You have a thread in the business district forum. You've worked hard on the initial thread, and you've garnered some good clientele.

Then some joker decides to come in and post something akin to "xxxxx walks in and shoots the bartender, flips the bird to the hostess, reaches over to grab a shot and steals a bottle of whiskey, lol."

Technically, its in character, but it sure is a pain in the ass. Sure you can mail that person and say "Don't step foot into my bar anymore..." but other than shooting the person, there's no real recourse to keep the 'asshats' from destroying your business.

I'm proposing some sort of Business Management option for thread owners. No, you won't be able to edit posts, or wack replies, but the idea is for some sort of control over regulating the idiots who come in to your establishment. Here's the deal.

You can't preemptively 'ban' people from coming into your place. If you want a closed RP, use the back alley. However, if someone comes in, makes an ass of themselves and is just overly disruptive, or you just decide after having that person in, you'd like to exercise your right as a business owner to refuse service to someone, there will be an option next to their name in your thread to "Toss dat schlub out!"

What will happen? Well the next time that person tries to post in your establishment, they'll see a nice little screen with the likes of

A large hulking figure blocks your path, stepping between you and the door. "I don't think so pal. Not after last time. Get lost."

And that person can't post anymore until you remove the block.

NOTES: 1. You cannot preemptively block someone from your thread. They have to have at least posted something in your thread before you can remove their posting rights in your establishment. 2. Only the thread owner can block someone. No one else, not even regular posters will have that right. If the original owner dies and another character takes over the bar... its all fair game. 3. This will work in the business district and the business district only. We won't implement this for street debates. Asshats there will have to be dealt with in other ways. 4. The block only works on a character, not by account. So if VendettaJames comes into your bar and acts like an idiot, you can block her. But when VendettaJamesJr comes in and decides that the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, even though its the same account, you'll have to block the second character.

I'd like to know what you all feel about this proposed suggestion, whether or not you think its a good idea, and if you do feel its a good idea but needs tweaking, what changes you'd propose.

Thanks in advance!

I like it :) But them again someone might just start kicking random people out of there very popular thread for the fun of it. I might of missed you writing it but would this work in the hq?

3. This will work in the business district and the business district only.

The formatting was a little off. :) Sorry about that.

Thanks im a bit sleep :P

Fantastic idea,Ms.James. My only question is if someone just generally dislikes a poster and blocks them. The poster did nothing to disrupt the thread and posted in character post that were proper but still gets booted. I think this could cause a problem somehow. Where say a friend of the booted patron comes in and says something that is improper and they get booted and so on and so on. Till its just a childish game where they boot each other over and over again.

That is true and a valid point to bring up. The only think I can say to counter that argument is that in reality, many business DO claim the right to refuse service to people, be it for bad checks, disruptive behavior, or for no reason at all.

However, your statement is a major concern with this change. Can you think of any changes to this that might curb that kind of abuse?

Love it. I can't wait to toss schlubs.

"However, your statement is a major concern with this change. Can you think of any changes to this that might curb that kind of abuse?"

Make it public.

A post is generated by the game along the lines of:

"A very large man walks up to Asshat38, bends over and discretely whispers in his ear. Moments later, Asshat38 slowly walks off and out the door. Perhaps it was safest for him to do it under his own power?"

----------------- Reply by (Insert default game name we would give this)

If we make the ejection public, it will quickly become noticeable when an owner is being... petty. People act differently when they know their actions are out in the open.

This may help to keep the owners, and possible instigators - more aware of their actions.

A public checks and balances for this seems a very ideal way to take care of potential abusers. If a thread owner doesn't want to see their roleplay ruined by jerks, they also wouldn't want to see it 'ruined' by the generated posts from their personal bodyguard over and over, leading to this feature being used sparingly and selectively for those people who truly deserve the ejection.

I like that about your suggested change, Scratch.

The only thing I can think of its for the booted person to get a opportunity to challenge the booting. Like when they get booted they get a button at the bottom of the "Hulking figure" message that allows them to make a complaint to say the BBB about the establishment and the booting is reviewed by a assistant.

If the business owner is abusing their power they can have their business closed by the BBB or have their ability to boot people took away for a small time period. Just to keep people from abusing it. This should of course be known to all who open a business.

The only problem I have with that, Sandra, is the primary purpose from an admin point of view, is to make the business district a user regulated zone. We should be handling incidents of game violations, not people being butts in the forums. So instead of getting bar owners whining "Can't you delete this post, he's ruining my thread!? There's no way to RP this back on track and make it make sense," we'll now be fielding arguments of "So and so banned me from their thread and I want it deleted." For the most part, in the streets, if a user mouths off in character, there are consequences to be had, and its handled on a user level. This brings a similar kind of justice to the business district.

I think Scratch had a great suggestion for this. A public checks and balances that makes users (both the owners and the potential thread-crashing buttnuggets) accountable for what they do in the business district.

Ah I hadn't read his reply before I wrote mine. Yes his would do.

Love the idea. In regards to 'abusing' the idea, I really don't see how it consitutes abuse:

1) It's my thread/business/bar - I'll do what the fuck I want with it that doesn't transcend game rules.

2) I can't see anyone being genuinely offended at being refused entry to an establishment that is a figment of their imagination. And if they are offended, the bar owner should just be shooting that individual np.

Great concept though, the sooner this can be implemented the better in my opinion.

I think you're getting somewhere with this and I like the idea of more control over it.

Something I would suggest regarding barring people is that as these are mob run cities, perhaps you can have a sponsor for your business or you ultimately can refer any problems back to your leader or ultimately Godfather/someone they appoint for this position.

For example somewhere above it was a generate message of "You're ejected from the bar" and to prevent this being abused an option to challenge this. Then perhaps if you challenge this it gets sent as a personal to the leader or high ranker who is nominated to deal with this. They review the challenge, warn you for wasting their time or worse, or speak to the business owner. The admins do not need to be involved in this and can be handled completely by players or various powers. You aren't happy? You can pass it to the city ruler. Be careful though, these are busy people and may not appreciate their time being wasted by idiots.

It could bring accountability to both owners and patrons if they persistently mess up. I'm not a coder though, so I have no idea if they above is possible to be coded rather than just roleplayed.

~T~

My apologies if this comes off thickheaded, Tallien, but I like to reiterate things to make sure I understand the concept. The general feel I get so far from the replies is that this would be a welcome addition and I'm wanting to incorporate any changes that would make the implementation and execution of this go as smoothly as possible.

I believe what you're saying is that you like the original concept with Scratch's addition, and also in addition to that an option for the ejected patron to challenge the banning to a higher authority (as Sandra alluded to, only that authority would no longer be an admin), be it a family leader in that city (the bar's sponsor) or perhaps even the city leader or godfather.

If this is correct so far, I think its a fair addition, though I wonder if coding in the 'challenge' feature would be necessary, or if that aspect of this change could be roleplayed to keep some part of this from not being automated.

For example, if one of your members had a business thread, and I was ejected from said business for reasons I felt were unjust... realistically you probably wouldn't want to deal with such a petty disagreement, however would you personally want to receive an automated personal that says something to the likes of "VendettaJames was ejected from "The Hookah Lounge" and feels this was unjust," or would your rather have a mail sent to you explaining the situation?

I tend to lean towards the option that leads to more interaction with the challenge process, from the actual writing of the challenge complaint to the leader, to the investigation and possible intervention of the leader based on his or her decision. I fear a "Challenge this ban?" followed by the sponsors "Uphold/Withdraw ban" button. The reason is, if it becomes almost a completely automated process, I wonder if the general annoyance and lack of effort would just cause more headache than the initial asshat post in the bar in the first place. By forcing someone to put effort behind their complaint it makes them weigh the options of:

Hmm, I really was an asshat, and right now, I've just been banned from the bar. Maybe if I apologize to the bar owner, I can get this lifted... If I appeal this and Tallien thinks I really was an asshat, I might get shot in the face...

So they'd really have to weigh the pros and cons of if they REALLY want to cause a stink about being ejected from a thread.

I do sincerely apologize if I mistook anything you posted Tallien, and I hope my reply makes sense.

Two things, firstly I think the odds of VendettaJames being ejected from The
Hookah Lounge are very slim and secondly I'm surprised there was no
"accidental" deletion of my post this time.

Grin.

Anyway, I probably wasn't that clear in my original reply as
I knocked it together in work. I think the original suggestion is good and I
think that adding in more control to the owner, especially with the imminent
introduction of value to businesses, is a worthwhile and welcome addition.

My
amendment to that was regarding potential challenges to being barred
from the premises. I'm not convinced it needs much automation, but my original
idea was that the head of the city sponsors each business and then in the forum
where a thread is posted, it would display the name of owner (author) and financier (sponsor) sort of
thing. That way you would know who is behind the front and who you could appeal
to if you felt mistreated.

I actually quite like the idea of a personal saying
"There was a scuffle at one of your joints, "The Hookah's Lounge" and
VendettaJames was thrown out." This would make me look into who was
drawing attention to one of my joints, which I entrusted one of my guys to run
and I don't think it is much of a stretch that a leader would find this information
out. In reality the odds of a
Made Man from another city being ejected are slim and would probably
draw a lot of attention from higher ups.

I think you're probably right in that making buttons for the
rest isn't really required. I like the idea of a challenge system though as I
imagine a lot of mistaken ejections will occur in the initial phases of implementation. I think these could lead to some
interesting role-play situations, whilst not affecting the businesses
themselves. There is no real reason these couldn't be role-played out other than it would be
easier perhaps for users to
utilise the system if it was coded. Again, I do not know the
difficulties involved in coding any of this.

Hopefully that makes a little more sense.

~T~

I appear to have fashioned some sort of song out of my reply. 

~T~

PROSE POEM ALERT!

It does make sense, Tallien, and it certainly gives us a bit more to think about as we move towards possibly implementing this feature. After reviewing it... and giving it more thought and consideration, a personal to the sponsor might not be a bad idea, so long as there's no action linked to it, and the sponsor then must go out and investigate the situation if he or she chooses.

Supposing I was ejected from the lounge, and I truly felt it was unjust, I could always send a mail anyway, but a personal would at least give you a heads up on the situation.

And I've decided to pick on other people with my 'accidental' reply deletions. I've got my sights set on Kates.

I love the idea,Maybe to not abuse this,the person with need Auth from their Leader,The leader would look over it and then give them,or not give them the auth... Just an Idea...