[ValkyrieSkies]

I've always liked the SS13 model of an administrative sub-forum with sub-forums for:

Ban Appeals (with a sub-forum for closed appeals)
Ban Requests (for formally reporting major transgressions)
Player Feedback (for rulebreaking/misconduct that isn't banworthy but still not cool)
Admin Feedback (A thread for every admin/mod for reporting very good conduct or for judgements that players don't entirely agree with)

It's clean, it's open, and allows easy access to information. Here's the /vg/station sub-forum for example; http://ss13.moe/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 (May contain strong language in some threads)

[Noxid]

I think this is still a big issue today that still has not been resolved. I don't have much to add as I feel like everything already posted is pretty timeless. I just hope this time some attention is payed to it this time.

[Balor]

Bumping this again. It deserves more than to be ignored, and the opinions expressed in this thread are necessary changes for the overall health of the community.

[Dystopia]

As stated in the more recent thread regarding this topic, I promised to respond to this one.

Before I begin, I'd like to preface this by saying that it's generally not a good idea to necropost on dead threads. I understand that feeling unheard and seeing someone else's efforts that seem to have gone unheard might make it seem like a good idea, but it's genuinely better to start a new thread on the subject, as Apple did.

This is especially the case with things a year or more aged, and it's my hopes that my responses will give insight as to why.

I skipped over posts that looked to repeat the initial concept or those that would be addressed by my response more or less, but it's possible I might have missed something, so please let me know if I have.

Policy Rework: Player Complaints & Bans

Beware - Essay Alert! (Disclaimer I have a great deal to cover here, so I will try to be brief and keep my main problems / resolutions bullet pointed. This suggestion is not for my own benefit, but for the server as a whole - although a number of people I know, have been hurt consistently by these factors which prompted me to hasten the development of this idea. Please bear with me as some of you may take this personally but the ultimate goal is to improve the way Players and GMs interact, for everybody.

I'm also fully aware that I stand a high chance of being lynched for this, but it really needs to be said. I honestly don't care - I can't be the only one who feels this way - If I am, that would be a real shame indeed for the gaming community.

Current Issues - Why is change needed?

• #1 - Preferential Sourcing / Bias: As it currently stands, a player with a better reputation or popularity index can inherently be considered as a more credible source of information regardless of the accuracy of that information, which in the absence of logs hinges only upon said player's aforementioned perceived credibility. Unless you want to promote an insular, divisive culture, hard evidence coupled with impartiality of judgement are tantamount; regardless of personal feelings on behalf of the Moderators. Without those things, you have the sort of situation that exists now - whereby interactions with better-known players are a worrying prospect due to the looming threat (imagined or otherwise, it makes no difference) of being branded for 'Harassment', purely because you happen to like the same playby or because you happen to play an ICly abrasive character.
  
  
• #2 - [Lack of] Transparency: Complaints regarding players, presented by other players, are handled in a (perhaps unintentionally) 'secretive' manner with no indication of what evidence has actually been presented to lead to the final ruling, and why that information is relevant to the matter at hand. This is because most complaints are handled in private messages - a task made a great deal easier when one knows the GM in question rather well. By extension to this issue, the very act of handling complaints in this way is inefficient at best, where one has to personally message all parties involved - waiting for them to be online, or otherwise 'un-busy' enough to give you, the Moderator, the answers that you want.
  
• #3 - Deliberation: Sometimes, issues will end up stewing over for several days with staff all 'agreeing' that something should definitely be done, but nobody actually mobilizing to resolve it (I know this from past conversations with Moderators regarding unsolved matters) - whether this is due to being busy or otherwise, it's not really a good thing for anybody? Or perhaps this is due to difficulty tracking the workload of each GM, or because a collective decision is required? Even so - being that all Moderators are held to the same standard, does a decision really need to be unanimous for the majority of cases?
  
• #4 - Outright Dismissal: Occasionally, whether the accused (or indeed, the accuser) will be heard or not can purely be down to a roll of the dice - a roll influenced in part - but not entirely by the specific person contacting the GM. From first hand experience I know that the GMs do discuss matters with the person in question and allow them to defend themselves and present their side of the story, but I have evidence to suggest that there are some players this does not apply to at all. Moderators do state that they will seek to remain unbiased to the best of their ability - and I'm sure this is largely the case. However, if that is true, you still need to appreciate the fact that being ignored frequently or not consulted on issues that pertain to yourself, comes across very badly, regardless of the truth. Seeming is being, which lends itself to my point regarding transparency.
  

So, why does this matter to me, personally?

Well, if you're a Moderator, the issues I've highlighted can be a big problem for you, as much as they are for the players. Where transparency plays into this - if you're attempting to perform your role to the very best of your ability in a professional and unbiased fashion, that will be far more visible if relevant individuals related to each case can clearly see what you're doing - which not only benefits your reputation as a collective group but also lends itself to more fluid cooperation with the players. Furthermore, a large portion of the current process is - as mentioned - inefficient and probably makes your job a lot harder than it really needs to be - particularly when you aren't paid to do this, and give up your own free time for it.

If you're a player, whether this post is really relevant to you depends entirely on your perspective - I will be honest here, this stuff probably doesn't matter to you, because you follow the rules and try to get along with everyone, yeah? Well, you'd be right in that - until the point where you're not, and you are suddenly the butt of an accusation which you feel is unjust or untrue. Your friends all abandon you, because they think you're X or Y - and because being seen to support you would look very bad for them. Nobody ever believes this will happen until it does. And when you find yourself in a situation like mine, and those others who this thread is relevant to, would you prefer things to be done differently to ensure you get a fair deal?

Okay Jupiter, you do nothing but complain, now try proposing something?

To use an existing, working example - Space Station 13 servers such as Aurora, Bay and Paradise (for all their infinite faults) handle issues regarding player conduct extremely well - nigh-on flawlessly, in fact. The only issue that the player base of those particular servers have with that system is that it works SO well, that the rules are enforced relentlessly, leaving them with no leg to stand on when they are banned for griefing, poor roleplay or generally bad behavior.

• #1 - Player Complaints Sub-Forum: In order to promote a healthy, transparent environment where all players of the server can clearly see recorded incidents (barring those of a more 'personal' nature), readily access the cases to present relevant evidence of their own. A GM can select the case, post that they are handling it - all the evidence is already provided for them, anything else that they deem necessary is at their discretion. The accused can either respond to that thread or be interviewed privately. Idyllically a Moderator need only take action based on what lies before them (unless it's not enough). I suggest a sub-forum like this one, which should speak for itself. Let there never be any confusion as to why a person is being punished. 'You know what you did', while there is a chance that you may be correct, is not a satisfactory answer particularly when a person, and those close to the case in question, remain puzzled with the outcome.
  
• #2 - (Habeus Corpus!) Accusation > Evidence > Witnesses > Action: Equally, I understand that all cases cannot necessarily be dealt with publicly - either due to a personal, embarrassing interaction or because an issue in progress requires a more immediate resolution. For this, we still have Discord and GM Help, as ever. With that said... It should be standard policy in such a situation for evidence to still be presented, including logs, statements of any witnesses, and a statement from the accused player giving them a chance to present THEIR own logs. If this is already standard policy, it is NOT being enforced - or if it is, then it is done so selectively and dismissed when convenient. It is also never enough to provide a one-word explanation as to why a person is being punished, unless of course you are exceptionally lazy and are treating that person dismissively - in which case you absolutely should not be a member of a team that (supposedly) enforces server rules FAIRLY and WITHOUT BIAS.
  
• #3 - Rehabilitation vs Punishment: Why do people become Moderators? There are many theories behind this, but only one correct answer (for those that deserve to hold the title) - because they want to promote a healthy environment where all players can enjoy the game without interference, or negative behaviors of others. Healthy is the operative segment here, and when players do step over the line, the intention should be to correct their behavior, advise them on how they can change, administer a fitting punishment and hope for the best. This means believing in the capability of other players, to change. This means dealing with every situation on an individual, objective basis, where previous transgressions cannot be used against the accused. By all means, a person's punishment can, and SHOULD increase with severity if it is a repeat offence, but treating a person like a criminal, because of their past mistakes, is a self-contained spiral from which a player with a sordid history cannot escape REGARDLESS of whether they are trying to change or not, BECAUSE the accusations and rulings of others acting on bias alone CONSISTENTLY label them as the villain, ADDING to the list of transgressions that may or may not even be true to begin with.
  
• .
  
• #4 - By default, administrators are under no obligation to explain anything to you: This is wrong. On every conceivable level. This needs to be removed - the GM team absolutely must be able to provide clear evidence that the decisions they have come to are fair and just, because an unwillingness to explain a situation that is neither embarrassing nor a great deal of effort to do, could very well be considered an admittance of guilt in and of itself. I'm not talking about providing a reply the size of this deplorable post of mine, I'm talking about literally telling a person what they have done wrong, and how you know they've done that.
  

You're proposing a change that could take a lot of work...

Actually, no. I already have a working template for a Player Complaints sub-forum, including guidelines for posting and a policy on 'igniting a flame war' in a thread. The actual submissions themselves include the Username (Discord optional) of the accuser, the character name of the accused (NOT their Discord - because that's giving away another person's information without their permission), a brief description of the situation and a segment for logs and screenshots to be posted. None of this requires work from the GMs - if a Player feels that an issue is truly serious enough to the point where they are unable to resolve their own dispute, they can take ten minutes to compile a post about it. No dramas. Process streamlined.

Bear in mind, as an aside, that far larger roleplaying communities such as World of Warcraft and Star Wars - The Old Republic, flourish (yes, flourish) with very minimal GM support, if any. Of course, we do need our GMs because they work very hard to produce events for us, but I'm talking about player moderation here - a role which involves unpaid, unpleasant work.

I'm not saying 'leave, we don't care', because that isn't true. What I'm saying is that right now, a very just argument can be made that Moderators are doing far too much additional work which would frankly be unnecessary if players could simply put on their adult trousers and resolve disputes by ignoring one another, finding a compromise or even something as simple as rolling a dice. If we're going to have a moderated community, it needs to be done right - not this childish game of Chinese Whispers we currently see, played in the shadows by individuals who are arguably just as bad, if not worse in some ways, than those they report to GMs.

To re-iterate, the system currently in place is NOT one that promotes a healthy community - something which, I have it on good faith from one of the GM team, we are aiming for. Even just one or two of the changes I've proposed may improve interpersonal relations and lend a degree of transparency to disputes between players which in turn will in itself act as a shield against questionable behavior - something that players inherently know will be publicized in a TRUTHFUL manner.

I'll try to tackle all this piece by piece so that I hopefully don't miss anything, in relatively the same format presented.

Re: "[b]Current Issues - Why is change needed?"
[/b]

• #1 - Preferential Sourcing / Bias: This is entirely false. If anything, people with solid logs are given 'preferential treatment', in that they have something we can actually see with our eyeballs to base a decision on, and even then they're heavily scrutinized to be certain of their validity. This is misinformation at best, and at worst, a gross misunderstanding of how things are run and have been run thus far. Not a one of us goes with anyone's gut feelings or hearsay. There's nothing to go on if we don't have evidence.
  
  That being said, the initial problem mentioned so long ago in regards to logs being easily forged or invalidated or given as snippets to tilt the narrative will soon be solved (though personally, I've seen very few incidents of this) via global/server side logs, which, as I mentioned in the other thread, is on Dev's list.
  
  

• #2 - [b][Lack of] Transparency:[/b] Honestly, as someone that is constantly investigating claims and digging into things that sound 'off' or don't make sense, I don't mind hailing down players to speak to them privately. The secrecy is intentional, as mentioned in the more current thread, to prevent players from being lynched/ostracized/harassed for reporting problems that they find, and encourage players to reach out to us as necessary, with the confidence that what they tell us will be handled discreetly and they can report things with relative anonymity.
  
  Additionally, PMs can be used for reporting and I encourage anyone that doesn't feel comfortable adding us on Discord to try contacting us through the forums instead.
  
  Also, server side logging will streamline the reporting process almost entirely. Anything that happens textually on the game will be readily available to us, we need only know the date and relative wording to search for it.
  
  
  
• #3 - Deliberation: Hi, I'm said moderator that had past conversations expressing my frustration that things often moved too slowly for my tastes, or issues weren't moved on in a timely manner or that it felt like others were dragging their heels on things and communication wasn't that great. This is not the case anymore. It hasn't been the case for well over a year now, as things have steadily improved since then.
  
  Now, we're all relatively prompt on things and while we deliberate on the larger incidents and sometimes that can take a bit before a conclusion is reached, smaller incidents usually don't need much discussion. I'm hoping with the addition of a newsletter, that it'll become more apparent what our workloads are like or why we're busy and you might not see us as often. Even with our side projects, please note that anything and everything that's reported to us is read and responded to, as that's our job and why we're here.
  
  
  
• #4 - Outright Dismissal: This is also entirely false. With the exception of harassment cases, it's our job to get both sides of the story before making a ruling. Just the other day I hassled Drezdin on his birthday (oops, happy birthday), and Kira to investigate something someone reported that seemed fishy, and found the claim was unbased with a little digging. As damning as the LFG might have looked, there wasn't anything substantial beyond its' poor wording and that in itself isn't a crime nor anything to be punished over (but please be more specific with those and don't make it sound like something it isn't, for the sake of avoiding misunderstandings in the future).
  
  With harassment cases, which this post was heavily alluding to at the time, it would be pretty foolish to share said evidence with the accused. The logic to this is that if they've already been accused of harassing someone and we've seen the evidence of it and it's fairly damning, what assurance are we going to have if we then show the accused said evidence, that they aren't going to exacerbate the very problem we're trying to curb?
  
  Especially because harassment typically happens on a one-on-one basis or with very few witnesses around, they'd immediately know who reported them and why.
  Which is counter-intuitive to us ever seeing any more reports of harassment from anyone. Not because the problem stopped, but because everyone's afraid to report it.
  
  The fact that most of the people we've had to ban for harassment, if not all, have typically gone around hassling anyone they think might have reported them, to chew them out about it/publicly drag them over it, doesn't give us any more reason to believe that they'll miraculously learn from their mistakes and curb that behavior just because we point it out to them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Re: "So, why does this matter to me, personally?"
  
  
  
• These statements (and much of this thread thus far) come across as fearmongering, and gives the impression that GMs are looking to swing a hammer at every chance they get. This is false. We're actively discouraged from outright banning people in general, but especially for long periods of time without good reason.
  
  Additionally, if repeated, deliberate rule breaking and lore breaking were enough to make anyone lose all their friends and support, not a single person that's ever broken a rule would have any left, and that's clearly not the case.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Re: "Okay Jupiter, you do nothing but complain, now try proposing something?"
  • #1 - Player Complaints Sub-Forum: Again, the entirety of this and all aforementioned mentions of the word 'transparency' in the context of the initial post are in reference to a harassment case. In the very first line here, you wrote 'barring those of a more personal nature', and I couldn't agree more. Harassment cases fall under that classification. The 'you know what you did' reason given, while brief, was in reference to harassment. This is not true for the wide majority of bans that we dole out. It probably should have been listed as 'harassment' instead, however.
    
    Furthermore, the 'confusion' mentioned here is not in reference to anything except harassment incidents, as I've outlined our processes above and how we handle things that are reported to us.
    
    In regards to making a player complaints sub forum and the successes of other communities elsewhere with their systems, with all due respect, that game isn't a small roleplaying game with a relatively small community that's well below 100 active players at any point in time. SS13 is also round-based, which is a significantly different format and that affects the experience as well and their massive size gives the necessity for their system, because otherwise keeping track of that many players would be impossible. Why is this important?
    
    Because our game is so small, harassment is a bigger problem here than it is there. Everyone knows each other and most people have some kind of issue with each other. The community is already divided enough without the assistance of a public forum to showcase who's done something wrong and who's saying they did.
    
    The sheer amount of ostracized players and harassment running rampant already, reported or not, should be indicative that the proposed solution isn't a good one and will do more harm than good.
    
    
    
    
  • #2 - (Habeus Corpus!) Accusation > Evidence > Witnesses > Action: I've covered this in the responses to the issues presented above, that our standard procedure for how we handle cases does apply as listed, with the only exception being harassment cases for the aforementioned reasons.
    
    Your statements imply that all bans are handled this way and all situations are handled the same way and that's very much incorrect, and misleading.
    I've also covered putting simply 'Harassment' as the reason for a ban, because giving too much information can create more instances of the problem they're being banned for.
    
    In addition, most of the time if and when we do ban someone, the reason listed will more than likely be curt in some way, as the text space for it is limited so it pays to be as concise as possible to still get the point across while conveying as much as possible.
    
    Again, harassment cases are the only thing we're ever truly hush hush about, as this post continues to allude to and misrepresent as the standard for all bans.
    
    Drawing comparisons between a single harassment case and every other standard case doesn't really work because of the delicate nature of these situations and how personal they tend to be and the fact that we have to handle them differently to hopefully dissuade further incidents.
    
    
    
    
  • #3 - Rehabilitation vs Punishment: I believe Chaos stated it best in the recent appeal thread, in that we're more than willing to be lenient on people that have made a simple mistake or realized they were in the wrong and are trying to change their behavior for the better.
    
    Each and every incident, we look at patterns of behavior and past transgressions, if any. This is because the people that tend towards constantly getting into trouble have typically been through the same song and dance before; they've been warned, they've been banned, are well aware of the rules and don't seem to care to apply to them time and time again.
    
    This is behavior we cannot condone, and as stated and indicated in many many places and situations that we've handled, if someone absolutely cannot abide by the rules and lore and is constantly a detriment to the rest of the players around them, it's very unlikely that they'll stay for long.
    
    If anything, the aims in long-term bans are typically to encourage a change in bad behavior where short-term bans and warnings didn't seem to get the message across.
    
    For most incidents, we don't dish out any bans unless there have been enough warnings or a severe enough infraction to warrant one. Like harassment, for example.
    
    
    
    
  • #4 - By default, administrators are under no obligation to explain anything to you: I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that this is a rule because the assumption is that if you've made it this far and somehow managed to be banned at all, there's an assumption that it probably wasn't a great shock and you've most likely done something to warrant it.
    
    With our standard practice listed above, it should hopefully be very clear that bans don't fall on your head out of nowhere.
    
    Even so, most of the time none of us follow this specific rule, and reply to unban appeals as best we can in as timely manner as we can.
    
    As I stated in the current thread about this, typically the person that answers or is expected to is the one that dropped the ban in the first place.
    
    While the rest of us can weigh in, it's often best to wait until the one that dropped it is able to put in their post.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  • Re:"You're proposing a change that could take a lot of work..."
    
    
    
  • I'm confused. Is the 'draw' for this suggestion meant to be that I have less work to do as a moderator because moderation is an unpaid and unpleasant job?
    
    Barring the short-sightedness of the solution presented (in that it doesn't solve the problem and only creates or exacerbates current problems more), I can't see how this should appeal in a meaningful manner when the main purpose of our position is to moderate.
    
    The idea that said sub-forum would prevent drama is nonsensical. It only opens the door for more, and undermines all of our efforts to protect whistleblowers from public trial by fire.
    
    Something we already struggle to do in many cases, but would be nigh impossible to do with such a sub-forum in existence.
    
    As I mentioned above, in reference to the 'far larger roleplaying communities on giant MMOs' that 'flourish with little to no GM support', that's the case for large-scale games due to their size and the vast amount of players that largely handle themselves because there's too many of them for any amount of GMs to handle in a meaningful way.
    
    The comparison doesn't work here due to our small size, and the very issues you later go on to say exist in this community:
    That people don't compromise, don't resolve disputes fairly, and questionable behavior runs rampant.
    
    

[*]
I think this is still a big issue today that still has not been resolved. I don't have much to add as I feel like everything already posted is pretty timeless. I just hope this time some attention is payed to it this time.

[*]

I respectfully disagree for all the aforementioned reasons above.

Please in the future don't necropost, and instead put your thoughts towards another thread or write one out that's more current and tangible.
It's okay to bump things that have fallen out of sight if it's been a month or less.

But a year or more? Most likely doesn't apply in entirety, so it's better not to clog up the current discourse by bumping it. Even if it wasn't answered.

[*]






[*]Bumping this again.  It deserves more than to be ignored, and the opinions expressed in this thread are necessary changes for the overall health of the community.

[*]


[*]
Same as above, please don't do this anymore.




[*]

There is far more that I could say here, particularly as it was my words that were misused and misrepresented a year and a half ago to paint a picture that's objectively false under equally false pretenses, but I'll finish with this.


If there's a suggestion that anyone can supply that gives a better method to report things than through discord dms or forum pms, that doesn't remove anyone's anonymity through reporting, and doesn't exacerbate any current community problems, please start a new thread with such in mind and we can discuss the pros and cons of it and see if it works for our community.

[Jupiter_Storm]

Oh, the thread actually got bumped after a year. That seems unnecessary, a lot of this no longer applies now. Though...

fearmongering

I completely agree that the notion of people, or one person, completely flipping the script and changing their opinions about another group of people (or, even just, one person!) based on what others repeatedly tell them would be a terrible thing.

Imagine if the community was like that... *Shiver!*

In any case, it's nice to see that the thing was actually read at all, and that at least 'something' has changed since then. Maybe we should lock it or archive it?

[Noxid]

First off I'd like to apologize for necroposting this thread. It's not something I would normally do but I felt very frustrated that concerns seemed to be ignored for over a year.

While I might not agree with everything you've posted Dyst, I am sincerely thankful that you have responded to this thread. It is good to hear that things have changing behind the scenes but I would ask that if things are changing please share them with us. How things look matter and from the point of view of us out of the loop it looked like things were being ignored. Any further thoughts I have I shall share in the other thread. Thank you again for taking the time to respond.

[Dystopia]

Oh, the thread actually got bumped after a year. That seems unnecessary, a lot of this no longer applies now. Though...

fearmongering

I completely agree that the notion of people, or one person, completely flipping the script and changing their opinions about another group of people (or, even just, one person!) based on what others repeatedly tell them would be a terrible thing.

Imagine if the community was like that... *Shiver!*

In any case, it's nice to see that the thing was actually read at all, and that at least 'something' has changed since then. Maybe we should lock it or archive it?

Truly, I'm just as surprised as you are.


For future reference, instead of editing threads made over a year ago, please go through the trouble of making a new topic.


I believe I've touched on this as best I can, and this thread is now locked.