Dunkersplay Posted November 12, 2024 Share Posted November 12, 2024 As it stands, the current set of rules serve to hinder future RP opportunities for small businesses and solo-business owners. The rules to gain an IC channel are as follows: 25 Members in the Discord; 15 Hired by the Business Script. Now, of course, you could easily fudge this. Don't fire people, keep them in the business script even when they're inactive, and just mass-hire a bunch of newbies. However, that would fall in a rulebreak of its own as exploitation. How many businesses actually have more than 15 active individuals who are hired? Factions could easily answer this question, alongside some of the big businesses like Magnolia. But not many bars could claim this. Not many restaurants could. Perhaps not even small time automotive shops. IC Requests in general exist as a means to promote involvement in GTAW while you're unable to actively attend, while also hosting vital information. The current rules are harsh, and also don't account for "one-man businesses." Businesses such as Aveline Real Estate, or perhaps an independent artist may rely on IC tickets or emails; Something that requires 15 members under a dedicated business script. However? They are simply not permitted because they're a one-man operation. LFM Arguments Against This Change(As per LFM Discord; #questions-and-answers) "Not every business has an email." While this may be true for simple mom-and-pop shops, we live in the age of information. If you want to purchase a web domain or a basic toolkit for a website? You can get an email service added for free. Businesses use Gmail, internal mail, and Outlook. I've worked for small businesses (including a bar) who had a system like this for internal communications. "Use a group chat." Not only is it slightly unclear of how to do this on the new phone system (although not impossible, as the Coleman-Labelle Fund has done it), it still requires users to be in-game to check their notifications. If people reply in the chat, then the original message gets buried. "Text them in game." The whole purpose of this is to allow non-game related IC communication within the request of the rules. Not everyone has the Discord Bot setup, and on top of that, it is a pain to individually text everyone vital information over 250 characters, when it might be a list of needs that you need to fill. "Use Facebrowser, LSChat." Not everyone uses these platforms, and not everyone actively checks these platforms. If you're just here to get on, do some Bar RP for the grind, and then RP away, you're probably not going to check this. If these websites were intertwined with UCP Authorization, then I could see it being a bit stronger of an argument. But as it stands? The chat capacity on Facebrowser is buggy enough as it is (Which does not seem to have a fix prepared for it anytime soon) and LSChat is simply "extra." Discord is an account almost everybody in this community has. Discord is a program we've all got open. Why force users to create an extra account that they're just not going to use? Discord is efficient, it's proper, and it's easily organized. "Players cannot be trusted to follow the rules." Then why are we working with a community in the first place? Why are we enacting suggestions? Why are we enabling those that follow the rules to engage in them? Every community has a rulebreaker. There's no escaping that. And I'm certain that LFM has seen their fair share of bad-guys in the past. But are we not living in a global society that believes in the innocence of an individual first and foremost? Why are we assuming that every user will break the rules at every opportunity given? Players can be trusted to follow these rules. Global business wipes, faction wipes, and CKs exist as punishment on top of a warning/ban. These have been carried out, and levied against individuals in the community before, which I will expand upon this on the next argument made by members/former members of LFM. "We don't have enough staff to monitor everyone who inputs a request." Hold organizations accountable for rule breaks. Have LFM present as an administrative arm who can go in if a report or incident arises. Trust that the leaders of the organization will self-moderate their discord, and stop trying to control everything. Let users do what they do best, and let them hold the responsibility if they cannot make suitable adjustments after a verbal warning. This is something that we hold towards Factions, so why not towards businesses? If factions can be trusted, so can the rest of us. Why we should implement the reversion?: To make it easier for new, legal factions to arise. To give players an easier sense of immersion and involvement, and give those who can't be perfectly active access. Yes, you only need 25 members for openings, but what about everything else? People are making websites that literally simulate these functions to circumvent this rule. There's no rules against that, and to implement one would be to effectively stifle the ingenuity of the playerbase. The 25 members rule was a solid one. It was fair, but difficult. Adding 15 members to the Business Script? It's just redundant. Additional Changes unrelated to the initial Suggestion Public transparency. Players want it to become easier to form legal factions, so what is LFM doing to acknowledge this? Why is it that when someone poses a question, they're redirected to the forums instead of acknowledging that multiple users have a concern, and that there is a broader scope to the problem at hand. What is LFM willing to do to make things easier for the player-base? And what is this community doing to lesson the paperwork requirement? 10 1 Link to comment
Fallen Posted November 12, 2024 Share Posted November 12, 2024 100% in favour of some form of change to this rule. I fully understand the purpose of the ruling and why it exists as it stands, but at the same time it's heavily limiting. To touch a little on what Dunkersplay has said above; "Not every business has an email" - this seems a little insane. At least where I live, every business - even run by a single solo person will have some form of e-mail to reach out to, even if it's just a simple @gmail or @hotmail kind of account. We used to have the e-mail script ingame until that got removed - if something like that existed again? That would be an easy counter/solve to this. "Use a group chat" - This is an option, sure, however it is rather limiting. From what I can see, there's no real discord bot integration (the phone bot that is), it's not the cleanest of system. LS Chat also has a system, but again, not the best. Both are pretty limiting and only allows messages - nothing like polls, votes, etc which is often what some IC channels on discord is used for (for example event details, etc). "Text them ingame" - As said above, not everyone has the discord bot. This can be heavily limiting and is just a nightmare to message everyone one at a time. It's a crude, rudimentary work around that is not fit for purpose. "Use Facebrowser, LSChat" - touched on above. Both are not ideal. Both have heavy limits in terms of what discord bots/IC channels can provide as Dunkers has explained. "Players cannot be trusted to follow the rules" - This is a classic case of punish those who play to the rules because of a handful of people that don't. And that is silly. The fact that we have LFM, PM, and other team admins in discords with full perms over the discord, it's no different to monitoring the ingame chat/spectating players ingame in my eyes. If you cannot trust players to follow the rules, then why are you providing them a business/faction script? Why are you providing them leases? Assets? Vehicles? If you cannot trust that player to follow the rules, why can you trust them with the likes. With the above and what Dunkers has said to mind, I don't personally feel the entire rule should be reversed to what it may have once been, but I definitely feel some kind of change and work needs to be done to make it more....accessible and reasonable. A blanket rule of 15 employees/25 discord members is nuts for the reasons Dunkers has said. Not every business is that big, and honestly once you hit a threshhold of members, or certain type of business - IC channels are such a game changer regardless of member count. For example - a security company or bar/nightclub who has to run events. It is vital to know both IC, and OOC who can attend events to work it. If we looked at this from an IC perspective - that employee is hired to work for that company so 100% would attend. There would likely be a noticeboard in the staff room, with notes pinned to it, a white board, an email sent out, a handbook - all of which containing information vital to that event or opening. We have no means of this ingame unless we spam an interior with notes which - lets be honest will likely desync/despawn, and CIMs which don't last forever and get messy/don't contain all the information needed. Having an IC discord channel that allows you to set up events, list details per event, or use an IC e-mail channel eliminates all that risk and issue. At the end of the day - what on earth kind of abuse is going to happen in an IC discord channel that isn't already possible to occur in the likes of FB, LSChat, Ingame Phone/PMs etc? Everything is logged. What I would suggest to change and adjust this rule is to make it somewhat dynamic and case by case basis. Every business ingame is different with different needs and requirements. Remove the 15 employee cap Keep or adjust the 25 discord member limit Remove the need for approval/applying; Adjust it so that it's more of an informed aspect. To make the IC channels legit, you inform LFM/Admins/whoever to say "Hey I need IC channels, here's what I need and why." - that team 9LFM for example) can then have a permanent invite into the discord with full permissions (as they do currently) to be able to watch and monitor said channels. Have it set so that you must already have assets ingame (for example; you must already have the business script or a faction script) - this will prevent any Tom Dick and Harry just making an IC channel for shits and giggles. This also makes it easier for new businesses ingame to thrive and grow, it makes interaction and planning much easier for a game without making it like a real life chore. Anyone who makes a discord and has IC channels that has not had LFM/Admins informed and does not have an admin in the discord with full permissions then can be deemed as unapproved and thus technically could be classed as metagaming. The above makes it so much more accessible and easier to run and manage. I get that the concern may be that anyone and everyone will make a discord and have IC channels - but that's why it has to be limited to the likes of only allowing the above for those who already have some form of ingame asset/permission (eg a script, asset if it's a one time event deal, etc). Hopefully makes a bit of sense; though more of a ramble as it's 6am in the morning for me. 1 Link to comment
mj2002 Posted November 12, 2024 Share Posted November 12, 2024 (edited) 7 hours ago, Fallen said: What I would suggest to change and adjust this rule is to make it somewhat dynamic and case by case basis. Every business ingame is different with different needs and requirements. Remove the 15 employee cap Keep or adjust the 25 discord member limit Remove the need for approval/applying; Adjust it so that it's more of an informed aspect. To make the IC channels legit, you inform LFM/Admins/whoever to say "Hey I need IC channels, here's what I need and why." - that team (LFM for example) can then have a permanent invite into the discord with full permissions (as they do currently) to be able to watch and monitor said channels. Have it set so that you must already have assets ingame (for example; you must already have the business script or a faction script) - this will prevent any Tom Dick and Harry just making an IC channel for shits and giggles. This also makes it easier for new businesses ingame to thrive and grow, it makes interaction and planning much easier for a game without making it like a real life chore. Anyone who makes a discord and has IC channels that has not had LFM/Admins informed and does not have an admin in the discord with full permissions then can be deemed as unapproved and thus technically could be classed as metagaming. The above makes it so much more accessible and easier to run and manage. I get that the concern may be that anyone and everyone will make a discord and have IC channels - but that's why it has to be limited to the likes of only allowing the above for those who already have some form of ingame asset/permission (eg a script, asset if it's a one time event deal, etc). Hopefully makes a bit of sense; though more of a ramble as it's 6am in the morning for me. I agree with almost all of this, but to play the devil's advocate, your new concept is relying very heavily on the highlighted part. There are dozens if not hundreds of these Discord servers out there. I've operated a dealership with IC channels for a good while, and have only once received feedback (or some form of monitoring) about them once, and that was because they changed to a new system and wanted to go over each channel, one by one. Putting this responsibility on an administration subteam seems extreme to me. Having access, sure, but actively monitoring them is impossible. On the other hand, I also would wish LFM to know that we should really be carefully considering about what goals we are trying to achieve here. GTAW as a whole suffers from this trend where we keep making the rules more detailed over time. Usually, there's a grey area that people operate in, everyone once in a while someone makes a mess and breaks the rules which leads to a forum report, and then afterwards the rules are 'improved', by which they keep restricting more and more things. When this only hits ill meaning players, sure. But a lot of the times, it also messes with well intentioned players and their ability to roleplay in a business without it become a huge hassle. We went from 'whatever' to 'administrators need to be present' to 'IC chat channels are no longer allowed', to 'every single IC channel has to be requested, documented and vetted'. Did we really improve the situation massively over these years, with all the restrictions implemented? In my view, we should just go back to 'administrators need to be present' and 'permanent IC chat channels are not allowed', and that's it. This gives administrators access to the channels and logs, restricts chat channels but allows tickets, and doesn't place this huge burden on both players and administrators to keep track of every little thing, most of which will never be used for rulebreaking anyway. Those who break the rules, just punish them. Edited November 12, 2024 by mj2002 Link to comment
Aetherion Posted November 12, 2024 Share Posted November 12, 2024 (edited) +1 15 employees is EXTREMELY excessive. Some businesses will NEVER reach that number because they don't NEED that number. Interior designers (aka mappers) Graphics Designers Small family owned businesses Lawyers Any other client based 1-5 man army type business. Most of not all of these have clients. And how do you contact clients? Emails. To LFM, if you're gonna CONTINUE this route, then at LEAST give.some leeway to business that have clients in some way. Or maybe add a time barrier that lets you overstep the 15 employees. If a business is open for 3 months for example Edited November 12, 2024 by Aetherion 1 Link to comment
liq Posted November 12, 2024 Share Posted November 12, 2024 Not sure why we would be taking away perks given to factions/businesses. They can easily reach 15 employees depending on the type of business it is. If it has to do with factions, faction members could be hired in excess of that. There's chop shops that have that many employees even. -1. Link to comment
once upon a time in reality Posted November 12, 2024 Share Posted November 12, 2024 (edited) +1, most single shops IRL tied to bigger chains don't even have 25 employees that are big time. Make it like 5, not 25. 25 is absurd. Edited November 12, 2024 by marbella mondays Link to comment
Fallen Posted November 12, 2024 Share Posted November 12, 2024 4 hours ago, mj2002 said: I agree with almost all of this, but to play the devil's advocate, your new concept is relying very heavily on the highlighted part. There are dozens if not hundreds of these Discord servers out there. I've operated a dealership with IC channels for a good while, and have only once received feedback (or some form of monitoring) about them once, and that was because they changed to a new system and wanted to go over each channel, one by one. Putting this responsibility on an administration subteam seems extreme to me. Having access, sure, but actively monitoring them is impossible. On the other hand, I also would wish LFM to know that we should really be carefully considering about what goals we are trying to achieve here. GTAW as a whole suffers from this trend where we keep making the rules more detailed over time. Usually, there's a grey area that people operate in, everyone once in a while someone makes a mess and breaks the rules which leads to a forum report, and then afterwards the rules are 'improved', by which they keep restricting more and more things. When this only hits ill meaning players, sure. But a lot of the times, it also messes with well intentioned players and their ability to roleplay in a business without it become a huge hassle. We went from 'whatever' to 'administrators need to be present' to 'IC chat channels are no longer allowed', to 'every single IC channel has to be requested, documented and vetted'. Did we really improve the situation massively over these years, with all the restrictions implemented? In my view, we should just go back to 'administrators need to be present' and 'permanent IC chat channels are not allowed', and that's it. This gives administrators access to the channels and logs, restricts chat channels but allows tickets, and doesn't place this huge burden on both players and administrators to keep track of every little thing, most of which will never be used for rulebreaking anyway. Those who break the rules, just punish them. That's a very valid point - perhaps I wasn't the most clear with my wording on it - though it's more that the admins are there to monitor - should they wish/have the time. A lot of it pushes the responsibility back onto the player who is running/owning said businesses if anything. It'd be their job to ensure the channels are utilized correctly and without breaking rules etc. Having the admins have access to monitor/review contents of those channels is merely there as it is currently for them - for them to check in and do a small audit should they wish to, or to review contents of any reports or suspicions etc - very much as if it was the same for them ingame where they'd come to a scene and monitor someone for rule breaks, or check chat logs, etc. Your last paragraph does however sum up a larger issue with the server if anything in my eyes - there's definitely a lot of red tape on the server. You can't even go cook yourself dinner without having an administrator approve it at this rate. I've been an admin on servers in the past and worked management IRL so I know how it can be in terms of feeling like you can't trust a group of people (in this case, admins trusting players to not break rules), but at some point you have to take a step back and give people that trust. If only 1-5% of the community break that rule? Punish them specifically. If the wider majority break it, then sure, review the processes, rules, policies, etc etc. But given this topic being Discord channels, there's much easier ways to break the rules in the same way as I mentioned before, so having Discord IC channels regulated as heavy as they are compared to other means is just insane. Link to comment
JessicaTheRabbit Posted November 13, 2024 Share Posted November 13, 2024 Something needs to change. It disproproantily affects smaller businesses which on the whole tend to be the more unique ones. On the one hand, we are told as business owners to only hire people who work at the businesses, and to regularly remove those who do not take part in openings. Yet on the other hand the "workaround" is just to hire anyone to over come this limit. I own two businesses. One I can not have more than three people per shift due to the nature of it. The other is a charity that relies on a lot of coordination to get things going. Trying to run either of these now is near on impossible. According to the rules, you can't even use a bot now to say if you'll attend an opening. I work full time, I have a life, like we all do, and use GTAW as a means of enjoyment, but now I have to log online, send out a few texts. Wait for the replies to come in via the discord mobile text app, make a manual note of who can work, who can not, and then log back in again to send out another text to confirm the opening. I work for a large company, and I also freelance for a firm of 6 people. Everyone uses email, no one uses text messages to arrange things. Business owners are trying to provide RP for players, and are the lifeblood of the community, creating RP hubs, jobs, and opportunities for character devs, and seem to be punished due to a few bad apples. Finally, some businesses are run by illegal characters, and having LFM admins sit in their business discords doesn't sit right with a lot of RPers. TLDR Organising a business opening is more difficult than organising an event IRL and it shouldn't be this hard. The current system punishes business owners which are the life blood of the community. 2 1 Link to comment
Roddytheg Posted November 15, 2024 Share Posted November 15, 2024 Preventing a business from having a discord is just straight up stupid. It's a business, not a faction. Everyone uses discord and it's easier to organize openings and set reminders. Set channels up for banned people from the business, ETC. This weird feature ban from LFM just hinders RP. And if there is abuse, ban them? Don't punish the entire community. 3 Link to comment
Wolfess Posted January 17 Share Posted January 17 Bump. +1 In complete agreement here but one thing overlooked. The rule wasn't truly against rule breakers and guidelines to prevent such. It's a method for control rather than monitoring itself. Far easier to achieve that objective with groups than it is with small-time businesses and it's for that I don't believe this ruling will be changed sadly. This rule prevents so many ideas from moving off the ground because this type of communication is /required/ and the few businesses I've seen which purposefully recruited solely for the channel? I've seen collapse due to the stress having people they're not equipped to manage in the slightest. Personally, for my own business idea, which wouldn't hire more than eight people, I was going make a website and use that for communication purposes instead. "Players cannot be trusted to follow the rules" - When trust isn't extended to me, I won't offer in return. Simple as. The role required for this ruling to applied involves a massive degree of trust and while I have a couple of friends in staff(LFM included), I'm still not going to put anyone in a position to destroy everything I've spent countless hours working and preparing out of groundless fearmongering and desire for control with absolutely no basis for existing in this era. As for this though, to shed some light; "Not every business has an email" To back this up a little. - I'm rural, and this is true, yes, even in this age, for not all businesses to use emails. Several security companies in my area for example, have zero presence online to avoid the costs running and hosting their own servers for client protection. Neither does my own bank have any presence to broader WWW, instead, using what is called LLT, which is far more secure and central to the region with the restricted access. Many solo operators, small businesses, are also the same. /However/, unlike in real life, the game is exceedingly limited and this ruling doesn't make sense when you're required to make emails for your characters for every. Single. App. Makes zero sense to apply real life logic in this area. I've used emails for communication in-game. Why else create those bloody gmails and not use them on the character they're created for? The apps are buggy, and often go down for one reason or the other. Don't get me started on texts and the discord bot. Slight rant aside, I hope this rule gets overturned and honestly, dropped wholly. It's a senseless construct and method for enforcing rules, with no data to suggest this even works as it's impossible to track and extremely easy to work around it. Better to encourage cooperation than strong arm in this manner with turning this 'rule' into 'suggestion' with inviting a staff member, giving them perms to see all channels(a custom role - not admin, someone whom isn't going invest time, and in some cases, funds, to what people spend on their discord, don't get the right to be admin in them). Link to comment
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