Regarding Questionable Bans and Petty Reports

The same could be same the other way around as well, people who frequently eavesdrop on the report abuse/ban appeal threads will see that petty stuff like saying "fuck you" can get you banned so they'll be more inclined to report those people. I'd argue that the people who report just for the sake of banning people are way worse than people like Goofy. The biggest issue regarding harassment bans (where majority of the petty bans are given) is that harassment is taken subjectively that varies from person-to-person whereas the bans are based off a set criterion. This is where you get a lot of debate and argument on whether something is deemed ban worthy or not because each person has a different standard on what's considered harassment. If it was up to me, I wouldn't ban any sort of verbal harassment unless the offenders are persistent on it.

Something I found out during my time in OriginMS was that their report abuse/ban appeal sections were made private. I don't know if this has any effect on the community but I thought it was a great idea. The people that'll likely report anything they find offensive here wouldn't know if they should or not in Origin and by the time they come to a conclusion, they'd have calmed down. At the end of the day, does it matter if the person that called you stupid gets banned or not? Next time, really think about why you're reporting instead of resorting to the "this guy pissed me off, cya in 3 days" option.

 

After reading your post, that was actually exactly my thought: why not make report abuse and ban appeal private board so that only the OP and staff can view their threads. The only issue with privatizing report abuse is it doesn't give the person accused the opportunity to post their side of the story. So it's kind of a tough decision to make as there's certainly plusses and minuses with both sides of the argument.

 

I can see the merit to privatizing reports but it creates several important problems.

1. Like John said, the offender cannot state their own argument.
2. Other players who may have been affected by the reported player will not be able to contribute either.
3. This can hide the serious offenses, ones that may warn the community of a person's behavior. I personally like to scroll through abuse reports to inform myself of who I may or may not want to steer clear of.

 

Spoiler: My original PM to John

I know that I am not involved, and this is not my place to butt in, but I feel as though the precedence which this ban risks setting is worth a few moments of all our time.

Harassment bans are extremely subjective and case-by-case due to the wide variety of things that they may cover, but an important assumption we've always upheld in this server is that there is a certain level of maturity that each person holds, and because of that, there are a large number of issues which players should be able to handle on their own. This way, the GMs don't have to concern themselves with policing the every-day lives of the large user base just because a person may have felt slightly offended.

From all the other harassment cases I've seen, the key factor in the ban has been due to either the use of a zero-tolerance slur, or the continuous harassment of a player after the person being harassed has already tried to escape from the situation. The ban in question here clearly falls under the second case, because I know that the staff considers something as simple as a single "Fuck you" as something any member of our community should be able to handle on their own.

Considering the "Fuck you" was the first offensive message sent to BanHammer, and this being after BanHammer had completely ignored any messages from Goofy, shouldn't he have been able to handle it himself? Wouldn't this be a case of the staff babysitting the community, something the staff has vehemently been against in every relevant situation?

In my time here, I've closely followed the Report Abuse and Ban Appeal forums. While I'm unable to see all the discussions behind-the-scenes for these bans, I do feel as though I have a very good grasp on the rules laid out, and the staff's interpretation of these rules. As I see it, this ban goes directly against a lot of the precedences which the staff have already set, and risk causing more problems for you in the future as others try to use this new case as a precedence for theirs.

I'll try and only repeat my main points from the PM.

So my biggest concern with this ban is that I feel as though it is inconsistent with the bans that have been handed out, and the precedences I feel have been set over the last 6 months. Something that I can appreciate is the, "You're old enough to take care of it yourself" attitude that the server has given. Although I don't want to search for them at this moment in time, I know that there have been reports in which the GMs have stated that this same situation in which someone was told, "Fuck you" had nothing offensive in the report. In addition, there have been times when they have told us not to include them on situations that they can handle on their own.

Now, I understand that "fuck you" is still considered a vulgarity, but how many people are actually offended or feel harassed from this. This is far from a slur that would ever be considered zero-tolerance, and is as good as part of every-day life. I think I can confidently say that everyone has been told "fuck you" multiple times in their lives and at this point, know how to handle it.

Finally, as stated by staff earlier in this thread, they do consider try and consider the bigger picture in this thread. And from the screenshots provided, the OP (of the abuse report) simply ignored Goofy while he desperately tried to get into a party. While this is nothing offensive or illegal by any means on the server, it shows a very clear, understandable reason why Goofy escalated. While shouting vulgarities may not be appropriate behavior, I feel as though the fact that the OP not only gave him a reason to escalate, but the fact that he could have handled the situation on his own shows no reason for this ban.

 

I shouldn't get in to this but you can believe me or not but Goofy was recruiting while I was also recruiting. I had 2 slot open and there were ~4 people in the room. I sent a request to two people before Goofy ditched his partner and asked to join my party.


And yes, it was a rude for me to like all the posts he made and Andreas gave me a warning for it. I've unliked it all and will try not to get involved with Goofy anymore. Excuse my behavior on that part.

 

From an administrative perspective, I find that these types of sections are best kept locked for staff only as to prevent issues like this. The amount of petty reports just to get people banned will decrease overtime as players will know less about who is being reported and for what reason. New players coming in will just think that the report abuse section is used for (excuse my terminology) actual reports, where victims are genuinely offended and not, "Hey, you called me a bitch. LOLOLOLOLOL REPORTED." While I completely agree that it is beneficial for the accused to be able to respond to the post, I feel the costs outweigh the benefits.

From a player perspective, I really enjoy reading abuse reports and ban appeals. They're really funny at times (esp. the people who are obviously hacking and trying to deny the claim. Then @Katsuruka just dumps chat logs and other evidence to utterly shut them down).

On the actual case itself, I feel that if Matt and John, as well as the rest of staff, wishes to prevent 'vulgar language' towards each other, then we should have the GMS filter. I personally don't think a player should be banned on the stance of just saying "fuck you"; maybe if the player further harassed the victim then there's ground. To be honest, a lot of 'harassment' reports are just players who either A) too young or immature to handle other people or B) just want to get people banned, which in my opinion is just despicable. I have suggested a rewrite for the harassment rule before, and I'll try to find it if I can, but I think the current harassment rule is too strict on what constitutes towards harassment.

 

I'd just like to note that in real life, in schools and universities, businesses, and even in legal situations, like in courts, "strict" rules are never strict. Exceptions are always made in cases that justify it, because anyone human should be able to understand that strict rules do the community no good. They only instill fear. It is the same argument as privacy, sure if the police check everything everyone does for illegal acts, people who don't do illegal acts would have nothing to worry about. But everyone does illegal stuff once in a while, and it's only the people who ignore/intentionally break the law that deserve to be punished. You will never find any law that is so strictly enforced that there are never exceptions made for it. Even something as bad as killing someone isn't punished if it was unintentional and justifiably something the average person would have done.

This case falls right into that category I feel, to the point that I'm actually personally offended he got banned because I no longer feel safe knowing GM's ban people for something as arbitrary as this. This is about as tame of a use for swearing as I can think of, a simple "Fuck you" with no continued harassment. If that's bannable, why is the word not blocked in the first place? Is it unblocked as a trap to find and ban people who are willing to swear? Because the majority of people (there are studies on this) would do something wrong (such as shoplifting) if a perfect opportunity presented itself, and it isn't fair to anyone to set traps like that.

And if you really truly think this ban was good for the community in order to show what is or isn't acceptable, I ask you to reconsider based on all the responses you've been getting. I do not see a single non-admin response that wholeheartedly agrees with that ban. That kind of ban doesn't protect anyone from harassment, it only serves to instill fear of GM's in the hearts of players.


All that said, we're all human, and we all make mistakes. This includes GM's as well and I'm willing to accept that, and I'm even willing to accept not wanting to reverse the ban simply because of how it would affect your (both as a collective admin group, and the specific GM who did the banning) image. I just hope that in the future, something like this is given more thought.

Final word: Juries exist for a reason. A single judge doesn't enact judgment in bigger cases because it shouldn't be up to a single person to arbitrarily decide what is wrong and right. In the end, (especially in a private server which MapleRoyals is), rules exist to ensure the wellbeing of the community. The rule is useless without the community, and so it is up to the community (in the case of juries) to decide what is following the rules, and what is unjustifiably breaking them.

 

Here's my 2 cents,

I am an official for a sport, so I deal with certain unsportsmanlike misconducts often. I feel it was the spur of the moment thing that happened where he temporarily let his anger take control of him. It happens to all of us. I understand that you guys banned him to send a message it's not tolerated, but imo, it's too harsh for a 1st offense for just one "Fuck You". Maybe somehow keep that in mind, and if it happens a 2nd time, then give him a 3 day ban. If he continued to harass or etc, I'd understand a ban straight up.

Like an experienced official once told me, emotions run high at times because of certain different factors, imagine you were in their shoes. I think if it's not excessive, nor persistent, then just a warning for 1st time if it's something that seems really trivial.

When I officiate, it's for the players. I am invisible unless I am really needed to step in to take control of the match. We have cards (yellow/red etc.) to help us maintain control of the match if things start to really get out of hand. Everything else, we try to talk the player down as best we can and move along. As GeistesblitZ said, this type of ban serves to instill fear of GM's than to help protect the community.

 

I saw that guy who reported him in FM the other day and defamed him because I thought his NX looked ridiculous. The guy tracks me down after and says YEA THAT REALLY HURT ME SLAIN. YA. YOU REALLY HURT ME BUDDY.... like he was asking for a comment. Some people.

 

I used to spend a lot of time and had a lot of fun on this server but pretty much lost all motivation and stopped playing after this bullshit.

http://royals.ms/forum/threads/reporting-weakbully-for-harassment.32137/

http://royals.ms/forum/threads/weakbullys-not-really-a-ban-appeal.32147/

You cant treat every case as a machine would. Every case is unique. There is a reason why we dont have computers as court judges.

 

As it is right now, if john sees a curse word or one of the "forbidden words" the banhammer comes down.

Come on man.

 

@knuckle thanks for bringing up those reports cause I finally got to find what I was looking for.
I really wasn't intending to post further but I really felt like this was necessary to add on.

http://royals.ms/forum/threads/harassement.27913/#post-160057

Basically in this report, the person reporting was trying to sell a white scroll to someone who wanted them, the buyer misinterpreted "ws" as wolf spiders and whispered back "FUCK YOU" "I DONT NEED WOLF SPIDERS".
... o.o
Also, instead of taking it upon himself to solve the misunderstanding, he decided to report it on forums. Something alot of the community has scolded him for.
On top of that, the "offense" was not interpreted by John as harassment at all.


@John argued saying earlier

I'm seeing a very large lack of consistency in how you guys are interpreting harassment here...
Things have not always been this way Matt, the Staff has unarguably been a lot less lenient on banning people in these recent reports.

 

In my opinion, it'd be much more effective if, say, these new players came in and saw a "petty report" that had been denied rather than seeing no reports at all. If they come to see a report and see that the staff had taken action on it, then they obviously can use that example as a sorta guideline for what can and cannot be reported.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely on board with the decision either. I'm on the fence regarding the ban in question because while yes, it was offensive and vulgar, where is the line drawn?
In this thread, the OP was called an asshole. No action was taken. I'm aware that being called an asshole may, for lack of better terminology, be a watered down vulgarity compared to "fuck you", but it's still in the same category and can be argued that the same message was sent.

So my question about where the line is drawn is both figurative and literal. Because, in both cases, "fuck you" and, "you're a real asshole" both can be summed up as, "I don't like/agree with your behavior and I'm angry about it." <--- obviously that would not get a ban. So in the literal sense, which vulgarities warrant a ban? Besides the obvious racial and/or homophobic slurs.


Also, regarding the report section being set to private, I personally would not agree with that and wouldn't like to see it happening. While we as a community, and I have done it myself, like to place our 2 cents on report threads where they are not needed or wanted, there are also many times where we as a community were able to handle report threads without staff intervention. People who report others for scamming for example, the message can be placed by a player rather than staff that scamming at the moment is not bannable, and to make a post on the community blacklist.
It also does allow the person getting reported to "fight his case" and other members to add what they know to the situation if they were involved.

 

Honestly getting banned is often a common sense sort of thing. There are very few cases here where the person in question wasn't doing something he/she probably shouldn't have done, and that goes for this specific case and every other case posted in this thread.

That being said I don't mind if staff is super strict on the rules or somewhat lenient, but the lack of consistency pointed out by a few posters with the other cases is a bit frustrating to see and I imagine even more frustrating to deal with. Find a line and stick with it. If a player can get away with a (in my opinion) much worse offense of literally promoting suicide(kys has been blatantly used as kill yourself for years) over an FM spot then a player going f you after allegedly being provoked shouldn't have been punished so harshly. Why were the outcomes between these cases so different? They were a similar case in terms of structure(Party A did something that frustrated Party B, Party B responded out of frustration)

 

Do you guys/the admins not think it is fun to have enemies in game? I want people to be able to say "Fuck you" to me and vice versa. If the admin's think that the hugbox they have going is better fine, they're entitled to run the server as they wish, but it makes for a less enjoyable experience imo.

 

The whole hunting for a ban and not being consistent with banning is what I have personally experienced when I got banned for three days last weekend.

It was a learning experience about how this server functions, since I have been called names so often in the game but I didn't and don't ever truly feel it warrents a report on someone. The one time I made a report it was called petty as my evidence was way too little to show the severity of the situation. I accepted it and moved on. Hell they probably don't even play any more (a.k.a. I let it go).

(Inb4 "then you should have reported those people". Answer is no. That is exactly the issue here)

The rules that are there and the way the administrators/gms choose to handle reports on offensive language (that way too often get classified as harassment) ánd the frequency of handing out bans creates an environment where people are driven to see each other banned instead of truly either fixing their issues together or simply remembering the ign of the player to avoid them next time. Basically what @football said. Just like in real life, you are here not forced to spend time with strangers you do not like. And just like in real life you will have fights and issues with people you don't like.

I didn't start this comment just to say how my own experience and reading about other peoples' experiences concerning bans irked me. I'd like to at least introduce the idea of handing out a verbal warning when a player reports another player because they feel offended or they feel annoyed.

Tldr; T&C needs to be revised with the option to give out verbal warnings instead of immediatly banning people over things that would go in one ear and out the other in real life.

 

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