Staff ignorance regarging mob vac bans

This is something that's been gnawing at me for a while, even though I don't play any more, I still visit the forums occasionally, just to get a laugh at abuse reports and ban appeals. One thing that tends to stick out though, is the blatant ignorance for mob vac bans, blindly trusting that the system regarding this auto-ban has no flaws, and that it has in fact been wrong in the past. Multiple times.

Just a few threads regarding mob vac bans that's been reversed in the past;
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.7544/
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-for-something-i-did-not-commit.6097/
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/mob-vac-autoban.6096/ (this particular time it was acting up for a lot of people)
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.7932/

There's one common denominator in these four particular cases, and that is that Matt personally investigated these cases, and looked at what triggered the auto-ban before lifting the ban, and it leads to believe he's the only one who can actually make that call, because nobody else knows how to interpret the evidence in the logs. He used to hack GMS a lot in the past, and probably has more experience with hacks than anyone else on the server, at least among Staff.

So, as someone who's been around for a while, and tends to question authority more than most, it would be nice to get some clarity regarding this, why the blind trust has been spreading. Or did Matt make bad calls all around the board?


Best regards
Your faithful rebel, Manslut

 

Just because a non admin responds to a mob vac ban appeal doesn't mean that an admin didn't look into it behind the scenes. The public doesn't need to know how we operate in regards to our auto ban system.

 

There's a fine line between transparency and safety that the staff has to walk when it comes to issues such as the auto ban system. On the one hand, transparency keeps the staff honest and in a way regulates their actions. If there we no transparency many in the community would probably start to question how the staff operates and their legitimacy. (This thread is proof of that.) On the other hand, if too much information is divulged hackers would be able to circumnavigate the system a lot easier.
I think the fact that Matt does investigate in these circumstances shows a willingness to be as transparent and fair as possible. He obviously doesn't want to divulge too much information about the auto ban system, but he's willing to be as transparent as he thinks is necessary to optimize the two. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that the community never becomes aware of; investigations, deliberation, etc. So yes, each GM has the power to make on the spot decisions, but even after they're made there is often discussion about it and retroactive decisions; as shown in those reports.
Don't assume that just because one GM made a decision that the issue suddenly ends, you've been around long enough to know that many people get falsely banned, by either the auto ban system or by a GM, and are subsequently unbanned.

 

The point of this thread is, that if a player has been banned for mob vac, that player is deemed guilty, without the possibility of a trial, because the response is suggesting that this particular ban trigger has no flaws. None. Zero. Zip.
This feedback thread+your reply suggests and proves otherwise. There was even a player being "lectured" for appealing his ban because he genuinely didn't know/understand why he was banned, while being told that the system can't be wrong, and has never been wrong. Which was a stone cold lie.

I agree that it's none of our business how you handle ban appeals within Staff, but telling blatant lies, in combination with inconsistency, on public forums for everyone to read, kind of diminishes the trust in your professionalism as an authority for this community. It almost seems like a scare tactic, because I refuse to believe it's laziness or just blind trust in the system, that leaves all the recent verdicts in the last 6 months of this particular ban reason to just go cold without proper investigation. If not for the public; the player, guilty or not, at least deserves to know if the ban checks out or was a false positive, not be accused of something he may or may not have done, because the system, which has flaws, said so.

I have been around for a while, and I know most, if not all other bans, a thorough investigation is processed, but not for mob vac bans (anymore). There's transparency and consistency for high-damage bans, misconduct, KS/harassment/obscenity (debatable), account sharing, and many other ban reasons. This thread doesn't address those cases though.

 

http://royals.ms/forum/threads/banned-for-mob-vac.28782/

It's likely that he didn't ask the GMs to "Prove it?" because he seriously thought he was innocent. However, I think players who have been banned do have a right to see the evidence against them if they ask for it, serious or not. If transparency is a safety issue with hackers and whatnot, wouldn't it be possible to PM the evidence to the banned player and keep it private that way?

Not that I really have any strong opinions on the matter, but I do think it's important for GMs and players to maintain a certain level of mutual trust and understanding for the benefit/health of the server.
Then again, I'm relatively new to Royals, so I'm not going to say too much :s

 

In many cases GMs do post screen shots or gifs/videos or someone breaking the rules, especially when asked for proof. I don't think I've ever seen proof not provided when someone asked for it unless it was a legitimate issue or safety.

 

Although I haven't gone through every single thread in the forum, the screenshots and gifs provided by GMs in the Report Abuse/Ban Appeal sections, when provided, are (from what I've seen) not usually provided for mob vac reports or ban appeals. Here are all mob vac-related ban appeals from the first fives pages of Ban Appeals:

Spoiler: Spoiler

http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.29636/
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.29308/
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.28868/
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/snitchs-ban-appeal.28828/
This was the original one I linked RE: Snitch>>http://royals.ms/forum/threads/banned-for-mob-vac.28782/
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.28153/
http://royals.ms/forum/threads/can-not-log-user.28069/

Snitch is the only one out of these to actually ask for evidence, but there have been cases of other offenses where, although the banned player didn't ask for any screenshots or evidence, it was given (most commonly provided were store glitch screenshots).

I don't know enough about coding/hacking to determine what form or amount of "evidence" would constitute a safety risk for the server, but I'm pretty sure "No." isn't any kind of proof at all. Although Snitch may have been acting like a punk when he "asked" for evidence against him, the fact that he was shut down without even being offered a PM's worth of evidence doesn't feel quite right to me. If even a PM with a screenshot or two is too much of a liability, a short writeup (ex. what was given here: http://royals.ms/forum/threads/mrbronkz-ban-appeal.29710/ and here: http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.29320/#post-167003) would have sufficed - how much damage can be done with that? Considering mob vaccing is dealt with through permanent bans - the most severe punishment that can be handed out - I think it's crucial that some form of evidence be available when requested for mob vac-related bans.

Then there's this case: http://royals.ms/forum/threads/mob-vaccer.29497/
and GM John's description of the mob vac auto-ban system here: http://royals.ms/forum/threads/snitchs-ban-appeal.28828/
John describe the auto-ban as something instantaneous; if the system detects mob vaccing anywhere, the culprit is immediately "detected, disconnected, and banned." (Note: this is why I spent much more time in Ban Appeals than in Report Abuse, because supposedly there's no need or opportunity for players to catch people mob vaccing).
However, if that's the case, then what was going on with Divided? If he hadn't been reported by another player who happened to find him, might his mob vaccing have gone completely unnoticed? What happened to the instantaneous detection/disconnect/ban that was supposed to be laid down by the wonderful mob vac system that has "never had an error?" Of course John made these statements before Matt commented here, and Matt has since stated that it's 99% and not 100%, but if that's the case - if it's not actually perfect every time - then that's all the more reason to increase transparency, at least a little bit.

As for the second line of GM John's response to Snitch's case, the reliability of the mob vac auto-ban has already been brought into question by the links OP posted above. As Matt said, the staff are only human, and again I won't blame a GM for statements made before the faultiness of the mob vac auto-ban system came to light. However, as OP said:

While "blatant lies" may be a bit harsh, it's true that when cases are handled this way, it gets a bit difficult to keep blindly trusting simply because someone wears a GM hat and tells you, "this is the way things are." Especially for the newer players in the server like myself who haven't gotten a chance to meet the GMs or get to know them at all, it's important that at the very least - although we may never build up deeper personal relationships - we are able to have faith that we will receive equal treatment and fair judgement when issues arise, and understand the system under which we are being judged.

I hope I haven't offended anyone. Again, my ultimate concern here isn't to fling blame at the GMs or condone activities that go against the Terms and Conditions; I do believe that the GMs and staff have the best interests of this server at heart. My main concern is the relationship between the staff/GM team and the player base, and keeping that relationship healthy and solid.

TLR staff r hy00mans, players r hy00mans 2

 

Regarding Divided's case, the mob vac auto ban apparently doesn't detect every form of mob vaccing as demonstrated with that case, but yet that doesn't make the Mob Vac autoban that kicks in any less correct for the cases in which it does detect and autobans the person. In terms of providing proof for the autoban, it can't be done. The system is doing the disconnecting and banning, not a GM. We do not personally witness an autoban and no screenshot is taken. Truthfully though, no screenshot or proof is necessary at all. I personally started the thread where GMs can post their screenshots and evidence when I became staff in 2013. Before that, there was no proving of bans (as far as I'm aware).

With regard to your last point, Groundhog, about " we are able to have faith that we will receive equal treatment and fair judgement when issues arise, and understand the system under which we are being judged" the answer is you will and you do. I think you will find that by going through the ban appeals, the ones who are nicest and most descriptive and generally have a good demeanor, see a good outcome to their appeal, with the staff taking the time to respond and providing any information they possibly can. If you're going to be disrespectful and rude, I'm not going to waste my time, especially when a lot of times the evidence against the person is overwhelming, and they know they deserve to be banned, yet they fight it anyway so as to make a big spectacle out of their case.

To be honest, this is the whole reason we don't allow others to reply to ban appeals. It really, and I'm not intending to be rude here at all so please excuse how it comes across, is no one else's business. And I say that simply because as has been pointed out by other current and former staff members, no one else knows what goes into the investigation/reply someone receives to their appeal. The original thread was started claiming there's a blatant trust of the mob vac system. That simply isn't true. When looking at a person's account, it is usually pretty clear that the mob vac autoban was legitimate. Again, for the sake of safety and preventing hackers from attempting to bypass our safeguards, I will not be able to divulge how it becomes clear to me at least. Nonetheless, I do not think it is for the player base who have not been in the staff's shoes to say we do not know what we are doing and are mishandling ban appeals such as these. If you think you can do better, fill out a GM application and maybe we will give you the opportunity to see what it's like, though I promise, it isn't nearly as fun as you would think.

Groundhog, if you have any additional concerns, and would like to PM me or message me on Skype to know me better, please let me know. I have no problem speaking with players about topics such as this (as long as it is done respectfully).

 

Thank you, sir. I'll go write up a PM!

For the record though, I didn't mean to imply that newer players were being mistreated - that's definitely not the case. Also, I didn't write those posts to imply I feel like I know how to run things or do things better, and I'm horribly sorry if it came across that way. I have never ever had the slightest interest in being a GM; that shiz is whack, no thanks. (Kudos to the team who keep the server running ofc)

TLR i just want every1 2 b frends pls

 

I disagree. I used to administer in a CS 1.6-community for 3-4 years (I think I still have admin rights, but the game has pretty much died), and we never handed out any form of evidence to the public. Admittedly, the way in which we collected evidence and how we handled demos among the staff is very different from a MapleStory server, and there was no auto-ban system. No harm can be done by posting a screen shot or a small gif/video of someone being banned by a GM in MS, but when the auto-ban is triggered, there are no in-game screen shots to provide. And whatever information is collected in logs should never be leaked to the public.

How is that so? Looking at a persons account before looking at the evidence in form of logs seems biased and is prejudictional behaviour, which seems more like players are being judged and convicted for the wrong reasons. Or did I misinterpret what you meant by those sentences?

 

Yeah, you did misinterpret what I mean. I'm trying to think of how to better describe what I meant without divulging what we look at.

So when a person gets banned, their ban reason appears along with the row containing their account information in the database. There's also additional information about the character in the database that can be used to determine if a person's autoban was legit. For example, the map they were on, the equipment they were wearing when disconnected, what is in their inventory, etc. (Note: the above information is not necessarily specific to a mob vac autoban, but can also be used in other autobans such as high damage or dropping too many mesos).