Friends and Dogfighters,

Our Forum, our in game chats, our squads, our very way of life has been threatened by our own hubris. For more than four years we have had a mostly symbiotic relationship with our creator and benevolent dictator, Zuperman. Over the years, some of us have exchanged communications with Zup and may have inadvertently gained some status. We have also seen some gain status by being part of a large collective of mostly dues paying players. As we participated in our open forums and chats the inevitable occurred. Someone said something that was offensive to us. It was offensive to the degree that person responsible deserved the ultimate punishment... BAN! So our clout broker fires off an email to Zup. This email through basic human nature portrays the complaining party in the most positive light and of course portrays the offender negatively. Zup trusting his relationship and feeling informed takes action. This of course provides fuel. Once we learn who runs to Zup, it is only natural to antagonize them a bit. When I was a kid, I did ding dong ditching. Ring someone’s doorbell and run. What house did we target? The lady who would flip out the most. Run up and down the street screaming at shadows. Prowl the neighborhood in her car looking for us. It was so much more fun because of her reaction.
Now we are 4+ years into this. Zup has dealt with hundreds of these flare ups. I will confess that I complained on D93 Big Gunzz. It was reactive to Gunzz's complaints on squad mates. However important these circumstances were to me and my squad, they are petty to everyone else not involved. Thus, it was petty all the way around.
We are all engaged in a competitive endeavor here. Rivalries between people and squads is natural. We also have the anonymity of the internet. This means some really horrible things get said. I point all of this out just to lay out the problem.
As promised, I have a solution! Here it goes:

• Only a dogfight citizen may complain about another citizen's behavior.
• A Dogfight citizen is a dues paying member (subscriber) in the community.
• No third party complaints will be accepted, only a person directly disparaged has standing to complain.
• If you do not subscribe, you are on probation and may be removed by a moderator for any reason’
• 5 moderators will be appointed by Zuperman and /or Jacob.
• No squad may have more than 1 moderator.
• Moderators will be able to issue a 48 hour WC mute.
• Moderators will be able to issue a 48 hour Forum mute.
• Complaints will go to the moderators not Zuperman.
• If 3 moderators agree, a player can be forwarded to Zuperman for ban.
• If a player bypasses the moderators and goes to Zuperman, they will be warned.
• If a player continues to bypass a moderator to go to Zuperman, they will be banned.
• Zuperman remains a benevolent dictator and can act of his own volition in concert or against the recommendations of the mods.

Folks, we are cutting our own throats. We all have our own sense of morality. We all have our own ideas about what is too risque’. Every person that has complained to Zuperman about another player is part of this problem (myself included). How many emails does Zup get with a screenshot of a noob getting coached up in WC? How many emails does Zup get about a friendship created on his site between people on opposite ends of the world? One negative erases 10 positives. Zup needs a buffer from the petty crap that he does not care about. Active mods will better understand the personalities, histories, back story, and context to effectively police the site. Jacob shouldn’t have to sort through thousands of pages of Misfit, EOI, and M.O.M pages to get rid of bikini pictures. We can police ourselves. How many would have complained about other players if they knew the end result was no more forum? Vote Lawman for President. I’ll make sure you can have your cake and eat it too! Because this M.O.M loves cake!

Here here or is it hear hear? I'm not sure, either way good job

I like it.

Great ideas TX, but:

zuperman wrote: Trolls and jerks have been and always will be there. It's just life on the chat system, that's why most games do not have a chat.

I get reports, I act on them.

Moderators carries some legal problems that I'm not willing to work on right now. It's either people who are employees of my company with all legal paperwork signed or nobody. And that requires among other things that they reside on the same legal system that I work. So it's not as simple as it seems.

I'm assuming Zup is referring to in-game moderators, not forum mods.

I don't see a problem there. With the user agreement we sign/ consent by downloading, not an issue. Zup has final say. Any ban or removal of a player or an account is his decision. The moderators just act as a filter.

TXLAWMAN wrote: I don't see a problem there. With the user agreement we sign/ consent by downloading, not an issue. Zup has final say. Any ban or removal of a player or an account is his decision. The moderators just act as a filter.

You're probably right then, if the "moderators" were advisors/reporters then it might avoid the legal crap. (Is it okay to say "crap"? )

As long as it could actually reduce the amount of time Zup has to spend on policing it could be a good thing, but if recent events show anything it shows that the people who need moderating most are the ones least likely to recognize any authority other than the top, (Zup) so it would be tough to say how much it will actually help. I hope he'll try something like this before throwing the baby out with the bath water.

On the other hand, if he keeps up with draconian enforcement for a while people might get the picture.