Bans/mutes/warnings discussion.

[Lord Brutus]

Nearly always, the appeals that are posted in the Admins Forum are ban appeals, which were e-mailed to an admin as per the instructions in the Forum Rules.  Other admins comment on them based on their familiarity with the person in question.

Appeals of warnings, sent via PM, are, most times, handled by the person who receives the PM.  I have removed or reduced warnings from people without any further consultation.  Especially if the PM does not contain words like, "prick", "*******", "douchebag", "lousy mod", etc.

Also, it helps if you are truthful in your appeal.  Appeals like "I got warned for nothing." are likely to be ignored.

 

[Moss]

I've been here nearly forever, and I wasn't aware of this process. Just knowing that your appeal is going to be seen by more than one person might be enough incentive to send one. I noticed you said this is the way it's "supposed to work." I take it that means it's really up to whichever admin receives the appeal to post it in the moderator boards still, and not all of them make it there.

More that if a person believes that one or more of the mods/admins has it in for them they probably won't believe that that person will forward their appeal to other admins. However like Brutus said, sometimes we just use our common sense, usually we only act alone when we're reducing/removing a warning/ban we think were made in error. Sometimes we won't forward an appeal of a warning if we feel it's obviously going to be upheld (e.g. "I was warned for calling a ****** a ******, it's not against the rules to tell the truth. Also this is America and Freedom of Speech."). Ban appeals we take more seriously and it's only very specific cases that will get ignored. For example there's this one guy who's been emailing me once a month/fortnight to appeal his ban for almost two years now. His appeal has been rejected multiple times (mostly because it consists entirely of "It's all a big conspiracy and you're all out to get me! I'm going to find you and kill/sue you if you don't unban me!"), and I don't bother forwarding his appeals to the other admins because frankly there's no point bothering them with it for the fiftieth time.

That's a good point about people not knowing the appeal process, definitely things we can do to make it more visible.

Maybe a simple automated system for posting appeals in the mod board would remedy that. Appeals could be sent to some specific account, and all PMs it receives with a keyword in the title or whatnot could be automatically posted to a thread in the mod boards for review with a link back to the profile of the user that sent the message. That (ideally) would reduce the number of PMs moderators have to process, skip the potential pitfall of mods not posting PMs publicly in the mod board, and centralize appeals so they're easier to discuss/process.

Just an idea.

I like the basic idea for that, Orion, but I think you could streamline it further. Suppose when you're warned/muted and you go to your profile, you could click on the warning/mute and go to a page (similar to the report page) where you could appeal the warning/mute if you felt it necessary (there would have to be a big thing in red text telling people to ONLY APPEAL IF THEY TRULY FEEL THAT IT IS NECESSARY, and to not bombard the mods with appeals). Same thing with bans, except that instead of going to your profile (which you probably can't see if you're banned) you'd receive a message that read "Sorry, you can't see this, you've been banned (along with a link to the appeal page if you wanted to appeal the ban)" when you went anywhere on the forum.

Filing an appeal would then automatically create a thread on the Moderation Board with your appeal.

The thing is that pretty much already exists. When you receive a warning you can report the warning for review (same way you report any other post). However very few people ever use that function and the ones that do are usually doing so to inform to moderator staff about their non-heteronormative sexuality and the inferior size of their genitalia. Maybe we could trial adding a section to the bottom of the warning templates that would ask people to report the warning if they feel it was in error, see what the signal to noise ratio is.

 

[Lord Brutus]

I anticipate more noise than signal, but whatever.

 

[Orion]

I anticipate more noise than signal, but whatever.

That's given, though. Anything that raises awareness of an appeal system is going to draw people that feel like they're just being victimized or whatnot, and you're going to get poor appeals and abuse of the system. That's not to say it shouldn't be done to help those who have legitimate reasons to appeal.

 

[Delora Filth]

For example there's this one guy who's been emailing me once a month/fortnight to appeal his ban for almost two years now.

What is it about this place that makes people so maniacally desperate to get back?

"It's all a big conspiracy and you're all out to get me! I'm going to find you and kill/sue you if you don't unban me!"

Godfrey?

 

[Lost-Lamb]

Nah, everyone knows there's a conspiracy to keep Godfrey down.

It's the douche making all the youtube videos.

 

[Delora Filth]

That tells me nothing. Not that it really matters.

 

[Magorian Aximand]

bajatmerc?

 

[Orchid]

That tells me nothing. Not that it really matters.

 

[hirovard]

Well that's pretty pathetic 

 

[Wellenbrecher]

IIRC he even made dupes to complain and post his videos.
And when nobody cared and/or was laughing about him, he went down the "I don't care anyway" route. While still caring soooooo much

But yeah, rather pathetic.

 

[Magorian Aximand]

Anyone see his latest? "You actually shouldn't ban anyone who is a clan leader." Priceless...

 

[Delora Filth]

Holy ****e. Thuis guy is comedy gold.

 

[Wellenbrecher]

He's still going on about Warband? Geezus, wasn't he banned a bloody year ago?

 

[Orchid]

He's still going on about Warband? Geezus, wasn't he banned a bloody year ago?

09/03/2013. Never forget.

 

[K-64]

That tells me nothing. Not that it really matters.

Now, I could be wrong, but at 0:15-18ish, do my ears hear a fledgeling "a-hyuck-hyuck" there, in all its true redneck fashion?

 

[Eктωρ]

Pictures of turtles are a meme?
wat

It was honestly just because I like turtles, I totally forgot about the meme. If I was aiming at being meme-ish I would've done "I like trains.".
Anyway, I had a good chuckle out of the message they sent me:

Eктωρ,

You have received a warning for spamming in regards to the message:
Re: What be on yer mind?.

Please cease these activities and abide by the forum rules otherwise we will take further action.

Regards,
The Taleworlds Forum Team.

ABIDE BY THE RULES, CITIZEN

 

[Delora Filth]

,

 

[cwr]

I almost hope he's unbanned now.


Also, Teo, those graphics are worse than Warrider, and that's saying something.

 

[Austupaio]

It's also several years older than Warrider and on more limited technology.