Defined system of punishments?

Okay.. well.. First, Let me apologize in advance for any flaming that happens here. 'Cause I know people are going to whine and curse at me..

What I'm suggesting is taking some of the discretion out of mods/owner's hands. Guess I'll start with that.

I've been considering applying to become a mod.. Mostly in private and conversations between me and few other people.. My main problem Is that I know that without a defined system, I'd never really know if the punishment fit the crime so to speak.

The solution to this, is to define punishments and stick to them. Overall it would be more fair to everyone.. Although, a bunch of people would probably whine about it if they thought the punishments were too harsh or too soft.

Now, here's the benefits.

• You'd have less problems with people directly "trolling" the mods into punishing them for something that isn't technically against the rules.
  
  
• You'd have more confident mods who know what their boundaries are, and what appropriate punishments for certain actions are.
  
  
• You'd have penalties that are a decent deterrent for future rules breakage "oh shit, well if I do that again I'll be banned for 2 weeks"
  
  
• Appeals would be less frequent, and more for special cases because people would actually know how long they had to wait before getting unbanned/unmuted.
  
  
• There would be less work for Laser and Mash 'cause they wouldn't be constantly answering rules definition questions/appeals.
  
  
• Laser could set up different punishment structures for donors vs members.
  
  
• Favoritism would pretty much disappear 'cause players would be able to police the mods since they would know what the penalties are for each infraction.
  
  
• I'd hope People would report rules breaks when they saw them, rather than holding out on them and trying to stack 3-4 at once.. 'cause the punishment wouldn't change day to day

Heres some of the problems.

• Laser and Mash would have to give up some of their power and their determination on how they give out unbans. (This is huge, If people figure out that they can circumvent the punishments by begging for unbans, EVERYONE will beg for unbans.)
  
  
• Laser, Mash, And Maybe the mods would have to spend time designing the system of punishments for each rule.
  
  
• Mods would have to screenshot everything chat related, and video everything cheats related. For adequate records of mutes/bans.
  
  
• Mods would have to be held responsible to their own set of rules regarding abuse of power, etc.
  
  
• People could possibly play the system. By pushing the boundaries JUST enough to piss off the mods, but not enough to really get punished. Also just barely running out deadlines on what they could do. (ie: disrespecting mods once every 24 hours if they got 1 warning every 24 hours)
  
  
• Technicalities could pop up that the rules didn't directly account for.. And those would have to be judged by mod discretion and then sorted out later by the admins.
  
  
• Too much complexity could make it hard to discipline someone without going through a chart.

Alright, but.. With all it's flaws.. I think that it would make the server better as a whole.. 'Cause Laser could spend more of his time doing what he wanted, and mods wouldn't have to wander around inconsistently doling out punishments

Ex: Mod 1: "Well, Me, I warn first for someone spamming 3 lines and then i'll mute them for 5 minutes, then add 5 mins for every time they do it after."

Mod 2: "Oh rly? I warn someone after they spam 5 lines, then I'll mute them for 30 mins and then 1 hr"

Although, The whole idea hinges on Laser and Mash being able to relinquish a little bit of the power they hold and sticking to their own rules so to speak. With them taking a different role as the people who actually decided whether or not certain niche cases were against the rules and disciplining them appropriately, rather than them doling out punishment at their own discretion.

I completely agree something like this needs to be implanted. When I was a mod, I was really confused on how everything worked, as there was no set list of specific punishment, such as how long bans should last for specific things. Because of that, I relied mostly on Skelly for things.

I'd say something along the lines of, "X person did this, and I have adequate proof, what should I do?" Skelly would respond something like, "Well, I'd mute/ban for X amount of time." I think, as a mod, I never really exited the training stage because I would still ask her questions all the time. I can only imagine how hard it would be without some sort of guidance, I was lucky to have someone with prior experience to help me.

I'll admit, I was nervous muting people, or banning, because I was terrified of doing the wrong thing. If I would have had a direct of list of what to do, when- I would have had a much easier time.

I think this would not only ease tension on the mods, but promote equality in the way bans are given. Because like Serin said, mods all have their own mindsets, and their actions differ from one another. One person's tempban might be another's mute. One persons three day ban might be another's one day, etc.

I also think some people have bans that are too lenient, and other have bans that are too strict- over the same things. As in, two people get banned for the same thing, one person can squeeze out of it easier, than another. I don't like the idea of e-mailing Laser to get a ban shortened, in fact, I wish that would be frowned upon. I also think ban appeals should stay in the ban appeals forum. But that's another can of worms I suppose. I'm just starting to ramble.

Me and Laser have discussed this a few times in the past.

The one good thing about what we're doing now, is that we can always change the rules as we see fit. We don't allow mods to do this, because neither Laser nor myself know them well enough to trust their judgement within a reasonable degree. Laser and I have known each other for a very long time, and understand that the other is not going to fly off the deep end and go on a ridiculous power trip.

The fact that we don't play on the server the same way you guys do enforces that understanding. We have nothing to gain by going on a power trip.

We do this so that people can't just play the system. If someone is being a real ass about something, but isn't doing enough for the mods to nail him on, then we can intervene.

As for having a concrete set of rules... that really takes away our ability to bend those rules, a lot of times for the worse.

People already get frustrated with the rigid 'proof' policy that we have in play. I don't think the majority of non-hackers would like any additions to the rules that would allow hackers/annoyances to further play the system.

If Laser and I were to be able to retain our ability to bend the rules a little, that would probably be fine, for the most part. The one thing I'm not going to tolerate is people working the system right under my nose, and me not being able to do anything about it. This isn't the US legal system.

But, this is also something that Laser would have to take into consideration.

Mash_Tactics wrote:

Me and Laser have discussed this a few times in the past.

The one good thing about what we're doing now, is that we can always change the rules as we see fit. We don't allow mods to do this, because neither Laser nor myself know them well enough to trust their judgement within a reasonable degree. Laser and I have known each other for a very long time, and understand that the other is not going to fly off the deep end and go on a ridiculous power trip.

Yeah, That's um.. The opposite of what you're doing. Well.. In the sense of trusting their judgement.. You and Laser are actually trusting their judgement entirely, because you're relying on them to choose their own punishment for what they perceive in their own eyes as an infraction against the rules laid out and relying on them to discern the severity various infractions and judge them as either warning-worthy, ban-worthy, or mute-worthy..

A firm set of rules would actually be the opposite of trusting their judgement. You'd be setting specific standards for them to follow and holding them to "the code" so to speak, so that there would be a reference point for them to look to, to determine if it was against the rules or not against the rules. (ie: Not allowing them to make their own judgement on what the interpretation of the rules is) And what exact punishment to give out for each infraction.

Mash_Tactics wrote:

The fact that we don't play on the server the same way you guys do enforces that understanding. We have nothing to gain by going on a power trip.

Yeah, I respect that. I understand that if admin are "playing the game" like the players it gets to be a conflict of interest.

Mash_Tactics wrote:

We do this so that people can't just play the system. If someone is being a real ass about something, but isn't doing enough for the mods to nail him on, then we can intervene.

...

If Laser and I were to be able to retain our ability to bend the rules a little, that would probably be fine, for the most part. The one thing I'm not going to tolerate is people working the system right under my nose, and me not being able to do anything about it. This isn't the US legal system.

(My apologies for moving around your post a little, but these do go together and rather than responding to each individually I'd rather respond to both.)

Those would be the "Niche Situations" that I referred to in my original post.. Yes, You all should be able to bend the rules a little to make things fit if someone's trying to game the system or some weird situation comes up.. But when it comes down to it, not having a standardized set of rules and punishments to go with them leaves everything open to interpretation and I sincerely don't think that adding a standardized system of punishment would allow people to game the system more than they do now.. If anything, They'd game it less because there wouldn't be lighter punishments from more lenient people (or if someone was in a good mood) and harsher punishments from the more strict people (or if someone was in a bad mood).

Mash_Tactics wrote:

As for having a concrete set of rules... that really takes away our ability to bend those rules, a lot of times for the worse.

People already get frustrated with the rigid 'proof' policy that we have in play. I don't think the majority of non-hackers would like any additions to the rules that would allow hackers/annoyances to further play the system

I've talked to people about this, not to mention watched how certain things go on the forums / on Laser's twitter feed. The general consensus is that the mods have no real power, and if someone's banned just to appeal and they get un-banned..

The problem that people have with the rigid 'Proof' policy is that the majority of non-hackers see no point in taking the effort to go out of their way to report someone doing something against the rules when someone who's been banned 3+ times is unbanned from what should be a permanent ban because he appealed.

This is where some definition of policy would help a lot. It would give everyone, the mods, the players, and you guys something to fall back on.. effectively a concrete barrier that could give everyone support when they are saying "No Sorry, Rules are rules. "

serin1 wrote:

Yeah, That's um.. The opposite of what you're doing. Well.. In the sense of trusting their judgement.. You and Laser are actually trusting their judgement entirely, because you're relying on them to choose their own punishment for what they perceive in their own eyes as an infraction against the rules laid out and relying on them to discern the severity various infractions and judge them as either warning-worthy, ban-worthy, or mute-worthy..

You don't see this particular section of the forums, as you're just a member, but we have a section that's called the Ban/Mute/Jail Report section.

The purpose of this section is for mods to report each and every action they make. Me and Laser then review them, to see if their judgement was good. We do not just 'entirely trust their judgement'.

In the case of them doing something, and then not reporting it... well, it's the job of the player that was unjustly punished to step forward. They post their conflicting punishment on the forums, and if we can't find the report... we go from there.

serin1 wrote:

Those would be the "Niche Situations" that I referred to in my original post.. Yes, You all should be able to bend the rules a little to make things fit if someone's trying to game the system or some weird situation comes up.. But when it comes down to it, not having a standardized set of rules and punishments to go with them leaves everything open to interpretation and I sincerely don't think that adding a standardized system of punishment would allow people to game the system more than they do now.. If anything, They'd game it less because there wouldn't be lighter punishments from more lenient people (or if someone was in a good mood) and harsher punishments from the more strict people (or if someone was in a bad mood).

Well, it's not really a niche situation. In fact, it would definitely be the bread and butter of most non-spam related mutes. Anyone and everyone that was there to cause problems with the mod they didn't like would work the system in their favor.

As for leaving things up for interpretation... I don't know how "Don't spam" and "Don't hack" are up for interpretation.

serin1 wrote:

I've talked to people about this, not to mention watched how certain things go on the forums / on Laser's twitter feed. The general consensus is that the mods have no real power, and if someone's banned just to appeal and they get un-banned..

The appeal system isn't there to unban people just because they want it. That's not what an appeal is.

The appeal system is to unban people who have been unjustly banned.

The reason people are getting unbanned a lot of the time is because.... *drum roll*

...
...
...

They weren't issued a permanent ban in the first place.

serin1 wrote:

The problem that people have with the rigid 'Proof' policy is that the majority of non-hackers see no point in taking the effort to go out of their way to report someone doing something against the rules when someone who's been banned 3+ times is unbanned from what should be a permanent ban because he appealed.

He wasn't unbanned because he appealed. He was unbanned because it wasn't permanent.

serin1 wrote:

This is where some definition of policy would help a lot. It would give everyone, the mods, the players, and you guys something to fall back on.. effectively a concrete barrier that could give everyone support when they are saying "No Sorry, Rules are rules. "

As you so delicately referred to earlier, Rocket has no problem referring people to Rule 5, and neither are we.

People don't argue the punishments me and Laser dish out because they were unfair. They argue them because they don't want them, and want to continue doing whatever they were doing unabated.

If people have a problem with a mod, then you take it up with the admins. You don't argue like a retard with the mods for half an hour and give them an excuse to mute you.

The thing is, most players don't think the same way mods do.

As an example, when a player is chanting satanic prayers in chat, and a mod is being messaged that this offends them and they need to do something about it, so the mod mutes them for 5 minutes, the player might say this is unfair, because its not technically a rule.

This is where I don't know what to do. I normally say just to read rule 5, but then they complain that the rule doesn't give me permission to make new rules, which I technically wasn't doing.

So, either there needs to be a rule saying "mods deal whatever punishment seems necessary in the situation", or we need a set of rules saying what punishments to deal when.

If a mod posts on the mod page after a 30m tempban, and an owner sees it an hour later, this doesn't mean the punishment that shouldn't have been dealt goes away. The player will be passed, along with their gang of friends, and chant "ROCKETQUEER FOR DEMOD" (which has happened way too many times).

There's a lot of stuff that happens on swagger that the owners don't always see, and a lot of the time they can't get on to help out mods (BTW, mash, add me on Skype). Sometimes I'd like that reassurance that I did something right, which I can get if I had a stricter set of rules.

Anything that can't be solved between a player and a mod can ALWAYS be brought to me or Laser. Laser's more busy than me so he may not respond as often as I do, but I check these forums daily, and I'm fairly active on them.

There aren't that many thing that simply can't be talked out. If it's the player's fault, we explain it to them. If it's the mod'd fault, we revert the punishment.

Simple.

Yes but wouldn't it be "simpler" for mods/owners to have a punishment list? If this is a problem due to lazyness, I'd be happy to make a punishment list for you and laser to review.

With players trolling mods 24/7, I just feel like it would be very beneficial to have something for mods to base their punishments off of, maybe undisclosed to the public. As long as it doesn't introduce any new rules, players don't really need to know about it.

It's obvious to me that arguing with you is useless.


As I said before, My entire idea hinged on the fact that you and laser would be willing to give up some power and standardize some rules. It's completely obvious to me that you're completely unwilling to do either.. Thus, The entire Idea is moot and not even worth arguing.

You can continue being unfair to your mods and holding them to a standard that doesn't exist. Because no matter what they do, it always falls back to "However you feel" about what they did.

Is not necessarily that I feel cheated as a mod, its just that mist of the stuff I do is hit-or-miss. Either I did something right, and the player understands that what they did is wrong, or I took it too far, and they bitch at me for the rest of the day.

Having more of a solid backbone would sure clean up the chat a lot, and maybe put some idiots in their place. What new player joining a server and seeing a mod argue with a player is going to want to stay on the server much longer?

Quote :

The purpose of this section is for mods to report each and every action they make. Me and Laser then review them, to see if their judgement was good. We do not just 'entirely trust their judgement'.

I don't really.. like this system. It made me worry too much about what I was doing was right or wrong, instead of having a clear list, of what to do for when, so I knew I was ALWAYS doing right. And... let's be honest. Most mutes/bans aren't posted there, too. Which is understandable, not everyone wants to make 10 threads of people they have muted.

Quote :

The reason people are getting unbanned a lot of the time is because.... *drum roll*

...
...
...

They weren't issued a permanent ban in the first place.

I've never had a mod securely say, "This is a Permanent Ban." Without you or Laser backing it. Even if they have been banned multiple times, there is always a 'what if' to this, because what you guys decide changes so frequently.

Quote :

He wasn't unbanned because he appealed. He was unbanned because it wasn't permanent.

I'm starting to get confused.. do you issue permanent bans and appeals then? How is one supposed to know one from the other? Especially when "Ban Appeals" are almost always held in private with Laser? Like I said, mods don't really give perma bans, because the ground is too shaky.


Edit:
Sorry this is choppy, I just wanted to write up a quick post before I leave for the day.

Biionic wrote:

I don't really.. like this system. It made me worry too much about what I was doing was right or wrong, instead of having a clear list, of what to do for when, so I knew I was ALWAYS doing right. And... let's be honest. Most mutes/bans aren't posted there, too. Which is understandable, not everyone wants to make 10 threads of people they have muted.

Well, I would hope that most of them are being posted there. If a player steps forward because he feels that he was unjustly punished and we can't find a record of the proof used to punish him (assuming he isn't lying about being punished)... it wouldn't look good for the mod.

And if you want a clear list, then you need to give me some examples here. Examples that aren't already on our nearly three page list of rules in-game.

Biionic wrote:

I've never had a mod securely say, "This is a Permanent Ban." Without you or Laser backing it. Even if they have been banned multiple times, there is always a 'what if' to this, because what you guys decide changes so frequently.

The ones of late would have been my fault.

As you know, myself and Laser started this server together, but he definitely handles more matters than I do, including donations, plugin configurations, and he usually has the final say in moderation decisions.

That being said, there are a lot of times, like in the case with qpthebossqp, where I thought it was going to stick as a permanent ban, but Laser had other plans. It's just going to happen, with or without a clear set of rules.

Biionic wrote:

I'm starting to get confused.. do you issue permanent bans and appeals then? How is one supposed to know one from the other? Especially when "Ban Appeals" are almost always held in private with Laser? Like I said, mods don't really give perma bans, because the ground is too shaky.

Well, you have to understand what a ban appeal is, first. It's not a magical get out of jail free card for anyone who doesn't want to be banned.

Let's say you have two players. Jerry and Tom. (Herr.)

Tom and Jerry both were banned under the pretense of hacks. They were banned by two different moderators.

Moderator A, who banned Jerry, presented a very clear video of Jerry using forcefield.

Moderator B, who banned Tom, presented a very sketchy, laggy, and unclear video of Tom POSSIBLY using flight hacks.

Tom is the only person here who would have a case for an appeal. The proof against him was sketchy at best, and he can use that to have the ban rescinded. Jerry on the other hand was obviously hacking. There will be no appeal process for him because the ban was handled as it should have been.

That's not to say that Tom will automatically be unbanned. However, it does mean that me and Laser will review the video, and decide if it's grounds for him serving out his entire sentence.

Biionic wrote:

Edit:
Sorry this is choppy, I just wanted to write up a quick post before I leave for the day.

That's fine.

rocketeer55 wrote:

Having more of a solid backbone would sure clean up the chat a lot, and maybe put some idiots in their place. What new player joining a server and seeing a mod argue with a player is going to want to stay on the server much longer?

Rocket, I'm one of the people who founded this server. These idiots still argue with me, despite that fact.

Those type of people will argue indiscriminately of any rules or regulations. This type of people KNOW that I can and will mute them if they annoy me too much, and yet they do it anyways.

The only thing we can do to stop that is to have a rule to mute people for arguing with a mod. I don't know about you, but I like to think of this as Swaggercraft, not North Korea.

serin1 wrote:

It's obvious to me that arguing with you is useless.

Because I'm right?

serin1 wrote:

As I said before, My entire idea hinged on the fact that you and laser would be willing to give up some power and standardize some rules. It's completely obvious to me that you're completely unwilling to do either.. Thus, The entire Idea is moot and not even worth arguing.

I want you to go ingame and type /rules.

After that, I want you to type /rules 2.

serin1 wrote:

You can continue being unfair to your mods and holding them to a standard that doesn't exist. Because no matter what they do, it always falls back to "However you feel" about what they did.

We already get complaints from 90% of people that use the chat function that mods 'abuse their powers'. Even if that's entirely bogus, it certainly doesn't make me want to give them more power.

And we don't hold them to a standard that doesn't exist. The standard is simple, really. If they were right, they were right. If they were wrong, they were wrong.

If they were wrong 3,000 times in a row, then they're probably not cut out to be a moderator.

More than anything else, I want to know what inspired this thread. What little spasm happened in chat that made you think that we needed to completely renovate our punishment system? The only people that are exploiting our current system are the hackers, and that's just because we're so rigid on our proof requirements, and the fact that there have been a few unbans that probably should not have happened.

Regardless, we like to think of ourselves as fair. If you want to run a server and call it the People's Republic of China, that's great. You do that, and tell me how happy your playerbase is with you.

I thought the point of this topic was to give the mods a set of rules to do when banning somebody.

What is considered spam? 3 lines? 4 Lines?

How long should someone be muted for spamming? 10 mins? 20 mins?

Stuff like that.

Textus wrote:

I thought the point of this topic was to give the mods a set of rules to do when banning somebody.

What is considered spam? 3 lines? 4 Lines?

How long should someone be muted for spamming? 10 mins? 20 mins?

Stuff like that.

See, this I can do.

I would consider... three+ duplicate messages within 30 seconds to be spam.

First mute: 5 minutes.

Second mute: 20 minutes.

If the second mute doesn't give them a hint, you can tempban for... let's say 6 hours.

I can do this in a list on the forums if the mods need more of a guideline. That's simple.

I apologize for not reading all the posts here but we are already in the process of more clearly defining punishment for offenses. These guidelines should be posted on the website when we have the plugins and framework laid out.

We will be implementing a "3 strikes" system. Severe offenses will be a strike and 3 strikes equals a permanent ban. I consider vclipping, aimbot, forcefield, and other hacks that give a distinct advantage in raiding/PvP as severe. I'm thinking 1 week for the first offense, 2 weeks for the second, and finally a perm ban on the third offense.

I am more lenient (i.e. don't want to perm ban) on autoequip and autosprint because those "features" can be found in less sinister mods and are often triggered by accident (though that still doesn't make it right).

Edit: I don't know if they will be as minutely detailed as some might like but as Mash said, most cases are not black and white and mods/staff will still have some leeway to make judgement calls.

Edit 2: There will be general guidelines for spam but again, I don't have an issue with leaving most of it up to the mod's discretion.

Mash_Tactics wrote:

Let's say you have two players. Jerry and Tom. (Herr.)

Tom and Jerry both were banned under the pretense of hacks. They were banned by two different moderators.

Moderator A, who banned Jerry, presented a very clear video of Jerry using forcefield.

Moderator B, who banned Tom, presented a very sketchy, laggy, and unclear video of Tom POSSIBLY using flight hacks.

Tom is the only person here who would have a case for an appeal. The proof against him was sketchy at best, and he can use that to have the ban rescinded. Jerry on the other hand was obviously hacking. There will be no appeal process for him because the ban was handled as it should have been.

That's not to say that Tom will automatically be unbanned. However, it does mean that me and Laser will review the video, and decide if it's grounds for him serving out his entire sentence.

I agree with this, except that jerry almost always gets unbanned as well

rocketeer55 wrote:

Mash_Tactics wrote:

Let's say you have two players. Jerry and Tom. (Herr.)

Tom and Jerry both were banned under the pretense of hacks. They were banned by two different moderators.

Moderator A, who banned Jerry, presented a very clear video of Jerry using forcefield.

Moderator B, who banned Tom, presented a very sketchy, laggy, and unclear video of Tom POSSIBLY using flight hacks.

Tom is the only person here who would have a case for an appeal. The proof against him was sketchy at best, and he can use that to have the ban rescinded. Jerry on the other hand was obviously hacking. There will be no appeal process for him because the ban was handled as it should have been.

That's not to say that Tom will automatically be unbanned. However, it does mean that me and Laser will review the video, and decide if it's grounds for him serving out his entire sentence.

I agree with this, except that jerry almost always gets unbanned as well

A first or second time offender, sure.

Ban 1: 3 days
Ban 2: 2 weeks
Ban 3: Forever?

Ban1: 1 Week
Ban2: Permanent.

The only way somebody should be able to appeal is if the evidence was sketchy.