So there's this big issue going around right now about Pens editing player page thread titles to make the format more uniform, something that is objectively helpful to the league, and being criticized for it because he didn't go to HO and make them do it instead. Now I have absolutely no personal stake in this discussion, as I'm neither Pens nor HO, so why write about it? That sweet media money, that's why. Plus I feel like leagues across the wider sim league community, including this league but not limited to it, tend to think things like "come to HO instead" are common sense for a new member when in reality it's not the case. You come into these things completely blind for the most part, and if you see a way to help, and you have the power to do so, it should be rewarded instead of punished if you take that level of initiative as a new guy, regardless of what the good old boys think is the "proper" way to do it.
For someone who's been around the block a few times - or a few real life years across multiple leagues, like I have - it's obvious that you can't so much as breathe on moderation powers without making everyone and their brother aware of it, since it's so easy for there to be nefarious intent behind it, and people have to make sure you're not doing anything wrong. For a new guy, that is not the least bit obvious, or even intuitive. The assumption, until you find out otherwise, is that helping the league in any capacity is beneficial. From where Pens stood, not only would he not have known to go to HO, the only proper line of thought is "this helps the league, so I'm going to do it" (or, "this helps the league but I can't be bothered to actually do it at the moment" which is fine as well) but the point is that at no point would he or should he have thought or been expected to think that he needed to get HO involved. It's not a logical part of the thought process for a guy in that position.
By punishing him, the message that we as a league are sending is that new guys should be incredibly careful and scared to do anything at all, for fear it might piss off the wrong guy. Sure, there are successful organizations that are run in this way - organized crime families do this all the time, where the minor guys, cousins and friends of the family, are afraid to do anything at all for fear it's the wrong thing and it will perhaps cost them their lives - but this isn't the way to do things as a respectable organization. We want new guys to come in and feel comfortable, welcomed, and respected. We want new guys to take initiative and step into places where they think their services are needed. We want new guys to come into a league and feel a strong foundation and solid footing, to stand on the shoulders of those who've come before, not walking on eggshells for fear of repercussions. To punish a guy for taking initiative creates a culture of fear, and no league should be about creating such a culture, whether intentionally or as an unintended consequence of actions.
The official ruling from HO is that he broke a rule, and regardless of intent, he should be punished uniformly with others who've broken rules. The thing is, he didn't actually break a rule. He broke HO's interpretation of a rule. Nothing in the explicit wording of the rule was broken. The wording of the rule is as follows: "Any user who abuses moderation powers in order to alter (without permission or valid reasoning) another users post, topic, or reply will be given the follow punishments" - now there are two areas in the rule where terms are not defined. What exactly constitutes abuse of power, and what is a valid reasoning for doing so? Without clear and explicit definitions, nothing can be said to violate this rule. Let's break these two areas down, to see what was violated and what was not.
Abuse, a word with a negative connotation, would logically be assumed as "using moderation powers in a way other than intended, as intent defined by the job the member holds giving them such powers, in a negative way or a way detrimental to a team or the health of the league" which is a specific and clearly defined way to state what abuse is. Based on this, did Pens abuse moderation powers? He used the powers in a way other than intended as defined by the job he held, but he did not do so in a negative way or a way detrimental to a team or the health of the league. Now if one wants to claim that the negative or detrimental part of my definition is not to be assumed as abuse, then he violated the first part by using the powers in an unintended way, but again it should be clarified. Until it's clarified, then he has done nothing wrong through this part of the rule and punishing him is following a guilty until proven innocent mentality.
Valid reasoning is even harder to define. There can't really be a consensus as to what defines valid reasoning. Some might say it's anything that works toward the greater goal of the benefit of the league, which fixing the titles of player pages absolutely does. If things are in a uniform format, that is objectively better than them being in all manner of different formats. Yes, it's incredibly minor, but at the same time it's also minorly beneficial, rather than minorly detrimental. In this sense, it seems like what Pens did was with valid reasoning. Others might define valid reasoning differently, or in ways that do not include what Pens did, and that's not to say that those definitions are wrong. What it does say though, is that terms like "valid reasoning" are always going to be impossible to define, and as such, terms of this nature have no place in a rulebook. A rulebook is supposed to clearly and explicitly define what is allowed and what is not, and a rule using a term like "valid reasoning" can by definition not clearly and explicitly define anything.
As per both of these, the conclusion at hand is that there was no clearly and explicitly defined rule in the rulebook broken by Pens and his actions. The HO is trying to define the rule after the fact, and stating that Pens broke their new definition of the rule, but if it was not the definition of the rule at the time (and explicitly stated as such) then no rule was broken and no punishment should be given. If anything, we should be applauding him for making an effort, even if in a minor way. Regardless of the punishment at hand, the rule must be rewritten as a result of this issue and defined in a more clear and explicit way going forward. In fact, the rule should have been written more clearly and explicitly in the first place. The fact that the writer of the rule was unsuccessful at defining what he wanted the rule to mean is not the fault of anyone else later deemed to have broken it.
As such, I'm calling for several actions as a result of this issue:
1. Pens can't clearly have been deemed to have broken the rule, as the rule is a gray area and has no such obvious breakage. Thus, no penalty should be given, and I'm calling for the penalty to be removed.
2. The rule must immediately be rewritten to remove any potential gray area and clearly and explicitly define what is and what is not in violation.
3. The rule should be removed from the rulebook entirely until the more clearly defined version is created and implemented, so as to remove any such errors in the meantime.
4. Going forward, the league must implement an innocent until proven guilty mentality, rather than the opposite. If in the future, an action is found to be something the league does not want to allow, but it does not explicitly violate a rule, then a rule must either be rewritten or newly added to address the issue - and also, the person doing the action at that time, when such rule was not in effect, is not guilty and should not be punished.
5. Ideally, the members of HO responsible for handing down this punishment should make a heartfelt and sincere apology to Pens for irresponsibly punishing him and for causing potentially irreparable damage to his reputation. This is not likely, of course, but in a true and just league it would happen.
In short, if an action occurs, and the league can't point to a rule and state that the action at hand violated this exact rule in this exact way with no room for interpretation, it should not be punished. If a member of HO states in their punishment that "I consider this rule to have been violated in this way" then it is not violated - there is no room for consideration. One must not consider a rule to have been violated, it must be outright violated or it is not.
1576 words. Much money. Very paid.
For someone who's been around the block a few times - or a few real life years across multiple leagues, like I have - it's obvious that you can't so much as breathe on moderation powers without making everyone and their brother aware of it, since it's so easy for there to be nefarious intent behind it, and people have to make sure you're not doing anything wrong. For a new guy, that is not the least bit obvious, or even intuitive. The assumption, until you find out otherwise, is that helping the league in any capacity is beneficial. From where Pens stood, not only would he not have known to go to HO, the only proper line of thought is "this helps the league, so I'm going to do it" (or, "this helps the league but I can't be bothered to actually do it at the moment" which is fine as well) but the point is that at no point would he or should he have thought or been expected to think that he needed to get HO involved. It's not a logical part of the thought process for a guy in that position.
By punishing him, the message that we as a league are sending is that new guys should be incredibly careful and scared to do anything at all, for fear it might piss off the wrong guy. Sure, there are successful organizations that are run in this way - organized crime families do this all the time, where the minor guys, cousins and friends of the family, are afraid to do anything at all for fear it's the wrong thing and it will perhaps cost them their lives - but this isn't the way to do things as a respectable organization. We want new guys to come in and feel comfortable, welcomed, and respected. We want new guys to take initiative and step into places where they think their services are needed. We want new guys to come into a league and feel a strong foundation and solid footing, to stand on the shoulders of those who've come before, not walking on eggshells for fear of repercussions. To punish a guy for taking initiative creates a culture of fear, and no league should be about creating such a culture, whether intentionally or as an unintended consequence of actions.
The official ruling from HO is that he broke a rule, and regardless of intent, he should be punished uniformly with others who've broken rules. The thing is, he didn't actually break a rule. He broke HO's interpretation of a rule. Nothing in the explicit wording of the rule was broken. The wording of the rule is as follows: "Any user who abuses moderation powers in order to alter (without permission or valid reasoning) another users post, topic, or reply will be given the follow punishments" - now there are two areas in the rule where terms are not defined. What exactly constitutes abuse of power, and what is a valid reasoning for doing so? Without clear and explicit definitions, nothing can be said to violate this rule. Let's break these two areas down, to see what was violated and what was not.
Abuse, a word with a negative connotation, would logically be assumed as "using moderation powers in a way other than intended, as intent defined by the job the member holds giving them such powers, in a negative way or a way detrimental to a team or the health of the league" which is a specific and clearly defined way to state what abuse is. Based on this, did Pens abuse moderation powers? He used the powers in a way other than intended as defined by the job he held, but he did not do so in a negative way or a way detrimental to a team or the health of the league. Now if one wants to claim that the negative or detrimental part of my definition is not to be assumed as abuse, then he violated the first part by using the powers in an unintended way, but again it should be clarified. Until it's clarified, then he has done nothing wrong through this part of the rule and punishing him is following a guilty until proven innocent mentality.
Valid reasoning is even harder to define. There can't really be a consensus as to what defines valid reasoning. Some might say it's anything that works toward the greater goal of the benefit of the league, which fixing the titles of player pages absolutely does. If things are in a uniform format, that is objectively better than them being in all manner of different formats. Yes, it's incredibly minor, but at the same time it's also minorly beneficial, rather than minorly detrimental. In this sense, it seems like what Pens did was with valid reasoning. Others might define valid reasoning differently, or in ways that do not include what Pens did, and that's not to say that those definitions are wrong. What it does say though, is that terms like "valid reasoning" are always going to be impossible to define, and as such, terms of this nature have no place in a rulebook. A rulebook is supposed to clearly and explicitly define what is allowed and what is not, and a rule using a term like "valid reasoning" can by definition not clearly and explicitly define anything.
As per both of these, the conclusion at hand is that there was no clearly and explicitly defined rule in the rulebook broken by Pens and his actions. The HO is trying to define the rule after the fact, and stating that Pens broke their new definition of the rule, but if it was not the definition of the rule at the time (and explicitly stated as such) then no rule was broken and no punishment should be given. If anything, we should be applauding him for making an effort, even if in a minor way. Regardless of the punishment at hand, the rule must be rewritten as a result of this issue and defined in a more clear and explicit way going forward. In fact, the rule should have been written more clearly and explicitly in the first place. The fact that the writer of the rule was unsuccessful at defining what he wanted the rule to mean is not the fault of anyone else later deemed to have broken it.
As such, I'm calling for several actions as a result of this issue:
1. Pens can't clearly have been deemed to have broken the rule, as the rule is a gray area and has no such obvious breakage. Thus, no penalty should be given, and I'm calling for the penalty to be removed.
2. The rule must immediately be rewritten to remove any potential gray area and clearly and explicitly define what is and what is not in violation.
3. The rule should be removed from the rulebook entirely until the more clearly defined version is created and implemented, so as to remove any such errors in the meantime.
4. Going forward, the league must implement an innocent until proven guilty mentality, rather than the opposite. If in the future, an action is found to be something the league does not want to allow, but it does not explicitly violate a rule, then a rule must either be rewritten or newly added to address the issue - and also, the person doing the action at that time, when such rule was not in effect, is not guilty and should not be punished.
5. Ideally, the members of HO responsible for handing down this punishment should make a heartfelt and sincere apology to Pens for irresponsibly punishing him and for causing potentially irreparable damage to his reputation. This is not likely, of course, but in a true and just league it would happen.
In short, if an action occurs, and the league can't point to a rule and state that the action at hand violated this exact rule in this exact way with no room for interpretation, it should not be punished. If a member of HO states in their punishment that "I consider this rule to have been violated in this way" then it is not violated - there is no room for consideration. One must not consider a rule to have been violated, it must be outright violated or it is not.
1576 words. Much money. Very paid.
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