+1 From me. I agree that the ghosting rule situation cannot remain as is. Below is my logical reasoning for how the ghosting situation can be changed, and why there are only two ways to change it effectively. If you choose to read my rather lengthy message on the topic, then I hope it is helpful to you and demonstrates my reasoning.
Why do we have rules: The purpose the of rules on the network is to ensure fair treatment of players, ensure fair gameplay, and ensure the community is a welcoming place.
The current circumstances surrounding ghosting: Ghosting takes place in party chat, friend messages, discord dm's, outside discord servers, and vc's. All of these locations where ghosting is practiced are places that staff members, and actively reporting players, cannot see or hear. The only circumstance in which ghosting could be punished is when someone who is either ghosting or within a party, call, or other discord server with ghosters decides to report the players for ghosting. While that could happen at times, the vast majority of players, if put in the rare situation where they witness ghosting, would simply not report it, either because they are ghosting as well, or because their friends are the players ghosting. In this kind of environment, following the ghosting rule is made an individual choice for each player rather than a mandatory action, and since it is safe to say that over 75% of the player base ghosts either willingly, or out of ignorance to the rule, the 25% (25% being a generous estimate if I may say so) of players that choose not to ghost are being placed at a disadvantage, therefore defeating the purpose of a rule. That purpose being fair gameplay for all.
Why something must change: In comparison, we would never see another chat rule reach a 75% failure rate (failure rate referring to the percentage of players breaking the rule regularly while going unpunished), much less a gameplay rule such as the disallowance of hacked clients. If we do not tolerate a high failure rate for our other rules, then we should surely not tolerate a high failure rate in regards to the ghosting rule.
Conclusions on how we can accomplish effective change that will benefit the network:
Overall, I see two choices based on our current situation. We either innovate and find new ways to deal with ghosting properly, or we globally allow ghosting. Both of these options will have the same result: A very low failure rate for the ghosting rule.
First of all, innovation. This would have to include staff reading through chat logs of suspected ghosters, as well as having a constant staff presence in voice calls on the Jartex discord to ensure ghosting is not occurring verbally. This solution is limited however, because reading players /fmsg’s violates privacy and checking chat logs requires much effort. Not to mention that there isn't much the staff team can do about players ghosting in other non-jartex affiliated discord servers or discord dm’s. However, if this innovation occurs perfectly and fully, the ghosting rule could see a drop in failure rate to the point where it accomplishes its purpose of ensuring fair gameplay for all players.
Alternatively, the ghosting rule could be removed. This solution will reduce the failure rate of the rule to 0% because all players will have the advantage of ghosting, meaning that ~25% of players will no longer be at a disadvantage. This solution requires no time or effort intensive activities such as checking chat logs and moderating vc's, and it also does not call for any potential invasion of privacy such as staff reading /fmsg’s on the server.
Thank you for reading this if you chose to.
Nirahz
you are an inc
