Bill Spight wrote:Kirby wrote:Some may have the view that, as the admins of the server, the admins have the "right" to enforce the rules on the server with whatever rhetoric they see fit. Others may have the view that, users of the server have the "right" to try to get people to play games with them repeatedly.
I have not seen the TOS of OGS, but I am inclined to hold both views.
To harken back to the case of duplicate bridge events: The director has the right to eject anyone from the playing area. In all of my years of playing and directing bridge I have never observed that to happen, and I have heard of only one instance, the one involving fisticuffs, and in that case it was a kibitzer who was ejected, not a player. The director is not supposed to exercise the authority to eject a player arbitrarily. He or she is authorized to do so only for violations of propriety, that is, for improper behavior, not necessarily illegal behavior. Now, of course, in most case whether behavior is improper is a judgement call. Who makes that judgement? The director. Of course there is potential for abuse. But all decisions of the director may be appealed. An appeal cannot undo the ejection, but it could get the director in hot water. The first appeal is to the director, which in case of ejection, could be made before being ejected.
In any case the director does not argue with the person who objects to his or her decision. The person makes their case, the director gives it due consideration, and then reiterates the decision or makes a new one,
with or without explanation. OC, usually it is best to give an explanation. But if the person keeps objecting, in the end the director has to state that the decision is final.
In the OGS case under discussion, I believe that it is likely that it could have been handled without ejection
if the admin had avoided arguing with the user. Once the admin escalated, it was easy for things to get out of hand.
Hi Bill,
Your analogy with the bridge tournament is interesting, but slightly misplaced, I think. There are several reasons for that.
For one, it is a live tournament, with people playing face to face, no anonymity, and so bad behavior is much less frequent. Compare people gathering together in a go club to play face to face - there is seldom, if ever, any behavioral problems. Put the very same people in an anonymous web environment like the server - and you will often see the very same people acting up.
This makes the "directors" (or admins) job much harder. There is much more "chaff" to deal with, all the time, and from more people. There is very little peer pressure (like in a face to face environment) to cease and desist bad behavior - so often the only recourse is a ban or blockage, especially if the behavior persists and escalates.
This, in turn, makes the fuses of any admins much shorter than in your bridge example. Being human, I can understand that there is sometimes/often an over-reaction. But, putting myself in the shoes of an admin on a Go server, and judging by examples of behaviours I witnessed - I can see how the person can go nuts, frustrated, or angry - and then lash out and overreact. We are all just human, and can only take so much.
Which brings us to another important distinction between a Go server and a bridge tournament. As you said - the directors of the bridge tournament are certified and well trained, I would assume. And any over-reaction or improper behavior on their part might result in withdrawal of this certification. They might even be paid for directing (no clue, are they?), but this would give even more incentive to watch your step as a bridge director. Go server mods are mostly volunteers (I assume), with no training (I assume), and really nothing to lose if they stop being admins - other than the frustration of dealing with the users.
And there is also the timing. A bridge director can direct a tournament what? Every week? Every month? Every few months? So this means a periodic dealing with a cultured group of quiet and reasonable people. A Go server admin has to deal with a much larger bunch of much worse bewaved users day-in, day-out, with little or no respite. This makes the fuses much chrter as well, and understandably so.
And lastly - bridge torunaments are usually held under the umbrella of some formal organization, with well established rules and procedures. For example, you say that a director's decision can always be appealed (directors can even get into "hot water"), so there must be well established path to do that and a proper appeal body at the end of this path. All of this is missing on a little, private, volunteer-run, and free Go server.
So, while the situation on the surface seems similar, when you dig deeper, it is really not so.
