Writing a successful appeal

[mkenner]

 

There are a lot of appeals that get processed through this forum. While a majority of them have been accepted this is often after a lot of posts back and forth. This results in players being unable to play the game for a longer time while they're waiting for their appeal to be processed and in the admin team spending a lot of time working with people to bring an appeal to the successful stage. This post is intended to help cut that time for everyone by telling you upfront what you'll need to include.

 

1) Use the template. As a policy, any appeal that doesn't follow the template will not be processed until you use the format from the template. This template covers all of the information we need to know to process your appeal and it keeps everything in a consistent format which is easy for the admins to read and respond to.

 

2) Read the rules. These will show the code of behaviour that you're expected to follow while on the server. Your appeal is a commitment to follow these rules in the future, something which you can't do without reading them. If your ban was legitimately based on breaking any of these rules, then you'll be expected to identify what rules were broken so that you can demonstrate that they won't be broken again.

 

3) Decide what sort of appeal you're writing. They'll generally fall into the following categories.

 

Identifying a factual mistake of the admins:

If you didn't break the rules, then let us know. While we investigate every ban, mistakes do happen. Sometimes we get the wrong person's ckey if multiple people were involved in an issue. Sometimes a situation that looks like one thing was actually something else. In these cases it's best to get straight to the point. Identify what the ban was for and what we thought was going on, then explain the actual situation. If we were wrong then your ban will be lifted.

 

Apology and commitment to improve:

If you've actually broken the rules then the ban was legitimate. Regaining the privilege to play on the server may require some work on your behalf but if you can demonstrate that you're going to be a valuable member of the community and able to follow the rules in the future, we will work with you to find a way to bring you back. The best way to show that you're genuine is to understand and identify what you did wrong, if you don't know then how can you change it. If you genuinely don't know, even after looking through the rules, then feel free to ask and we can explain. It also helps for us to know why you did the action you were banned for. This isn't a matter of making excuses, it's helping us to understand the situation you were in and perhaps provide better strategies for handling that situation. Finally if you are going to change your behaviour, then say it so that we can see the commitment that you've made. If you're not genuinely willing to commit to this, then don't bother with this form of appeal. You might pull the wool over our eyes and convince us, but what's the point if you'll get banned for the same thing in a week's time. Work with us and we'll work with you.

 

4) Avoid using arguments that aren't accepted for appeals. There are some arguments which aren't accepted as valid reasons, while it's impossible to be fully comprehensive here are the ones we see most often.

 

I don't like your rules

Your appeal isn't a place to question the current rules of the game. That would be the suggestion forum. We will only be granting appeals to people who will commit to following the current rules of the game. If the environment you want isn't what we provide then unbanning is a waste of everyone's time.

 

My brother did it

You are responsible for everyone who uses your Byond account. By giving someone your password, you're enabling them to perform whatever actions they want in your name. Now this does sometimes happen and we're not asking you to lie if this is what genuinely happened, but it's not a defense. Instead you'll need to follow the policy above and understand what went wrong (allowing other people to use your account) and letting us know how you intend to prevent it happening in the future.

 

Abusing the admins

It should go without saying that abusing the admins isn't a good way to get us to invite you back to our server. However sometimes in the heat of the moment things slip out, so I'll remind you here to avoid this method. While we'll try to look past this, it does send a signal that you're not looking to co-operate.

 

It should be a temporary ban

If you're going to do the right thing, why would we wait to bring you back instead of doing it straight away? If you're not going to do the right thing, why would we ever bring you back? We only use temporary bans when that seems like the best way to change someone's behaviour. If you think that some time away will be a strategy you can use to commit to following the rules, then that's fine. You're welcome to suggest a temporary ban as the best way to bring you back, but this isn't detention or a prison sentence, it's not about providing justice or "paying for your crime".

 

It was good roleplaying

You choose the character you play and all the consequences that follow. Your character isn't a real person and we can't hold them accountable for your actions, it has to be done the other way around.

 

Someone else did something wrong first

If you've broken the rules, then it doesn't matter what anyone else has done. This is your appeal and unless we've clicked on the wrong person's ban button, we're not going to ban other people based on what gets decided in your appeal. Letting us know what someone else did, at the time with an adminhelp is the best way to see that appropriate action is taken against them. Once you've taken vengeance into your own hands, the issue gets so muddied that it's hard to take any action against them.

 

5) Listen to what the admins reply. If we're asking you questions or trying to teach you something, then it's pretty clear that we intend on keeping you around. We rarely waste this sort of effort on someone we're kicking out forever. Usually we're telling you exactly how to get your appeal accepted.

 

Regards,

M Kenner.

Senior Admin.