Our ban escalation is weird

Summary:

we should fix that

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Our ban escalation is weird

(account deleted) 29 Dec 2015 02:27

Our current escalation is, according to the Imperial Guardsman's Uplifting Primer Chat Guide this:

• First infraction: Warning. This may be delivered in the form of a non-ban kick, via a muted chatroom, a short (generally 1 hour) temporary ban, or simply being told to stop or further disciplinary action will follow.
• Second infraction: Short ban (Minimum 24 hours).
• Third infraction: Long ban (Usually 1 week).
• Further infractions: Permanent (indefinite) ban.

This is a bit weird, and probably a little intimidating to see on your way into chat for the first time.

Putting it in simpler terms, we have "hey knock it off or else" then a one day ban, then seven day's ban, then at least three hundred and sixty five day's ban but usually all the days forever.

I'd be more in favour of something like moving from one day to three days to a week, then to two weeks, then to a month.
Then to perma if necessary (ie the user is malicious) and maybe just an extra long ban if not, like we did with Amuness (the user needs to go calm down or take a break or just grow up a little).

I feel like this would give people who aren't seriously malicious (just fucking up or whatever) more chances - in a structured manner rather than us just not banning people we like or who are longstanding members, as has been a problem in the past. We could still escalate to permanent bans immediately for the obvious 100% asshole trolls.

The revised structure could look something like this:

+ show block

• First infraction: Warning. This may be delivered in the form of a non-ban kick, via a muted chatroom, a short (generally 1 hour) temporary ban, or simply being told to stop or further disciplinary action will follow.
• Second infraction: 24 hour ban
• Third infraction: 72 hour ban
• Fourth infraction: One week ban
• Fifth infraction: Two week ban
• Sixth infraction: One month ban
• Seventh infraction: Permanent or extended ban, as decided by operator discussion.

Operators may escalate to longer bans more quickly for particularly disruptive or malicious behaviour. Rules-lawyering will be ignored or laughed at.

Thoughts? Ideas? Spare change?

Last edited on 29 Dec 2015 02:28 by (account deleted) Show more

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

Thekillerax 29 Dec 2015 02:47

I support this. The jump from one week to permanent/one-year has always baffled me and felt overly harsh. This new system should give users who are genuinely clueless and not actively malicious a few extra chances to redeem themselves, and I'm all for that. As long as staff can escalate as they see fit for particularly problematic users, I see no issue with this new system.

Note that I am JS and therefore can't actually vote on stuff. Just putting my thoughts out there.

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And if the whole world is crashing down… fall through space out of mind with me.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

ProcyonLotor 29 Dec 2015 03:02

While I don't think we really need seven steps (someone should be gone long before ops have had to seriously address their behavior seven times) I'm in support of something in the middle ground between our current "long" ban and permas.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

djkaktus 29 Dec 2015 04:06

It's no secret that I think 24 hour bans are dumb. If we really want to put in an intermediate ban, we could just do warning, week-long, two weeks, month-long, yearlong / perma. That's pretty succinct, I think.

The rationale is that if somebody still can't figure it out after being banned three times, we've probably done everything we're obligated to do.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

(account deleted) 29 Dec 2015 14:31

Eh. Someone can fuck up more than three times without being malicious or hopelessly clueless.

I feel like having more options before perma - and making it standard procedure to discuss whether we're permanently banning someone or just giving them an extra long ban - will help us avoid problems with not banning people because they've been around forever or we like them or whatever.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

ProcyonLotor 29 Dec 2015 15:33

I could also get behind this proposed escalation, nth-ing 24 hours doing very little.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

thedeadlymoose 29 Dec 2015 11:21

I'm with kaktus, who is wise and prescient; I'm favorable towards eliminating the 24 hour ban.

I also agree that our escalation has always been really, really weird. I think longer "time out" periods encourage people to reform better than "don't come in for 24 hours" would.

Re: 24 hour bans. Since kaktus and some others brought this up in the past, I've been thinking back over our years of banning. And to be honest, the only time I've seen 24 hour bans be useful are for 'slaps on the wrist' for excessively clueless but reform-able newbies, or veterans who have made a rare fuck-up that we really need to punish, but are very unlikely to be repeated. (Such as an egregious violation of a stop order by a veteran who's really upset, or a newbie being unnecessarily combative with an operator.)

As part of standard ban escalation, I've never seen them have any real effect. I have seen people calm down after the longer bans.

As per usual, I'm operating based off of chat operator consensus, so weigh in if you agree or disagree or have another suggestion.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

djkaktus 29 Dec 2015 19:14

You flatter me.

What if we instituted the 24 hour ban as an operator prerogative, non-escalation ban? That is, it would really only be applicable for dumb offenses (see: non-malicious) or for clueless newbies, and wouldn't necessarily count towards an overall ban escalation.

This gives us a way to give smaller, less severe bans for things that aren't huge issues, all while keeping users from feeling like they have to tiptoe around larger bans. I'm more than happy to pull escalation bans back (while at the same time making them longer), and just give ops the authority to implement smaller bans on their own.

Thoughts?

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

ProcyonLotor 29 Dec 2015 20:02

I can see them taking a place in the discretionary category alongside our one hour bans for guide reading/NSFW tagging.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

Wogglebug 29 Dec 2015 20:02

I think this idea is reasonable. Just so long as we don't allow them to pile up (eg, someone having eight 24 hour bans over the course of a month). But that's just a matter of being aware of things and record-keeping, which isn't generally an issue.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

djkaktus 29 Dec 2015 20:31

You're right on the money there. It'll come down to the ops recognizing when something is becoming a consistent issue, and then moving for an escalation ban.

I think this'll take a lot off the ops as well, since we won't have to worry so much about every ban being the one that puts somebody at a perma (or whatever). It gives us a little more flexibility.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

thedeadlymoose 30 Dec 2015 06:23

I received a PM from Bland, which I thought was insightful and an interesting proposal (refers to the wiki, but applies to chat).

I'm going to add two cents:

I'm not in favor of perma-bans for less things unless it's SO bad you'd perma-ban then no matter WHAT they'd done. More in favor of a year long ban.

Second, there is nothing about clearing out someone's record over time. Consider: I've had a 24 hour for not letting a staff thread die (totally justifiable) - but it was about three years ago. That means that no matter what or when my next is 72 hours.

It's human nature to screw up, but at some point you kind of have to let those points fall off my driving record.

I would add the caveat to the second point that we do effectively de-escalate ban escalation at our discretion, or at least, some of us do.

My instincts tell me these are good points, potentially for the wiki as well as chat (even though this is a chat thread). Thoughts?

Last edited on 30 Dec 2015 06:30 by thedeadlymoose Show more

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

TroyL 30 Dec 2015 07:02

Considering that we have a half-op who was perma-banned for racist slurs four or five years ago, yeah, I tend to agree with this sentiment. People can mature, and things tend to 'fall off of our memories' over time.

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"WELL FOUNDATION. YOU MADE IT SO EASY. SO VERY VERY EASY." - dimensionpotato

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

djkaktus 30 Dec 2015 07:05

I think this is a pretty solid point, especially since we've had users who were absolutely pains in the collective ass at one point, but are totally different people now. Some of those people are on staff. I don't necessarily think they should have to be subject to escalation for anything that happens from here on out.

Can't think of the best way to codify this, though. It's one thing to say "yeah your shit doesn't stink as much after a while" but how long is a while? How long between incidents is long enough?

Solid point, though. I'd like to see this implemented, as well as some of the other stuff suggested upthread. I know that we've gotten the reputation for being ban-happy in the past, but I feel as if a lot of that could be better managed by making our banning process more flexible, and saving escalation bans (and cumulative bans) for the supr srs shit etc.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

(account deleted) 09 Jan 2016 21:19

So, uh, we should probably make something resembling a decision here.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

thedeadlymoose 10 Jan 2016 05:16

Delay has resulted from everyone being busy over the holidays.

Three of the admins plus me have talked this over, and propose this ban escalation (initially proposed by Crayne):

1. Warning
2. Week
3. Month
4. Year
5. Perma

All else is unchanged. Op discretion still applies when we want it to. This would be the new backbone we work off of.

This is pretty simple, and to quote one of the admins, "No fiddly bits for people to fuck up", which is a significant advantage.

I would like to suggest one fiddly addition, though:

• 24 hour bans can be used, but count as particularly stern warnings for the purposes of ban escalation.

Thoughts?

Let's say "by this time next week" is the last call for thoughts or changes before this is implemented.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

Crayne 10 Jan 2016 08:22

You have my sword vote.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

(account deleted) 10 Jan 2016 16:56

This is still going "7, 31, 365, forever" but it's better than what we currently have.

With the 24 hour ban still being an option for warning/whatever, I support this.

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

GreenWolf 10 Jan 2016 21:25

Not a chat op and only JS, but I do have a question. Would this change apply retroactively? For example, if someone has commited two infractions and is on their thrid infraction, would they get a week long ban (next level under the old system) or a month long ban (next level under proposed system)?

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

thedeadlymoose 14 Jan 2016 21:30

This is still going "7, 31, 365, forever" but it's better than what we currently have.

True. But this would just be our baseline — ops will still retain full power to alter these lengths as we see fit. Granted, usually we'll end up following the 'standard' anyway — but if it doesn't work, we can change it again.

Would this change apply retroactively? For example, if someone has commited two infractions and is on their thrid infraction, would they get a week long ban (next level under the old system) or a month long ban (next level under proposed system)?

Case-by-case. By default, I assume we go with the new system. In this case, a month would almost certainly be more effective than a week anyway, for most users.

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A side point I've been wondering about myself is how to deal with Year > Perma stage. Offhand, I would suggest a "soft reset" when someone comes back from a year ban, depending on their behavior. I agree with Bland: I don't want to ban anyone permanently over anything that I wouldn't ban people permanently for no matter what (IE, something really horrible, or a deliberate significant offense, intention of long-term disruption, etc). As usual, this is up to op discretion.

Just a couple days left to add more input to this thread, by the way.

Also, a reminder that this thread applies to chat only. I have similar feelings about the site ban escalation — in fact I think it's even worse — but that's a separate discussion.

Last edited on 14 Jan 2016 21:33 by thedeadlymoose Show more

Re: Our ban escalation is weird

(account deleted) 15 Jan 2016 14:52

Cross posting for Roget's idea from the wiki ban discussion

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