Monday, September 06, 2021

Proposal: Unspeakable Crimes

Timed out and enacted, 6-0. Josh

Adminned at 08 Sep 2021 19:37:10 UTC

Remove “No Public Communication may include the uncensored text of any Message that has been sent in this dynasty, or a Message which the poster intends to send.” from the ruleset.

Add a subrule to Communications, called “Infocrime”:-

The following acts are Infocrimes:

* Knowingly posting a significant amount of uncensored text from a Message that has already been sent and censored in this dynasty, to a public forum
* Sending a Message which includes significant content the sender has already shared on a public forum in this dynasty
* Deleting or altering a public communication with the intention of hiding some significant aspect of it from other players

If the Ministry of Information believes that a Cell has committed an Infocrime since the last time that Cell became On-Grid, the Ministry may render that Cell Off-Grid.

Cells may be On-Grid or Off-Grid, defaulting to On-Grid: this is publicly tracked by noting when a Cell is Off-Grid (and not noting when they are On-Grid). A Cell which is Off-Grid may not create Communications, Applications or Tips.

In the first bullet list of “Communications”, add a point after the second:-

* If the Cell that created the Communication is Off-Grid, change the Communication’s Message to “[no signal]”.

Cuddlebeam breached the “no Public Communication may include the uncensored text” rule a couple of hours ago on Discord, but there aren’t any defined consequences to having done this, it’s just something which is defined as legally impossible to do. Josh’s response was to delete the message as “extremely not allowed”, twenty minutes later, which means those who weren’t on Discord at the time missed out on learning the leaked information.

This proposal flips the “you can’t do this” censortext rule into “if you do this, you’ll be banned from the comms system”, and adds deleting messages as another thing not to do. (The “since the last time they became On-Grid” clause starts counting from this rule’s enactment, so it won’t apply to Cuddlebeam’s breach.) And we should maybe rule out deleting a message after some but not all players have read it.

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

06-09-2021 19:35:44 UTC

I’ll just add that deleting Cuddlebeam’s publicly posted message on Discord was a mistake for which I am very sorry; admin privileges on Discord should be entirely ancillary to dynastic gameplay, and abuse of mod tools on any platform is no fun. Apologies to Cuddlebeam.

For this: leaning greentick, but given that it entirely ejects a player from the game, should this proposal also consider how a Cell returns to the Grid?

Madrid:

06-09-2021 19:36:26 UTC

I mean if this entirely ejects me I’m also up for just being Idled.

Josh: Observer he/they

06-09-2021 19:42:04 UTC

This wouldn’t affect you, Cuddlebeam; you’d only become On-Grid at the moment that this passed, and as such today’s events wouldn’t count as you having “committed an Infocrime since the last time that Cell became On-Grid”

Madrid:

06-09-2021 19:42:38 UTC

Oh, alright. Thanks, what a relief.

Kevan: he/him

06-09-2021 19:43:54 UTC

Yeah, explicitly doesn’t apply to today’s breach, seems fair enough for Cuddlebeam to have overlooked this when the rule was phrased as it being impossible.

Not sure what the return criteria should be, maybe some Buildings/Projects should allow it, but I wouldn’t say going Off-Grid was a complete ejection: a player could still steamroller onwards and get a lot done without making any further Applications.

Kevan: he/him

06-09-2021 19:47:23 UTC

If Josh deleting the message is regarded as a mistake, should Cuddlebeam re-share it?

Josh: Observer he/they

06-09-2021 19:49:39 UTC

Surely not

Madrid:

06-09-2021 20:42:32 UTC

I guess we could Propose to

Brendan: he/him

06-09-2021 21:54:05 UTC

What’s a Public Communication? Or more specifically, why is Public keyworded in the ruleset?

lemon: she/her

07-09-2021 17:59:27 UTC

for with the assumption that, if it comes up, we’ll add a timer to eventually return someone back to on-grid?

Brendan: he/him

07-09-2021 18:36:11 UTC

for

Josh: Observer he/they

07-09-2021 19:19:27 UTC

for

Darknight: he/him

08-09-2021 16:58:33 UTC

for

Raven1207: he/they

08-09-2021 19:09:12 UTC

for