Hi Xeno,

First, and most importantly, thank you for taking the time to read the rules and offer your feedback.  This type of criticism is invaluable and greatly appreciated.

So before I get into the specifics, the context around the rules change is important in order to understand the language used.

The biggest driver for the rules update was actually the switch from IRC to Discord.  However, our rules as a whole had long since been outdated and worse: confusing.  There were game rules, global forum rules, specific forum rules, chat rules, and even unofficial rule interpretations posted by members of the team.

This lead to a fair deal of confusion amongst the players.  The new rules were crated in an effort to consolidate all rules into a single document that covered everything.  A lot of thought went into the language and specific terms, but it is understood that the document is not perfect.

In fact, it's intended that the players can contribute edits themselves (pending approval).  The source is public and open to contributions here: https://github.com/ImperialConflict/doc … e/rules.md

Now, onto the nitty gritty:

Annoying, I know.  However the old versions of the rules did not have the phrase "subject to change without notice" so the new version had to be presented as a prerequesite to playing, hence the pop up.  I of course could have just changed the rules without doing this, but that wouldn't be fair to the players.

The fact that you're raising your concerns here means this has served its purpose: giving you a chance to opt out.

This is a very valid point.  The "by registering a game account" is a holdover from the previous rules.  This language needs to be changed to include phrasing like "by continuing to play".  Thanks for pointing this out, I will add this to the list.

We can only take actions within our own domain.  However, this can be further clarified.  I'll consider rephrasing this one to be less scary sounding.

I agree, this wording isn't quite right.  The idea is to emphasize that enforcement decisions are ultimately at the discretion of the team.  The need for this becomes especially apparent when banned players harrass the mods relentlessly and expect their bans to be overturned if they provide any sort of defense/justification, regardless of whether or not the team sees it as valid.

We can, and should, be open to hearing a players' defense and to admitting that we can make mistakes.  However, we also need to make it clear that the decision is ultimately the responsibility of the IC staff.

It's a tricky balance to achieve, but your criticism here is a good step in adding clarity.

It's the other way around: that section is under "Enforcement" and applies to the IC staff, not the players.  You're free to discuss your own account details with whoever you want.  The IC staff no the other hand, are not allowed to do this.

This is to protect your privacy from other players who want to know details about your investigation, even if you've only been accused.  This actually happens quite a bit and we have to tell players that we can't provide information to them about a different player.  We are not allowed to disclose information about your account to anybody but you.

Technically, yes.  But I can do this with or without the rules by editing your post content in the database directly.  In fact, any website you have an account on can do this as well.  The only thing that makes IC different here is that we are pointing it out.

As for the reasoning, this is intended to make it clear that if a player is violating communication rules that we can edit out the offending pieces.  We generally don't want to censor anybody, but there are times where it is the right thing to do.  For example, if somebody posted an otherwise normal post in uni news but also included an Infra op on your empire, we could change the infra data to say something like [edit: no infra posting allowed].

This allows us to just edit an offending message while stil preserving it instead of having to outright delete it.

Because we don't want an "iron fist".  We want to provide players with a sense of expectation while also making it clear that it ultimately comes down to the judgement of the team.

This was a tough one though, admittedly.  The problem with not using the discretion clause is that you then have to spell out every single possible interpretation of a rule violation.  We used to try this and it was a mess.  Malicious players would cause all kinds of problems finding loopholes and trolling the entire community knowing that they weren't technically breaking any rules.  When they'd get banned, they'd cry "MOD ABUSE" because the flawed rules sytem backed them up.

That isn't sustainable, and I'm not interested in babysitting trolls.

That's not quite accurate.  You implicitely know everything that we know about you because it's only as much as you provide upon signup.  As far as investigations go, if we were to inform a player who is talking about IA that were are looking at their actions, we could compromise the investigation.  There is no unofficial blacklist.  If you're blocked, you will know.

To be fair, online communities are not governments.  How would that work, anyway?  If you guys were unhappy with Stefan, would you vote in a new owner?  Now that I'm the owner, would you guys vote in somebody else if I change the game in a way that you don't like?

Of course not.  It doesn't work that way.  This game is no more a dictatorship than it is a democracy.  It doesn't make sense to describe it on those terms.

As far as trust, yeah that is really what it comes down to.  The success of the game is going to be dependent on the decisions of its owner.  That's me.  I can't force you to trust my judgement, which is fine.  But yes, that is how this works.

This is a great example of why the "discretion" clause is so important.  We're not interested in basing decisions on technicalities, we're interested in basing them on good judgement.

The rule above is intended to protect players' privacy being violated by other players.  That said, you make a good point about sharing op info within your family.  I'll see about clearing that up.

No, that's not accurate.  "Publicly" in this context means on IC itself.  We have no control over what players do outside of IC.  I'll reword this to provide additional clarity.

You're welcome to decline.  That is the point after all.  Note the stated reasoning though: nobody will ever agree on what is vulgar or offensive.  We've tried this before and it didn't work.

Thanks again for your feedback.  If it makes you feel any better, this conversation itself is an example of the direction I intend to take IC.  Your input will be integrated into a new revision of the rules, which means already you are enacting change into a system that you don't like.  That's hardly a dictatorship.

Oh and congrats on becoming owner of the site, Pie!

Now that you're owner, can we get the angry face emicon back?

There might be something easier, but the current one helps integrate into the game code.

Eventually I'd like for players to be able to suggest edits from their IC account directly, but that'll take a little while to get working.

In the meantime I'll put together a small guide sometime soon for github contributions.