Disclaimer
Hey Guys and Girls,
I wanted to give a small insight on my opinion on this topic. I can adjust this a bit, because i currently "help" out as mentioned in this report.
I personally dislike both of the Names as of
Wannabe and
Mini-Mod, since both are negatively connoted to me. As of that I will use the term
"Helpful" Member/Player.
I hope I can give you guys a bit of more info on my opinion and thanks for reading.
Personal Opinion
"Broken" Rules:
Personally, I don't agree with the apparent "breaking" of rules. It has been made clear multiple times previously by staff that helping members in #english-general is allowed. The following reasons are, from my perspective, not being broken currently in any way.
The misuse of channels is interesting, but very clear to me. The set rules for
#english-general and
#staff-help only apply to the specific channel they are used for. These rules do not count in other channels. You can discuss every topic in
#english-general, as long as it follows the
#english-general - rules and the general
#rules-and-faq. There currently is not a exception to this so this rule does
not apply.
The Staff-Only Helping discussion is generally really interesting aswell and focuses on the
#staff-help ruleset.
"Ask your questions here and staff will answer when they can!" This generally has its similarities to the
Misuse of channels problem earlier. It only applies to
#staff-help and not to other channels and is not punishable.
But since this discussion is not entirely about deeming it punishable by the current ruleset, but to find a reason to make it punishable in the future it also has to seen from this perspective as in the intention of the ruleset of
#staff-help as mentioned above. The questions are directed to staff and not always directly to players. The different that has to be cut at this point, is that
(out of personal experience) alot of questions in
#staff-help are from new players who ask simple questions, just because they simply did not know about the existance of
#helpful-links /
#report-a-player /
#report-a-bug. Those questions are not always needed to wait for a staff member and can be helped by
"helpful" players, who do not seek to be proving to be a helper, but who want to give back to the community and enjoy helping out.
Considering Impersionation, replying to questions in
#english-general is not illegal in any way to me. If you are actively having actions such as direct signs to show that you are a staff - member, such as commanding people or giving the feeling to be a staff - member repeatingly then that is already covered by the Impersionation rule. If people generally ask if the "
helping" person is a staff - member, they usually get the reply
"No, i just wanted to help." and if this would not be the case, then that would definitely be illegal. But i have not seen this occur on the discord yet.
To me this is the strongest argument and a part that I partially agree with. Player Safety is really, really, really important to ensure a trustful environment from player to server base. But, misleading players is not what the people this rule would affect do. The people this part targets is people trying to phish and that can be done in any way and is already deemed illegal. The actual "helping" people do not do this.
"Disturbance" / "Helpful?"
Considering the more "personal" and "objective" arguments, which are always to be seen personal and can be discussed more freely then rulebound arguments.
Interrupting
#english-general discussions is generally not illegal by any kind. It can be annoying to the people in that discussion, but I do not see this as a major problem. Out of experience the chat can get split up into multiple sub discussions anyways of players greeting each others and a single message can get lost in the chat easily. Creating a entire new channel just for helping would just create new problems and more not essential channels out of my experience. I understand why people might find this annoying, but I do not agree.
This is the most important argument you brought up in my opinion. Misleading players unsure of rules can lead to alot of problems. I personally always add a part where I state clear that i am unsure about a current rule or question. But answering complex questions wrong can definitely lead to be a problem and should be marked as a reply of that kind imo.
(Personal) I personally do not reply to questions in
#english-general to get a better chance at becoming a helper in the future. I generally enjoy helping and want to give back a bit to the community. It is not about the reward, more about being nice to newer players and leading them on the correct way, especially because some players do not have a load of patience and understand how the
#staff-help system works.
Summary
Generally I have to disagree to set helping on the same level as misuse of channels. It is controversial to discuss because trying to be a helpful part of the community should
not be punished, but can also lead to wrong information and problems regarding player safety.
The "helping" can be split up into different groups,
problematic help, potential-problematic help and
non-problematic help.
Non-problematic help: Forwarding people to channels such as
#helpful-links /
#report-a-player /
#report-a-bug. This will not conflict with wrong information since you just show them the reply to the Staff answer to that question.
Potential-problematic help: Replying on simple common questions, where a direct connection in the above mentioned chats is not required. (These would be normal and for established players common knowledge questions)
Problematic help: This is replying to complex questions, that the "helping" person might give wrong information about and potentially create problems. These are (out of experience) rarely answered by "helpful" members.
It is possible to only allow the "
Non-problematic help" and punish slightly for the rest. But I do not agree with players getting punished for trying to be a good member of the server and helping out newer players.
Being a friendly, helping community should be promoted and not forbidden via rules.
