Recently there has been discussion about clarifying our appeals process. It is poorly defined in the site rules and it is set up in a way that some users have said is frustrating and unwieldy. Despite the topic coming up once or twice a year, it’s been forgotten or swept aside.
So now we’re going to actually try to rectify this situation with the following proposal of policy clarification
As of now, the appeals process is outlined in the Site Rules as follows:
Users who receive permanent or year-long site or chat bans can have their cases reviewed by the chatop team or site disciplinary team respectively, who may decide to enact disciplinary measures if they feel it is warranted.
Appeals take place in the Site17 chatroom.
In practice, the first paragraph is only partially correct and the second is wholly inaccurate and obsolete. As such, I'd like to recommend that we remove the aforementioned paragraphs and replace them with the following:
Appeals:
Any user that has received a site ban lasting longer than 24 hours is granted an opportunity to appeal that ban immediately. They may, at their discretion, choose to wait as long as they wish to appeal the ban or waive the appeal opportunity entirely. Users who have been banned for longer than a year are granted an additional opportunity to appeal upon the anniversary of the initial ban date. Users that have been permanently banned after [DATE]1 are limited to two additional annual appeals. Users issued a permanent ban prior to [DATE] are now limited to two more annual appeals.Exceptions to this are as follows:
- Users who have been banned for being underage may not appeal this ban. Such a ban will expire when they reach the minimum age required to join the site.
- Users who have been banned for blatant severe trolling may never appeal.
- Certain anti-harassment bans may never be appealed.
- Users who have had their appellant privileges revoked may never appeal. In other words - you can lose your ban appeal privileges in certain circumstances.
Chat bans are usually separate from site bans and do not always mirror each other. An exception to this is that someone permanently banned from the site may be permanently banned from the chat as well. This does not apply in the reverse, however. Chat permanent bans are only mirrored on the site in the event of blatant trolling. Chat bans follow a similar process as outlined below, with the exception that they are handled by Chat staff rather than the Disciplinary Team. There is cross-over between chat-staff and Disciplinary, but the bans are usually separately dealt with.
The Appeals Process:
An appeal is defined as a request to commute and/or reverse a disciplinary decision.Users may appeal by reaching out to any member of the Disciplinary Team in any way they feel comfortable doing so, provided that a record of their appeal can be provided. (Voice conversations cannot be accepted as an appeal.) This can be through Site PM, discord, email, etc.
Users may also appeal by appearing in #site17 on our IRC network and requesting to speak with any member of the Disciplinary Team.
A user may request clarification of the reasons for the ban before appealing, and staff will accommodate any reasonable request for clarification by outlining the reason for the ban and providing a link to the 05command record of their ban.
The user may then outline their reasoning as to why they believe the Disciplinary decision should be commuted (ie. having a ban length shortened) or reversed (ie. having a ban removed). Any appellant will be granted a reasonable length of time within which to make their appeal. Once the appeal has been made, it will be presented to the entirety of the Disciplinary Team for discussion. This might take anywhere from a few minutes to a day or so, depending on members’ real-life availability.
In the case of an appeal for a site ban, the appeal will then be added to the user's 05command record and the Disciplinary Team will voice their opinions upon the appeal by voting to accept, to deny, or to commute. Any decision requires a minimum of three votes in support in order to be confirmed. (ie. 3 votes for denying, 3 for a shortened ban, etc.) Once made, the decision stands unless overruled by a supermajority (60%, rounded to the nearest integer) of the Disciplinary Team or by Administrator's fiat.
Appeals of chat bans, on the other hand, are discussed amongst available chat staff and are decided internally.General notes on appeals:
- Take the appeals process seriously. Rule 0 still applies, especially in appeals.
- Abusive language will not be tolerated in appeals and will be grounds for immediate rejection of the appeal.
- Consider your words before you say them. Do they adequately respond to the reason for the initial ban? Stay on-topic.
- Once a decision on appeal is made, it is done. Continuing to hassle additional staffers is generally frowned upon. We will know if you go to multiple staff to ask.
- Take the time to read through the 05 thread(s) that led up to the ban. If you don’t understand what something means, ask for clarification. We don’t want to hide information, we want everything to be as clear as possible.
Additionally, I recommend updating the FAQ to include an entirely new section about the Disciplinary Process:
Disciplinary / Site Rules
I’m really new, and I don’t know all the rules yet. Is that ok?
The rules still apply, even if you’re new. However, people breaking the rules are almost always warned ahead of time before anyone starts talking about bans. It’s important to pay attention to warnings issued by Staff. These are generally posts in the forums that say Staff Post - Info or something similar. We also send site PMs from time to time, and in the chat official warnings are usually pretty clear.What kinds of things can get me in trouble?
Rule Zero of the SCP Wiki is ‘Don’t be a dick’. Most rules descend from that. Excessive rudeness, posting NSFW content in public spaces, not listening when a staff member asks you to stop something (for example, changing a conversation topic in IRC chat), spammy messages around the forums, editing others’ work without permission, plagiarism, bigotry, ‘being a creep’, threats, harassing other members - essentially, anything covered in Site Rules, and anything that doesn’t fit in polite company, if done in excess, could get you in trouble.I got warned for X, does that mean I’m about to get banned?
No! It just means you’ve been warned about doing X. Try not to do it any more, or depending on the context, change how you’re approaching situations around X. Warnings are our very first step of discipline, and it’s meant more as a “Hey, cut this out or change how you’re doing things a bit, we don’t want you to get in trouble”.I got revoked, what happens next?
A “revoke” is essentially a temp-ban; they’re handed out for smaller-scale issues and minor rule breaking if there isn’t a previous history. Sometimes revokes are issued when someone is spamming a lot to the site and aren’t listening to other types of staff warnings. Revokes are used as a hard “Heads Up, this behavior isn’t good” and don’t always come along with a ban. Just take a breather and re-apply in 24 hours (after brushing up on the site rules, of course).I got banned for a long time, can I appeal?
Yes. You can appeal once after you get banned, and then again one year to the day of the initial ban date.What should I do in my appeal?
Take it seriously. Most bans are a result of rule breaking behavior, but not all rule breaking behavior is intentional. If you think this is one of these cases, let us know! We take such things seriously and we hardly ever WANT to ban anyone.
Be prepared. Take the time to read the 05 thread associated with the ban. We try to make those as clear as possible so there shouldn’t be any confusion as to why someone was banned. If you are still not sure, ask. We will do our best to clarify why the ban was implemented.
Be patient. Harassing staffers about your ban generally doesn’t help. We understand that this is a big deal for you and we try to be accommodating, but staffers have lives too and all of us are volunteers.
Remember, you’re talking to a real human when you are appealing. Being abusive or violating Rule 0 in your appeal is never a good idea and is unlikely to help you get what you want.I’ve been permanently banned, what happens next?
Usually, perma-bans are for obvious and explicit rule breaking, or for certain kinds of harassment or trolling behaviour. If you’ve been delivered a “permanent” ban and not a one-year, staff will usually have good grounds to not accept you back any time soon. That being said, for most cases you’ll be permitted to make an appeal. We suggest you take this appeal seriously and do your best to present your argument. If not accepted, and depending on your circumstances, you will generally be allowed to appeal again on the anniversary of the original ban. We generally are not going to accept appeals for sockpuppeting, ban evasion, or severe trolling/vandalism.Under-age bans (that is, bans where the banned person is under our age limit) do not count as permabans for this, and you’ll be allowed to apply once you’ve hit the age limit, so long as you don’t try and sneak in early.
My appeal was accepted! What happens next?
Just re-apply to the site just as if you were a new member. Bans have to be removed manually by an Administrator, and part of how Wikidot’s system does bans involves actually fully removing somebody from the site member list. If you cannot re-apply, let a member of staff know. Sometimes it takes a little bit to remove a ban, and sometimes Wikidot’s systems are excessively slow in recognizing when one is lifted, so please have patience with us.What happens if I try and evade my ban?
Lots of people try, and when they’re caught, the original ban is almost always increased to a permanent ban. I understand that being banned is frustrating, but trying to get around that ban will only make things worse. Please just don’t.
This discussion will be open for one week, which will be immediately followed by a vote. This discussion is open to all staff, including JS (with captain's permission)
Timer Expired
Edit 01: Revised to correct a typographical error in the FAQ section clarifying annual appeals.
Edit 02: Revised to include clarifying language regarding the distinction between chat and site ban appeals.