On publicising formal warnings and bans

[Issa 5]

I don't really care either way, but I do feel that for first offenses it might be a little kinder to keep the warning private-if someone's had an awful day and just snapped, I can't imagine that being humiliated would make them feel better. For repeat offenders, or particularly nasty cases, public warnings are fine IMO.

 

By the way, it's really great of you to ask the public about this sort of thing. :)

[demidekidasu]

I'm sure many people have a bad day. I see that sort of reasoning being thrown around quite often and personally don't see that as a valid excuse - I have had many a bad day, but never once have I ever taken it out on others. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but a lot of people have no concept of restraint and think it is fine to let the world know their mood :P

[Hickory]

I'm sure many people have a bad day. I see that sort of reasoning being thrown around quite often and personally don't see that as a valid excuse - I have had many a bad day, but never once have I ever taken it out on others. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but a lot of people have no concept of restraint and think it is fine to let the world know their mood :P

 

I agree entirely. It is true that we all have bad days, but a bad day is no excuse to loose the plot in public. Leniency for 'having a bad day' will (would) just become a cry of defense all around. Don't do it!

 

Edit: Just to clarify: 'Don't do it' was aimed at those having bad days... wrong-doers, not management.

[bben46]

isn't it possible to prevent previously banned IP addresses from creating new profiles until the ban has expired?

IP bans are usually reserved for those who do make new accounts to bypass a ban - and for those obnoxious spambots. Unfortunately this only works for static IPs. :rolleyes:

 

Yes, we have on occasion banned an IP used by more than one person. We do try not to do that by checking the IP before blocking it.

[Dark0ne]

I similarly agree on "bad day" and "I was drunk" excuses being unacceptable, especially the latter. Being drunk is NEVER, EVER a valid and acceptable excuse for ANY wrong doing. If you get drunk and do something wrong you're just as responsible for your actions. We can't accept "I was drunk" as an excuse to be lenient just like we can't accept "it was my house mate who did it" or "I'm going through a hard time right now" as an excuse. If we did then anyone could use that excuse to get around warnings and bans.

 

Having said that we do always take in to account your activity within the community before we come to decisions. For example, if you're typically a really kind and helpful member who's done a lot for the community and you make one post that's against our rules then we're going to scrutinise it a bit more and perhaps be a bit lenient on you considering your long, good history. That's where our new warning tools are going to come in real handy. We can give you a 24 hour posting/downloading ban, call it a "cool-off period" and you can come back afterwards with no hard feelings (hopefully). I know we've come under fire in the past for "playing favourites" by being more lenient on long-standing good members of the community while other members have been instantly banned for the same offences, but I'm not planning to change that system. Our own country law systems work like that after all. The length of your prison sentence, or your penalty from the state, is often dictated by how good a citizen you are and your previous record. I see no reason why our system shouldn't be similar.

 

Now, this poll has pretty much gone as I expected, though I'll admit being surprised that the first poll number is only at 58% for the fully transparent warnings.

 

Transparency is 100% what we're going for. Transparency and communication. I'll be changing our public warning and ban systems to ensure that all bans and warnings have evidence with them, within reason. No more "Banned, pirate" or "Banned, trolling" threads. Banning a pirate? We'll quote the text that got them banned. Swear-word filled troll post on a comment requires a ban? We'll quote it in the ban thread so you can see what was written. Only thing that probably won't change are the spam bot bans. We'll obviously not quote what they write in the ban notices, so you'll just have to trust us that we're not banning normal members as "spam bots" just to get around having to give evidence ;)

 

We will continue with our policy of no open discussions on warnings and bans, but the increased transparency of our system will probably open us up to more scrutiny. While that's a bad thing for us, in a way, as it puts potentially more work on us, it's obviously also a good thing as the public nature of the system ensures we can also moderate our own moderation team and ensure that it's all up to scratch. What we don't want to do is invite this common practise of people sending us PMs in defence of members who have been banned or warned. Bans and warnings are between us and the involved parties. We don't want to hear about how he's your best mate, or how he saved you from a burning house. If the banned user wants to be unbanned then he or she can contact us.

 

Our new system is almost ready for use and we've been testing it over the past week. I'll put up a blog piece about it, and give you a few screen caps of our (very unpretty) admin backend so you can see what we work with to moderate the sites. I'll also put up some screen caps of what the warning pages look like because I know most of you aren't ever going to get to see one.

[demidekidasu]

I look forward to seeing the new ways!

 

Out there across the interwebs, the Nexus has a rather unfair reputation of being ban-happy. I expect with this new policy of transparency, people will surely come to realise that there are seemingly a lot of bans handed out due to the sheer number of idiots we get around here lol

 

And I ultimately hope the aspiring clowns will see that they won't get away with their shenanigans :P

 

I hope my post makes sense... only had about 6 hours sleep over the past 48hrs and my brain is in power-saving mode lol

[Hickory]

Out there across the interwebs, the Nexus has a rather unfair reputation of being ban-happy.

 

I get tired of hearing this (I'm NOT having a go at you, by the way) nonsense about the Nexus having a bad reputation. The only places the Nexus has a bad reputation are the haunts of disaffected (past) members, and the places where their rumour-mongering has (blindly) spread to. One only has to look at the membership numbers of those other sites, and then compare them to the (still growing) numbers at the Nexus. It is also quite ironic that many of those spreading this 'bad reputation' nonsense are STILL members here (at the Nexus) themselves. Talk about two-faced!

[kichigaikikyokagome]

I prefer keeping bans at least in the public forums with details. Many times I've found out that a friend has been banned only to read that it was by request and they'll likely be back. I imagine without this information being public the mod team will be deluged with questions of "Why was so-and-so banned?" thus making even more headaches for yourselves. That's my 2 cents, don't spend it all in one place.

 

RP

 

 

Can we have a "report moderator abuse" option? I don't really like how some moderators abuse their power. I'd like a way to contest some moderator's decisions, or at least bring them to the attention of other moderators.

 

I don't really know if this is the right place to bring it up, but I'd love for someone to point out to me what to do if I feel like the victim of moderator abuse (right now, and not after the revision happens). But after the revision, it would also be nice to be able to politely request revision of a moderator's actions, especially now since everything said is going to be recorded.

Edited November 23, 2012 by kichigaikikyokagome

[TheVampireDante]

You got kicked from chat for arguing, and that "mild" little insult to the rest of the chat users (calling everyone "sheep" just because they actually follow the rules? Poor.) Just kicked. No abuse.

 

Love how some people feel the need to blow every single thing into a full scale catastrophe.

[Thandal]

@kichigaikikyokagome; Refer to the Terms of Service, specifically:

 

[The] moderators have a right to carry out their task without harassment, insult or hassle. Members who believe that a member of staff is not conducting themselves properly should get in contact with Robin via the forums or email. Know that if Robin receives word of any members harassing or being rude to Nexus site staff then he will take every action possible to permanently remove them from his sites.

So you see, you already have such a mechanism. Looks like you used it... :armscrossed: