Its hard to disageee with @Malin
Hes only stating whats stated in the rule book. Its clear what you cant do about impersonating. His posts and rebuttals are very clear.
Its also clear that people who are in that family will defend there theme which they should.
Scrap that rule if you dont want to keep having that debate.
@Malin, youâre correct, rules can be twisted.
We do get plenty of reports of people just trying to get people banned. Many times they are determined to be be without merit, and an attempt to twist the rules exactly like youâre describing.
This is why we conduct investigations, and donât ban anybody simply for having been reported.
Rules being dependent on context is exactly what allows us to throw out the baseless accusations.
Remember, a report does not automatically mean a ban.
Keeping the game fair depends on people reporting violations. We canât force you to do so, but if you are waiving your chance to see the rules enforced, you are accepting that valid violations will not be punished because you think invalid violations might be.
The rulebook also says this:
Staff has determined that impersonation requires intent to deceive. As there is no intent to deceive, there is no impersonation. As there is no impersonation, there is no violation.
Given that the rules are very clear on both of these points, itâs not hard at all to disagree with @Malin.
There is no debate here. There is no impersonation.
There family name doesnât state that they are not the mods in play so it would be deceiving unless they inform all.
They may not be deceiving the mods but Iâm sure there are players that didnât see an open discussion about it so it could be deceiving to some. Your expectations is for us to to message every player and ask them if they are the real player since a âthemeâ could be anything.
For example family # 0000 family theme: players of ic
Family name: dinasours
Players names: pie, Sol, cells, thebigone
Real player names: pickle, remo, frosty, murder
To not be deceiving and breaking the rules just inform the few players that do ingame mail you that you are not whomever and thatâs it.
Seems pretty deceiving still to me @I_like_pie
I am pretty sure if we tried that theme, TBO would have changed our names. Maybe since SOME players are so confused this should just be avoided altogether.
@Malin they are not required to state in their family name that âWe are not actually the modsâ. Their family name is actually how you know that itâs a theme at all.
Your example below isnât the same scenario:
The difference there is that the family name âdinasoursâ doesnât imply anything about the theme.
In the case with the âmodsâ, their family name is exactly âThe Modsâ in a galaxy alongside a family named âMarried with childrenâ where their empire names are TV characters.
Hereâs a better example of what would be more problematic:
Family name: i hope we win MW this time
Players names: pie, Sol, cells, thebigone
In this example, thereâs no indication that a theme is even present.
I have no such expectation. What I am saying is that in order for them to impersonate, a player in this family would have to actively claim that they are actually a moderator. They have not done so.
I donât believe the onus is on the themed family to be this clear about their theme. If individual players within the family are not actively telling others that they are actually moderators, I donât believe they are being deceitful.
Confusing? Possibly, if youâre not familiar with the game. Deceiving though, no.
Fwiw, we are considering de-anonymizing all players everywhere. Themes could still be possible, but a playerâs master empire name would always be accessible. This would solve this problem (and other problems), but there are some concerns about removing the ability to play undercover.
We havenât yet discussed it publicly because we donât yet agree within Staff whether or not the pros outweigh the cons.
Despite our disagreement, @Malin has surfaced some understandable concerns here. As others seem to share his point of view, we will likely open up the conversation about de-anonymization soon.
To that end, thank you @Malin for clearly expressing your concerns here.
It turns out weâve already publicly discussed de-anonymization before Staff recently discussed it internally.
Your thoughts on that topic are welcome.
Weâre gping offtopic here. The topic is about impersonation.
I feel the rule is pretty clear cut. You use someone elseâs nick, itâs basically a rule violation unless you meet certain criteria.
Reasons could be: being part of a (very) clear family theme; or: you have permission of the actual person, and are not actively claiming you are that person.
If you feel someone is breaking this rule, drop a note to @moderators. We can look into it and change someones nickname or take other measures.
This is a rule as old as the game itself, and it has never given very much trouble. I donât see reason to start now.
@HellRaizeR - you make a valid point, and itâs something that has come up internally more than once too, but this is not the place to discuss that.
Weâve added clarification to the rule below in response to the feedback provided here. If you have further questions or feedback, please feel free to post in #support:questions and #support:feedback.
Thank you everybody for your input.