[Feedback] Nature of Rules and Ban Appeals

With reference to this ban appeal (http://royals.ms/forum/showthread.php?t=7765) as a case study, I'd like to feedback that I feel that the ban is unjustified more importantly, the reasons why.

Argument 1: The ban did not serve the purpose of why the rule was created in the first place.

From my brief understanding when going around seeking the opinions of the players in FM, the "account sharing rule" arose when a bishop zipped to the top 10 due to it being a co-op account. The rule was thus enforced to prevent such "unfair play" since it will probably diminish the significance of the ranking system if shared accounts can simply steamroll the efforts of others.

Hence, the rule serves the purpose of leveling the playing field. But in this case study, it has not achieved this purpose.

In the case mentioned, there was no unfair advantage gained by the defendant "Model" from having access to such an account. That doesn't mean him having access to it was right though. But it is important to at least acknowledge that by banning him for the reason of "account sharing", it has not actually achieved the purpose of reducing toxic activity (i.e. unfair sharing), making it a ban that is simply for the sake of keeping to the rules.


Argument 2: Flexibility could be exercised when it is clear that it is a genuine mistake that is not actually toxic to the server.

It is true indeed that upon signing up for the server, the player agrees to the ToS (regardless of whether s/he bothers reading it). And that this ToS must be followed absolutely, no questions asked. Given this clause, it is of course natural to be punished accordingly when the player commits the infraction.

However, as human beings, we should actually consider that sometimes, people do make genuine mistakes (which they usually show remorse for). And often, 2nd chances are given to allow the player to repent.

What distinguishes between a genuine mistake that deserves a 2nd chance, and another that does not (in the context of this server)? This would probably depend on the severity of the damage that said transgression did to the server.

If it were something like hacking, obviously we cannot risk it as the hacker gains illegal powers that are beyond the standard parameters of normal gameplay. But if it were comparatively harmless like a foreign player not knowing that English should be the main mode of communication (Don't post ban appeals or other support threads/guides/etc on the forum in languages other than English.), leeway could be given.

From the TOS: "Game Masters possess and may exercise the additional and final discretion in modifying punishment for a violation of the Rules, based on the severity of the violation."


Argument 3: With contextual consideration, the degree of the punishment seems unwarranted.

Given Argument 1 (that it did not really cause any damage to the server) and Argument 2 (that a healthy amount of flexibility could be exercised), a permanent ban for a genuinely silly mistake seems rather jarring.

Since this was not exactly a "severe" violation of account sharing, a permanent ban is arguably harsh for this case. As the defendant has highlighted, there were similar cases in the past(http://royals.ms/forum/showthread.php?t=6309&highlight=respare).



In conclusion, the ruling has complied with the letter of the law (the TOS), but not the spirit of the law (why the TOS was made in the first place).

As administrators of the server, it is prudent to perform a healthy reconciliation between the 2, as part of showing the community that they deeply care and understand the complex nuances of these cases.

It is convenient and straightforward to fall back on the rules whenever there is a difficult and complex case. On the other hand, when an administrator demonstrates careful and thorough consideration, it truly strikes the community due to its human touch. Cases involving people can seldom be viewed absolutely as black and white, and when consideration is given to the grey areas, that is where it adds value.

Things like "Normally we ban players for this offence, and we do not make exceptions. However, after reading your post, we understand your situation, and we've decided to adjust your perma ban to a 1 week ban because we feel that you were not intentionally trying to break the rules and perform toxic actions to the server".

It is never easy to have to make interpretations and assessments since given how unpredictable human nature is, new situations are always thrown in your way.

But it is things like that, that can really capture the hearts of the players.

 

I too believe Model's ban was a perfect example of why people frequently complain that the staff seems inhuman sometimes.

 

The staff cannot win. If we allow some people to share accounts, no matter what the reason, we are accused of playing favorites. If we apply the rules fairly across the board for everyone, we're accused of being robots who show no humanity. In this particular case, the user was signing into another person's account.

Why? It really doesn't matter why nor do we know their true intention. Nonetheless, it is made explicitly clear in the ToS that this action results in a permanent ban. We have TONS of players on this server and if we start making exceptions for certain people, it opens a floodgate for others wanting exceptions and even trying to reopen their appeal.

I also believe we have made quite a few accommodations in the past when conditions are met. However, they are very rare and happen so seldom, as I feel they should be. These exceptions should not be known to everyone, for the aforementioned reasons.

I'm not shutting down this discussion and encourage further responses. However, I really feel that by not applying the rules equally across the board for everyone, we are opening a can of worms, which has caused for other servers to earn negative reputations.

 

EDIT: Realized the idea is insanely tedious/not possible. There's really nothing you can do to make the rules "more fair".

 

How do you propose we track something like this?

 

I realized that after I said it :c

 

The issue in my mind is that you seem to ban for account sharing only when someone admits to it or has been reported for it. I could be wrong on this because not everyone appeals. But is any effort put in to find people account sharing aside from these instances?

This example suggests that even logging onto someone once is a permanently bannable offense. Fine, it's against the ToS and is for a reason. But there are SO many people who have violated this that face no consequences, making these kinds of bans feel unfair in some way.

It's bit silly to be talking about this in strict terms of the ToS when clearly there is a lack of symmetry on the enforcement side.

 

The answer to that is pretty much with ANY rule violation: Don't get caught.

 

In the first place, this is not really a case of account sharing. Harmful account sharing is when 2 people decide they would both actively play an account together.

It really depends on how you want to define it, it may or may not be any of the following:
-From the lowest to highest severity-
1. A person KNOWS the account but does not login to it (Model's case)
2. A person knows the account and logs in to it to a transfer stuff (http://royals.ms/forum/showthread.php?t=6309&highlight=respare, an exception was actually granted)
3. A person knows the account logs in, makes a noob and logs out. The other person plays the noob. (Ban is justified, because we don't take level/items into consideration)
4. 2 people actively play an account. (Ban is justified)

1 & 2 are weaker than 3 & 4 because they are cases where there isn't really 2 people playing the account.

Also, the staff CAN win in this case.

It isn't playing favourites when the administrators transparently show their logical reasoning in why they may have granted an exception/adjusted the punishment, because it is based on reasoning, rather than because they favour the player.

If the staff show objectivity, consistency and sound logic in ALL of their assessments in ban appeals, there is no reason why the players would accuse them of playing favourites.

Instead of just applying rules across the board now, we are simply applying rules with leeway across the board.

Thus the staff has won because they have demonstrated that they have applied the rules fairly, AND they have not displayed favouritism.

I did give a lot of due consideration for this difficult dilemma for the GMs. I know that as administrators, it is bloody annoying to have to balance between the needs of the players vis-a-vis having to maintain rules & regulations. But it is not a zero-sum game, flexibility =! everyone will suddenly start begging for exceptions.

Even if people beg for exceptions, if they are not well reasoned and obviously had malicious intent, they will be denied anyway.

An example of this was how I cited hacking as an example of where no 2nd chances can be given. (while someone doing something else harmless was given a 2nd chance).

The staff can and has the power to adjust the punishment to the factors below (just some examples):

1. Presence of malicious intent
2. Extent of damage done to the server
3. Player's attitude in explaining his case


Is it better to do what is right and sensible, or is it better to take the easier route and play it safe?

 

This is rather unhelpful and does not actually respond to the issue at hand. Here you're implying that it is okay for people to share accounts if they are not caught for it. Is that really the point you wish to make? That account sharing is not enforced and will not be enforced unless someone admits to it? We have already seen what kind of issues this attitude causes when it comes to vote abuse. For a while people were pretty much banned for vote abuse only if the Staff happened to check that specific person's vote history, which led to certain players getting away with vote abuse for months. This lack of a fair, unilaterally enforced system is the reason we have monthly checks now.

And with vote abuse the bans were for 1 week only. In this case the bans are permanent, which makes these haphazard bans feel even more unfair.

My point is just that if you're going say this violation is worthy of a PERMANENT ban, you cannot turn a blind eye to everyone else who has logged in to a friends account. Either they too must be permanently banned (which seems absurd -- even some GMs will be perm banned), or you must rethink what serves as a fair punishment.

 

It's the job of all staff members to make the game and all of its content and aspects as fair as possible for everyone playing the server. This, of course, means, that they have to stick to the rules as much as possible to prevent any claims of favouritism, bias, etc.

This being said, I'd like to point out that you're right in saying the following, Kerners:

The first point is claimed to be non-existant by Model himself... However, his explanation as to why he attempted to breach the account sharing rule in the first place was a) very vague, b) not explained thoroughly in a well-structured and logical way (to my mind, at least), and c) really questionable. Why would someone accidentally log on another ID he/she never plays on? I myself sometimes make mistakes and mix up IDs, but those are all my own accounts, my own IDs and my own passwords of the accounts that only I play. One can say there's a fair chance that Model wanted to e.g. transfer something, or even assist the respective owner of the account in any fashion.

The second point can't be judged, since there was no harm done due to the autoban system. The third point can be neglected, since Model did explain his case in a normal fashion, but, as mentioned above, his explanation was very "weird" at several points.

This leads to the conclusion that, in this case, Model would still deserve his ban, since the first aspect you mentioned decides the case, pretty much. I do agree staff members should take all points you mentioned into consideration, since this is the best way to prevent accusations of bias and favouritism, but in Model's case, the ban seems legitimately justified in my opinion.

And, being a former staff member, I can say that it's impossible to be a full 100% objective; you can aim for 99.9%, but there will always be "that one case", no matter what. Staff members are just human beings like all of us, and they will never be able to make everything fair and good for all parties involved.

 

I personally think the no account sharing rule is too much, and I always have. I don't recall if the rule existed on GMS, but I know for a fact that if it did, it was not enforced. Ever.

I feel like if people are dumb enough to share their account info with someone else and they either lose items or mesos because of it, or get banned because the other person wanted to break more legitimate rules, then they will have to deal with those consequences.

Additionally, I don't see the harm in friends, who know and trust each other, to share an account. I don't see how it can be "unfair". As long as the people playing the account aren't hacking or abusing glitches to obtain ridiculous amounts of levels very quickly, the time put into building that character was all legitimate, even if it was a shared effort.

This is a private server. An illegal private server. And in my opinion, some rules that may have been on the "retail" version of this game shouldn't carry over. Especially ones that weren't enforced on GMS.

Just my 2 cents.

 

This basically sums up everything that I would add to this topic.
+1 for Alicatt.

 

And again, this "Community VS Crew" argument. There is a ridiculous amount of people who think that his ban is unfair and should be lifted. Please don't ignore that.

 

If it were to be ignored, then this thread would've been closed by now.

 

Eventually, if they'll not unban him, the situation will remain the same, so yeah, I'll count that as "ignored".

 

The ban was fully justified. I don't think this thread should be the argument of a particular ban and if that's what it becomes, I will close the thread. This thread is more discussing bans in general and should be kept that way.

 

I personally don't think there is anything wrong with discussing the particular ban in question. It is the OP's example, and has reasons provided as a point of discussion. You cannot possibly expect us to NOT go off on a tangent based on the ideas presented, just like you cannot possible expect us not to express our opinion when the thread is also supposed to contain general discussion about bans.

 

I will try to keep this [STRIKE="-"]short and[/STRIKE] clean.

(1) Player A logs in to Player X's acc to transfer stuff gets banned and then unbanned.

(2) Player B logs in to Player Y's acc to do whatever, gets perma banned only because Player Y has a ban on him/her.

The ToS state under Registration

This is the only time (1/3 actually) account sharing is mentioned in the ToS (Not counting TL; DR version).

In the eyes of the ToS situations (1) & (2) are exactly the same and should be punished the same, but as we have seen this is not the case, one got away with it and one didn't. To me it is ridiculous how Player A got away with it while Player B got perma banned.

John said "it is made explicitly clear in the ToS that this action results in a permanent ban".

There is not much in the actual rules about account sharing.

If the account info was shared then there was no attempt made, hence rule 24 not broken. Rule 6 could still be applied though.

Actual account sharing is only really mentioned under the Registration process (without mentioning of punishment) and this means that it is up to the Staff to determine the punishment.

Now since there are no clear rules about this, my opinion is (unless I have missed something) a great level of discretion should be used.
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In Model's case, what people fail to understand is, he tried to use the account info of a banned player. This will automatically result in him getting the same punishment as the banned player.

 

I would like to point out that if we decide to consider a case individually, we would not only need to look at the specifics of the case in question, but possibly at other factors that might be relevant. I would personally argue that the track record and overall general behaviour of the player in question are part of what we should take into account if considering whether or not to make a rare exception to a rule.

If a player has a spotless track record (has not previously been fairly banned) and has not received any complaints against them worthy of consideration, then I would be more likely to recommend showing leniency in the case of an offence where little or no harm was actually done. The logic behind my argument here is that a player's overall behaviour on the server offers us some insight into their consideration/respect for other players and their tendencies to abuse the game to gain advantages for themselves.

This method, of course, is far from being 100% reliable when it comes to judging what a player's intentions might be, the main problem being that it doesn't shed any light on new players.

Obviously, this is not an official standpoint, but in cases where staff discretion might apply, it is amongst the things I, personally, would take into consideration when making my own recommendations as to whether or not a player should be banned, and if so, for how long.