Bans/Ban Appeals, a humble consideration.

[Sheakhan]

 

Staff-

 

I, like many others, read the Unban Appeals because often, they are hilarious and entertaining.

On occasion, they are informative!

However of late, I've seen quite a few that were upsetting; individuals being banned for things that at least I personally, wouldn't have batted an eyelash at, which got me to analyzing. I've noticed a trend, wherein individuals who are banned and ask for appeal have been increasingly more frequently denied than the server usual, and for increasingly less substantial reasons. The entire system in fact appears skewed, and I am strongly of the opinion that it is due to the process used.

 

When you ban someone, it usually stems from a personal offense at something, yours or another players. I've adminned before, I know the situation.

When you execute the ban, you either feel relief or gratification depending on your interaction with the player who you've banned, or the players that complained. Relief because the trouble is over, or gratification because that dude was a tool.

When they appeal the ban, many people might go in predisposed to denial, as a ban appeal in essence is a disagreement, save for one thing: You hold all the cards. I've noticed that, for the most part, admins here go into Ban Appeals unbiased, but conversely, there are quite a few instances of obvious bias being involved.

 

Long-winded, but the suggestion is really simple: I do not think it is right for the banning admin to be the one to make the call on ban appeals. They might not be biased, but if ANYONE in the situation is going to be biased, it will be them. I suggest that any other admin, or even 2-3 of the other admins be the ones to review the case and make the decision.

 

It may serve to promote more unbiased judicial fairness, but it will certainly alleviate the recent occurrences of snarky unnecessary attitudes from biased admins that pop up in these ban appeals on occasion.

 

Nobody is perfect, and god help you if you try to be, but you CAN perfect the system to mitigate human imperfection. This is my suggestion.

 

[Psyentific]

I'd think that the banning admin being unable to issue a verdict on ban appeals would be a very obvious policy to implement, and I'd be surprised if it's not already.

[Sheakhan]

 

To add to this, with the occurence of bans without any actual effort to notify the recipient beforehand... I'm honestly worried. I play a couple characters that, if walked in on in the middle of a conversation, or by someone who didn't know my roles, could get me unfairly banned; and with an appeals system that is prone to occasional acts of injustice and bans being issued without fair warning or any sort of discourse, I'm concerned that if I were to receive a ban it would be a cointoss as to wether or not I ever had my appeal seriously considered.

 

To be honest, as it stands now, the appeals system sometimes seems to treat appeals as "Naw, I already made up my mind, this is just my chance to tell you again." instead of "Let's discuss this issue until we reach an understanding."

 

Obviously I like this server or I wouldn't still be here, and this isn't a frequent occurence or I'd leave on principle alone, but I do strongly believe it needs to be addressed to keep it from becoming one.

 

[Regen]

 

Already briefly talked to some of the staff about it, I was worried as well so I guess this was just a well written trigger, and I will push to make changes to our current appeal system, but as it stands now it would be the higher authority that decides a final verdict if there would be a conflict.

I still want to add some basic rules to how to correctly fall a verdict on any appeal, for an example that you need at least two of staff to review it and that you need someone else's opinion before denying / accepting, because yes we are all biased to some extent.

However this is not my decision, I am just brainstorming, but I note fox and ponies about this thread, and hopefully get a change and opinion about this

 

[ZomgPonies]

 

I go through ALL the ban threads and review them, based on a single criteria: Is the person banned and what he did an overall positive or negative influence on the community.

 

Well written and apologetic unban requests have a higher chance of being accepted. Snarky, self-entitled or self-righteous ones less so. Players that are known to admins as troublemakers, EVEN IF THEY HAVE NO PRIOR BAN HISTORY, have less chance of getting their appeal accepted. We talk about our playerbase all day, everyday in our admin chat. We know which ones of you play fair and which ones like to walk the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

 

I see no problem with the current ban system. Play nice, don't be a dick and if you DO get banned don't be an asshole trying to justify shitty behavior and you'll be back playing sooner rather than later.

 

Thread locked, Fox and Neca will be able to put in their 2 cents if they wish to, but I'm not interested in further suggestions from the general community on how to admin the server.