Hello again. The reason I bring this thread up is to suggest a ban notification for temporary (temp) bans that a member receives. Now, I've never been banned before so I'm not sure how the process works in the background so please forgive me if there is a similar system already in place. I randomly thought of this scenario: Say user "BillyBob" got a three day ban for something, but stays logged off for a month, and his ban expires. He later logs on and does something else, but doesn't know he's already served a ban in the past. Now, my suggestion is under the assumption that temp bans are automatically lifted, but I believe by having a notification system via e-mail (since not all users make forum accounts) that the user has been banned for "X" number of days, he may think twice before attempting this again, thinking he got away with it or somehow thought it was not bannable. I believe this would prevent future permenant bans, save users time in filling out more reports and save the staff time on Ban Appeals. Thank you for your time into reading my thread.
At the same time, if the user doesn't break any rules to get themselves banned, they would never have to worry about that right? I mean if it is a temporary ban, they would be banned again on either the 2nd or 3rd time they committed the offense. You shouldn't be doing it one time, let alone two or three times, so I feel that it's just common sense. Also, part of signing up affirms that you have read the T&C. That means you read the rules and should not be doing anything on that list to get yourself banned. I understand the intention behind this feedback, but at the same time, don't think anyone should get themselves into that situation in the first place and if they do, it's purely their fault and no one else's
Absolutely agree that this should be common sense, but unfortunately, common sense isn't so common anymore. Thank you for the reply!
Good day everyone. I support the temp ban notification. Say if someone is wrongly banned for maybe some vote abuse confusion issues or any other matters, if they did not log in for very long and did not know that they are banned, and thus didn't even make a ban appeal to prove their innocence.
I also support the temp ban notification, specifically because people do occasionally get wrongly banned, particularly in the case of vote abuse, where there is a need to compare the information in the database against the player's own account of what happened.
Perhaps only notifications on certain types of bans which may have another cause for it; i.e vote abuse. Others such as definite autobans could have no notifications.
I support it for this reason. If somebody got accidentally banned but happened to not log in, they might not know they were banned and thus couldn't appeal it. It becomes a problem if they get banned again for the same offense,as it will then be counted as the second violation. It is particularly problematic if they use a shared connection, e.g. a school or university, and thus could be punished for what somebody else did, without being aware of it.
I suggest that they get an in-game message when he logs back on. Example: "On D the character T got banned on this account for R. For additional information use the ~something command. In this command you get more information such as how long the ban was, if it was first, second, third offense etc. Who/what banned you so incase the autoban system banned you but it was a mistake where you got a first offense you didn't deserve and you want to get rid of that incase you do something wrong so that you don't get longer punishment for repeating the same offense. If the ban was lifted before its expiration date so that you can know that gms realized that it was a faulty ban and you didn't get first offense. This way you don't have to go on the forums to bring that up. D = What date the character got banned at. C = What character caused your account to get banned. R = For what reason you were banned for. These are all my suggestions as of now.
@Digestive - I think an email or a forum PM would be a whole lot simpler! However, the latter would require us to add a field to people's ingame account details on the website/registration form: <checkbox> If banned ingame, I wish to be notified via forum PM. <field to fill in forum account name>. If no forum account is listed, the user will be unable to put a check in the checkbox.
I think the easiest way is just to show a messagebox at the login screen when a player logs in after a temp ban date. The messagebox would inform the user that the temp ban for a certain reason was lifted, and kindly ask to login again. Probably, overall, better information about bans could be given at the login screen, this would probably reduce the amount of ban appeals too. I hope this is being considered. I know it works now, but you should aim higher than it works.
You guys made an in-game notice about when you're able to vote so why can't you make that? I've worked with source code before and this is not one of the harder things to do. Just make a function that when a person gets banned you get the information that is stored and you make a case for when you need to call out that function to access the information for example when that banned person logs back in for the first time after the ban or using a command. Login screen, in-game, command etc etc I'm fine with any of them as long as one is made. Edit: don't wanna be a D here but forum pm and e-mail is a bad idea. Not everyone has a forum account nor do they want to make one just for that purpose and never actually post a single thing on the forums. Bunch of dead forum accounts lying around. Also not everyone check their e-mail often. Some only make an e-mail to actually make the account and rarely checks them again. Not everything game related has to be somehow connected to the forums. I mean just as an example I can tell you that there are many veteran players/power levelers who never visited forums and if they did only like few times.
@Digestive, you can not compare vote data and ban (= account) data like that. Vote data is added with each event, where account data is updated with each event. The difference might seem small, but the way the data can be used is signaficantly different. Because (under the current form1) ban data has to be updated in order for a person to acces the account, this means you can't have a call out function in game. Simply because there's no stored data from previous events. For the vote reminder there is stored data, so it can easily be used for call out functions. That's why a messagebox on the login screen is possible. The old data is checked, and updated if needed. If the data is updated (meaning an unban) the old data is printed in the messagebox (asking to log in again). Now, the account isn't banned, and the person logs in just fine. And bumping my suggestion to improve the message on all types of bans. It would be a lot more useful for the person (and Staff) if the current messagebox prints the ban reason. Some examples: 1 I do suggest a better way to actually store ban information similar to vote data however. This is only needed because of the tier system some offences have. Late edit: I'm also in favor to keep game and forum as seperate as possible. Under the current setup the forum an optional platform so I don't think sending forum notifications concerning in game information is a good idea.
@Gi, if it's possible that way then I am all for it until someone can ponder on a better idea and post it. It's similar to my suggestion anyways since it's in-game related. Just no forum and e-mail stuff as I know many players don't even bother with that, if it can be scripted in-game I'd suggest that instead.
