will make a difference?
"You want to take my city of Troll%ng? Go ahead and try."
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