Errare Humanum Est

To err is human. Everybody makes mistakes, even moderators. So yeah, I'd like to use this blog to show you a mistake I made. Honesty goes a long way in my humble opinion, so might as well show you this as it gives you an insight in the job of being a moderator in an FML Game World.

The situation was the following. At around 8.00 in the morning, I received a transfer mailing list message from a manager saying he was bored with the game and he was selling his players. I figured he wanted to build a new squad and I signed his keeper Benoît Costil and his midfielder Egidio Arevalo Rios.

A few minutes after confirming the deal, the guy announced he was leaving the Game World... Yup, you can pretty much predict what is going to happen next. I mention this in the Mod Chat and we all discuss what might happen. I end up embargoed, the same as all other users involved in this deal, as this case was forwarded to Richard (the main support mod, the mod leader in a way).

In the end, the decision was made that everyone but me could keep their players. That makes sense, in a bent way. You see, as a moderator, you need to have a whiter than white image (sounds like the advertisement for a cleaning detergent...), which means no-one should have grounds to complain about mods exploiting rules, bending rules or taking advantage.

Thus, my players were released (with a refund) and I was asked to send out a Game World wide apology to all users, to apologise for any inconvenience my actions may have caused. I've also added the apology to my blog.

Hi good people of GW Altobelli,

You may or may not be aware that we have been investigating the fire sale from [TEAM NAME] yesterday.

A number of users, including myself, purchased players from this team before it became apparent that this was a firesale.

Since all deals were at MV, all teams were allowed to keep their players, except for me. The reason for this is simple. Any transfer which could possibly be seen as even slightly dodgy must not be done by a mod.

As a mod, I should have known better and despite the transfers being around MV, my players were released so no-one can accuse me of cheating, taking advantage or bending the rules.

I would also like to apologize to anyone who may have found wrong or not mod-like. My intentions were pure and I just thought I had struck a bargain deal. I had no intention of breaking any rules or gaining an unfair advantage.

As a reminder to myself and others, a last word of advice. Please be very careful in future and remember that purchases from teams leaving the game MUST be for a realistic transfer value. In future please ask a Moderator (not me, hehe) if a deal looks too good to be true (as they usually are).

I do hope this incident will not affect the way you see as a moderator, so things can continue as before.

With regards,

Guido

Altobelli Mod Team

So yeah, that was the end of that. Sort of. Not really though. As I feared, someone used this situation to throw a tantrum as soon as the opportunity arose. Which happened to be not too long ago, as I embargoed his team for a potential dodgy deal. In a private chat, I was told "I was a cheating c*nt" and "handing out embargoes because I had one for being a cheat."

Lovely that was... We had to call in Support to explain this to the fellow. To prevent any such things from happening again, I reckon this is the best way. Just come out into the open with it. My deals were not illegal, but I have to maintain a whiter than white image, hence this decision and hence this blog post and hence the above apology mail.