Stealth bans

[Moraelin]

Now before I start, I'm not protesting any particular ban, nor any particular moderator, nor asking that any ban be lifted. I'm sure there were good reasons behind all of them. It's just feedback about another, albeit related, site problem.

 

The "problem" is just that for a few bans and chat-bans I've witnessed, there seems to be no accompanying post in the bans and strikes forum.

 

And I'm not even just talking one off or just today. I first became aware of it some months ago, when someone got banned after apparently PM-ing a moderator in chat to tell them that they pirated the game. I can totally believe that some people would be stupid enough to do that, so that's not the problem. I did get curious enough, however, to camp the bans and strikes forum for the next two days or so to see what is it exactly that they said. Call it morbid curiosity if you will, but I was curious about exactly how stupid WAS that user. There never was a post about it however.

 

This has happened more than once.

 

It's also trivial to see that for some users reinstated, or banned for opening a second account after the old one was banned, there is no record in the forum of the original ban.

 

I assume it is simply a glitch of the web-site, overloaded as it is lately. Still, it would be nice if something were done about it. It's a nice touch that The Nexus can boast more transparency than the mysteriously disappearing users and posts on other sites, so, you know, it would be nice if it actually stayed transparent,

 

Just feedback, and all that.

[Vagrant0]

From my own experiences, atleast regarding chat, the vast majority of these are either kicks or temporary restrictions due to general idiocy instead of breaking any hard rules. For anything else you may need to be more specific and try to contact an unrelated member of staff (or Dark0ne if it's a continuous issue) to follow up. If a thread was made for every kick in chat, that's about all that would ever be seen. While there are occasions where a ban thread might not exist (particularly for older accounts), these aren't particularly often.

 

With multi-accounts, this can often be due to the fact that a person may be on their 5th or 6th account in a short period of time. In such cases, a new ban thread may not always be created, but rather the old one updated.

[Dark0ne]

I'd be interested to hear about any stealth bans as ALL bans should be documented except in the cases Vagrant raised above, specifically multi-account abuse.

[McclaudEagle]

I have seen 'stealth bans' on occasion, but I think most, if not all of them have been for the reasons Vagrant mentioned.

[micalov]

Also for the record general members can not see most my bans since I cannot post in rules and strikes forum, but they are all recorded in a thread in the chat moderator forum section in which was started by Blackbaron in 2010 which is presently at 180 pages nearly and only a few are missing due to stuff like when we had prolonged site errors being unable to post, but every member of staff can read these.

[Moraelin]

@Vagrant:

I'm talking about bans, not kicks. I can imagine that with kicks being even used as a greeting sometimes, yeah, I can see how you wouldn't want a new thread for each kick.

 

Also about multi-accounts I'm not talking updated threads. I'm talking about new threads to the effect "XYZ - Banned. Duplicate account of banned user ABC." Yet when you actually search for user ABC in the forum, there is no post about the banning of ABC in the first place.

 

 

@Dark0ne:

Well, I'm too lazy to dig up more cases, but you can check out my chat ban for yesterday. Which, as I was saying, I'm not contesting, not protesting, not digging up for discussion, and not accusing anyone. I'd just like it to have an announcement in the forum, if it's all right with y'all. Because I liked the whole idea of transparency the Nexus has, but it is moot if half the cases only exist in some archived log that nobody but the admin can see.

 

But it shouldn't be too hard to make a script that compares users with bans in the database to threads mentioning their user name in a specific forum. That should give you pretty much all cases.

 

 

@micalov:

Well, as I was saying, I'm not accusing anyone of anything underhanded. I assumed it must be some kind or another of site problem, and if the main chat moderator has no rights to post about it, that sounds to me like a site problem indeed. Maybe someone can give you the rights to post there?

[Dark0ne]

At the moment we don't have chat ban transparency because, as you know, it happens quite a lot and there's no automated process we can code between the off-the-shelf, closed-source chat setup we have that we cannot edit in any way and our own banning system. It would be an admin nightmare and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

I look at the chat as a privilege on these sites and not a right. The moderation is knowingly harsh which I'm not exactly a big fan of, and haven't been for a while, but I've no time to sort it out any time soon so I assume it'll remain that way for the foreseeable future as that's how the moderators are handling it. To be fair, the chat does seem to attract a higher than average number of absolute idiots. It seems that when you put people in a more real-time environment where they can blurt out anything without thinking about it first it really does change the environment entirely from the more slow and calculated process of posting on the forums. Similarly, sheep. One person is acting like a complete tit which sparks other people to baaaa along with them. Ban ban ban bosh.

[micalov]

I personally have no problem with making the ban thread public in fact I would prefer it to be honest if Dark0ne ever did decide to make it public/move it.

[Moraelin]

At the moment we don't have chat ban transparency because, as you know, it happens quite a lot and there's no automated process we can code between the off-the-shelf, closed-source chat setup we have that we cannot edit in any way and our own banning system. It would be an admin nightmare and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

Fair enough. Though as I was saying, some are site bans. The idiot I mentioned in the first post, that pm-ed a moderator to say he pirated the game, got a site ban, not a chat ban. It still didn't get announced in the rules and strikes forum.

[micalov]

On chat moderation being harsh, it definitely is and I know I definitely am at times. Do I want to? definitely not but sadly from my own personal experience you give someone an inch and they try to make it a meter more and more.

 

When I started as a chat moderator 1 year ago I tried to be less strict but ppl kept trying to push the boundaries of the rules even further and further each time despite multiple times being asked not to and taking jabs at myself even when I had been trying to protect them when most the other staff in chat had already had enough only to get it thrown in your face.

 

Is the chat moderation perfect?and no and allot of the time we do need help from some members, wont say any names but they know who they are and it makes the job allot easier which they definitely have my personal thanks for, but like Dark0ne says it seems more idiots come to chat and then that It can get very stressful why the moderation is quick and harsh seems to rub off and create sheep added with the fact that everyone thinks they are right on the internet in a live situation this is magnified ten fold at times.

 

Mistakes can be made and heat of the moment moderation can happen but we are only human but we do try the best we can for the entire group of the chat.