It seems I have been booted from 2 switched streams I used to give bits to and favorited and was watching for about a half year to a year.
First without getting into specifics, if you violate unwritten rules, and only do it once, should you be permabanned from a stream?
I understand things that would be considered felonious in a non-online setting getting you a permaban, (threatening someone, being a generally rude person) and violating blatantly any stated rules with the stated penalty of a permaban for violating stated rules.
But breaking any unwritten rules, and doing each instance only once, and being permabaned anyway.
I tried writing to twitch saying tat if hosts can freely permaban chaters, and more impoortantly bit givers, then the bits will not flow as freely and Twitch asks for no money from the streamers, but asks viewers to both pay the streamers, and take a 40 cent juice per dollar donated to the streamers. According to the Second Golden Rule, (the First Golden rule being treat others like you’d like to be treated.) “he who has the gold makes the rules.” Since the chatters give more gold to Twitch than the streamers do, then if there’s a dispute between a streamer and a chatter, why is the streamer assumed to be right in all cases, if the chatter has the gold? Another way to say it is “The customer is always right.”. Who is Twitch’s customer, the streamer or the chatter? Following the Golden Rule logic, the chatter is more of Twitch’s customer than the streamer is.
First of all, if I were a twitch streamer, (which I would be if it wasn’t for one pesky issue, a lack of bandwidth. 1.5 Mb/s in, 400 kb/s out.) I know that the average viewer is both my customer and Twitch’s main customer. I would not boot people off my stream permanently for first minor offenses, especially for unwritten rules. If you’re motivation is purely financial, then the main thing that would boot someone is if not punishing someone gets many people turning off as a reaction to one problem streamer, like when a person I got booted from raids my offline friend’s stream.
I’d have policies in place. If I have something that is unacceptable under any circumstances, I would state “no hateful speech towards me or fellow viewers: punishable by permaban for first offense” “no spoilers or hints unless I ask for it, or you give a non-spoiling/hinting tease, and ask if I want it, and if I say yes. punishable by an hour ban for first offense within a month. Second within a month or fifth overall is permaban.”
Twitch is protecting itself and dealing with streamers, but forgot about the rights of the chatters. As far as I can tell, there were no rules of conduct for the average chatter, or the rules were pretty much universal like anywhere you go on the light web, like no threats, no vicious hate speech, no computer viruses, etc. Some rules are up to the individual streamers, please follow them.
No where does it say the streamer can be a tinhorn dictator and make up rules on the spot and can give you the death penalty (permaban) for jaywalking on a country road with no sidewalks or crosswalks (undefined rules).
Another thing that makes it tough is twitch says, if you wish to appeal, contact the streamer or their mods. Unfortunately, if they don’t offer an email address where you can write to them privately, they force you to use public channels like Twitter, which may look bad, or use discord, which you have to be invited into, and if you’re kicked off the twitch chat, and even if you were invited, is a group chat with their other followers. If they cut off your only line of communication, how are you supposed to reconcile?
And why do streamers assume people don’t learn and change? When I gave a spoiler when this twitch site specifically said no hints, but said nothing about spoilers, after that, every time I offer a hint or spoiler, I always ask if they don’t specify, “Do you want a hint/spoiler?” My friend told me that was an assumed universal rule on Twitch, in the aftermath of the incident.
Another assumption I made was that twitch streams are by default rated 13+. So you can talk about issues related to what Marge Simpson calls “snuggling”, things like love, men, women, bodies, baby-making, etc. (and notice I’m trying to use fairly family friendly terms for these issues). Twitch makes it very clear if you enter a 18+ stream that you are 18+, and warns you, do you want to visit this 18+ rated stream? It does not do it for 13+ streams, and assumes that’s the defaults. It doesn’t, but SHOULD warn that if the target audience is 6+ or 10+ not to use certain words or concepts at risk of permaban. No where on the site did it say it was a family friendly audience, and if you saw her stream, a selfie cam is 60-75% of the whole stream image, and she’s wearing clothes that some might argue invite a male heterosexual 13+ chatter to complement her on a certain aspect of her body. I got permabanned for an issue related to this. at the time of the offense, she didn’t declare “family-friendly stream” like she does now, and he has no specific rule like “no discussing body parts kept under a swimsuit: punishable by permaban”.
And the funny thing is she’s a member of Bully-Free Twitch, yet her rabid fans dogpile on you if you get permabanned. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she gets kicks from permabaning people for complementing her on her body and having her fans dogpile on. Same thing happened to a few people before me, and a a few people after me.
Now if I want to complement a female streamer on her body or talk about some issue that not appropriate for a 6 year old, "What is the intended rating of this twitch stream? 13+, 10+, 6+? "
So yes I learn, and I adust, and I admit, a small dose of jusitce would have been perfectly fine, but not the proverbial death penalty. That why in lots of jurisdictions, if there is a death penalty case, there is a second jury trial to determine whether the death penalty is appropriate. I suggest if a streamer want to give the Twitch Death penalty, they have to defend it in Twitch Court. Heck it can be even a Twitch show if both parties want it televised. For less severe forms of justice, they are the tinhorn dictator, but for the Twitch Death Penalty, there needs to be due process.
I understand that this would be frivolous to take outside of Twitch, like to a state or federal court, so we need to tell Twitch that they are leaving money and viewers off the table due to people being kicked off their favorite shows permenantly for a first offense.
If I had a twitch stream, the group I’d be for is #chattersrights and #twitchcourt. #chattersrights means that we won’t permaban you for first non-explicit rule violation. We will explicity state permabanable offenses. and #twitchcourt means we’ll argue our case to ban you an give you your day in Twitch Court and abide by a neutral third party arbitration about leaving them on vs permabaning them if the chatter appeals and the twitch judge decides I’m unreasonable. And if there’s any reasonable doubt, it favors the chatter, not the streamer.
I know where Twitch’s money comes from, from chatters. if I streamed, which I will once I get decent internet, I know my money comes from chatters, so i will not belittle the chatters and permaban them when I’m mildly annoyed.
I tried to post this on Twitch’s Reddit, but Twitch’s redit is owned by twitch, so when I posted this, I got deleted. Twitch thinks I’m some lone nut. Has any one else complained about not giving twitch chatters a bill or rights, and putting 100% of the power in streamer’s hands. These 2 streamers I dealt with are out of control.
And one of the streamers raided my offline firend’s stream. Since there was no way to talk to him on his stream, I decided to engage him on this third party stream. Then I tried to ask my offline friend to stand up for me, and help me, but he was silent until after the twitchcast, texting me to stop it and saying his viewership dropped between when this streamer raided my offline friend, and when I tried to engage him, and get the streamer to intervene, like my legitimate complaints about his permabanning me is causing problems in my oflline friend stream when this streamer raids my offline friend.
These are derivative complaints, which mean they stem directly from the wrongful permabanning on 2 websites. When I tried to complain to a fellow Bully-Free twitch about a compaint that the streamer was engaging in bullying activiites. that person said I understand but there’s nothing I can do, the streamer has complete rights to the channel. They said talk to her off stream, but the problem is she has no off-stream communication line that isn’t invite only. This second streamer said if I complained aboutt his streamer anymore, I’d be banned. Luckily he game a strict warning, so I shut up.
That funny this streamer heard me, and didn’t take seroius the claim that she is bullying streamers and she singed up for bully-free twitch. I accuse her of not practicing what she preaches, and this other streamer admits it’s a misunderstanding, but does nothing to correct it or help me or mediate. It doesn’t disturb the other streamer that an anti-bulltying streamer is engaged in bullying herself? That streamer just shrugs it off?
If you want #chattersrights on twitch, and want your day in #twtichcourt make your voices known with your ban-happy streamer stories. Twitch won’t let us talk about it on their official sites, but that doesn’t mean we can bring it up elsewhere.
But there is a balance. Just like it shouldn’t be a tinhorn dictatorship, it shouldn’t be a mobocracy either. Most people are both chatters and streamers. Twitch doesn’t allow “snuggle streams”, so it can set rules for streamers. Maybe honoring a chatter’s bill of rights could be a condition to stream, like a system of Twitch Courts to resolve streamer/chatter disputes, and a maximum arbitrary ban length for violating unspecified rules. These rules are supposed to keep both bad chatters and bad streamers in line.
