Proposal to Admins

[Garrett Jax]

No matter which side of the issue a person stands, nearly everyone is in agreement that the process used to ban the six players was far from ideal. I can understand the Admin's avoidance of implementing the process for what was formerly known as Rule 1.0. It takes precious time and energy to speak with each individual member of the community who might be thought to be harming server gameplay. While I prefer to give Community members a heads up that their conduct is leading them to a ban, it's apparent that the current Admins have no desire to do so.

Rather than arguing the matter, I have a simple proposal that might help avoid, for the future, the chaos and community upset that has occurred. When I was on the Staff, I recall that when a name came up for Admin, the vote had to be unanimous. I believe the same should apply for names coming up for vote for being banned. We have had many unanimous votes before regarding decisions to ban individuals, so it is definitely possible for people to still get banned this way. By forcing the ban to be unanimous, though, the Staff is forced to talk things out more, convincing each other that a ban is either warranted or unwarranted. More time prior to making these decisions can only be good.

A unanimous vote wouldn't have to apply to other forms of punishment, such as probation, so a punishment could still be enforced if the Staff vote for ban reached an impasse. If a community member does become banned, the Staff can tell the Community that the vote was unanimous. This would mean that 8+ Admins felt the person's conduct was harmful enough to warrant a ban. That statement should carry far more weight with the Community than a simple declaration that the member didn't get enough votes to stay on. A unanimous vote promotes unity among Admins, with each individual Admin being able to stand behind the decision, knowing it was something they agreed with.

With the lack of time and resources that you all have to spend on Disco, you need to have an easy system of checks and balances in place to help yourselves avoid stumbles like the one you admittedly made with the six player ban. Since you do not have the time to speak/warn Community members that their conduct is leading them to a ban, this I believe would be the next best thing. It requires no extra time or effort. It slows you down and prevents knee jerk reactions. It minimizes the chaos that comes from making surprising and shocking decisions. I mean if 8+ Admins feel a player's conduct warrants a ban, it should come as no surprise to the Community as well.

Lastly, since many of you have agreed with me privately that you bungled, it would be appropriate for you to apply this process retroactively toward the six recently banned players. It seems only fair.

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[Danny-boy]

This sounds like a very good idea, one the current admins should get behind. Initially I thought the Dev strike was going overboard and that the Admins would sort out the mistake that they had made, however it seems that 20 days on from the posting of this thread: http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=140762 that the admins have still failed to come to a decision.

So if the admins really have that little time to spare for disco when it comes to banning various players and to then clean up the mess caused when a mistake is made, well then it is safe to say there needs to be some sort of safeguard in place to prevent mistakes being made in the first place. Seeing as it takes too much energy to actually deal with a mistake when it happens. Making a unanimous vote required rather than a simple majority vote would be a very good way of doing this.

I also agree that applying this retroactively to the 6 that have been banned would be a good idea, after all it is because of the drama that has been caused by those bans that this idea is even being mentioned.

Although I have to say, it feels like the [A]dmins are just waiting for all the drama to die down as opposed to actually making an official announcement on the matter or taking some sort of steps to rectify the issues caused.

[Petitioner]

While nothing would ever be as good as Rule 1.0 was, this seems an acceptable substitute until the team decides that the integrity of their administration is worth the time investment. A stopgap measure, if you will. I'm all for this proposal.

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[Jack_Henderson]

I am still convinced that there cannot be surprise bans "out of the blue".

A 6-month ban should not come without a warning (exception: attacks against the server, etc) and a conversation about what is going wrong at the moment.

I totally agree with Garret's voting procedure.

A simple vote in which 4 Admins are "pro-ban", and 3 are "no-ban" cannot be the way something like this is done. A 2/3 majority should be the absolute minimum if you find unanimous result unacceptabe, but Garret is right that "unanimous" is the best way to protect the Admin team against what we are experiencing at the moment: massive unrest that takes a toll on the whole mod.

//edit, because buried on page 3 of spam:

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I was spending some more time about the "how to vote to get a convincing result", and I did not come to a conclusion on what is better:

Option 1: Every Admin must vote "yes" / "no"
Option 2: Every Admin must vote, but there is a "neutral" option in addition to "yes" / "no" (so we would always have 8 people who gave their opinion)
Option 3: Not every Admin must vote (can result in small voting numbers and therefore influence the outcome; On the other side Admins could stay out of a vote when they feel they are involved too heavily)

I couldn't make up my mind on what is best.
I am leaning to #1, as it creates a clean outcome with a maximum of voices.

If one adds "in dubio pro reo" (when there is doubt, judge in favour of the accused), this should create better results, especially when coupled with unanimous decisions (which would result in few bans, only of the worst offenders, after quite some discussion), or a 2/3 majority.

[Stoner_Steve]

Oh look, another, thread, about admins, from you

Considering that none of your previous 3 threads had any result I very much doubt this one with either

[Teerin]

This is a good idea, actually.

Would probably also help ease the worries of some of the community members as well, to know that this sort of policy would be in place.

[Thyrzul]

Oh look, another, thread, about admins, from you

Considering that none of your previous 3 threads had any result I very much doubt this one with either

I guess you aren't the only one having even less and less faith in a proper response from the Administration Team in due time.

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[Syrus]

Such serious matters should never be decided with a simple majority vote, they should always require at least 2/3rds of the admins to agree, better yet, as suggested above, all admins should have to agree unanimously. Otherwise another way to deal with the individual has to be found on which the team agrees upon, be it a lesser punishment or even no punishment at all, if for example only one admin considered someone requiring a ban, while all others disagreed.

Even in the case that all admins agree that actions have to be taken, an individual should only in the gravest of violations against rules and community be banned "permanently" immediatly - for example when cheating with malicious intent towards the server or community, where (e.g.) amounts of damage are inflicted which cause the need of a server rollback, or when otherwise deliberatly harming the community, server and so on in disproportional, unprecendented severity.
In other cases, a "lesser sanction", be it a ban of shorter duration (one week to one month, depending on the reason) or a warning, for not-so-severe cases, should be imposed first - for first time offenders -, to notify the person about the situation they are in.
Overall talking to people, where possible, should be the first thing done, to prevent any more harm to come to community and server, and to reduce the need of such punishments. For "disturbance of community peace"-sanctions, like the ones that have caused this chaos and made this discussion necessary, this option should very well be available and as such be used. It has to be made very clear to the people in question that they are on thin ice due to their actions - which, as a cause for a punishment, have to be laid out to them (and (in case of a ban) preferably to the rest as well, as we do not want this to repeat - bans are to an extend also examples!), so that they can understand what they did wrong and what to fix about their behaviour.
But even this requires a lot of talk between admins and also between admins and the subject to occur. As we are not talking about every-day-bans here, this has to be possible. Yes, being an admin is a hard and not very well respected job, but the power that comes with being an admin has to have some drawbacks.

These things have to apply to the individuals whose bans have caused this as well. Overturning your hasty decision in that matter might seem like it costs you your face, but at least it should end the drama this caused and stabilize the server's population a bit - I could imagine that quite a few are very well willing to leave if perma-bans are distributed this easily nowadays.
I have supported the "admin dictatorship"-kind of rule for some time back in the days, as it was necessary for them to make some hard decisions. But they at least were reasonable at the time - and if that is not possible, we need to have the many admins we have now to at least agree unanimously for such heavy and wideranging decisions which have obviously a lot of collateral impact on the community. It is not easy - but as it is not an every day thing, it should still be possible.

So, I say, please rethink this. Nowadays we probably have the highest admin-to-player-ratio we ever had; I think such would allow for more "interaction" with the community - especially when necessary. Heavier punishment must also require more decisive admin consensus, and should involve more communication with the subject - where possible (unless absolutly not needed due to the severity of the actions; for example in case of "very harmful cheating").

[Divine]

Hey Garrett, where was my warning? It's nice to see you want to propose something that was in effect a few years ago where you've already been an Admin and seeing at the same time how it wasn't handled like you propose now would be the better way to deal with situations.

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User was banned for: http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=151485
Time left: (Permanent)

[Garrett Jax]

Hey Garrett, where was my warning?

Your vote was unanimous Divine.

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