Why Fevgames/IFS-UN do double standards, break their own rules and help speak against Niantic Ops?
To make it clear, I'm fully supporting the proposal for Niantic to make the "banning" process more transparent. I'm fully supporting players appealing for the ban by all means if they believe that it's an error, including organizing an IFS for it.
I've seen many false positives (because I knew them in person and I'm 100% sure they are playing properly) and many obvious spoofers not getting banned after being reported. I've even seen some blatant spoofers who made us very sad, and got their accounts restored after being "permanently banned".
If you decide to ban a player. Niantic should clearly explain why. It's not sustainable to always throw a template for a bunch of reasons. It's completely not persuasive.
But, why is Fevgames/IFS-UN not doing anything when 200+ players are actually violating the IFS rules? As we can see clearly, players in Echt, Netherlands are utilizing that specific IFS activity https://fevgames.net/ifs/event/?e=24236 as a way for appealing the unbanning of a specific player. I'm OK with that but I don't think Fevgames/IFS-UN should be OK with that because:
1. The photo collage sent to IFS-UN for approval, which is also presented in https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/20512/community-request-to-undo-false-positive-ban-freeazarole/p1 and https://twitter.com/IngressfsNl/status/1588875604027400193 , obviously does not meet the criteria.
The photo guide (Author:Ishira) given https://fevgames.net/ifs-at-home-photo-guide/ said that "The displayed items must be family friendly."
I don't think #FreeXXX or #FreeYYY texts shown in the photo are family-friendly. It's a movement which also happens on Twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/freeazarole which urges Niantic "to unban a specific player because Niantic Operations banned him/her wrongly".
As I've been told, if the photo collage sent to IFS-UN was not approved, the IFS Leaders of that activity have to provide an updated version of the photo, or medals/IFS counts for participants will not be awarded because that IFS activity does not meet requirement.
2. There were 241 players registered for that IFS activity. However there were 272 accounts uploading data (Why?) to that IFS activity and ALL got "verified" by IFS leaders, including 5 players with ALL-ZERO data which does not meet requirements. There is something wrong here.
3. Is this movement that happens in IFS allowed? Last week there was a post https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/20458/here-is-the-banned-2022-nov-ifs-winner-artwork-and-how-anyone-could-draw-it/p1 where the author complained about his artwork got dropped (by the same Ishira) because “This is not what we want to represent in our competition”. Then what is IFS-UN/Fevgames want to represent in IFS Activities??? Collective complaints about “Niantic Operations did things wrong”? Participants’ angry about a specific player getting banned?
If you guys dropped that artwork with a silly reason, you should also cancel the whole #IngressFS - Echt, Netherlands - November 2022 for similar reasons. Otherwise it’s definitely double standards that should not happen in Niantic activities. I’ve no objections to those players doing a movement at the cost of their entire IFS activity, but rules are rules.
By allowing an IFS activity to be used as a campaign for such movement speaking poorly of Niantic Operations, you IFS-UN/Fevgames are actually breaking your own rules. By accepting that photo collage, you IFS-UN/Fevgames are actually helping speak against Niantic.
Comments
1) Whether #FreeXXX statements on pictures are family friendly or not, let's say we agree to disagree on that.
2) RSVP to an event is not mandatory (but helpful), this is the amount of actual participants. For an individual there is no requirement on stats currently on the IFS@Home rules. There is just the 50k XM as a group. Our event has a mandatory selfie with ingress item as social requirement.
I won't comment on 3, I am both the event organiser (and creator of this group picture) and IFS-UN member, so I will keep myself outside of the discussion. Just want to highlight my personal views.
Or? I mean, Come on, what can they do? Make those 270 players not receiving the IFS medals by cancelling that IFS? I'm afraid they don't dare to do so even if they are practicing things like this somewhere else.
They dropped the IFS winner you mentioned because the reviewer and her friends for that "competition" obviously have personal enmity with that IFS winning player. And because that's only 1 Chinese player, who has been proactively promoting, distributing information of and speaking highly of IFS in his local community before participating in the competition.
People typically go after low-hanging fruit. They lost nothing by kicking him away. It would be another story if they kick 270 angry European players away for the same reason. Especially when those European players did not criticize the whatever personal fan channel those IFS-UN guys manage. A "none of my business" attitude is the most likely one that would be take.
I'm totally fine with every IFS activity to be used as an appeal for banned agents. Who cares if they are following the guidelines when IFS organizers are not following the rules by themselves? Get the IFS Onyx medal and leave it whatever it becomes, that's my two cents. As you mentioned silly logic, I guess you have seen the post those IFS guys were claiming that "IFS Artwork winner insulted IFS"
https://bit.ly/3UfzYZt
A rough Google translation and I don't see how it could do insulting as those IFS guys claim:
By September 2022, the game has finally arrived, and the quality of IFS's artwork has declined to a certain point. Although Luo Tianwang can't draw, I can shamelessly say that the art media of IFS in September is more like a collage drawn with Word than the previous high-level paintings. The main problem is that I personally I can't see that this picture has nothing to do with Ingress without the faction logo, I personally feel that this does not meet the requirements of being selected (Ingress elements related), this art is still too early for human beingsFirstly they said that it's a historical post that was found in the channel, the link of which (to the entire channel) was gave by the winner player. Later they said that it's written by the winner directly but there is no actual proof. No signature. No author name. It's ridiculous to see that every time they talked about it they turned to a new theory. Those IFS organizers are merely trying to find an excuse to kick the winner away after the winner spoke poorly of the game channel they run personally. Then why are you still expecting something from them when they are literally doing silly cancel culture?
Bans should be more transparent. I've never had a ban but had a warning which was based on untruths by other faction.
Niantic would not enter discussion over the matter.
I fully understand Niantic not wanting to discuss things that could uncover cheat detection methods.
If they could break the reason down to categories at least it would be a start.
Yes. Niantic should at least let players know whether they are banned for spoofing.
Spoofing, as far as I can see, is far more unacceptable than other kinds of cheating.
🤣 Good MEME. Very vivid.
I won't be surprised if someone comes to the forum and make a statement again like:
"Hi, I think I should clear some things up here.
Yes. I am the author for Group Photo Guidelines but I had nothing to do with the decision of accepting this IFS Group photo.
IFS-UN did not reject the group photo due to its presenting a slogan against Niantic Ops collectively. Those photos are family friendly and we found nothing wrong with them.
The approval of this IFS is decided by IFS-UN. There is no double-standards. The idea to appeal for unbanning a specific player is not made or promoted by IFS-UN by accepting this IFS, but by participating players only. The campaign which was organized by RES and ENL players together portray the spirit of the IFS activities thus as as a team it was decided to accept this IFS despite all concerns and inconsistency of our practice"
So basically, this IFS would be accepted because you are not only the organizer of ths Netherland IFS but also the reviewer of all IFS activities because you are IFS-Europe administrator of IFS-UN.
You are both the player and the judge. You play the rules that you defined. Wow.
Does Niantic know that the one who manages IFS for them is literally speaking against them and inviting hundreds of players to speak against Niantic?
I am not both the player and the judge. I never approve my own event photos, and like I am staying out the of actual discussion here, I am also staying out of the discussion in our IFS UN Chat.
The photo approval proces we use as IFS-UN members is also fairly anonymous. We click the photo and hit approve, unless we actually search for it, we do not see details about the event except for the location. Our event like all others does nog get any priveledged approvals.
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. But, I have to ask, do you think it may work as expected:
"Hey buddies. I've organized an IFS this month where I asked participants to urge Niantic to undo a ban for a specific player, which was not written in the description of my IFS activity upon initial application but was only told to participants on scene. A political slogan that you have not seen in previous IFS activities will be universally shown in every single piece of our group photos. Try to be professional and judge my IFS and our group photos unbiased. If this group photo is not OK then you must say it. Please make sure that it's really not family friendly that you would reject it. If our IFS is hosted in an improper way then you must say it. Please make sure that you clearly understand the fact that running a campaign on multiple social media channels is a common behavior in Europe. If you have to deprive us of the qualification of IFS medal please must do it. Please make sure that you will not take my role of IFS-Europe Administrator into consideration. Thank you buddies. Glad to have been working with you in the past xx years."
The #FreeAzarole selfies were not asked for by IFS orga, it was initiated by a XF group where members themselves decided to put it also on their IFS selfie. You will see lots and lots of selfies on our group picture without it. The massive amount of them inspired me to also put the tag in both the image and description of the group photo.
And I really really don't see where #FreeXXX wouldn't be family friendly. And I do not see why I should send above message to my fellow IFS-UN agents. All events are treated equally, whoever organised it. All photo links are public, so it's not something we can cheat with.
I don't think that it's family friendly because #FreeXYZ is a political slogan that you will not generally say to your family members.
After all, you are inviting IFS participants to weaponize the IFS against Niantic Operations. I understand that their system is not perfect and sometimes it leads to false positives. Still, it's not proper to weaponize activities like IFS against Niantic.
You can do it sometime else which is totally OK but clearly not during IFS. https://fevgames.net/ifs/event/?e=24236 didn't say that you would be promoting a special campaign. And did you mention that during the application process of your IFS?
We don't agree on the #Free statement being family friendly or not. So I will not discuss that further. Already answered on how things went.
Suitable for families consisting of parents and minor children.Promoting the welfare of the family structureWith no offense, is it a general behavior in Netherlands that people would say "Free XYZ" (XYZ stands for a person) to their minor children? Is it good for the health of minor children? I don't think so.
It's just not family friendly. Why you would not admit it when it's a common sense? You manage the IFS activities in Europe and your IFS won't really be cancelled by admitting it.
Because deep in their mind they know that something is not proper and this is really not something they would feel good to talk about with their minor children, when they weaponize the IFS activity against Niantic Operations.
One IFS adminstrator weaponized IFS Artwork Competition against one specific player. One IFS adminstrator weaponized IFS against Niantic. They all have "good reasons". They all got no audited. These violent delights have violent ends.
I have no clue where the original poster’s interpretation of “family friendly” comes from. I have to expect there is something being lost in translation from North American English.
Since Niantic and (I believe) FevGames are American companies, one should interpret the phrase in an American context, which in the case of this IFS photo would mean no —xual, drug/alcohol, or violent imagery.
TIL FreeWilly is not a family friendly movie.
Deleted. Changed my mind. Unnecessary.
Maybe offtopic, because I genuinely don't understand the purpose of the discussion because OP has clearly made up their mind... but.
I have never interpreted the action to be political or weaponized against Niantic, but the action is to improve Niantic, albeit it being an aggressive form, it does not appear to be malicious. There just appears to be no other way of public discourse.
And for the record. If I had a kid, it would definitely know the meaning and phrasing of #freexyz.
https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/20512/community-request-to-undo-false-positive-ban-freeazarole/p4 when players have started uploading POI of that player, which is seriously violating Ingress Forum ToS, it's obviously a political movement that is losing control. Posting POI is definitely hara.ssment and not respecting other players.
Isn't it malicious? What's it for? Add more stress to make Niantic Operations retreat?
I have stated that I'm fully supporting players appealing for the ban by all means if they acknowledged that they would take consequence for that. They do it at the cost of IFS. Fair trade. But now, they said that there will 100% be no consequence (for some reasons we all know). Nah.
Obviously IFS is not following its own guidelines and do what it should do. What a shame.