Patrik's Point of View (POV)

Patrik's views on players, profiles, terms and conditions, and more. 

Politics (Chats, company names and profile pictures)

Sep 6, 2023

Screenshot on Patrik's POV

PATRIK MOD
I agree with Envy that we do not ban for simply mentioning politiocians or calling them thiefs
we shoudl have politial or religious opinions. At the same time I understand it casues unrest in the chatroom as teknofrost said

Ideally, in about 50% of the cases, this can be resolved by PM'ing the player: Hey, I noticed you have a politically charged name. We try to avoid politics in Sim Companies, it's not the best vanue to discuss this. Try other forums. This will also make it much harder for you to find suppliers and business partners ... etc.
This way we are not directly censoring, while getting our way. As i said it sometimes works

In general, if there is politically charged discussion in the mod room, you can ask them to stop and warn that we do not want politics discussions and will have to ban everyone if they continue, regardless of the opinion. (it important to stress we are impartial)

ENVY MOD 
There is difference between sending a polite PM asking them to change a name, and slapping them with a t&c warning for having the name..

PATRIK MOD
I mean: in the chat* room
Vivanta Industries Industries if you simply ban player like this, they will think we are censoring him because of his opinion and will automatically think you are a strong Modi supporter 

Game Related Profile Images

Patrik:

The matter of using SC images in logo. We do not want to be impersonated. If somebody uses our game logo and pairs it with name like: "support" or "admin". The other party will clearly interpret it as a game representative

He h cases of players trying to impersonate me, or the PA. You can use this to scam players more easily. Or to make us look bad in the other party view

So, that is the reason behind blocking these players.

FPA and Alts

Patrik:
Re: FPA - I do not want "humans" to do these decisions, as we tend to be biased and it's a time waster.
The FPA script uses deterministic rules and quantitative information and is fair in that regard.
It also doesn't cost any energy.

If you suspect you found a cheater that was not yet detected by FPA, you can both report them to FPA and also write to the player

But very politely, as we are not sure he is cheating

Something like, hey pal, we noticed some strange activity on your account and I think you might be operating more than one. if that is the case it is against the rules and it would be great if you deleted one of your accounts ...

I say politely, because we should not automatically assume he/she is a cheater.

Question: "Sooo... We allow multiple accounts if they do not trade with each other, and we are waiting for FPA?"

Patrik: 
We do not take action unless there is large amount of evidence, yes.
I rather let 10 cheaters play, then delete a regular player by accident.

It's similar to the legal system in democratic countries, you do not punish criminals unless you can prove things beyond doubt, and yes, you sometimes let criminals go.
But I would argue it's better than the other way around.

Sales posts of the wrong language

"it's in senders interest to make his message understandable
probably no point policing it [punishing] heavily"



UPDATE 2/21/2023

Website for Player Sales

Recently a few players have been posting links to their websites for sales with their company in sales chat.  We typical do not allow this.   Patrik has said though that players are allowed to post that link on their profiles.  


PATRIK 
the website, I'd say it's cool to have it in the account description, if it's game related, but not in the sales posts.

Sim Boost Sales

"The sale bonus triggers automaticly following an uptick in sales

So ... if there is a lot of simboosts sales today, it should trigger the day after"


Trademarked Company Names

"it's allowed to take some big company name?

like apple or mcdonald etc"

Patrik: "We do not Police It"


Transcript: 
"So far it happened once, that we got a copyright strike form a real company for using their logo without authorization

We forced the player to change it

In general, I do not think they care, it's not like we pretend to be them, or make money on their IP

this copyright strike was auto-generated

Some companies pay for bots to crawl internet and find violations"

User Names and Assuming the Worst


Transcript:
"For the "cream pie" I get that can be a pornography reference, but it's also a desert as purplenobody pointed out. We shouldn't automatically assume the worse. If not sure we can discuss these things here"

Religious spam in chat

Player: "Good morning

I want to tell you that God loves you,

And his love is so great that he gave his Son to die for you."

Patrik: "I am religious, but I consider it spam

As undesired, unrequested, off topic message

The guy should be warned extra politely, that it is off topic and this is a game

He should reserve that for his friends and family

If they do not comply, just ban"

URL's in names


Transcript:
"we did have a domains in names conversation before. My first opinion was. it could be okay of the target site is non existent. But there is no safe way to check. Should MODs be clicking on every page players send us? So we decided to send warning to these players"