Players can talk about Browser-Based games in chat as long as they aren't sim games.

Could you explain this to me a bit? How do you determine if a game is a Sim??

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A sim game is a simulation game. It's a game that centers its focus around stimulating life, such as The Sims. Sim game is very diverse as it is, so I find it silly how players are saying sim-only games can't be discussed, because anything mimicking real-life can be considered a sim (such as role-playing games, business/tycoon games and animal games).

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Not to mention in the past I've also seen people told they they cannot talk about games like FeralHeart(which is a non-Browser 3d mmo game) despite the ToS saying nothing about non-Browser games. It SPECIFICALLY says Browser-Based, and ONLY Browser-Based is prohibited. Yet... some guy talked about FeralHeart(which is nowhere close to being a browser based game) and was told he couldn't by mods. Granted, that was a long while ago, but still.

Same general thing - mods scold people for doing things that aren't actually against the rules in the context/wording of the ToS. Nowhere in the ToS does it say non-Browser animal mmos cannot be discussed, in fact it specifically specifies browser based only, and nowhere in the ToS does it clarify that four words in caps is excessive, etc.

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Sooo, like Howrse?

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Thank you Synchron, this is exactly why I've posted this. It seems like staff members are making up rules behind-the-scenes without telling players. The Terms of Service is what every player on the site has agreed to. If a rule isn't stated in that, how are we supposed to know without being scolded first? I don't know about some players, but I prefer not getting in trouble for something I didn't know was wrong in the first place.

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Yes like Howrse (pssst, we can't talk about it!). You can talk about those sort of games in messages or mention them in your den profiles it seems, but you can't talk about them in chat or on the forums.

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Hello. What do you need clarification with? I'll try to provide some right away.

Browser Based Sim games are not allowed due to bad experience we had in the past. People doing off-site trading, stealing our assets to make their own game and few other issues. We found it safest to just avoid talking about other browser-based sim games in general. This rule has been in place for years now.

We allow Chicken Smoothie, Feral Heart, Second Life and so on. I will make this an exception in order to clarify, yes, Flight Rising or Howrse are examples of names we'd like to avoid, and any similar game. If you notice a moderation of Feral Heart (like I did once, and apologized due to not knowing back then exactly that it was just a roleplay simulation on servers), let us know. Mods make mistakes sometimes.

This rule has not been changed in past years, so I am not sure what do you mean we are making up rules behind the scenes?

The moment you join Lioden you're forced to either agree to ToS or abandon lioden, and are provided a page to read the ToS. I assume most players just click okay and don't bother reading, and then break rules, get reminders/warnings and complain they had no idea. I cannot help here since that person agreed to ToS and chose not to read it?

Moderators can also handle unusual situations case by case upon staff discretion. Also covered by ToS.



2. Four words in all-caps is considered excessive. However, the TOS states:
"Posts with excessive caps are not allowed. Amount of caps refers to a simple judge of intent."

We allow currently 4 caps words per chat post easily. We also judge the caps case by case - depends if it looks spammy or not. If there's like 12 words but 5 are caps, we just do a chat reminder to remember about caps rules. that's not even a warning, just a reminder of rules. So I am not sure what you mean.

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I am simply stating what moderators have told me and other players when I have been watching chat. When I say "Four words in all-caps is considered excessive" that is what a moderator has told me and/or another player. The same goes for the browser-based games, a moderator said in chat that only sim games cannot be talked about but browser-games that aren't a sim game can be discussed.

This is a lack of communication between staff in my opinion. I understand I follow the TOS and if I do not agree I leave, but my problem is that moderators keep on dancing around the TOS rules. I understand that in the TOS it says that any issues not covered can be clarified by staff and moderators but that isn't my problem. My problem is that rules that are stated in the TOS aren't matching with what moderators are telling players at some times.

Thank you for the clarification, but I still think adjusting the Terms of Service so every player can review it at any time is the best solution to this problem. Because now I have three things to go off of: the Terms of Service says any browser-based games is off-limits, moderators told me that only sim games are off-limits, and now you've told me certain games are off-limits. The Terms of Service is what every player signs up to, and that is what most people would and should refer to first.

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I would also like to point out that the Terms of Service tend to not be read properly because they are long. By necessity, they are long, and cover most of the general situations you encounter daily on Lidoen, and areas of the site. We absolutely cannot begin making individual rules all-encompassing, for all nuances of a guideline.

The current caps rule goes:

"Posts with excessive caps are not allowed. Amount of caps refers to a simple judge of intent."

If it were specific to the manner in which we moderate each situation, it would look like this:

"Posts with excessive caps are not allowed. When you post 5 words of caps and that constitutes the entire post, this may be considered spam depending on which words were capitalised single letters such as 'I' and "A" because that may not be considered the same weight as the word 'FLABBERGASTED'. Additionally, if you post five messages that are made up entirely of caps, this could also constitute as spamming because you are flooding the chat with capitalized messages, even though each post probably falls under the acceptable mark if they were isolated. Additionally, if you post an extremely long sentence that has 5 capitalised words within it, it may not be considered spam because it is not the majority of the message and therefore doesn't appear disruptive to the rest of the chat."

That's just a few situations off the top of my head, but there are many more, and that's JUST for the caps rule. Imagine if we described every possible variant of a situation for every rule and sub-rule. You wouldn't be reading one page of HTML, you'd be downloading 5 volumes of rules to read and agree to before you could play.

This is why moderator discretion is needed. Also, if you read a rule when you accept the terms of service, and you're not 100% sure if your post will break it - just ask. We're always here to answer questions about rules, and we'd much rather answer a query than give you a retrospective warning. c: <3

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Regarding Browser-Based Games:

"The same goes for the browser-based games, a moderator said in chat that only sim games cannot be talked about but browser-games that aren't a sim game can be discussed. "

But that is correct. You're welcome to talk about stuff such as Runescape. That's a browser-based 3D MMO RPG - but it is not "Browser-Based" game, it's just using a browser and java to launch a server (Minecraft can do that too, etc). Same with Feral Heart from what I understand. You're welcome to talk about Dragon Cave, that's an adoptable website (not a game, as there's no currency or progress).

^ That is not dancing around the rules. That's just a fact within rules. I am not allowing "certain games" here. To a developer, browser-based game is where you have progress like on Lioden. We consider Chicken Smoothie not a game but an Adoptable Website. I hope you understand what we cover here, but if you as a player consider all three "Browser-Based Games" we're open to add word "sim" to the ToS next week.


Now about Caps/staff:

If a mod told you and other players that 4 words are excessive please contact me or katze and explain the situation - we do have quite a few new mods that are still under training and may be forgetting some specifics in rules. Mistakes happen, we're open to correct ourselves.

If there's another discrepancy, rather than change ToS as you suggest, I'd rather have you come to admins and explain a problem/situation and based on that we either correct staff or adjust ToS if needed. A suggestion to change ToS based on breaking rules, conflict in chat or misunderstanding ToS is not really the way to go in my opinion. To me, caps rules are perfectly clear and have been working out great so far. I think you're just a victim of misinterpretation + possible mod mistake. Let me know in a PM or approach Katze (as she's managing staff more than I am).

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You don't have to explain why it's excessive. How hard is it to write: "Excessive caps - sentences with more than four words in all-caps constitutes as spam and is not allowed."

You don't have to describe anything. When the TOS says that excessive is based on judge of intent, that could literally mean anything depending on the sentence and the person typing and the person reading. Why is four words considered excessive when in the TOS it says "judge of intent"? Just state a limit and that's a lot less hectic than going "well, the staff have agreed that four words in caps is excessive, even if your judge of intent may be six words".

Obviously I am a player that is at least aware and familiar of the site rules. You're telling me because some people don't read them, you shouldn't need to clarify some rules on the Terms of Service. I prefer looking at what I signed up to and not having to contact a moderator for every question I have about the Terms of Service.

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Xylax, thank you. My issue regarding the browser-based games is just that. If we are allowed to talk about some browser-based games, why does the TOS just saying browser-based games? I'm not trying to be picky here, I just think that we're missing some crucial information of rules.

I haven't talked about any browser games because the TOS says that it's not allowed. Until the TOS says that only browser-based sim games are not allowed to be discussed, I will continue to not talk about any browser-based games just so I don't have to be scolded or try and explain how some people told me that only sim games are not to be discussed. I was also under the impression that a browser-based game would be any game on a browser, like any Facebook games or sites that have browser-based games (Kongregate, miniclip, etc).

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For what it's worth, Avani, I personally think the TOS could also use clarification on the same things.

I see people get scolded by new moderators left and right for use of caps that aren't even considered excessive according to what the staff has told me.

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I don't think the problem is that the ToS needs to be changed, more so that mods shouldn't come up with random specifics like that that are not directly clarified in the ToS.

i.e. if the ToS does not state that four words is excessive, then four words is not excessive and members shouldn't be told that it is and expected to know this despite it not being in the ToS.

Generally 'excessive' is pretty clear- entire messages in all caps, spam of caps, etc. Not four words lol.

And to add another example even though this has been cleared by now and staff no longer scold people for this particular thing, if the ToS doesn't say you can't talk about 3d non-browser games and instead specifies browser-based only, then a mod should not be able to scold a user for talking about FeralHeart, because it is not a browser-based game, which the ToS specifies specifically.

It's not that the ToS needs to be changed, more just that the mods need to know the specifics of the rules they're enforcing and there needs to be proper communication between staff. i.e. if something isn't agreed on between staff to be rule breaking, then it isn't rule breaking and mods shouldn't say it is.

(such as the case of four words being excessive caps.)

tl;dr mods should stick directly to the ToS and common sense. if common sense tells you that a user is doing something wrong then sure reprimand them even if its not directly clarified, but otherwise, it's best to just stick directly to what the clear-cut rules say and not have any "unspoken rules" that you only hear about from moderator word-of-mouth in the case that they're scolding you or something.

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I can see where you're coming from in that you'd like things to be specific so that you can follow the rules to the letter, however:

"YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSS"
^ Not okay, even though it's technically one word.

"I GOT A CAT GUYS. Goodness gracious me everyone, this little guy is so damn fuzzy! "
^ Fine even though technically it's 5 words of 'caps'.

Putting extremely rigid rules in place doesn't allow for flexibility in moderating, which is important to have, as every user and every situation is therefore different. If we ruled based on four words, at all times, solidly, with no discretion, it would come across as very unfair in some situations and would make the chat a pretty miserable place. We want chat to be fun! <3

Again, I understand your frustration, but it's simply not practical to be extremely specific in every rule. Also, bear in mind that the first thing we give is a verbal reminder - a friendly poke in the right direction that is not intended to be a warning or a punishment. You don't need to worry about those at all. c:

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