I see that a character has been muted.
why?
how long does it last for?
I was not on when this happened, but I thought, please correct me if i am wrong, that the game was based on free speech for all, i.e a democracy.
It says something for the strength of character of the person that they are still playing.

Devs i don't know whether u realize, not everyone plays this game, just to test the game, there is a real human element that shows thru, which is what the community of vendetta is all about, the outreach is universal to the game and real life.
Does it not suggest an indictment on societal mores when the choice is taken away as to whether we can contact a muted person?
Just how democratic is vendetta?

Meltdown

ARGH.. WHAT ARE they teaching in school these days!!!

For the millionith time... free speech does NOT APPLY to private companies!!!!! It is ONLY between YOU and the GOVERNMENT.

i think muting is necessary in this game and my understanding is that it's temporary measure.

it would be nice to have a page on this site where you can see muted characters and what they were muted for and when the mute will run out. something like hall of shame or similar.

Nah...no hall of shame - someone might feel "mental anguish" or "pain and suffering" and sue (in my opinion, "emotional damage" is a load of bulls**t most of the time, but it unfortunately works too often).

If you get muted, you should be able to see the sentence length on the "Your Stats" page though.

Sue? you drunk as well?
damnit, did whole vendetta community got drunk tonight? WITHOUT ME KNOWING?!?!?!

hall of shame exists in almost every online game I play and I have never (EVER) heard of somebody sueing for emotional damage!
Let me repeat that one more time. EVER!

WTF are you smoking? :)

I say let us know who the offenders were and what their fault was. Definitely beats creating a new thread each time someody wonders why this person is muted.

How can one sue for emotional damage if the name up there isn't there RL name?

A muted account is mute until it is lifted by a guide or a dev.

BTW, did you fix the can't un-mute account if a character is not logged in from it thing yet?

Also, using the chat feature in vendetta is a privilege which can be taken away.

point #1: Surprisingly enough, free speech is not (just) a democratic value.

point #2: What furball said

point #3: Vendetta is not a democracy, to be a democracy it would have to be "Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people."

point #4: Even in the physical world, your right to free speech is limited if what you are saying hurts someone. For example, if you say that the president should be killed, thats okay, but saying that everyone should march right down to washington and blow the prez's brains out is illegal. Much in the same way, in vendetta talking about spamming is fine, but spamming the hell out of the server will get you muted. Why? Because it hurts peoples abilities to read the chat.

point #5: I wanna be a guide :-P

The user you are referring to was muted because he chose to continue to verbally abuse another user even after being warned and then continued to verbally abuse the Guide after he was muted. The Guide spotted him on later and unmuted him, thinking the user had calmed himself, but then the user immediately began verbally abusing others again and had to be muted. He stated, too, that he didn't care if he was muted permanently. I begin to wonder if he might actually prefer it. At any rate, the decision was not made lightly and our preference would have been for immediate resolution of the problem.

Users can be muted for verbally abusing others or for spamming after a warning has been given. The user is contacted by the Guide to let them know they can /msg the Guide. At this point, most users agree to stop what they were doing and are unmuted immediately.

Muting lasts for as long as it is needed. The user in question will be contacted periodically (daily if he's seen on) to see if he's willing to rejoin the chat channel and respect the few rules we have for it.

You don't have a right to know who or why people are muted. This is out of courtesy to the user.

Free speech is generally respected. Nobody has been muted for criticising the game or it's makers, for instance. As in real life, one's free speech can be limited if it is damaging to others. You can say "I disagree with the President." You cannot say "I will kill the President." You cannot yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, talk about bombs in the airport, etc.. And here, you may use foul language in the chats, but you may not direct it at other users.

Regarding wanting to be a Guide: There is some discussion of going in a different direction for the Guide system (if what we have now could be called that). I doubt that any more users will be selected to become a Guide as they are currently implemented, but the system being discussed would probably allow for many more people to be involved. I am not at liberty to discuss this more.

EDIT: Suicidal Lemming - Yes, the mute command was fixed right after your, uh, playtesting experience. A user does not have to be online to be unmuted.

RE-EDIT: The user in question has twice logged-off immediately when asked "Do you want to be unmuted?". It appears he has made his choice and I won't initiate further contact with him.

Forum Moderator has a good point. "Free speech is generally respected. Nobody has been muted for criticizing the game or it's makers, for instance."
Freedom of speech only allows you to make political statements without the gov stoping you. (you can say **** the draft, but not ****). If they give us free speech (which they appear to have done) the equivalent would be allowing us to complain, talk about the game etc, but not spam or harass people.

Forum Moderator:

Thanks for the reply, the why was as much to find out perameters as much as anything else, of course privacy is respected.

genka:

point noted between action and speech

randomize and Cmdr Freeman:

your ideas make sense, if muting has to be part of the game.

Eldrad:
I thought free speech was always respected, this was the reason for the opening of this thread

thanks ppl for your input, just trying to get clarification :)

Meltdown