Let’s talk about blacklists

[CreativeMod1]

So, I agree with both sides of the argument here, I think that there should be a system set up in someway to help protect players but at the same time I worry about people abusing the system.

I think it's important to note that there's 2 different main reasons of blacklisting someone.
1) I don't like this players playstyle, they're annoying etc.
2) This player has been toxic towards me and I can't play with them

I don't think anything should be done about the first part, like if said player hasn't done anything actively wrong then I don't think it'd be fair to force them out of a game or stop them from signing up
However, I think the second part holds a lot more merit and I think is what we should be focusing on here.

If you've been the victim of another player being toxic directly towards you, you should have the option to not play with that player again, they should be added to your official blacklist and shouldn't be allowed in your games nor be allowed to replace in.

The way to make this fair to stop players from abusing it is to use the report function. Upon making a report there should be an option to Blacklist a player. Said player is Blacklisted only if the mods decide that the report is worthy of action (no matter how small) because the fact is, if action is needed then the player did something wrong and thus there is a victim.

Using bans as a reasoning to stop toxic players isn't enough because toxic players don't always get banned or if they do they only get banned for a certain period of time.

If I've had an issue with another player, enough to report them and they've had action taken against them, then I'd want to be able to have the option to never play with that player again.


As for the logistics of this, a spreadsheet can be utilised to keep track of each players individual blacklists, when a report has been completed then the listmod would update the spreadsheet. You can then do a searching tool on the spreadsheet which displays a list of blacklists for players in a game. Only listmods would have access to this. I feel like for these kinds of issues a listmod should be able to intervene in a player list and remove a player from that list.

[CreativeMod1]

This forum software looks like it comes from the late-90s, so I think changing the interface to accomplish that is a non-starter.

You also haven't accounted for people reporting players they are not the 'victim' of. What's to keep me from going into a game I'm not part of, finding someone behaving badly, and reporting+blacklisting them?

Wouldn't have to be a change in interface, just simply when I report has been finalised you can reply to the message you receive saying the report is closed requesting to blacklist said player.

The point of this is more so for the Victims and therefore you can only blacklist if you're the victim of something.

A giant spreadsheet that someone has to maintain and the list mods have to check for every player of every game sounds cumbersome. It's not like these people are paid; they're doing these things in their spare time.

Oh boy, you should see what I can do with a spreadsheet, I could easily whip up something in a couple of hours.


Also, gonna point out that the LSGs have a thing for blacklisting so why can't Mafia games? Whenever you sign up for an LSG you'll always have a question asking about if there's any players in which you can't play with and Mods will accommodate this when casting for the game.

Admittedly LSG games are 1) Anon games (for the most part) and 2) individual games (so there's no abuse of trying to keep certain people off your team)

[CreativeMod1]

Hmm okay, so with that one I'd agree that that's something bad a player did and I'd put that within a category of said player was purposely throwing the game or trolling the game

Maybe another discussion to be had could be to look at the reporting feature as a whole, should there be a report button for someone actively ruining the game? and then if someone is reported for and mods agree that said player broke those rules. Then yes being added to blacklist would be fine in that case

I also highly agree with Irchers point about people changing and having timed blacklists could be a good work around for that and I would also agree that it'd have to be longer than the ban length.

I would however argue that if a player is getting blacklisted by so many people then it'll be a lesson to them to strive to be a better person and something like this could help stop players from being toxic. It's one thing being told that you've been banned by the mods for a couple of weeks, some people might laugh and get grumpy at the system. It's a lot more powerful to be told "Players in this game don't want to play with you" I feel like that message is more likely to resonate with a player and get them to think about their actions more.