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(09-25-2016, 06:04 PM)John Wildkins Wrote: [ -> ]Hey there.

I don't think memes are going to do a very good job of communicating grievances with the Staff, so instead I'll form a more cohesive argument here.

You've recently stated here that members are indefinitely banned with an appeal timer of six months so that all of their assets are activity wiped, and that all of their personal ships and funds are forfeit once banned. However, as recently as December 12, 2015, you have restored multiple ships belonging to a member who was indefinitely banned in April of 2015, and unbanned somewhere between November and December of the same year. These ships were activity wiped because the member in question was banned for 8+ months, obviously.

So, my question is, when are you going to stop making up rules and precedents that clearly don't exist and start being clear and legitimate with the decisions you're making?

Sorry, I don't really get memes. I prefer plain speaking.

Now, to your reference, if you care to look at the Thread linked below:

http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=97064

and have a look at the writing in green,you will see the following:
Quote:Notes:

-Character that have not been logged in the last 6 months have been activity wiped and cannot be returned.
-Using the sample reason isn't cute, if you don't change it, we won't help you.

It plainly states that Characters that have been inactivity wiped, cannot be returned.

I believe this was done to stop the Admins having to constantly 'look/hunt' for these Characters. Most Admins will refuse to bother, due to this statement. One or two of us, me being one of them, was quite happy to help people and spend hours 'hunting' for these. I didn't do this to help any 'friends' but to help all. If you want to have a look through the pages, since I became an Admin, you will find some huge lists with my name attached to them.

So, what was posted on this post:
here

was in fact a true fact and not made up on the spur of the moment.

If you want to blame someone, blame me, as I was one of the people not following procedure.

I apologise to all those I helped out, regardless of who you were. I didn't realise it was going to cause a problem.

Mark.
(09-25-2016, 06:46 PM)St.Denis Wrote: [ -> ]If you want to blame someone, blame me, as I was one of the people not following procedure.

I apologise to all those I helped out, regardless of who you were. I didn't realise it was going to cause a problem.

Mark.

I'm not getting after you or any other admin for "breaking procedure" by helping people out who lost ships to inactivity or laziness. I'm one of the people who asked for admin help (it was Bob who came to my assistance in that case) when I lost some of my [LN] caps. That's not the point - if anything, what your doing is a good thing, and certainly not what I'm here to argue about. (Seriously, shout out to those who bother to dig through ship backups to find vessels we were too lazy to bump every six months.)

The issue I take is that Kalh was denied the reimbursement of his credits - that he lost due to a technical error with FLHook, not inactivity - because he had been given access to ships that were owned by a banned member of the community. This is not a precedent that exists, as far as I or anyone else is aware. The point I was trying to make by linking to Snak3's posts is that he, after being indefinitely banned, was given access to all of his accounts that were wiped for inactivity. This is directly in contrast with what the admin who posted on Kalh's post stated. Were that statement true, Snak3 would have been told that all of his ships were forfeit, and that he would have to start anew because of his indefinite ban. This didn't happen then. I'm simply asking why this hitherto unknown precedent regarding banned members' assets is suddenly coming into play now, and especially in this specific case (where it really doesn't even seem that relevant).

If the ships and assets of indefinitely banned members are forfeit as the post seems to contend, then I don't understand why there hasn't been any notice about it. "Common sense" can be paraded as much as it wants to be, but most people in this community have friends, and when they leave the community, those friends are usually given their assets. Forcibly leaving doesn't necessarily change that, and I can think of many examples of people with access to ships belonging to currently banned members, or instances of that occurring in the past. If this is the new direction that the admin team is taking in regards to these assets, then it should be clearly and widely known within the rules of the community, so that nobody ends up losing their own assets because "it's a good example of karma".
Do we really want Admins to not help members any more just because there is one case in which someone got off lucky?!
Are you guys serious!???

Edit: I swear, if this silly motion from which 1 (one!) member may have benefited kills off the chance to have a mistake undone by a nice admin... I will [adds bad things] to you... seriously, don't do something like that!
(09-25-2016, 08:14 PM)Jack_Henderson Wrote: [ -> ]Do we really want Admins to not help members any more just because there is one case in which someone got off lucky?!
Are you guys serious!???

Edit: I swear, if this silly motion from which 1 (one!) member may have benefited kills off the chance to have a mistake undone by a nice admin... I will [adds bad things] to you... seriously, don't do something like that!

To reiterate, I don't want the admins to "stop helping people". I really don't. In all honesty, the "inactivity" thing has nothing to do with this. This was a transaction that failed due to a technical issue with FLHook (as far as I can discern), and it was not restored for the reason that Kalhmera had access to Laz's accounts, who is currently banned.

I was using the "lucky person" (Snak3) as an example of an argument against the "precedent" they were arguing existed in relation to banned players' ships and inactivity wipes. Obviously, this has caused a bit of confusion over what I'm really arguing about.
Just don't.
Edit all your posts out.
Clarify your grievances in a silent room with the Admins.
And please, do not wreck something that is just good for 99 % of the people.
And with 1 % injustice... we can all live.
(09-25-2016, 06:04 PM)John Wildkins Wrote: [ -> ]You've recently stated here that members are indefinitely banned with an appeal timer of six months so that all of their assets are activity wiped, and that all of their personal ships and funds are forfeit once banned. However, as recently as December 12, 2015, you have restored multiple ships belonging to a member who was indefinitely banned in April of 2015, and unbanned somewhere between November and December of the same year. These ships were activity wiped because the member in question was banned for 8+ months, obviously.
So, my question is, when are you going to stop making up rules and precedents that clearly don't exist and start being clear and legitimate with the decisions you're making?

I will try to explain the situation as best as I can.

The problem with using Snak3 as an example, is due to the reason why his ships were not wiped in the first place. I might be remembering this wrong and if I am, feel free to tell me, but the reason his ships were still alive was due to the server troubles we were having and how it interfered with the automated deletion process. His characters weren't -restored- as far as I see, he even himself said that he found that they still existed on the server and he asked them to be returned to his possession. Would have I done it if I had processed his post in that thread? I am not sure.


(09-25-2016, 06:59 PM)John Wildkins Wrote: [ -> ]The issue I take is that Kalh was denied the reimbursement of his credits - that he lost due to a technical error with FLHook, not inactivity - because he had been given access to ships that were owned by a banned member of the community. This is not a precedent that exists, as far as I or anyone else is aware. The point I was trying to make by linking to Snak3's posts is that he, after being indefinitely banned, was given access to all of his accounts that were wiped for inactivity. This is directly in contrast with what the admin who posted on Kalh's post stated. Were that statement true, Snak3 would have been told that all of his ships were forfeit, and that he would have to start anew because of his indefinite ban. This didn't happen then. I'm simply asking why this hitherto unknown precedent regarding banned members' assets is suddenly coming into play now, and especially in this specific case (where it really doesn't even seem that relevant).

If the ships and assets of indefinitely banned members are forfeit as the post seems to contend, then I don't understand why there hasn't been any notice about it. "Common sense" can be paraded as much as it wants to be, but most people in this community have friends, and when they leave the community, those friends are usually given their assets. Forcibly leaving doesn't necessarily change that, and I can think of many examples of people with access to ships belonging to currently banned members, or instances of that occurring in the past. If this is the new direction that the admin team is taking in regards to these assets, then it should be clearly and widely known within the rules of the community, so that nobody ends up losing their own assets because "it's a good example of karma".

Going back to Kalh in particular, you must take into account that the ship and the original owner in question from which he got the money in the first place. The ship did not belong to a person who ''left discovery'' or "made themselves leave forcefully" , but to a person who was, should I remind you, removed by a report process just as much as their own request.

Quote:The issue I take is that Kalh was denied the reimbursement of his credits - that he lost due to a technical error with FLHook, not inactivity - because he had been given access to ships that were owned by a banned member of the community.

He was not refused because he was ''given access to ships that were owned by a banned member of the community''. He was refused because he took the money from a non-shared personal account that he had no prior access to, and which was the personal bank of a permabanned member, in the first place.
As I said, please remember the reason for Laz's ban. Deletion of other people's ships, stealing credits among other things.

Upon trying to figure out what happened to his money and checking the logs, we ended up going as far back as to some of the earlier transactions - including the full amount of money being sent from Laz's bank by Kalh. The account that Laz's bank was accessed from Kalh's machine (for the first time) and all of the money (read: exact amount) was sent to his own personal ships. This set off a red flag.

While it was conducted in the end that it was indeed a Flhook hickkup that ate Kalh's money in the first place, it was soon questioned whether or not in this case he should have had that money in the first place. And personally speaking, I am still amazed that you would be questioning this judgement.




Now this is where 's accounts are mentioned. I might as well mention him first, before you do. There is a huge problem in what to do with his assets, because of the mere fact that almost all of his accounts are shared. And I do not mean by one or two people, but by very many. Very. Very. Many.
Personally, I've no idea what to do with them.



This problem stems from one specific point you are not bringing up so far.
Processes like these cannot be automated if you want them to be as fair to other members as possible. They cannot have a clear cut definition in the rules as they would lead to huge problems for all community members as time goes by. Yes, it would have been easier for me and you if the rule was right there and clear as day - that all accounts belonging to a banned member will be automatically banned or deleted. But due to how ship sharing works, how faction ships work, it would have lead to billions of assets deleted by association depending on who the offending member was.
Do you want that?


/admin on
But fine. I would not be opposed to facing less situations like this in the future. If you would like, I will gladly start up an admin vote regarding the addition of a new rule so that this situation never happens again and that there is no ambiguity on our part.

That any accounts associated with a banned player will be meeting the same fate. If a member is banned for a month - all character accounts the player had access to will be banned for a month. If the player is ''permabanned'' and the six months period before they can post an appeal comes into play along with the ship-wipe, the ships that they ever had access to will be deleted instantly upon his sanction day as not to repeat the issue where Snak3's ships survived due to techincal difficulties earlier that year.

/admin off


If you cannot have faith in us handling these things manually and accept that they have the chance to differ wildly at a case by case basis and would rather have no ambiguity at all, we can do that. From a techincal standpoint it would be literally the most easy thing to do - filter by access, Ctrl A + press the button saying Ban/Delete.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.
I can understand, to a reasonable extent, why the exception was made, given why Laz was banned. (And fair enough if the ships weren't activity wiped, it seemed to me as if that was the case but regardless).

I don't want the status quo to change. That's why I made this whole post to begin with - it seemed to me like the admin stance on the issue had changed. From the post itself:

"Let me reiterate something that was said during our little conversation. An indef-banned member has to wait a minimum of 6 months before they can appeal, because it also activity-wipes all of their assets. Once a member is indef-banned, their personal ships and funds are forfeit - the only exceptions are shared ships."

I was specifically taking issue with this, and I similarly take issue with the green statement you've posted above. That's the opposite of what I want. I was simply inquiring as to the origin of this stated precedent - one that I've never heard of prior - and if it was going to be the norm for all admin decisions in the future. I was also secondarily asking that the decision involving Kalhmera being reversed, although I had little hope of that happening, and an understanding that there's only so much that can be done when stolen accounts are put in the mix.

I suppose, in a better sense, I wanted to clarify what the current admin stance on the issue was. There are many people - other than - who have been or are currently banned and have given ships to others for safe-keeping or as a parting gift. If what was posted to Kalh's request is to be believed and taken whole-heartedly, this is in violation. I don't want it to be, but I'm clarifying for all those who are concerned about it, since this post is definitely a departure from the way things have been handled in the past. I don't want an authoritarian system to come to these requests, I just want to know whether or not people are going to get in trouble in the future for being in possession of or using banned players' assets. That's what's in contention here, at least for me.
The statement I made regarding the matter stems from the logical outcome.


If a member is permanently banned then all of their ships (apart from shared accounts) are not being logged. Or at least we have the good will in the community that they are not being logged - today was a good example as to why. If they are not being logged, then all of the ships that aren't shared characters should have filtered off via activity-wipe by the time their 6 months are in to make an appeal and have it processed.


In Kalh's case, he was manually given the access to Laz's account around a week and a half after the ban happened by the owner himself.


So my personal take on this is simple. If you and enough of other people had access to these assets before the ban happened to have them count as shared accounts - you will not get into trouble.
However, you can see the obvious loophole that many people will gladly use to ''sanctionproof'' their assets if this was written via server rules, right? It has to be left to us to judge which case is which. I hope you still have enough faith in what we do to let us do so. If you do not and want everyone to be treated the same - the solution is in the green.
(09-26-2016, 02:09 AM)sindroms Wrote: [ -> ]So my personal take on this is simple. If you and enough of other people had access to these assets before the ban happened to have them count as shared accounts - you will not get into trouble.
However, you can see the obvious loophole that many people will gladly use to ''sanctionproof'' their assets if this was written via server rules, right? It has to be left to us to judge which case is which. I hope you still have enough faith in what we do to let us do so. If you do not and want everyone to be treated the same - the solution is in the green.

Fair enough. It seemed to me from the statement that the admins were moving towards a much more clear-cut approach to the situation, where in my opinion, the exact opposite is needed. Since we're seemingly mostly on the same page, I suppose I'll leave it at that. Thanks.
(09-26-2016, 01:37 AM)sindroms Wrote: [ -> ]/admin on
But fine. I would not be opposed to facing less situations like this in the future. If you would like, I will gladly start up an admin vote regarding the addition of a new rule so that this situation never happens again and that there is no ambiguity on our part.

That any accounts associated with a banned player will be meeting the same fate. If a member is banned for a month - all character accounts the player had access to will be banned for a month. If the player is ''permabanned'' and the six months period before they can post an appeal comes into play along with the ship-wipe, the ships that they ever had access to will be deleted instantly upon his sanction day as not to repeat the issue where Snak3's ships survived due to techincal difficulties earlier that year.

/admin off


If you cannot have faith in us handling these things manually and accept that they have the chance to differ wildly at a case by case basis and would rather have no ambiguity at all, we can do that. From a techincal standpoint it would be literally the most easy thing to do - filter by access, Ctrl A + press the button saying Ban/Delete.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

And this is what would ruin all the good aspects of having factions that can offer shared ships to enable their members to participate in more situations with the right equipment.

No faction leader can vouch for every member of his team. I once lost an account full of Gunboats with high Caus because I gave access to a GB expert who - in 2 sessions - trained my faction members. Later on he was banned. All GBs gone. Do I want to fear every time I give a shared account away that everything is going to go "Poof"? No.

As Spazzy's answer already showed, the cases can be very different.
And even in a RL court of law, not every case is the same, not every crime gets the same punishment.

What is really needed is trust in what the Admins decide. I know... that can be a tall thing to ask for, especially after a woefully wrong decision and its aftermath, however in cases like this, the alternatives are too detrimental to many.