Admin Note Policy and Transparency

[AffectedArc07]

I have wanted this for years. My opinion is a lot less valid now than it was 2 months ago but this would be a welcome change.

[Carthusia]

1 hour ago, Da Dman234 said:

I don't think I'm quite understanding this fully, so people want basic/situational notes that aren't sensitive, but basically that just means the notes from every time an admin has spoken to and given people a warning? I always thought it was pretty clear that when we have to talk to people it's noted, and not to repeat that behavior. What exactly would be the point of having that information? Sorry if I've missed it if it's already been stated

 

Personally I don't need to see the inner workings of the team, I don't need to see every single thing said. I don't need to know all the dark secrets.

For people such as myself with memory issues, being able to take a quick peak at any notes that I may have keeps me from forgetting something I may have done or almost done.

In my experience more open systems like this work wonders. The systems i've personally worked with in the past allowed players to see Bans, Blacklists and warnings, and their time of issuing, when they expire and the reason they we're issued, a players ID and the Id of the punishment itself ontop of who issued it., and it was all public information accessible by a tab, from this tab you could check the record of any player at any time even if you we're just curious or genuinely wanted to refresh your own memory.

It all allowed people to be kept in the loop, and allow community oversight, without the need to show the internal workings.

[necaladun]

6 hours ago, Xyd said:

I would think a better method for this would be opening a dispute (as has been done in the past and seems to work nicely) on a warning/unfavourable bwoink they've received in-game and create a process to see what note, if any, has been added to their record as a result of that warning. It seems notes being shared in this process is already a thing, and that could be expanded upon further by allowing, and making it aware to players, that they can dispute a note that they may feel is unfair because after all, notes don't provide full context and lets be honest, from a staff pov,  you are making judgements/forming opinions on notes without full context in mind. 

I highly encourage this if there is any problem or concern - but first of all it might be best to just chuck us a message. Often these things can be cleared up with just a quick, straightforward chat. This is especially easier if it's done when everything is fresh in memory. I'm really not interested however in showing someone all their notes for their curiosity so they can be nitpicked over. 

This is especially the case with notes that are incredibly subjective. Is player X "a bit too aggressive" in OOC? Were they not grieifing,  but actually trolling? Does it really matter if they only hit the clown 22 times with a toolbox, rather than the 24 the note claims?

We really have better things to do than have players argue all that with us. That's not however to say you can't dispute warnings, or discuss them with admins, to clarify situations or have the note rectified...but we're really not interesting in digging over things from potentially 6 years ago.

I'm happy to discuss notes, bans, or just general concerns...or other video games etc...with anyone who PMs me - whether from the server or not. I can't guarantee we'll show you your notes, or show all of them, etc, but I can say I'll hear you out and try to address your concerns. 

I may be busy, IRL etc can be a bitch, but I'll at least try to direct you to someone who does have time to address your concerns.

 

4 hours ago, Ralta said:

All typical notes should be made public. The player can see when a note when it's made and the content it contains. Same goes for all historic notes.

This will not ever happen, at all. We will not reveal sensitive information that players have trusted us with, nor will we make it known how we investigate or detect metagaming, ban evasion, etc. This is not worth discussing, because it won't happen. This is not the "end of the world", of course, but stopping ban evasion, metagaming, etc, is much more important than what is ultimately a few nitpicks over 0.1% of notes for 0.1% of players. 

 

3 hours ago, Cazdon said:

Is there a place for discussing bans?

PM an admin of your choice! Even our trialmins by now have a few dozen bans under their belt. If you have any problems with how they discuss it with you, or just want further clarification, feel free to drop me or another headmin a PM. I don't particularly mind if you come to me first either. Hell, we even have some lists around of what languages people know if you think it'd be clearer and more comfortable with another language than english - pm me or another admin to try to find someone of your language.

We really don't like a peanut gallery chipping in or people getting a small snippet of it, and running wild with it. Also, ESPECIALLY if it's a recent ban, feelings may still be running a bit hot - it might be best to wait a day or two. There's a sweet spot between "too long ago to remember well" and "too recently to be objective".

 

2 hours ago, Landerlow said:

The thing is, if you don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of.

Yes...and no. Bwoinks and notes over accidents happen - if you welderbomb or release plasma or the singularity by accident, you might still get a note about it. This is more so we can note that you now know what not to do, and that if it repeats the next round (and another, and another...) then it's likely not an accident.

This can be a very intimidating game to newcomers. How is a newbie to know that a toy lasertag gun is a toy when they just see red beams and white on their screen, or that a single hit with a hatchet isn't really that lethal?

People shouldn't be afraid to be wrong sometimes, but they should learn from it (and not call the admins powertripping nazi-fags when pm'd about it.). 

We really do take into account the amount of time that has passed and how new you are at the time. If you ICd in OOCd and welderbombed and beat an SSD in your first 20ish hours of playing we really do not give a shit a few hundred hours of gameplay later.....assuming you have stopped. 

1 hour ago, BlackDog said:

The systems i've personally worked with in the past allowed players to see Bans, Blacklists and warnings, and their time of issuing, when they expire and the reason they we're issued, a players ID and the Id of the punishment itself ontop of who issued it., and it was all public information accessible by a tab, from this tab you could check the record of any player at any time even if you we're just curious or genuinely wanted to refresh your own memory.

I'd like players to be able to do that for their own bans for sure. Not for other peoples however, as this I believe would lead to people being treated poorly. Warnings here really aren't anywhere near as "official" as Steam or the like, they very in severity heavily. It could be a "hey could you tone that down" to "seriously do not ever do that ever again". 

 

 

 

There really seems to be a lot of assumptions here that are incorrect, whether from misinformation, or bad-faith assumptions about the admins and how we operate. No admin app is denied simply "because of notes". Discussions are held about all candidates. For anyone to be banned rather than warned because of their notes, it's rarely one single note. There are plenty of cases of people with 10-20+ notes. If it is one single note, it's because of something directly relating to what you were just recently warned about, or it's a realllly bad offense. 

If you start to think of the admins in less of an "us vs them" mentality when it comes to players (of which admins also are), and more people who spend a lot of time PMing people to explain to them why you can't hit an SSD with a toolbox, that you're not to use racial abuse, ERP with Ian (yes, multiple times), etc, as well as trying to get a good RP atmosphere without a validhunting murderboning culture, then it will make a lot more sense why we do the things we do and the way we do. Yes, we make mistakes obviously, the appeals and admin complaints list many, many, of the mistakes over the years. We're human - if we're having a bad day we might be a bit harsher or grumpy or abrupt.

But all in all, what bans come down to is - do we think this behavior will continue, and do we think this person makes the server a better place.

 

 

 

[Carthusia]

26 minutes ago, necaladun said:

 

I'd like players to be able to do that for their own bans for sure. Not for other peoples however, as this I believe would lead to people being treated poorly. Warnings here really aren't anywhere near as "official" as Steam or the like, they very in severity heavily. It could be a "hey could you tone that down" to "seriously do not ever do that ever again". 

 

I can concede that perhaps allowing people to view everyone's record could potentially become an issue for some.

That being said, players being able to see their own notes/records would go a long way in helping them remember past actions.

One really bad thing about not being able to look back at your own record is that say you are given a warning for "X" reason, you learn from it, but 6 months later you do it again, having forgotten the warning you we're given due to life issues or what not and are hit up by staff again, they see the note and punish accordingly.

From experience in administration on other servers and games, it's not that they maliciously have gone against the warning issued and noted, it's simply that they forgot with time, and in Paradise's case, have no way to easily remind themselves short of asking a member of staff, whom many appear to not be universal in their willingness to provide a player's own notes when requested.

Edited August 8, 2019 by BlackDog

[necaladun]

Understandable but thats rarely an issue. 6 months is a pretty long time snd time is taken into account, depending on the severity. 

And if when pmd the player says "sorry its been awhile and i totally forgot" thats generally all thats needed.

Otoh things like "do not use racist abuse" are one to 0 warnings depending on severity.

People very much underestimate how much their responses to admins affect things. Not saying you need to grovel and beg  (being called sir i thought was sarcastic for awhile until admins of other cultures explained how it can be honest), but saying "rules are for pussies" as one player just said to an admin awhile ago can turn a warning for something minor into a ban quite fast.

[Landerlow]

@necaladun  By doing nothing wrong, I meant doing nothing wrong *on purpose*. I know accidents happen, and admins take things into account. 

[Calecute]

I've been out for some months, but I've been playing in para for quite some time now, and I'm coming back, so I think I might as well chip in.

Honestly one of the main appeals of the forum are the appeals. It's always a pleasure to come and get up to date with all the crazy rule breaking and the excuses people come up with. I find that the admins here are actually extremely generous with everyone, including people that to me look like clearly malicious in their intent. I do get that maybe for the admins is better to err on the side of not banning, because it's a pain to have people complaining about bans. 

So, while I'm mildly curious about my notes, and possibly would dispute the admin description of the situations in my notes, it's simply not worth it to make them public. It's quite easy to not get banned, and to get unbanned. Public notes would make admins have to work more, would make the notes system less efficient, probably resulting in a lower number of bans, just to satisfy a few player's curiosity. Especially when you can probably just ask if you're curious enough, so even the upsides are not that great compared to status quo.

[Tayswift]

4 minutes ago, Trubus said:

Notes should expire after a year, I have bans I had two years ago still being used against me. (Admin/Mentor applications)

I find it unfair because as a player, I have changed a whole lot and being told no due to perm ban and notes 2+ years ago is the reason why.

This is blatantly false. You have access to the reason your application was rejected. There's no excuse to be posting misinformation in this case.

Notes do not magically become irrelevant after a set amount of time. Admins use their own judgement as to how long ago a note doesn't become a big factor. Plenty of admins have had a lot of notes and bans in their past and made it in.

[Tayswift]

You couldn't even take a minute to go read it again for yourself? Your admin app rejection literally says you had a warning "not even a month ago". Your most recent permanent ban at time of admin application was January 2019, not "2+ years" ago.

Your mentor app rejection says that we saw improvement but wanted to see a little bit more, and even encouraged you to apply again in the future. Which is literally the exact opposite of "you have too many notes, you will never change, never apply again".

I'm not sure why you've constructed this narrative in your head that the staff are out to get you, but it's entirely imaginary. We try our best to look for improvement in our players, because what is even the point of warnings and ban appeals if we're not willing to accept that people can improve? We might as well just ban you at first transgression and take down our appeals forum.

[BryanR]

2 hours ago, Trubus said:

Notes should expire after a year, I have bans I had two years ago still being used against me. (Admin/Mentor applications)

I find it unfair because as a player, I have changed a whole lot and being told no due to perm ban and notes 2+ years ago is the reason why.

With all due respect, this statement here basically paints us as always holding every transgression a player has ever made against them and that we disregard any signs of improvement a player may have made over the course of being here and really can't be seen in any other light.

If that wasn't your intention to make us out to be such petty and vindictive individuals perhaps you should put more thought and care into what you post, particularly since it also doesn't reflect well to us if you're making us out to be your enemies especially those of us who have worked very hard to help those who do wish to change and be a more positive force for our community.

[WingedYordle]

1 hour ago, BryanR said:

With all due respect, this statement here basically paints us as always holding every transgression a player has ever made against them and that we disregard any signs of improvement a player may have made over the course of being here and really can't be seen in any other light.

If that wasn't your intention to make us out to be such petty and vindictive individuals perhaps you should put more thought and care into what you post, particularly since it also doesn't reflect well to us if you're making us out to be your enemies especially those of us who have worked very hard to help those who do wish to change and be a more positive force for our community.

Very well, Bryan.

[Kyet]

My thoughts:

• Most notes are just a brief factual record of an admin's interaction with a player. e.g: "Warned for X", "Told they're not allowed to Y", etc. The idea is just to have a record that they were warned for something, so if they do it again, we know they were warned previously. There's really no reason to hide notes like this from the player. They don't contain anything the player doesn't already know.
• Some notes are the admin's personal impression of a player. "Has a really bad attitude towards admins" for example. These sort of notes might have bad consequences if revealed to players. For example, even a positive note like "did well in an event character role, consider for future event char roles" could have a bad consequence (player acting entitled to play event characters) if revealed. Conversely, they could help a player reform their attitude. Notes like this should probably be visible or invisible on a case-by-case basis.
• A very small number of notes relate to ongoing investigations or unproven concerns, e.g. "suspected of metacommunication with player X". These notes probably shouldn't be revealed.
• We can't make past notes public unless the admin who wrote them agrees, or (in exceptional cases) a head of staff approves it. To do otherwise is to betray the trust of the original note-writing admin who wrote the note with the expectation it would be secret.

My proposal (requires a PR):

• All players get a new verb, 'Show Admin Notes' in the OOC tab. This verb would only show notes specifically set as 'player visible'.
• All notes added BEFORE this PR is merged are INVISIBLE, unless the issuing admin (or a head of staff) goes back and manually changes them.
• All notes added AFTER this PR is merged are VISIBLE, unless the admin who is issuing the note chooses to make it an invisible note.
• After the PR is merged, some admins (such as myself) might choose to retroactively make every note they've ever issued visible. Other admins might selectively make past notes visible if they come up again during an appeal or whatnot. Some admins might choose to keep all their past issued notes secret. All admins will, going forward, decide whether a note should be player-visible or not when its issued.

Impact of my proposal:

• Already issued notes remain invisible unless the issuing admin (or a head of staff) decides to make them visible.
• Notes issued in future are visible by default, but admins can still set them as invisible when issued, or by changing the note's setting later, if they wish to do so.

[TyOmaha]

Someone gets warned
Admin makes invisible note
Person goes to check notes
Person sees note is not there
Person demands to see the invisible note
Person gets declined to see invisible note
Person goes around saying "so and so is talking smack about me and I can't even defend myself because it's invisible!" 

Edited August 9, 2019 by Ty Omaha

[McRamon]

41 minutes ago, Ty Omaha said:

Someone gets warned
Admin makes invisible note
Person goes to check notes
Person sees note is not there
Person demands to see the invisible note
Person gets declined to see invisible note
Person goes around saying "so and so is talking smack about me and I can't even defend myself because it's invisible!" 

I think if a person gets warned, in 99.9% of the time there is no need f.or invisible note,  for example "1.3.37 69:69 pm was warned for attacking ssd", there is no real reason to make it invisible, imho. In rare cases, where admin wants to add a note with some sensitive info so it should be invisible, i see no problems with adding two notes, visible and invisible. If a person does not get a warning and a note is like "looks like a person is borderline selfantagging, keep an eye if such behavior continues", there is no problem with a note being invisible

Edited August 9, 2019 by McRamon

[Allfd]

3 hours ago, McRamon said:

I think if a person gets warned, in 99.9% of the time there is no need f.or invisible note,  for example "1.3.37 69:69 pm was warned for attacking ssd", there is no real reason to make it invisible, imho. In rare cases, where admin wants to add a note with some sensitive info so it should be invisible, i see no problems with adding two notes, visible and invisible. If a person does not get a warning and a note is like "looks like a person is borderline selfantagging, keep an eye if such behavior continues", there is no problem with a note being invisible

Disagree, because everytime we do anything thats not visible in the notes, or a player discovers they have an invisible one, they will go full badmin on us in PMs.

My fear, is we are going to get a ton of note appeals, and then arguments about notes in ban appeals, and its going to make more work.

So if I make a note like "talked to X about running around naked as captain, may not be captain material and require a headban."   Am I going to get an appeal?  An admin complaint?  How does that work if its public and they know it exists?  Will they demand any note that is invisible if another admin says "You have a previous note for this?"

What are we getting into with this?  Is this more work for me as an admin?  Trust me, you have a great inventive for the answer to this to be "no."

Probably more then half the reason for the  "If this continues, ban them", is that its an inconvenience to everyone involved to actually ban someone, and deal with the appeal.  So its essentially just kicking the can down the road and hoping the behaviour changes.  If a note like that becomes greater then or equal to the inconvenience of banning, I am going to skip the note and just do the ban.  I am not a super hero, I just want to run events and spessmen.  If just banning without a complicated warning/note process is easier then dealing with notes, I am going for the bans.  Sorry, I just don't want to have a two hour PM discussion about someones notes, or a "note appeal" on the forums, everytime I give a warning.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Allfd
My brain died and just gave up on any semblance of gramer.

[AffectedArc07]

Was told to mirror PR concerns 

[farie82]

Things I keep hearing a lot from the admins is that they fear that people will argue bans or such. Isn't that what an appeal is? If they go argue a decision in game you still have the power (see rules) to act on the responses. 

In large this will also make admins be more aware about how they treat people. And see how different other admins do it. Yes it's a large group with different approaches to the adminning. But see it as a player. One round I could do X, even ahelped it. Next round I do X and get perma banned. Yes I'm going to complain and argue. But now I can't access direct proof since the notes are hidden. 

Mostly trying to state here the big differences in adminning and how confusing it is for the players. And that they can't do anything "against" it currently. And I think that making notes open will help make this become more apparent as well thus making it easier to fix/improve.

Honestly speaking I like the middle approach Kyet suggested. Just start new and leave the old behind. 

[TyOmaha]

Quote

One round I could do X, even ahelped it. Next round I do X and get perma banned. Yes I'm going to complain and argue. But now I can't access direct proof since the notes are hidden. 

We don't note people when we give them permission to do something for a round, there would be no proof in your notes.

[Coul]

Henk's point is, the whole point of having your own record of your own notes is for your own benefit, You can use it to reflect on your own behaviour and avoid making the same mistakes you've made prior and if you do manage to make the same mistakes then an admin can bring that up fairly and can even double down on the fact that they are now aware of their notes.

 

The concerns about people screaming about hidden notes is strange in my opinion, If you warned them you should give them a note as well and if you give them a hidden note after warning them that just goes against the whole point of the note and warning, and you can still apply hidden notes for usage in cases of RDMing or tiding or just suspicious players, they'll have no clue as long as you don't bwoink or tell them. I'm not sure how the player would be aware a hidden note would be written on them unless the admin themself came out and told them directly. If you really worry about people requesting their hidden notes to be revealed then you can simply make a rule about prior notes being unrequestable.

 

I see this as a win for everyone, admins can continue to make hidden notes and players can now keep track of the things they've been warned for or have gotten in trouble for and improve their character. Sure it might cause drama short term but it'll improve the server environment long term and for the players that actually care about the server and want to be a net positive they certainly will take their notes into account and take admin feedback very seriously and act upon it and their notes will just be a tool to help them.

 

Denying players the ability to record admin feedback and improve upon it feels counter intuitive when the one of the points of appealing on the forum is ensuring the players learned from their mistakes before returning to the server, allowing players to see their notes helps support that exact same view. You will help them learn from their mistake by giving them a record of it, and to the point of worrying people will try to appeal their notes. I see nothing wrong with this, why would you want players to correct their incorrect notes if the appeal had merit?

 

Admins are humans as well and sometimes things on the surface aren't as they appear. And if it doesn't have merit then there was no harm in clarifying why to the player. I understand adminning is a volunteer job and that you use up your own time to do it but I personally don't think it's a lot to hear someone out if they truly believe that a note given to them was unreasonable then I feel like they should be heard out as notes have weight on the actions of admins.

 

We all just want to play a silly wacky space simulator with a community of close-knit friends, Nobody wants to worry about a note they had from a long time ago that they might not even remember biting themselves in the back when they make a mistake. Giving players a record of their notes allows them a little bit of breathing room when they know what they've done wrong and evaluated themselves.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Coul
Make it bite-sized for ty

[TyOmaha]

 

Just now, Coul said:

Henk's point is, the whole point of having your own record of your own notes is for your own benefit, You can use it to reflect on your own behaviour and avoid making the same mistakes you've made prior and if you do manage to make the same mistakes then an admin can bring that up fairly and can even double down on the fact that they are now aware of their notes. The concerns about people screaming about hidden notes is strange in my opinion, If you warned them you should give them a note as well and if you give them a hidden note after warning them that just goes against the whole point of the note and warning, and you can still apply hidden notes for usage in cases of RDMing or tiding or just suspicious players, they'll have no clue as long as you don't bwoink or tell them. I'm not sure how the player would be aware a hidden note would be written on them unless the admin themself came out and told them directly. If you really worry about people requesting their hidden notes to be revealed then you can simply make a rule about prior notes being unrequestable. I see this as a win for everyone, admins can continue to make hidden notes and players can now keep track of the things they've been warned for or have gotten in trouble for and improve their character. Sure it might cause drama short term but it'll improve the server environment long term and for the players that actually care about the server and want to be a net positive they certainly will take their notes into account and take admin feedback very seriously and act upon it and their notes will just be a tool to help them. Denying players the ability to record admin feedback and improve upon it feels counter intuitive when the one of the points of appealing on the forum is ensuring the players learned from their mistakes before returning to the server, allowing players to see their notes helps support that exact same view. You will help them learn from their mistake by giving them a record of it, and to the point of worrying people will try to appeal their notes. I see nothing wrong with this, why would you want players to correct their incorrect notes if the appeal had merit?  Admins are humans as well and sometimes things on the surface aren't as they appear. And if it doesn't have merit then there was no harm in clarifying why to the player. I understand adminning is a volunteer job and that you use up your own time to do it but I personally don't think it's a lot to hear someone out if they truly believe that a note given to them was unreasonable then I feel like they should be heard out as notes have weight on the actions of admins.

 

We all just want to play a silly wacky space simulator with a community of close-knit friends, Nobody wants to worry about a note they had from a long time ago that they might not even remember biting themselves in the back when they make a mistake. Giving players a record of their notes allows them a little bit of breathing room when they know what they've done wrong and evaluated themselves.

I can't read that you need to use paragraph spacing.

[Gaty]

37 minutes ago, farie82 said:

One round I could do X, even ahelped it. Next round I do X and get perma banned. Yes I'm going to complain and argue. But now I can't access direct proof since the notes are hidden.

Hey henk, you could always take a screenshot of the conversation. 

Is something I like to do when I ask for permission just In case something similar happens.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Gaty
Muh engrish

[davidchan]

You can't have rules stating players are to respect admin judgments and be respectful to admins during discourse and wait to appeal such actions on the forums as appropriate and then immediately turn around and have admins judge and grade players on notes they have no means to review or dispute. 

 

If you want or demand the players to respect the admin decisions the admins have to respect the players enough to keep relevant information on how the players are tracked transparent. 

 

This argument of the need for secrets is simply false, if the information can't be shared with the relevant players it should not be saved at all.

 

"Innocent people have nothing to fear" cuts both ways. If admins stand by all notes being appropriately applied and relevant why can't a player view them?

[Tayswift]

People are starting to restate points that have already been addressed. Let's stop going in circles.

27 minutes ago, davidchan said:

You can't have rules stating players are to respect admin judgments and be respectful to admins during discourse and wait to appeal such actions on the forums as appropriate and then immediately turn around and have admins judge and grade players on notes they have no means to review or dispute. 

Yes we can and yes we do. In game, admin judgements are final. Forums allow for these in game judgements to be overridden by headmins. This is how it's always worked.

28 minutes ago, davidchan said:

If you want or demand the players to respect the admin decisions the admins have to respect the players enough to keep relevant information on how the players are tracked transparent. 

How does the former necessitate the latter? You aren't backing up your claims with any warrants or evidence. We ask the players to respect our decisions in game because disputes are better handled via the forums, since headmins aren't always on in game, and if they are, they aren't always available for dispute resolution.

29 minutes ago, davidchan said:

This argument of the need for secrets is simply false, if the information can't be shared with the relevant players it should not be saved at all.

Once again, you just say our argument is false. We've given plenty of examples of when it's useful to have secret information.

30 minutes ago, davidchan said:

If admins stand by all notes being appropriately applied and relevant why can't a player view them?

Because we have our own systems of oversight and they work. There's no reason player oversight would help. We've already pointed out how player oversight would cause unnecessary drama and rules lawyering over the tiniest things.

As for the argument of "learning", which we've literally addressed multiple times throughout this thread, the rules are literally just one page. Most people in this thread don't even have multiple notes for the same thing. It's really not that bad. If you're a player who is here in good faith to try to have fun and help everyone else have fun, you won't have any problems. A note saying you were warned isn't going to help that much. If you really absolutely do need a record of every time an admin talked to you, you can open up the PMs panel and copy and paste the conversation into a file. If there was information you needed to know, we would've told you already.

[Coul]

1 hour ago, Tayswift said:

As for the argument of "learning", which we've literally addressed multiple times throughout this thread, the rules are literally just one page. Most people in this thread don't even have multiple notes for the same thing. It's really not that bad. If you're a player who is here in good faith to try to have fun and help everyone else have fun, you won't have any problems. A note saying you were warned isn't going to help that much. If you really absolutely do need a record of every time an admin talked to you, you can open up the PMs panel and copy and paste the conversation into a file. If there was information you needed to know, we would've told you already.

The rules are enforced differently by each admin and they all have different ideas on what is and isn't okay, having notes that reflect that give you an insight generally on what is acceptable for admins in general, i'm not going into detail or going to provide any examples on how much admin opinions can vary, but the point still stands. Of course extreme situations are all going to be responded to the same way but context is important for a lot of these things and notes would simply be added context for the players

[Birdtalon]

Even if notes were made public the admins would keep secret notes regardless. I am a huge advocate for transparency and I wish notes were public myself - but unfortunately some things have to be kept private in order for the admins to do their jobs.

A halfway house would be to have public notes but with optional secret ones which the admins can use for confidential information. People can therefore look back over "official" warnings and the admins can still have their private notebook for confidential things. I don't think that would solve the distrust however.

I have always been of the opinion that admin notes should be between the admin and the player in question, a note should be used for feedback which the player should have access to in order to take it on board as well as to provide context within ban appeals.

If admins are writing things about players in their notes which are unsavoury then I would pose that they should act more professionally. I have personally experienced an admin telling me that my notes have stated that I have been spoken to about X on a number of occasions yet I could not recall any of those occasions at the time. Maybe my memory is just poor, but I think I would have remembered.

As with most of these things. Making notes public would not be some magic bullet which would suddenly solve all division, distrust and discontent. The fundamental choice you have to make as a player is you either play under the framework that the staff put in place, fair or otherwise - or you don't.

I'm also unsure as to why this thread like many others which criticise the staff becomes so hostile and standoffish. 

2 hours ago, Tayswift said:

the rules are literally just one page

One page which can be interpreted wildly differently, applied to an uncountable number of varied scenarios and varies from easy things such as "don't touch SSDs" to incredibly nuanced issues like how much greytide one can get away with.