I want to clarify that I adore the ban appeals, but some of the questions can be very revealing. It is basically a form of public snitching, which I find fascinating to read, because people really do bend the knee on this subject and out anyone who may be involved, if at all involved. I'm really only curious as to why the GM team decided to make these public, and is it perhaps an incentive NOT to commit any offences or face a tribunal of thousands of eyes just watching your every word, and sometimes even contributing to your downfall? Will be anticipating the response to this, and as always, thank you for reading.
For Ban Appeals, I am supportive of it being public due to the transparency, as well as it serves as a guidance for the general public (being aware of the bans, so that players avoid making same mistakes) Note: for players that totally skipped the T&C, hope the Ban Appeal section will serve as another reminder You mentioned some of the questions can be very revealing, do you have any example of questions that shouldn't be on the Ban Appeals? Also, the definition of "snitch" would be a person who informs the police or other authorities when others break the law or the rules, do you meant the Ban Appeal is more like a public trial instead?
thank you for that reply. As for your questions, when I mention the questions can be revealing, I mean they're usually meant for the person to reveal themselves committing the act and generally admit to the wrong doing. I find it a fascinating read when they try to play around a lie. As for snitching, well, that's a word I use quite loosely, but an example of my perception of it would be that most replies were very willing to share anyone they traded with, or talked to, or shared accounts with, therefore snitching on them. Of course, I find this humorous because I've observed guilty people all my life, and this is the one thing most people will do when they're faced with consequences. I just never had an entire forum to read from till now.
I COMPLETELY agree that ban appeals should be handled privately. Having people's sometimes genuine mistakes be publicly blared in front of the entire community serves no purpose other than embarrassment - I know that in theory it should serve as a warning for other players, but I would beg to argue that new players do not immediately go to the forums, and some player as evident by the forum section, only register a forum account in order to appeal their ban. A private appeal thread would allow for in my opinion a more honest discussion without turning it into a headline/meme on the server. On a totally separate note; I’ve spotted people deliberately bait others into breaking rules just so they can report them and hold out for their public humiliation in a public appeal thread. There' genuine players being exploited for someone else’s amusement.
If a player feels that they are being 'baited', then they should do all of the following: - Do not take the bait. - Ask the other person politely to leave them alone. - Take a full client screenshot of the behaviour + you asking them to stop, unedited, and showing the current server time, and save this screenshot somewhere safe incase you need it later. If it continues after that, then we would consider it harassment, which violates our ToS. The person should: - Not respond at all. - Take more full client screenshots. - Make an abuse report with the original screenshot asking the other person to stop, and also the screenshots of it continuing (which should also be uncropped, unedited, and showing the server time). If the victim 'takes the bait' and violates our ToS in doing so, then they could potentially be subject to consequences in line with our ToS. Or at the very least, we will simply close their abuse report if their own behaviour ended up being as bad as the person they were reporting. For these reasons, it is important to just stay calm, and follow the above processes. This should all be pretty clear from our ToS.
Yes, your guidelines for documenting harassment are exactly what a new player would need to do to build solid cases. HOWEVER, I still fully stand behind the fact that I believe public appeal threads do more harm than good for the general community. In my own appeal, a staff member (in this situation, YOU) publicly turned my very sad family situation into a mockery - and it took a day after I reported you before it was removed - which perfectly demonstrates how the system can be weaponized against player (IRONIC IF YOU ASK ME). A private appeals process would let moderators be just as effective - and if they so choose, they can share the outcomes of the report publicly, but not the discussion. It is easily accomplishable within the Xenforo forum software
To be absolutely clear, I was responding to your concern that players bait others to get them banned, to force them into the ban appeal process. I was making it clear what our view is on that issue. I was not referring to your ban appeal, or other aspects of your post, and I will not be commenting further with regard to what I said on your ban appeal. You have followed the correct process in reporting your concerns to our admins, and so you will need to wait for their response.
I just checked, and found that this is untrue. My post was moderated just 6 hours after I made it, and you could not have reported it before it was made. As such, it took 6 hours, not a day. Just wanted to clarify that, as it's a bit of an insult toward our forum moderation team to imply that they took a day to respond, when they actually took 6 hours.
Hi again Heidi, thank you for clarifying the EXACT moderation timeline - my apologies for being off on the EXACT interval. I went to sleep and the next morning saw that your comment had been removed by staff. By debating six hours versus "a day" or suggesting I’m undermining the moderation team is a huge stretch - and it frankly feels like a very odd attempt to create animosity between me and the very moderators that are helping me at this time. Regardless of 6 hours or 24 h ours, any public delay in removing personally sensitive remarks (which YOU SAW FIT TO POST AS A GM) emphasizes why me and others feel that these discussions should happen privately. My original post noted baiting literally just one singular issue brought by public appeals. Please let's try to act mature and avoid creating more issues - I genuinely think you should stick to your own promise not to follow up on my comments that you made just moments ago.
Based on your reply, it doesn't seem like you are on the side of wanting Ban Appeals to be private (that's what I thought initially upon seeing this thread)
You may submit a Feedback about why Ban Appeals should be private instead https://royals.ms/forum/forums/feedback.3/ Also, what do you mean by baiting others into breaking rules? Do you mean offers of RWT?
Thanks for the pointer Dave, I was definitely under the impression that trying to change a over ten-year-old system was an uphill battle, but i'll give it a try. Long post and not TLR I apologize: As for baiting, it wasn’t necessarily RWT that I experienced HOWEVER, there are a few examples I witnessed firsthand that I believe led to a direct ban of innocent players: 1) Provacations during the Cake Event, during the server’s annual event, a handful of older (potentially vetenran players as they did have donator hair and generally were higher-leveled) would egg other players into typing some pretty questionable things, I mean, for crying out loud the culture festered around cake events was a guy talking about eating his own shit. Another part of "cake culture" was a player telling you to reach and your pants to check if you have a penis or vagina. Now that is all fine and dandy if that's the type of community that Royals wants to foster - but I think there's a disconnect. Throughout the cake event, some baiting players sat around and claimed to file harassment reports when two guildies/friends would be bickering at eachother in a literal victimless crime. MANY times I saw the phrase "seeya when you post your appeal" "REPORTED SEE YOU IN APPEALS". This happened to the same "poopeater" guy that became a really weird sensation on the server lmao. 2) In late June, I was in CPQ2 Room 1 when a new member and his wife who have evidently yet to read the rules went AFK at roughly 8PM to vote. They were questioned very vaguely "Did you apply for whitelist" - and they had absolutely no idea what was meant (admittedly yes, they did not read the rules) but the end result was that a new pair of players was likely banned for accidentally having committed minor vote abuse simply because they wanted their characters to look nicer in a non economy altering way. Both scenarios exploit players’ trust - taking advantage of players who are just feeling out the server and its culture before fully dwelving into its somewhat open to interpretation rules, as well as framing a situation as “party fun” so someone will incriminate themselves in the event of cake, then weaponizing their own words.
Before I became staff, if I knew that two players were playing from the same household, and both were voting, and were very new, I would ask them if they have applied for the whitelist. This is because I wanted to save them from serious trouble. If they were vote abusing, then there's still a decent chance that it would be considered a minor vote abuse (temporary 14 day ban), rather than major vote abuse (permanent ban). This would be even more likely to be the case if they then made a self confession in report abuse.
Although Royals have been around for at least 10+ years, the T&C have changed over the years, including how the forum works Example, Report Abuse used to be fully public and open, everyone could comment on it - resulting in huge chaos Keeping it private would be best In regards to your examples of "baiting innocent players": 1) I did see the "poop eater" guy and a few copycats - they seem to be writing this odd story just to get a reaction from others I agree that such statements can be controversial, however I failed to see how this situation will lead to a ban of innocent players For my own personal experience during the Cake Boss, I did see questionable statements and reported them for it rule violation (account sharing) racism (mockery) racism (slur) I don't think just because someone said some questionable stuff (as per above), means others can or should join in 2) This example is odd - if they did break the rules, they won't meet the definition of "innocent players" Both examples you have given have the same root cause - players not reading the rules I still don't agree with how this is about "baiting innocent players" Do you have other examples of what you have mentioned?
If you think it is shameful for the evidence of your ban to be listed in a ban appeal, that only proves how necessary it is to make it public
