Punishments should reflect the rules broken and damage inflicted on players.

[Law]

We have a rule that allows admin discretion to be used, even if it’s not in the rules, deleting people’s work with a malicious OOC motive should be the perfect opportunity to enforce that and enforce it hard to teach others a lesson.

 

I also don’t know if admins have a handbook or a point system regarding punishments but we’re not an 80 player server anymore, we can afford to lose players if they’re constantly breaking the rules that damage other people’s experience.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Law

[Wuhtah]

4 minutes ago, Triple Seven said:

 

The point of enforcement of rules should have to do with the standard the server is aiming for. Instead of enforcement having become more strict with the increase of players, it has become more lenient and people get away with the dumbest behavior. Nothing directed at you though of course, it's an overall problem. This and scripts for pretty much anything have only helped lower the experience that used to be heavy roleplay, but is quickly devolving into a low quality text RP server.

 

I understand, I do take what you guys say to heart to try to improve. Without suggestions, without anyone speaking up, how is that to happen?

 

Now, I don't know if suggesting this will make a firm guideline in the admin handbook, but it will influence how I make future decisions. 

 

For example, many of you complained about players only copping an admin jail and it not helping out as they can afk. So, I started doing more temporary bans instead of admin nails.

 

Another example, many of you ask to be stricter for disconnects to avoid IC punishments. I wait 10-15 mins if it's an in game report (I let the others know it's voided so they don't waste their time) and then I permanently ban them and they can appeal in my forum ban appeal section.

 

So please, speaking up is great RESPECTFULLY speaking up is better. I'm human, I'll make mistakes, which is okay.

 

2 minutes ago, Law said:

We have a rule that allows admin discretion to be used, even if it’s not in the rules, deleting people’s work with a malicious OOC motive should be the perfect opportunity to enforce that and enforce it hard to teach others a lesson.

 

I also don’t know if admins have a handbook or a point system regarding punishments but we’re not an 80 player server anymore, we can afford to lose players if they’re constantly breaking the rules that damage other people’s experience.

 

 

 

Definitely noted, I reached out to a few administrators to see how they would handle it as well. 

 

[Moonsong]

8 minutes ago, Wuhtah said:

 

I understand, usually players groan and moan amongst themselves, so when you guys DO make it public, I appreciate it.

 

It's not that I wanted to avoid a staff report, I tend to encourage people to make them if they were treated unfairly. However, maybe in this case I should have went harsher because it did waste a lot of time for one particular person. But, it was just one person, and I hate saying that - but it's true. Given the history of the reported player, it's never happened before except for an entire different situation that happened to fall under the same rules. 

 

So, would we punish harsher because it wasted the time of one person, or would we punish harsher because it wasted the time of 2-10 different people? It's hard to find a balance here.

 

Again, I know anyone who attempts at mapping truly puts their time and effort into it, and I am NOT saying that their time and effort isn't appreciated or anything like that. But there is a firm boundary that definitely I'll explore with other admins to see how they would have handled.

 

I won't be able to adjust the punishment, but I do thank you for calling it out. It would be nice to have some clarification on something like this. This is the first report where I had to deal with something along these lines, so I definitely will get the information here of how some of the players would have rather seen it handled/other feedback from admins.

 

That's really unfortunate it can't be adjusted when it's clearly too lenient, yet is removed within minutes when toxic rulebreakers say enough words in staff reports. Just shows that something is definitely wrong with the current system. Even when things are clear cut malicious actions and players don't acknowledge their wrongdoings, punishments are far too lenient for what's taken place, not specifically talking about the report you handled but in general.

[imi]

On a somewhat related point, I wonder what people think about admin jails as a whole. Coming from a community where these things didn't exist, they're rather peculiar and seem a relic of past communities rather than an effective part of administrative responses.

[sky~]

12 minutes ago, damnbrah said:

punishments are too light in general



15 minutes lol this is a joke, bro just gone take a quick shit, fix himself a sandwich and then get back to trolling


+1
 

I have to agree here, there needs to be some sort of revamp of the system the administrators are using because it just is a joke, as seen above a player disrupted roleplay for 6-7  other people and only received a 15-minute admin jail, whereas a person who drove up to Mt Chilliad with an Asterope RS receives 90 minutes which probably disrupted 1-2 people's roleplay.

Maybe it's not a bad idea to start considering bans instead of admin jails, a ban for a day will teach more than 15 minutes of admin jail does.

[Wuhtah]

Just now, Moonsong said:

 

That's really unfortunate it can't be adjusted when it's clearly too lenient, yet is removed within minutes when toxic rulebreakers say enough words in staff reports. Just shows that something is definitely wrong with the current system. Even when things are clear cut malicious actions and players don't acknowledge their wrongdoings, punishments are far too lenient for what's taken place, not specifically talking about the report you handled but in general.

 

I reached out to the mapper to staff report me. I also reached out to Frezemis who might or might not overrule my decision (not sure if that's how it works). 

[Cartoonhead]

2 minutes ago, imi said:

On a somewhat related point, I wonder what people think about admin jails as a whole. Coming from a community where these things didn't exist, they're rather peculiar and seem a relic of past communities rather than an effective part of administrative responses.

They are pointless. All you are doing is making them afk for 45 minutes. I call them youtube breaks for a reason.

[Moonsong]

1 minute ago, Wuhtah said:

 

I reached out to the mapper to staff report me. I also reached out to Frezemis who might or might not overrule my decision (not sure if that's how it works). 

 

Going to staff management yourself saying you think you were too lenient is probably the best way, yeah. But like I said, whilst very much welcome it wouldn't solve the wider and systemic issue.

[Triple Seven]

2 minutes ago, Wuhtah said:

I understand, I do take what you guys say to heart to try to improve. Without suggestions, without anyone speaking up, how is that to happen?

 

Now, I don't know if suggesting this will make a firm guideline in the admin handbook, but it will influence how I make future decisions. 

 

For example, many of you complained about players only copping an admin jail and it not helping out as they can afk. So, I started doing more temporary bans instead of admin nails.

 

Another example, many of you ask to be stricter for disconnects to avoid IC punishments. I wait 10-15 mins if it's an in game report (I let the others know it's voided so they don't waste their time) and then I permanently ban them and they can appeal in my forum ban appeal section.

 

So please, speaking up is great RESPECTFULLY speaking up is better. I'm human, I'll make mistakes, which is okay.

 

As mentioned, it has nothing to do with you. The fact you're taking it to heart so much is great though and shows a good attitude. I would suggest rewriting the rules back to their basics and rely more on common sense. All the added details to rules result in skirting of rules and claiming it wasn't mentioned in the rules. This will not work every time, but with more details comes more leniency. 

 

Taking a quick glance through the most recent responded to rule suggestion, a few examples that are tied to common sense if you ask me:

 

Make a clear rule for hand-to-hand combat.

People calling for a specific rule for roleplay to happen. This should simply be part of the roleplay standard players share: if you emote, you await a response in kind, even if you're 'rushing' them.

 

Roleplaying car crashes.

Enough said, we're all aware of actual crashes being voided by players because one or both parties go: /b desync, but yes this one is tricky with the rage streamer being worse than in 2018.

 

Disallow bike hoping for speed.

Apparently it's not clear to everyone this is simple abuse of game mechanics when used for speedy travel on a bmx bike through out a massive city and already a report-worthy offense?

 

Define Knuckledusters as a lethal weapon. Because they are.

This doesn't need a definition on a server that propagates heavy roleplay, it's a shame people think it does.

 

I'll stop there, I'm sure there's plenty more where those came from.

 

[Shah of Persia]

30 minutes ago, Wuhtah said:

 

I understand, usually players groan and moan amongst themselves, so when you guys DO make it public, I appreciate it.

 

It's not that I wanted to avoid a staff report, I tend to encourage people to make them if they were treated unfairly. However, maybe in this case I should have went harsher because it did waste a lot of time for one particular person. But, it was just one person, and I hate saying that - but it's true. Given the history of the reported player, it's never happened before except for an entire different situation that happened to fall under the same rules. 

 

So, would we punish harsher because it wasted the time of one person, or would we punish harsher because it wasted the time of 2-10 different people? It's hard to find a balance here.

 

Again, I know anyone who attempts at mapping truly puts their time and effort into it, and I am NOT saying that their time and effort isn't appreciated or anything like that. But there is a firm boundary that definitely I'll explore with other admins to see how they would have handled.

 

I won't be able to adjust the punishment, but I do thank you for calling it out. It would be nice to have some clarification on something like this. This is the first report where I had to deal with something along these lines, so I definitely will get the information here of how some of the players would have rather seen it handled/other feedback from admins.

I haven't been around on this server for so long so take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

In all fairness you didn't make it look like you were biased at all. You took your time to listen to both parties and also went ahead to check logs and whatnot.

 

To me it's mostly about a player's intent. People can break rules, sure, and they can come to regret it or genuinely misunderstood or having been unaware of a rule. I saw a report once where a bunch of people I was around got reported for breaking robbery rules but they made it pretty obvious they weren't aware how detailed searching a player during a robbery had to be and thought a few short emotes would suffice. A simple explenation with context would have done the job here, and I understand it is enough to warn a player and void the roleplay, which was the case.

 

But in this instance the reported player clearly had malicious intent. No matter how you take it, it could never have resulted in 'fun' roleplay for both parties involved, even if the player took the time to write more emotes. The intent was to damage / grief another player because they were angry about something out-of-character, which is a recipe for disaster. The reported player went on to show not an ounce of regret about what they had done, which is more an ego problem.

 

What I honestly think staff should do more in these situations is encourage players more to have both parties empathize with each other and learn from the situation and if both parties are willing to see both sides of the story the punishment can be more lenient. Maybe the conclusion with a warning would then actually have felt more satisfying for the reporting party too because it'd feel like progress was made and their point was brought across. Perhaps it would have lead to an apology, too? But I understand handling a report like this takes even more time.

 

The way reports are dealt with now just seems to me like it sometimes breeds a bad server culture. Punishment shouldn't be a goal in and of itself because players will still just split with grievances.

 

e: this is not a criticism directed at you personally also because you're one of the admins that have come across to me as professional. not saying that to suck up.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Solsroyce