Ban appeals and staff leniency - Where does it meet us?

Disclaimer - I will provide different comments, replies, ban appeals and so on, but this is not against any staff member, nor meant to shame any staff member.
Staff members are doing their job for free, providing us a lot of help, information, events, and much more - out of their own free time.
I appreciate you guys, and I think you are doing great.
BUT - whenever something is done in a good way, there are always ways to make it even better.

Subject at hand - Ban Appeals.
Staff always encourages us to post a ban appeal whenever we think something is wrong and we can't login to our accounts.
I'm no different, I always say it's best to submit a ban appeal and see what's going on.
So what's an appeal? i'll give the definition of an appeal by the law - an appeal is a legal proceeding by which a case is brought before a higher court (GMs/Admin) for review of the decision of a lower court(Ban).
What does that mean? it means an X staff member banned a Y player for doing Z, and the user submits a ban appeal to hear what he did wrong, what's the punishment, and for how long.
Simple enough, yet so complicated.
As a player who read over 150 pages of ban appeals, and keeping myself updated with Every Single New ban appeal that comes out - something is not right.
Instead of giving players a second chance (if its not that bad), or letting a player explain himself and then thinking about it with or without the other staff members, an appeal can get easily shut down, or unnecessarily dragged out.

I'll give you an example!
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.130531/

Sure, you can say it's old, but that's one I thought about.
Instead of letting the player know what are the items the staff member (in this case, Luna) is asking about, she just throws a dry question that will force the player to ask "what items are you refering too?" or something along these lines, and it will be a back n' forth one liners instead of directly asking X Y Z and speeding up the process.
What's the point? honestly. there are many appeals that's being processed for weeks before a final answer, and that's because some staff replies are not so clear, or not as direct as it should be.

But one example isn't enough, so lets give an example a bit more.. fresh.
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/thi...en-deleted-or-blocked-from-connection.241383/

What's the point of the first 17 messages in this thread?
Why can't the staff member (in this case, Heidi) see this is going nowhere, and pass it along to an admin that quickly solves the case?
Yes, passing a case to an admin can be a hassle sometimes, but also can be very valuable.
Heidi (in this scenario) was convinced both IGNs belongs to the same person, and to be honest? she was right on the money!
But - it was pointless and a hassle for both parties (Heidi, the appealer).
I'm not saying that every case like this should be transferred for further checking, but when something doesn't add up - I think that passing the case to a more qualified staff member that has more tools would be much more benefitial.

The second page of the ban appeal section has a 6.1 messages per thread on average, which is quite high.
A well handled appeal shouldn't have these many messages on average, but instead should be more efficient.

What I don't understand is why staff members (in general) are trying to get the user to admit guilt, or trying to squeeze the guilt out of a player so they can "rest their case".
Staff has most of the answers and can check quite everything, and if something doesn't add up - GMs and admins are available for further checkings.
It seems like it's not even about limited tools, it's about not checking well enough before / not trying to check enough before / just wasting time.

Here's an example of a Well Handled ban appeal:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/id-has-been-deleted-or-blocked-from-connection.241289/

Bacon did not waste any time, let the user know he is ban evading and linked his previous appeals.
Furthermore, he said and i quote: "when I have already had the admins verify that you are indeed ban evading".
Wouldn't it be easier to confirm the neccassery details with an admin or a GM before asking so many questions / wasting precious staff time?
It's not a shame checking everything beforehand and then handling a case quickly and effeciently. that's how I see a good staff member in action - Giving a reason, providing whatever possible evidence (as in this case, bacon linked the said previous appeals), and setting a straight final answer.
And if there is not a final answer that a GM Intern / GM can give, pass it to a qualified admin (TimK) to use his own tools to solve it.

A 4th example of a dragged out ban appeal:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/block-from-connection.241135/

Why can't Heidi (in this scenario, again, nothing against the specific staff members) just let the user know in one message what's the correct format and need to write 2 messages before she gives him the format, especially when it's clear as day that the player has some language barrier?
It's ineffecient. ban appeals should be handled quickly and with effeciency.

A 5th example of a well handled ban appeal:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.240992/

This is a well handled appeal.
Foxy provided the reason for the ban, warned the user that he should not play any other accounts (new or old) and that he can still vote.
All in one message.
2 messages in total and the ban appeal is done.

6th and final example of a mishandled ban appeal:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.241424/

He got banned 4 years ago and made a long explanation on what happened, only to get shut down in one measly sentence
That reply showed 0 care, 0 understanding and 0 on.. everything basically.
Sure, maybe it's nothing new for staff, but why did he have to be shut down so heartlessly?
Giving a robotic answer for someone who shares his story is just rude. straight up rude.
Then people will say - "He RWTed, he doesn't deserve leniency" then sure, you can say that.
But then - I will counter that and say that we can be humans!
Take a look at Becca's replies as an example - even if she denies the user's appeal, she actually shows some empathy or understanding.

I can link every single ban appeal that becca ever touched as an example to her humanity and nice attitude, but I'll link only a couple:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.241146/#post-1489328

That's two:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal-harassment.239841/#post-1477891

That's three:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/cant-login.238854/#post-1470454

Three different examples of three different appeals with decent attitude.
I'm not saying that the GM who handled Hamburg's ban appeal was rude or with a nasty attitude, but you see the difference?
Staff's treatment to the players, banned or not, is important.
People can get discouraged to post a ban appeal if they see so many are get shut down so easily, then they think - what's the point?

In Conclusion of this section - Provide neccassery information, no reason to drag out something that can be avoided, make sure you check everything neccassery before answering an appeal, and show some heart.
I apologize in advance if any of the people linked here are offended, I would never try to intentionally harm or shame any staff member, and I only provide the replies as examples, as things that can be done in a better / more effecient way.
I appreciate every single one of the staff members, and I know everybody on staff doing great work out of their own free time with nothing in return whatsoever.

2nd subject at hand - leniency:
The hardest thing to balance - leniency.
What can be forgiven? what can't ever be forgiven? where can we show our heart, and when do we need to strike a K.O?
This is hard, but not impossible.
I believe that staff members are being too hard.
What's the point in appealing bans from long ago, if the answer remains the same?
Every person who got banned from like 2016-2018 or so should have some chance at all to come back for a second chance.
We all did stupid things at some point in life, why should banned players still be unable to come back 5+ years after it happened?
Think about this - you made a mistake in a supermarket 6 years ago, and now you want to return but the security guard says you are not allowed to enter because of that simple mistake?
Now - I'm not calling hard RWT a simple mistake. no no no..
I'm talking about the players who did something stupid back in the day when they were still young or fresh players, and now they are a completely different person.
I'll talk about myself here and say I did some stupid things back in 2016 (i'm talking about IRL experience, nothing that relates to royals) but that was when i was much younger and a lot stupider.
We can even talk about 2019 which was only 5 years ago, but its not ONLY 5 years, it's a long time that passed and people change as time passes by.
We cannot judge people from 4-5-6-7-8 years ago today the same way we judged them in the past.
We should be more forgiving, we should let players who truly shows remorse and sorrow about past actions back in our community!
MapleStory is a nostalgic game, and i'd say most of us (if not all) are over 20 years of age.
This game won't survive forever, and the community is not that big to begin with - around 1,000-1,500 people or so? even less?
Instead of ignoring people from the past that want to change and start fresh, we should embrace them back and let them know - we care, and we want you to have a 2nd chance.
That will not only bring back old players, but also create a chance for newer players to see that this server is not a police station, and that we can be forgiving.

Of course - not saying this is relevant to every single player that got banned, but some? for sure!
Let this community thrive and grow stronger, and show them staff are not only people in power stances (unintended pun), you all used to be regular players just like us, and some of you are still players like us (Heidi, Foxy, Bacon, Gert and so on) that plays pretty often, don't you want to see us grow in numbers?
If someone fucks up the second time, well, that's on them, but they can't say they never got a 2nd chance!

I think that Dezperadow's case could be the start of this, as no one expected that Tim will do what he did and not only unban Dez, but also unban his old accounts.
Staff can make mistakes, no? what did Tim do? he fixed that mistake.
So us players are no different - we can make mistakes, and we can expect staff to try and forgive us.
We're all doing stupid things, past, present and future - but don't let it hang above our heads forever.

I have some other things I'd love talking about, but I talked enough.
I hope others can share what's on their mind, and agree or disagree with me.
That's just some things i had in mind for a while.
Thank you for your reading.

 

I'll be replying to the second half of this post, the suggestions are all nice in 'thoery', my problem on this subject is the fact that players look only on the potential good this could bring and they look the other way when they are faced with the potential negatives of such changes, it would be brilliant to have the abillity to see change and reform within our community but unfortunately by doing that we would be undermining the integrity of the system, which in turn will create a lot of doubt within the playerbase, some players will be an exception and some not, next thing you have in hand is an entire community divided, players not understanding whats right and wrong, even worse players would speculate admins favoriting specific players over other players, as much as I believe people can change the issues that will arise are so obvious to me, and they are so massively problematic, that even considering this is beyond me.

 

First of all - thank you for reading and for sharing your opinion.

Second, while I do understand your point of view, and your explanations, I can't agree with it.
You are looking at the worst case scenario whatsoever that is unlikely to happen in my opinion.
Chaos, divided community, favoritism..
All of these are absolutely awful in theory, but they won't happen by simply being more open, more effecient, and more empathic overall.
It's not about picking specific players, it's about changing the mindset and changing the attitude, even by a little bit.
You don't have to make a complete 180 turn for this to happen.

I didn't say "unban all the players from 5+ years ago", i said to be more open to provide a 2nd chance.
Also - to counter the favoritism part, there is no favoritism and it was shown.

Examples - Charlie, Kenny, Dong and many more ex-staff members who got yeeted out of the game due them breaking the rules.
Also - Hamburg who was an ex-staff member (forum mod iirc) didn't get unbanned and he contributed to staff and the server as a whole.
If there weren't any favoritisms within staff (and ex-staff), how can favoritism happen within players?
I did not ignore the problems, but I saw a brighter future that is 100% possible, and I believe some players (can't speak for all players) would agree with me.

Regardless, I appreciate your opinion and I don't think you are wrong, but it's just less likely to happen as you took it to the extreme.

 

Don't you think the information fishing process can be done in a more effecient way?
It seems like only small bits of information are being fished for every reply (not every single time, but it happened a lot) instead of much information that can be fished in one singular reply.
Instead of asking "do you own the IGN x or y?" in one comment, then asking "do you own the character X?" in a different comment, while only in the 3rd comment the staff member gets to their point - all of this can be within one comment.
I'm just thinking that a more direct approach would be benefitial for the said fishing.

- - - - - - -

I think that having too little staff is not a deal breaker for said second chances.
I understand that the staff is limited in number, sure, but I don't think that manual monitoring would be the needed action to take.
I believe that any player that gets banned once and then "free to go" knows that he can get caught really easily again, and will be careful enough not to make any mistakes.
Also, recruiting more staff can fill the void you have that prevents you from operating in certain ways.
I also agree that reading the rules is mandatory (and also we all get the quiz to leave maple island), but that doesn't mean that 100% of the cases should deserve a strict approach that gives a "you didn't read the rules? too bad!" vibe.
From my experience, both as a former court employee and as a player, when someone is getting a 2nd chance or at least seeing some empathy regarding his situation, it's really rare that the same situation occurs again.
I will mention this again to prevent any misunderstanding for future repliers - I do not think that every rule breaking deserves a second chance.
I do think that some of the rules could be a little less strict, and that the staff could really act a little differently in some cases.

A good example would be this:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/id-been-deleted-or-blocked-from-connection.241255/

A Player was banned in 2017(8 years ago) and well, I do not support his ban evasion as it's a rule break, obviously, but don't you think that showing some leniency in an 8 year old ban would be more benefitial to the server, especially if the player is playing legit and clean?
Again - not promoting ban evasion or rule breaking or w/e, but think about it. new players tends to make mistakes, hell, I even made a mistake and got my punishment for it, but i was also getting a 2nd chance, and I've achieved a lot and learned a lot - this is not rare, this is something that can happen again to other players.


- - - - - - -

I agree that you should follow the rules, but that doesn't mean that you can't think or make decisions as a whole, if the rule allows you to do so.
I believe that sometimes you (as staff) can give the lighter punishment or at least consider letting the person start over with a fresh new account (really depends on the rule break and when it happened).
Making a mistake once is forgivable, but disrespecting the 2nd chance should be the absolute limit. we can't redeem ourselves without getting the chance to do it.

Thank you very much for your insight and comment, I appreciate it and you had me thinking for a little while there.

 

For those who support ban evasion after a time:

First, instead of changing the ban evasion rule I'd recommend changing the ban itself to be permanent character/account ban + X year player ban, as that just seems like a cleaner way to handle it of it's decided to implement that.

Second, what offenses should remain permanent, what ones should allow players to come back, and how long should it take? I've seen a lot of people say hacking and rwt should stay permanent, so I'd guess most want account sharing and vote abusing to be temporary? And 2nd offense of moderate infractions maybe? How long should it take for these? Should there be three tiers of vote abuse (14 day, permanent with new account eventually, truly permanent)? New conditions on account sharing?

Third, one of the main reasons I think account sharing needs to be permanent is because hackers/RWTers could otherwise use it to evade/downgrade bans. How should this be handled to prevent that? Does staff have input on how hard it is to figure out if someone is account sharing or actually the same person?

 

I appreciate you feel attacked, and that must feel really challenging, but your response is unkind, and I really hope you remove it.

 

I've replied to you in private, cause I didn't want to start arguing, but it bothers me that you paint this picture for no reason, so I'll say here what I told you in private:

This was 100% not a targeted attack on you.
I looked for different ban appeals and dug up multiple pages to get an example of things I wanted to talk about.
It's even offensive to me that you think I'd like to **intentionally** target you and attack you, after all of the latest conversations we had.
I've mentioned multiple times that I apologize if any staff member is offended and that I'm talking about replies / way of handling things and not about the staff member specifically.
This is nothing but feedback that I felt that was needed to the staff as a whole, and I mentioned a couple of times in this thread that nothing is targeted against none of the mentioned staff members, and I do apologize if you think this is something against you.
You also took the thread in the wrong way, you missed what I was trying to say.
I worked hard on this thread, and calling it an attack or thinking about it as what you said is surprising to me.

I dislike the attitude you chose to bring while addressing this thread so I will respectfully not address anything that you said in your comment.
I just wanted to bring it to light that I DID NOT attack you and your assumption is not even close to the point I was trying to make.

You can read my other comments and maybe get more information that'll let you understandwhat I meant.

 

I say, let Geto join staffs to know whats going on inside for transparency.
Heidi gets more workload taken off as Geto helps out.
Heidi gets the opportunity to boot Geto when Geto is getting sick and tired of it.
???
Everyone wins.

Ok now, with my bad joke aside.... aware that Staffs has their own tier system where some powers are limtied to a higher tier.
As well as some SOP or actions to be taken in steps are not to be revealed to players.

Geto is doing a case study for the appeals, and not attacking staffs for their decision at that time where it may be the best course action.
But we are thankful that transparency is given (and hopefully permitted), especially now that it is being discussed as we do not know what was happening.
I think Geto would want to keep it a healthy discussion here and hopefully we can move on with it.
Thank you.

 

tl;dr thanks to AI
The post emphasizes the need for a more efficient and clear process in handling ban appeals, advocating for better communication and quicker resolutions. It also pushes for a more forgiving approach to ban appeals, arguing that it can benefit both the community and the game itself.

 

Heidi, by commenting something like this. Is like you showing again that you cannot handle situations like this kindly. it's you who putting yourself on a tight spot. You only saw the negative part on this discussion and took it again as how you took the appeals posted above. It's clear that naobito is trying to have a good discussion and you see how bacon responded? that's how you should respond aswell and maybe more politely cause who knows if this post is really targetting you :33 maybe? idk.

 

Imagine you work as a technician, you know your job well, what it entails and the intricacies behind it, then someone without full knowledge of your work methods comes and criticizes all of your jobs without even knowing what you really did, the issue is not with criticizing, the issue is criticizing without having the knowledge of the real work that is being done behind the curtains. (this is also my main issue with this feedback in general)

also you have every right to feel attacked because that's how it looked like, even if the intentions were different, the outcome of what was conceived through the text is what matters, people have to remember that you are human too and always answering 'professionally' is something we should expect from chat gpt not humans, you pour your heart and time doing this voluntarily, so getting offended is even more understandable then not.

Spoiler: my out of context personal opinion

I really did not want to kind of change the subject and to say this but I feel like this fits here and that I must, throughout my years here I gathered that the scales of empathy vs criticism towards staff is incredibly imbalanced, yes it is important to criticize in order to improve and do better, and yes there are people who show their appreciation, however I would sincerely say its about 20% vs 80%, which is imho unfair to the people that make and keep this dream of nostalgia possible for us on a daily basis and for so many years.

 

To prevent meaningless arguments, I will not participate in this thread from now on.
Can't please everybody with my insight.
I would like to say that @Heidi has been doing a good job and i never meant this to be a slander thread, and I hope you can see that for yourself.
You shouldn't take it to heart when someone says something negative that involves you, cause I didn't appreciate this rude behavior at all.
I only want to improve things, and make this lovely server a better place, a more humane place..
Sometimes it's better to not be pasimistic and have some faith, cause it sure is lacking.
Thank you for participating and I would love to hear more players / staff members share their opinions

 

Goddamit. The cycle continues...

 

What do you mean by cycle?

 

Will dm u as this thread is over. Thank you.

 

If GM interns feel that admin availability is the bottleneck/barrier, perhaps there is cause to promote Stephen and Bacon to admin (redefining the privileges/role if necessary), hire 2 new interns to replace them as GMs, and leave all basic ban appeals to the newer staff.

Regarding the second set of concerns, I find it quite authoritarian, and unreasonable, for example, to permanently ban a parent from this server, as a person, forever, for sharing an account with/playing on a character together with their 13 year old daughter.

I understand that there are some individuals who are intent on intentionally/maliciously exploiting the game, but they are likely to find their way to an entirely warranted permanent ban even if the rules are made more lenient and forgiving. They're also more likely to evade their ban, meaning that people who wouldn't intentionally abuse the system again are often permanently left behind, whilst people intent on rule breaking ultimately find new ways to play. I think there are areas of the T&C which could be altered, to replace harsh, unforgiving punishments, with empathy, leniency and forgiveness, in cases where there has not been a large detriment to the server, and I think the staff already know what those areas are. I hope the staff are able to take the many perspectives offered, on board, to ultimately provide some much needed, meaningful changes to support the longevity and integrity of the server, whilst also protecting it from malice.