Support.

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InexRising wrote:

Continue doing something wrong does not make the "something" more wrong.

Even if we accept that (which may or may not be reasonable and I don't see the need to start that argument), it still means you're doing more wrong than just the inital thing.

Doing something once could be because they don't know it's not allowed. It might be appropriate to simply PM the person and let them know, privately, not to do that thing again. If the thing is against the rules because we don't want other people to have to see it, it'll be removed.

If they do it again, then they're now doing the thing and disregarding the instruction not to do the thing. That is worse, and might warrant a minor punishment, or a harsher worded/final warning, etc, depending on the severity of the thing in question.

If someone then actively does the same thing again and again at every opportunity, then they're not only doing the thing, knowing it's not allowed, they're doing so in a way specifically to disregard the rules and express that disregard. More punishment is appropriate.

All of this remains true regardless of the nature of the specific offence being repeated.

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InexRising wrote:

You( or SUPPORT) must not have 'feelings'. Rules must be 'somehow' clear, a 4-d probation action should deserve 4-d probation or less. No more punishement is appropriate.

If you give a forum user more than that because he does not want to understand and keep doing it again, then you(SUPPORT) are having 'feelings'

You've provided no evidence, reasoning, or explanation as to why this is in any way related to "feelings", and as such I reject that claim.

Allow me to break it down further.

X is against the rules.

User A does X. This warrants some action (punishment/warning/whatever).

User A is instructed not to do X again.

User A has been told not to do X, and does X anyway.
- User A has done X. This warrants some action (punishment/warning/whatever).
- User A has disobeyed a direct instruction. This also warrants some action (punishment/warning/whatever).

In the second case, A has done more wrong, because in addition to doing X, they've also done something else wrong by failing to follow an instruction. Thus a greater total response may be required/appropriate.

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InexRising wrote:

Is it that important the player impoves?
__


Now in the case of the forum, is it that important user A stop doing X?

These are not analogous. Dying may be against the "rules of surviving Area 23", but it is not against the rules of the game, which are the rules the game should enforce. Dying is a part of the game and players are and should be free to die as much as they want. Some people like running cast on death builds. Dying is an action with set consequences (which are harsher in Hardcore league), and those consequences occur as intended.

Your analogy is irrelevant to my example because when someone dies, that's not against any (enforceable) rules, and they aren't told not to do it again. They might learn what the consequences are, but that isn't remotely the same as being explicitly told "this is against the rules, do not do it again" - particularly because in the first case doing it again just means you've done the thing again, potentially with a better understanding of the consequences, where in the second by doing the thing again you've disobeys a direct instruction.
That bit is the entire point of my argument, and it doesn't apply at all in your proposed analogy, which is why that analogy isn't useful to discussing my argument.

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unsane wrote:

Troll thread gets 3 GGG responses. Le sigh.

I do my best to assume people aren't trolling, and respond to them as such. Sometimes you get pleasantly surprised because an initial post that seems trolly was actually just the result of poor wording or lack of language skills, and something good can come from it - useful discussion or the poster can learn about something. And in the other case, being reasonable about things to an unreasonable person costs me at most a few minutes of typing.
The good case has occurred more often than I'd expected (if less often than I'd like), and enough to convince me that for the most part it's worth continuing this way.

A point for consideration: Inex, do you believe that there's any room at all in the system of responding to posters breaking the rules for support to merely warn a player that an action they've taken is against the rules?

Because I definitely do. I think someone could genuinely not know the rules (in an ideal world, of course, everyone would read the rules before posting, but I'm not naive enough to believe that'll happen), and could do something which, though against the rules, isn't serious enough to warrant any action more than a warning that it's against the rules and they should thus refrain from doing it in future. I like that our system can be that lenient when appropriate.

But under your system where no previous actions can be taken into account, and repeated actions must receive the same punishment every time, warnings can't exist. Because the basic nature of a warning is such that it must be escalated on the next offence.
Saying "This is against the rules, so please don't do it again or we'll have to do X" is a warning.
Saying "This is against the rules, so please don't do it again or we'll send you this exact message again" is not a warning by any reasonable working definition.

And the warning doesn't work as a warning unless it actually is followed up with X the next time that rule is broken (or at least, while it might work on that particular user, not following up warnings as policy means users as a whole will learn warnings aren't followed up on, which removes the point).

To put it in another context, I have no problems with a policeman being able to pull someone over for speeding, point out how fast they were going over the limit, and then let them off with a warning not to do it again.
I do have a problem with the kind of person who, on being given such a warning, speeds past the same cop 10 minutes later and when presented with a fine says "WTF is this bullshit, last time I did the same thing I just got a warning, how can you justify giving me a fine now just because it's a second time?"

EDIT: I'd also just like to remind people - just in case, I'm not saying this has been a problem so far - to keep it as general as possible in here. While I think there's some merit in discussing broadly why certain methods of moderation could or could not be useful and their consequences, specific discussion of how Support handles/handled a particular case or set of cases isn't allowed on the forums for good reason. I'd prefer not to see this thread reach a point where it's considered to cross the line, and I respect that I'm not the one who gets to draw that line, and will stand by any support member's decision should they believe this thread has crossed it. So lets try to keep as far from the line as we can while we continue to discuss this.