I'm just reporting on what happened to me here as I have nowhere else to write about it. I don´t think anything will change but it´s good to keep track of it so at least some kind of framework can be established in the future. I care about this game and I´ve always come back to it. I´ve played it for over 10 years and I think I´ve only been banned somewhere else for a longer period than a a few days once in my life when I had a really bad time many years ago on what possibly was PRTA.
I´ve now had my account removed/permanently banned from the HOG Forums,
and all my posts have been deleted. So they will have the obvious advantage in the debate that may ensue here as they have the logs. Please be mindful of that and the fact that even direct
threats and
spam are not delete on HOG public forums but my posts were.
The worst thing any of them included were the words "you're a coward".
>Which I guess describes the entire leadership of HOG clan at this point.
This will be a long post. Starting with a chronology. Then summary and then a end note/TL DR section. Scroll down to the bottom if you don´t want to read everything.
My old account is stuck to an old email I don´t have access to, if there´s any way I can prove it´s me I´d love to have it back.
Chronology:
Day 1.
I come back to the game a few weeks ago and play without any trouble until I get a short 3 hour ban after calling an admin an "*******". For a reason that perhaps some of you will agree with. But it´s not that important. Its only the catalyst.
Day 5 (aprox)
During the 3 hour ban I make a long post on =HOG= forums. I only use my personal experience as starting point in the discussion. Mentioning that Im fine with the ban and trying to explain why I think these kind of conflicts are relatively common on HOG. I outline different mentalities people can have and then I move on to constructive suggestions.
This post gets very little traction and has only two replies on it several days in, despite hundreds+ of views. One is a member of the public and supportive, the other poster a HOG member takes one small part of it out of context and is critical of it.
Day 8 (aprox)
I wait a bit more, nothing happens and so I join an other discussion, also in the main forum and not under anyone's personal appeals. Its on the same topic. Essentially confusion, not only on if a ban or a kick was/is justified but more importantly on why a particular punishment should or is being handed out.
Acting as a sort of advocate for the players I point out some things that I think are discrepancies in the admins version of events, question an admin why despite his moniker "Justice" he doesn´t seem to be very interested in looking for the truth and/or seeing the discrepancies I see. Most importantly I call everyone to re-examine the suggestions I made in the original OP that would minimize the need for such threads and conflicts to begin with.
There is some aggressiveness here from all parties. One admin is constructve, an other one just drops a oneliner asking for my banishment and that´s about it.
10 days (approx)
This discussion going nowhere I take not of the same admin, "Justice" replying to a poor fellow who was permanently banned that if he doesn´t cease his (admittedly panicky and spammy pleads) he will "call for an even longer banishment of his".
I find it funny that in his fever to threaten and punish this guy who probably just is a kid with bad English who took a vehicle when he wasn´t in the right squad the admin Justice completely forgets that he can´t call for a longer ban of someone who is already permanently banned. I make a comparison of him and the policeman in the musical Les Miserables: Javert, who at least can keep the protagonist under duress and threats of increased punishment for his theft of a loaf of bread rational because the protagonist had not been sentenced to life before those threats.
This comparison that arguably is mocking the administrator, but only as a result of his own actions, leads to the complete closing of my account and deletion of all my threads.
Summary:
So what were my posts about?
Well they were, in addition to what I wrote in the chronology, a compilation of examples of my and other peoples experiences and a critique of how rules are implemented. It used a lot of individual examples, both of members of the public, myself and admins and even imagined scenarios to tell a story of how conflict happens.
I then attempted to rectify that by noting that much of the conflict is rooted in confusion over the application of rules and the lack of regulation for admin conduct.
The various posts but especially the OP went through everything:
*General issues/minor discrepancies*
- How squads are stacked and then newbie squads disbanded several times over the course of one match instead of either allowing them or taking control of them like a good steward.
- How experienced players can get around free-kit restrictions using asset squads. Others are constantly kicked for it or have their squads disbanded.
- How Mapvoting can be manipulated, how it is sometimes not applied and how results are sometimes ignored.
*Minor issues with discrepancies*
- Depending on whether or not you´re an admins friend you can mock or fake someone elses clan tags or you can get kicked for it.
- How the time between a warning and a kick can be as low as 5 seconds and how this leads to frustration and anger (this is is the only case that´s directly mine, and why when I logged back in I called an admin an ******* once).
- Players in various examples don´t seem to know why they aren´t being warned first or kicked first before a kick or ban respectively.
- Admins themselves, even when having each others backs, disagreeing on what ban should have been applied. Often times in the sense of "if I was him, Id ban you even longer(!!!)".
*More serious issue*
- Permanent bans on HOG are a joke and are power-plays. I was far more polite and constructive when it comes to this issue on their boards. But this is clearly a completely failure.
- There´s a complete chaos of the application of this banishment but also its definition. This ban is often appealable and relatively common. This reduction through an appeal of such a ban can at the lowest point be instant post appeal, 3 days in other caser, up to 30 days+ in cases of racism and in a few rare cases, never.
l'll list the two most egregious incidents but there are many, many more.
https://www.hogclangaming.com/index.php ... -ban#35077
This guy got kicked for the name "Wagner". Instead of being warned and given a chance to rectify it. He is then worried (according to him) that his squad mates won´t recognise him when he comes back so he changes his namae to "Wa**er". I know, funny right. Maybe a little poke at the admin, maybe not. Maybe worth a kick again, maybe even a few days in the jail. Or maybe he really didn´t know what was wrong with his name. Regardless he gets a PERMANENT ban.
This "PERMANENT" ban is then IMMEDIATELY lifted when he makes an appeal, begging for mercy. Now look, this is ridiculous even if you are someone who thinks that the smallest gesture of defiance against authority should be harshly punished. Because clearly he is then immediately unbanned. If one admin thinks that a person should be banned for ever and an other thinks that this person can be immediately unbanned then this obviously creates a huge vacuum for personal grudges to be settled through administrative actions. It creates an unsafe and confusing environment for players, especially new ones, and its obviously illogical.
An other example would be this one where a "PERMANENT" ban is lifted after 3 days.
https://www.hogclangaming.com/index.php ... lanced-ban
Again the "PERMANENT" ban here is used more as a tool to get someone to crawl to the cross than an appropriate punishment. For here we see a young kid with broken English get "permanently" removed from the server and panic and start spamming the forums with pleas. He is essentially grouped together with the worst of racists and cheaters, at least for a couple of days.
The worst thing about both these appeals is that there is no attempt by the admins to meet the members of the public half way. Maybe they deserved a ban, but they clearly upon review didnt deserve a permanent ban. So why not meet them half way and say you´re sorry too? That would bridge the gap and make people feel good and give them some positive energy.
Just look at just the ban APPEALS having the words permanent. Browse a few of them yourself. See the discrepancies. Feel the injustice. Imagine the number of players who never have the stomach to beg for mercy over nothing or who dont even know you can appeal on the forums.
IT IS SEVERAL APPEALS EVERY DAY:
https://www.hogclangaming.com/index.php ... &catids=19
(Currently at least, in the past it seems to be an average of a little less than 1 per day).
FOR PERMANENT BANS.
Are people that terrible?
edit: An older example but perhaps the worst one Ive seen in my history of gaming.
A guy gets
permanently banned for being afk and doesn´t receive an apology: https://www.hogclangaming.com/index.php ... cale#34117
End Note/TL DR:
In essence I proposed, especially in my OP a way to rectify this.
Not to punish individual admins in any of these cases referenced or mentioned above.
Not to change the rules that overall are decent and fairly good.
But to add a framework that both new and old admins but also the community can lean to.
Something you know is there, a structure. Something you can depend on when you appeal your case or when you play the game.
How long should a warning be before a kick happens? Can´t there be a value there? So someone doesn´t get kicked in 5 seconds and then feels like shit, like I did, and starts calling someone else an *******? Why have the potential for escalation?
When is a kick appropriate, when is a ban appropriate?
Can we have some kind of limits or a framework for what kind of behaviours can fall under "PERMANENT" bannishment?
And could we all, players and admins, act as
GOOD STEWARDS to newbies rather than just kick them out of their often disorganized squads time and time again?
Those were the basic outlines of my OP.
The one that got no attention.
When I upped the ante, I got attention but I also knew I was playing with fire.
But please remember, the worst I did was call someone a coward.
The worst the lack of these regulations has done is made many hundreds of players leave the game.
Martin Luther King said "A riot is the voice of the unheard". Lets just stop the riot before it happens. Maybe we cant always do it in real life and then you unleash the dogs, sure. But in many cases here, it can be done.
Im not perfect. Ive sinned a bit, for sure. But I hope you found my intention good as that was well...the intention.
