Concerns About New Nickname Policy

[Albais]

Domoarigobbo is a name I hope to keep, and while technically violating the letter of the law, names like these are fun and largely harmless.

This really sums up the whole issue quite nicely. It is very easy for bad actors to abuse the broad wording of the 'new' naming policy to report harmless names of those players who they don't like for any reason. Sure, we were assured that each report will be judged on a case by case basis and also by trying to interpret its intent, but if you get unlucky and the GM in charge applies the rules as written you'll log in to a surprise forced rename.

Carrying on like normal is of course the only thing we can do, since the CoC won't be changed. And you may say, 'such a scenario is unlikely, don't worry about it' - but really, I think it is (much) more likely than ... let's say a trademark holder sending a takedown request for a character name used in a video game

[Florian90210]

4 pages of meaningless discussion. It's not commercial project, devs don't need to care about income or keep more people on the server. You can be banned just because someone from team particularly don't like you. So just don't provoke with funny or political names and better know what chars devs have and don't ever interact with them in a game.

[trh382]

The naming rules seem very broad to me as well

But if you look at what happens in practice - with very few character renames - I think you can read the rules as giving the GMs broad powers to compel renames if a combination of name / in-game behaviour / reputational associations causes problems for the project. Given that this is happening on everyones free time, a rule allowing them to force rename if your name is causing any headaches at all is understandable.

Since the punishment is just a rename, it doesnt seem too concerning to me.

[Albais]

The naming rules seem very broad to me as well

But if you look at what happens in practice - with very few character renames - I think you can read the rules as giving the GMs broad powers to compel renames if a combination of name / in-game behaviour / reputational associations causes problems for the project. Given that this is happening on everyones free time, a rule allowing them to force rename if your name is causing any headaches at all is understandable.

Since the punishment is just a rename, it doesnt seem too concerning to me.

Your reading of the rules is interesting and given that your post was highlighted and added to the OP, apparently it corresponds to the staff's view.

However, going by the actual wording of the rules, it is not necessary for there to be a 'combination of a rule-breaking name + bad in-game behavior + problematic reputational associations for the project'. It is sufficient for someone to report a name and depending on how the GM handling the report interprets the intent of said report, a forced rename could be issued.

Also, two points on the punishment 'just being a rename'. The name of your (main) character is a big part of your identity in a social game with a tight-knit server community like this one, so losing it is not a completely trivial matter. And beyond that, each violation of the CoC is actually logged against the offending account and taken into consideration with future violations (see the 'Disciplinary Policy' section), so a forced rename triggered by the report of a bad actor for a harmless name enabled by an overly broad naming policy (a maybe unlikely but possible scenario) will leave a permanent mark on your account.

[trh382]

just saw your post albais

totally fair, a rename can be pretty rough given MMO identity

One thing reducing the issue here is that I dont think core identity names tend to correlate with names for rename

I doubt that someone called "taylorswift" or "cumgoblin" identifies as taylorswift or a cumgoblin so I think this part is lower risk

As for bad GM judgement, its hard to make rules that are immune to that so I would prefer to address the problem through good GM processes rather than rules changes

[Albais]

One thing reducing the issue here is that I dont think core identity names tend to correlate with names for rename

I doubt that someone called "taylorswift" or "cumgoblin" identifies as taylorswift or a cumgoblin so I think this part is lower risk

Yeah, these are pretty clear cases, but what I am more worried about is the scenario that I describe in my previous posts where because the rules can pretty much be applied to any name you can think of, you can get completely harmless names renamed if let's say you have a grudge against a player and file a report. We'll have to see if that happens.

[trh382]

yup, makes sense