RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans
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glad to see RGL taking a stance
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I do think the casting rule is dumb. The primary reasons given are just dumb excuses that are immediately fixed by setting up 1 STV relay server per concurrent official RGL cast, and the secondary reasons (the real reasons you have this rule in place) are unacceptable and display priorities that work against the community.
There is more than one way to cast a match. Twitch viewership is not a zero sum game. I would like to cast matches from spy povs, geared towards spy mains, which is a completely different provided experience from the traditional match casting format. You have been using the sponsor excuse for 9 seasons now, but there is nothing to show for it. You are picking up all the downsides of a big sponsor-friendly organization with none of the upsides or resources associated with actually being one, at the expense of the community.
Have you specifically been told by a potential sponsor that you will receive resources conditional upon single stream viewership? If so, it seems like you are seeking money at the expense of community involvement. If not, then your paragraph in that section is meaningless, but the community is still harmed. Doesn’t RGL claim to be a community league?
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@shotaway said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
he primary reasons given are just dumb excuses that are immediately fixed by setting up 1 STV relay server per concurrent official RGL cast
I thought DolphiN or someone said that STV relays were broken?
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@scaredy-bat
SourceTV relays in TF2 have an in-game bug that causes the relay to stutter and lag for all individuals present in the relay.
example - https://youtu.be/I2AihrVthrI?t=414
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This is such a bad response and a good example of how RGL makes it hard to not disengage from community involvement.
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@shotaway This is getting a bit inside baseball for me, who’s relatively new and not privy to whatever histories or whatnot that are shaping this conversation. Why is it a bad response to point out that there is a bug which makes relays a non-solution?
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@shotaway said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
You are picking up all the downsides of a big sponsor-friendly organization with none of the upsides or resources associated with actually being one, at the expense of the community.
Damn.
on another note, anyone looking for the metal footsteps mod now that it’s allowed can find it here
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@dlphn it’s allowed? I’m reading the article back now and it’s saying to use it at your own risk, causing a cheating ban if found out by the AC department.
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@Ta5K
Meaning that if RGL AC finds evidence of ESP cheats, after taking into account the potential usage of metal footsteps, players will receive a cheating ban.
I’m not sure why this had to be said, tbh. “If you use cheats in addition to a thing that has been designated acceptable, you will be banned for cheating” seems kind of… superfluous to say?
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@scaredy-bat oh, so it’s only bannable if it’s also found with ESP cheats?
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@Ta5K I mean, presumably it would also be bannable if you use it with other cheats :B
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@scaredy-bat said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
@shotaway This is getting a bit inside baseball for me, who’s relatively new and not privy to whatever histories or whatnot that are shaping this conversation. Why is it a bad response to point out that there is a bug which makes relays a non-solution?
It’s a bad response because it’s just a deflection of the issue. “Sorry, there is a bug that lowers STV relay quality, so instead we will ban you for casting our matches.” Is this bug well-known? Does it occur 100% of the time, or are there preventative measures that could be taken? Is it possible to build a workaround? Why not have the official casters in the STV while providing the relay server to third parties? Instead of putting any thought into solutions at all, RGL instead decides to offload this problem onto the community and ban anyone entering STV.
If the problem really is about issues that arise with too many people in STV, which never really seemed to be a problem until a few seasons ago (but I’ll believe you), then why not just have a measure for dealing with this when it happens, instead of blanket banning in all cases? Why not host RGL casted matches on servers with more resources? Why are “casting organizations” allowed to broadcast the same match? Why does this rule only exist for the official RGL casted matches if it affects the playability of the server regardless? The DDoS line is asinine, because anyone using STV info for an attack can get the server IP the same way. The first of the secondary considerations is narrow minded, because different streams provide different content regardless of which match is played.
The last bullet point of the secondary considerations is obviously the main concern, and the existence of the STV relay bug doesn’t address this at all. It should be unacceptable for a community league to take this stance. Refer to my first post.
It is obvious that RGL does not want to find a way for the community to stream the same match as them. I could sit here and write essays, but I don’t want to waste my time when the response is like what was given in this thread. Nobody wants to waste their time, and this is why it becomes hard to not disengage.
Every member of the community wants cheaters to be banned from the league. Does a single member of the community want players who cast the same match as RGL to be banned?
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The purpose of these posts is not to get my kicks in, but to try to prevent RGL from doing something stupid. By ignoring me, you are just deciding to allow me to be dissatisfied because it probably costs less to you, and this is an unacceptable approach for a community league. I believe the things I’ve said, and I like to believe that RGL wants to have good intentions and so you believe the things you say, but this rule exposes a corruption in your intentions and I think you should address it.
I’ll tell you how I am feeling as a result of this interaction. I think that nothing will happen and that this rule, which I think is terrible, will continue to exist unchanged. I do not see any good reason to keep this rule, so I will continue to think that RGL enforces at least one terrible rule that prevents me from creating and viewing community content that I would like to exist. I feel that my time on this thread has been wasted, and I am discouraged from doing something like this again, which would result in you receiving less feedback in general and less community involvement from me. Maybe this is your goal?
This one interaction is an example of many different interactions that several community members have had with RGL. If you don’t understand this, then you are failing at doing your job well. If you do understand this, then you are ignoring it for reasons I don’t understand, but about which many will be cynical. There have been several moments over the lifetime of RGL where others along with myself have decided not to try to improve the league, because of past experiences like this one.
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It has now been 26 days since my last post on this thread and well over a month since my original post, and I have not received a response from anyone at RGL, except for the one reply near the top that didn’t address the content of my post. It seems like I was correct in my last post.
It would help if RGL could at least state in advance which matches RGL is casting, so members of the community can know which STVs they are not allowed to enter and can plan ahead of time. Either way, this rule is wrong and has no place in a community league. Clearly you don’t agree, but it is frustrating that you are apparently unwilling to discuss it.
To be clear, I am entirely against any league rule which bans players for entering or streaming the same match as RGL.
Here are your justifications for the rule given in this article:
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To help mitigate possible DDoS attacks with STV information being leaked
– Anyone who is able to receive leaked STV info could also receive leaked server info, so this point is meaningless. It looks like you added this as the first bullet point for shock value. -
To avoid the server being affected performance-wise
– You could host matches that are being casted by RGL on servers with resources capable of supporting more viewers. I’m sure that this is unpopular with teams who own their servers and like to play matches on them, but it seems more desirable than banning other players for entering the STV. I’m sure other restrictions exist anyways to enforce that at least RGL can enter if they please, so extending that rule doesn’t seem too bad. Preferably, RGL can provide STV relay servers to third parties, or address the STV relay bug in one of several ways discussed earlier. -
To avoid an STV slot being taken away from the production team
– This is fundamentally the exact same issue as given above, listed a second time.
Secondary considerations:
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Promoting coverage of more invite matches happening during the same day and time rather than multiple coverages of the same game
– Different casts provide different experiences and perspectives. For example, I have been casting exclusively from the spy POVs each match, which is entirely different content than a traditional cast of the match itself. The promotion of diverse coverage does not necessitate match exclusivity. There is very often only one interesting game per week, and having different angles of the top matches is a net positive. -
RGL is in talks with different sponsors and selling the brand is difficult when the official RGL stream has low viewer counts
– Twitch viewership is not a zero sum game. Given any two streams, a viewer might watch both, one, or neither. A viewer of one stream may choose to not watch at all rather than watch the other stream. Since every other reason given is bogus, this seems like the only real reason for this rule, and it puts the interests of the league above the interests of the community. At what point do the upsides of a sponsorship get outweighed by the downsides it pressures onto the community? Would you drop HL if a potential sponsor would consider a league that only supports 6s? Or if that potential sponsor demanded a certain whitelist, or wanted to put in place some other ridiculous rule banning players for something stupid? If you truly are in talks with a sponsor that refuses to support your brand unless you ban anyone in the same STV as you, then you should drop that sponsor and look elsewhere.
– Why then are players in the very same match allowed to stream their own POV? Why are other matches allowed to be casted at the same time? Do these things not take viewers away from the official cast? You claim to want coverage of more invite matches, but here claim that you want more viewers, at least somewhat acknowledging that less important matches are less desirable to viewers.
The one response to this was a sentence stating that STV relays in TF2 have a bug. That seems like an RGL problem that should take precedence to be addressed above plenty of other things that RGL is doing, and certainly above banning players for streaming matches or sitting in STV. The way these issues have been presented and feedback has been ignored comes across as extremely scummy. You clearly think that RGL has made the right choice if you will go so far as to ban players over this, but I hope that I have demonstrated by now a certain level of investment in this issue to warrant a good response.
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Please reply to Shotaway. He’s trying to communicate with you guys, but you keep on ghosting him to protect your image. The “players cannot cast the same match as RGL rule” is selfish. RGL is a community based league, yet the casting rule makes it feel like less of a community effort, and more of a monopoly.
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No response since May? Surely, you must have seen this thread. Are you just ignoring me? Has RGL given any thought to this? It would be pretty cool to have things like the spy cam for playoffs / grands. This rule just needlessly shuts down extra content.
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@shotaway said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
No response since May? Surely, you must have seen this thread. Are you just ignoring me? Has RGL given any thought to this? It would be pretty cool to have things like the spy cam for playoffs / grands. This rule just needlessly shuts down extra content.
Just because u make a long post doesn’t mean its of substance and admins need to reply. Your posts aren’t new ideas that nobody has ever argued before, and if you -really- cared about getting answers to your questions you would just talk to somebody in production instead of trying to gain traction by baiting outrage on the forums.
@shotaway said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
It has now been 26 days since my last post on this thread and well over a month since my original post, and I have not received a response from anyone at RGL, except for the one reply near the top that didn’t address the content of my post. It seems like I was correct in my last post.
Here are your justifications for the rule given in this article:
- To help mitigate possible DDoS attacks with STV information being leaked
– Anyone who is able to receive leaked STV info could also receive leaked server info, so this point is meaningless. It looks like you added this as the first bullet point for shock value.
How is this meaningless, wtf are you saying? Giving STV info to random community members = a higher chance of somebody giving that to the group of idiots who try to disrupt casted matches. At least when its only shared between production and server ops we know who to hold accountable for leaking. Give it to a bunch of “community content creators” though? not anymore lol
You have enough info to ddos a server with just the STV info, it makes complete sense that its not just out there for people to see. RGL doesn’t have the ESEA budget for ddos prevention measures on their tf2 servers (or the budget to even own servers lmao). Its just not realistic to expect open stv information for the casted RGL games, especially considering the HL community has a decently sized group of people who think its Really Funny to disrupt match casts in whatever way they possibly can.
- To avoid the server being affected performance-wise
– You could host matches that are being casted by RGL on servers with resources capable of supporting more viewers. I’m sure that this is unpopular with teams who own their servers and like to play matches on them, but it seems more desirable than banning other players for entering the STV. I’m sure other restrictions exist anyways to enforce that at least RGL can enter if they please, so extending that rule doesn’t seem too bad. Preferably, RGL can provide STV relay servers to third parties, or address the STV relay bug in one of several ways discussed earlier.
These are non-solutions.
Did you watch the video exa linked? STV relays with enough people connected are literally unwatchable. You just move the problem down another step when you make a relay in terms of making the decision about who gets access to it, because clearly not everyone can be in it.You can’t seriously think saying “just buy a better server lol” or “just fix the bugs in STV relays” is productive in any real way right?
- To avoid an STV slot being taken away from the production team
– This is fundamentally the exact same issue as given above, listed a second time.
The problem is that you think making a relay will just fix everything. You seem to think ignoring the problem that STVs and Relay Servers fold under the pressure of enough spectators will just magically make it go away. It doesn’t. Plus it gets even worse because the game server itself can also take a hit, which directly effects the match.
Given that relays aren’t a viable option (pretending they are doesn’t make it true), this is a valid concern.
Secondary considerations:
- Promoting coverage of more invite matches happening during the same day and time rather than multiple coverages of the same game
– Different casts provide different experiences and perspectives. For example, I have been casting exclusively from the spy POVs each match, which is entirely different content than a traditional cast of the match itself. The promotion of diverse coverage does not necessitate match exclusivity. There is very often only one interesting game per week, and having different angles of the top matches is a net positive.
The league does not suffer because randoms can’t couch-cast a match. The league does suffer if its official cast is disrupted. There is a small benefit to allowing randoms to couch-cast (arguably the biggest benefit is placating angry forum posts and nothing to do with increased viewership of the matches lmao). Conversely, there is a clear demerit to not enforcing cast exclusivity (considering previous disrupted casts).
- RGL is in talks with different sponsors and selling the brand is difficult when the official RGL stream has low viewer counts
– Twitch viewership is not a zero sum game. Given any two streams, a viewer might watch both, one, or neither. A viewer of one stream may choose to not watch at all rather than watch the other stream. Since every other reason given is bogus, this seems like the only real reason for this rule, and it puts the interests of the league above the interests of the community. At what point do the upsides of a sponsorship get outweighed by the downsides it pressures onto the community? Would you drop HL if a potential sponsor would consider a league that only supports 6s? Or if that potential sponsor demanded a certain whitelist, or wanted to put in place some other ridiculous rule banning players for something stupid? If you truly are in talks with a sponsor that refuses to support your brand unless you ban anyone in the same STV as you, then you should drop that sponsor and look elsewhere.
Of the viewerbase who know they want to watch a casted match, the fact that random community member X isn’t allowed to cast it won’t stop them from watching it. Of the potential viewerbase reachable, the official cast provides so much more outreach than our communities independent sources that they border on negligible.
RGL doesn’t really lose anything by restricting other streams, and they prevent a LOT of headache for themselves. It is a willful denial of facts to pretend like open access to STVs hasn’t and doesn’t cause problems.
– Why then are players in the very same match allowed to stream their own POV? Why are other matches allowed to be casted at the same time? Do these things not take viewers away from the official cast? You claim to want coverage of more invite matches, but here claim that you want more viewers, at least somewhat acknowledging that less important matches are less desirable to viewers.
Players streaming their POV doesn’t create an issue for the production team, so its not a problem and not restricted. Similar logic for casts of other matches.
Conversely, community members competing for STV slots with the official production (or other listed reasons) is an issue, so its restricted.
The one response to this was a sentence stating that STV relays in TF2 have a bug. That seems like an RGL problem that should take precedence to be addressed above plenty of other things that RGL is doing, and certainly above banning players for streaming matches or sitting in STV. The way these issues have been presented and feedback has been ignored comes across as extremely scummy. You clearly think that RGL has made the right choice if you will go so far as to ban players over this, but I hope that I have demonstrated by now a certain level of investment in this issue to warrant a good response.
Did you really just say “this is a problem that should take precedence above plenty of other things RGL is doing” as if this specific issue is at all related to what any staff members ACTUALLY DO. Random Staff Members #1-100 don’t know anything about fixing bugs in the source engine. Like seriously wtf are you even trying to get at? That RGL Staff should just freeze other activity until they fix an irrelevant bug of unidentified source?
@shotaway said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
It’s a bad response because it’s just a deflection of the issue. “Sorry, there is a bug that lowers STV relay quality, so instead we will ban you for casting our matches.” Is this bug well-known? Does it occur 100% of the time, or are there preventative measures that could be taken? Is it possible to build a workaround? Why not have the official casters in the STV while providing the relay server to third parties? Instead of putting any thought into solutions at all, RGL instead decides to offload this problem onto the community and ban anyone entering STV.
If the problem really is about issues that arise with too many people in STV, which never really seemed to be a problem until a few seasons ago (but I’ll believe you), then why not just have a measure for dealing with this when it happens, instead of blanket banning in all cases? Why not host RGL casted matches on servers with more resources? Why are “casting organizations” allowed to broadcast the same match? Why does this rule only exist for the official RGL casted matches if it affects the playability of the server regardless? The DDoS line is asinine, because anyone using STV info for an attack can get the server IP the same way. The first of the secondary considerations is narrow minded, because different streams provide different content regardless of which match is played.
“Official Casting Organizations” are allowed to cast the same matches as RGL because they are trusted to not create massive headaches for the official production team. Staff members use whatever criteria they have for determining who is an “official casting organization” they can trust to not cause headaches, but its not reasonable to extend that trust to the community at large. Call it favoritism if you want (it kinda is if you squint), but it should at least show you that RGL isn’t trying to be scummy and squash “competition” to their stream, they just want official productions to proceed smoothly.
A practical solution for you is:
Have a brand, make your casts something consistent with a high production value and sense of professionalism.
After demonstrating that you are serious by running like this for a while, contact dolphin/current head of production and appeal to be considered an official casting organization.
Done.If this is an issue that you take a stance on more generally (i.e. you believe community couch casts are important), you should find the solutions yourself (and maybe volunteer to staff to help implement them). Purchase the stronger server for RGL casts, wrangle the angry teams who Refuse To Play On Your Dogshit Server (aka: its not our server so we hate it), bugtest and figure out how (if even possible) to make relays stable for more spectators, and make a system that allows for you to give spectating information out without increasing the chance the resident dumbasses in HL use it to disrupt casts.
Its really easy to just say “do more work” when you aren’t the person who has to do the work, and apparently its also easy to convince yourself that RGL staff are a bunch of powertripping incompetents trying to Silence The Demands Of The Community because they made a decision that you didn’t like. I guarantee you its not that dramatic. All it takes is one disrupted cast for production to be fed up and put a stop to whatever caused it (and thats probably what happened).
(This isn’t a staff response bc im not involved with RGL but its hopefully its better than nothing for you)
- To help mitigate possible DDoS attacks with STV information being leaked
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@nabla said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
Just because u make a long post doesn’t mean its of substance and admins need to reply. Your posts aren’t new ideas that nobody has ever argued before, and if you -really- cared about getting answers to your questions you would just talk to somebody in production instead of trying to gain traction by baiting outrage on the forums.
This is an issue that I genuinely care about, and I have outlined the issues with each point in RGL’s official stance. I don’t think it’s fair to say that I am baiting outrage on the forums. I haven’t cross-posted this thread anywhere and I’ve been careful to give the benefit of the doubt where I can, but it is frustrating to go several months with no reply when I know my posts are being seen. I’m not aware of anywhere else where the points I have made have been addressed. I have personally brought this up with RGL staff in the past, and I have only received dismissive responses along the lines of “we’ll look into it”, so I posted about it on this thread about the rule changes.
How is this meaningless, wtf are you saying? Giving STV info to random community members = a higher chance of somebody giving that to the group of idiots who try to disrupt casted matches. At least when its only shared between production and server ops we know who to hold accountable for leaking.
In order for the attack to play out like you describe, there has to be an exchange of confidential information from high trust to low trust. This exchange can exist with the same frequency whether or not the level of trust required to receive STV info is raised. If production or a server op is willing to give STV info to a lower trust, then the IP info can be given the exact same way. The issue is with the existence of the transfer of confidential information from high trust to low trust, not with the transfer of STV info itself.
The server info is already public unless everyone in the server hides their steam status, and this isn’t even a rule as far as I’m aware. Additionally, attackers can just compile a list of servers owned by invite players and RGL (or use the in-game server browser history), so worrying about STV access is just moot, and this is why I said the point was meaningless.
Give it to a bunch of “community content creators” though? not anymore lol
I hope that this attitude doesn’t exist within RGL staff. It’s supposed to be a community league?
You have enough info to ddos a server with just the STV info, it makes complete sense that its not just out there for people to see. RGL doesn’t have the ESEA budget for ddos prevention measures on their tf2 servers (or the budget to even own servers lmao). Its just not realistic to expect open stv information for the casted RGL games, especially considering the HL community has a decently sized group of people who think its Really Funny to disrupt match casts in whatever way they possibly can.
STV info doesn’t have to be public. The issue is with banning players for joining the STV or streaming the same match. For example, my friends who give me STV info are willing to do so because they trust me to not disrupt the match. There is a chain of trust from RGL -> server operator -> holders of STV info. RGL can explicitly state who in this chain is responsible for which events, and this limits the chain. Currently, this chain is cut too short.
These are non-solutions.
Did you watch the video exa linked? STV relays with enough people connected are literally unwatchable. You just move the problem down another step when you make a relay in terms of making the decision about who gets access to it, because clearly not everyone can be in it.
You can’t seriously think saying “just buy a better server lol” or “just fix the bugs in STV relays” is productive in any real way right?
The problem is that you think making a relay will just fix everything. You seem to think ignoring the problem that STVs and Relay Servers fold under the pressure of enough spectators will just magically make it go away. It doesn’t. Plus it gets even worse because the game server itself can also take a hit, which directly effects the match.
Given that relays aren’t a viable option (pretending they are doesn’t make it true), this is a valid concern.Solution 1: Give official production the actual STV access while third parties are allowed to use the buggy STV relay if they wish. This allows far more people to spectate than currently possible, and eliminates this issue as a reason to ban players for spectating or casting.
Solution 2: Spend more resources on better servers to eliminate this issue as a reason to ban players for spectating or casting.
Solution 3: Spend more resources on investigating the STV bug to eliminate this issue as a reason to ban players for spectating or casting.
RGL should not want to ban players for spectating or casting the same match as an official production cast. These are a few ways to make it easier to remove the rule. If RGL is incapable of spending additional resources, then resources should be reallocated. This is a big problem, and the way RGL seems dismissive of it is indicative of selfish motives.
The league does not suffer because randoms can’t couch-cast a match. The league does suffer if its official cast is disrupted. There is a small benefit to allowing randoms to couch-cast (arguably the biggest benefit is placating angry forum posts and nothing to do with increased viewership of the matches lmao). Conversely, there is a clear demerit to not enforcing cast exclusivity (considering previous disrupted casts).
RGL is supposed to be a community league. Placing the interests of the league above the community is a problem in this case. RGL certainly can screw community content (which seems to be the case based on your earlier comment) to suit its own interests, but I have problems with that. It is for this reason that I made these posts. There are better ways to lower the frequency of cast disruption that don’t involve shutting down community content in a community league.
Of the viewerbase who know they want to watch a casted match, the fact that random community member X isn’t allowed to cast it won’t stop them from watching it. Of the potential viewerbase reachable, the official cast provides so much more outreach than our communities independent sources that they border on negligible.
There exist viewers who would only watch official casts and choose to not watch at all rather than a community cast. Likewise, there are viewers who would only watch community casts. There are also viewers who watch both at the same time. Twitch viewership is not a zero sum game. Community content does not necessarily take away from official casts, and the outreach provided by official casts does not necessarily decrease with the existence of other community content. Any additional outreach provided by additional community content should be encouraged.
RGL doesn’t really lose anything by restricting other streams
This is a sad statement to read, and I hope RGL doesn’t feel similarly.
and they prevent a LOT of headache for themselves. It is a willful denial of facts to pretend like open access to STVs hasn’t and doesn’t cause problems.
There is a middle ground between posting STV info publicly and banning anyone who enters. It doesn’t have to be headache inducing.
Players streaming their POV doesn’t create an issue for the production team, so its not a problem and not restricted. Similar logic for casts of other matches.
This contradicts the points given about taking away from community outreach, etc. of the official cast, and it shows why that point is a poor position to take.
Conversely, community members competing for STV slots with the official production (or other listed reasons) is an issue, so its restricted.
RGL should look into ways to fix this rather than banning players for entering STV. The burden should be placed on the league rather than against the community.
Did you really just say “this is a problem that should take precedence above plenty of other things RGL is doing” as if this specific issue is at all related to what any staff members ACTUALLY DO. Random Staff Members #1-100 don’t know anything about fixing bugs in the source engine.
If nobody with RGL has the ability to look directly into the issue, then RGL should look into that issue first by, for example, looking for people who have the ability or encouraging community involvement to find a solution.
until they fix an irrelevant bug of unidentified source?
This bug is not irrelevant if it is the one thing closing off a large area for community involvement and is used as justification to ban players for spectating. It’s got to be one of the most important bugs in the entire community.
“Official Casting Organizations” are allowed to cast the same matches as RGL because they are trusted to not create massive headaches for the official production team. Staff members use whatever criteria they have for determining who is an “official casting organization” they can trust to not cause headaches, but its not reasonable to extend that trust to the community at large. Call it favoritism if you want (it kinda is if you squint), but it should at least show you that RGL isn’t trying to be scummy and squash “competition” to their stream, they just want official productions to proceed smoothly.
A practical solution for you is:
Have a brand, make your casts something consistent with a high production value and sense of professionalism.
After demonstrating that you are serious by running like this for a while, contact dolphin/current head of production and appeal to be considered an official casting organization.
Done.Bowl and some co-casters like myself tried to get picked up by TFTV but were removed within an hour because of RGL staff complaints. I understand if RGL doesn’t want its brand associated with any individual, but then there is no other avenue to pursue and your suggestion is impossible. I think there is some favoritism involved, but this is getting away from my point.
There shouldn’t be a need for me to develop a professional and high production-value brand to couch cast some match from high level spy POVs only. Content like that, in my opinion, is consumed by people more interested in the gameplay (and maybe commentary, but maybe not) rather than production value. Furthermore, it is very difficult to do what you are suggesting when 1) there are four matches a week, 2) there is typically only one good or relevant match a week, 3) RGL typically takes this match, and 4) the three remaining matches can be taken by another official cast if it decides. Even then, there is no guarantee to be accepted as an official casting organization; and after all that is done, then the core issue still exists in that the same match still cannot be casted from different angles, production philosophies, etc., and players are banned for trying.
If this is an issue that you take a stance on more generally (i.e. you believe community couch casts are important), you should find the solutions yourself (and maybe volunteer to staff to help implement them). Purchase the stronger server for RGL casts, wrangle the angry teams who Refuse To Play On Your Dogshit Server (aka: its not our server so we hate it), bugtest and figure out how (if even possible) to make relays stable for more spectators, and make a system that allows for you to give spectating information out without increasing the chance the resident dumbasses in HL use it to disrupt casts.
I don’t have the time or resources to do this, but I am also not in charge of running a league. I’ve put a lot of time into things like my posts here and a few suggestions elsewhere; but as I said earlier in this thread, it is hard to not disengage when I don’t even get a response. When you (in the general sense) resort to banning players for spectating rather than investigate this issue, the problem is on you.
In short: “I don’t care how you solve this problem. Here are plenty of suggestions from the top of my head, but banning players for entering STV is unacceptable.”
Its really easy to just say “do more work” when you aren’t the person who has to do the work, and apparently its also easy to convince yourself that RGL staff are a bunch of powertripping incompetents trying to Silence The Demands Of The Community because they made a decision that you didn’t like. I guarantee you its not that dramatic. All it takes is one disrupted cast for production to be fed up and put a stop to whatever caused it (and thats probably what happened).
Throughout this thread I have given RGL the benefit of the doubt, but it’s hard to take the silence any other way. I’d like to believe that RGL is just taking a hardline stance because of past issues, but the point of my argument is that this is too far.
I see the power tripping thing get handwaved a lot. I don’t think that there are any moustache twirling admins, but some of RGL’s decisions are ridiculous; and I’m not here to argue about that because I know it will go nowhere.
(This isn’t a staff response bc im not involved with RGL but its hopefully its better than nothing for you)
I appreciate the response. I and plenty of others still think that this rule is terrible. I think one of the big problems with RGL is that many of the people with good ideas aren’t willing to put in the effort to voice them (hard to blame them, look at this thread as an example of why people don’t), so RGL yolos on some pretty bad decisions.
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@shotaway said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:
I hope that this attitude doesn’t exist within RGL staff. It’s supposed to be a community league?
RGL is supposed to be a community league. Placing the interests of the league above the community is a problem in this case. RGL certainly can screw community content (which seems to be the case based on your earlier comment) to suit its own interests, but I have problems with that. It is for this reason that I made these posts. There are better ways to lower the frequency of cast disruption that don’t involve shutting down community content in a community league.
I am also not an admin responsible for the decisions made on this topic, but it does annoy me when I see this argument so I want to chime in. My understanding is that RGL is a “community league” because it is grassroots, built by players and members of the community, and isn’t owned by a major corporation, NOT because any decision it makes must empower every member of the community or that every decision must be made by community vote. Sometimes catering to the community is good, sometimes it is detrimental. In navigating that, the league admins should make decisions that are in its best interests that will benefit the success of the competitive scene, even if they may be unpopular with some members of the community.