Admin Feedback Thread (Archived)

[Dane Summers]

Neither Karst, Lyth or any of the 6 were given any warnings before they got banned. The staff didn't come forward and approach them about anything at all.

That is basically what I'm calling attention to. In this instance, we've been shown that Admins put together a list of folk they want to shadowban and remove permanently from the Mod and Community. The Admins as a group vote on why this person should go, this person should stay, and then they remove those people, for whatever reasons they have agreed upon.

My earlier point when I stated that only witnessing negativity without making effort to know the people your passing judgement on, only leads to a negative and one-sided opinion, is most relevant to the above. Rules violations and sanctions are one thing. Shadowban Lists are entirely another thing. In one instance, a friend of mine was perma'd with the simple explanation "we don't like you." That person is back in the community, but I don't feel that excuses the manner in which that person was dismissed in the first place

There have been those, that had they been Admins at the time, would have submitted my name for a shadowban list, because there have been times when I was most vocal in a completely negative way. During my tenure as FP1 admin during the (one of many) Omega War, I was openly antagonistic of Dab and Alvin, and in Dab's case, was nasty and hostile in both skype and the forums (and not from an IC perspective either.) In one instance, I filled up a few pages of forum argument with my general dislike of what I considered to be retarded RP decisions from the Corsairs. During the growing pains of CR|, a number of people had less than kind things to say about what I was doing, and how I was doing it, and I had less than kind things to say about them in return. On a couple of occasions, I've gotten drunk, and vomited onto the forums with my intention to do whatever I please. I, in fact, still have a lewd sig, because I think the Admin's decision to back Sterlin's witchhunt to be entirely wrong.

We are, none of us, perfect. King Boo has admitted that he is not inclined to be nice to people he feels are not nice in return, and has openly admitted that his feelings on people can be prejudiced. I'm willing to believe he isnt the only one.

My suggestion: Checks and Balances. It might not even be a new concept, and I'm likely not the first person to suggest it. Install an oversight committee of players, and let those players report on the Admin process. Otherwise, when you shadowban a group of players, allow the community to overturn these decisions with a majority vote. In my understanding, when Karst, Lyth, etc were let go, this community was not in agreement - some of those people did come back, however, through Admins "bowing to community pressure" - my suggestion is, make this a part of the system. When people feel they have control over their govt, on the whole they feel less at the whim of oppressors, and more in charge of their own fate. If you want, if "getting to know people" is unfeasible, set up a system of advocates. If you plan on permabaning a community member, have someone speak on that persons behalf, with reasons why they should stay. If that seems unfair, have someone also come forward as to why they shouldn't stay. Hold a debate. (I'm not advocating this for the sanction process, simply the "this person is gone forever because we don't like him" process).

At the very least, eliminate the Admin "Thin Blue Line" policy. Closing ranks to protect Admins from community anger over misconduct doesn't really help matters - it divides the community and creates "us vs them" mentality. As well, transparency seems to be something people want. Maybe consider not making Admin posts invisible. And please, stop with the condescension whenever a problem occurs, and people are upset. Disco is a symbiotic community - between the players and the admins and the devs, you can't have any one without all of them.

[Skorak]

shadowban

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_banning

No such thing as shadowban on mybb.

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[sindroms]

The reason I point this out, is because it is already a personal opinion. Mods are required to also cast their votes on sanctions. Not only, as I suspect, to judge their reasoning skills, attention to detail and other things for future greening consideration, but also because of how easier it is to avoid mistakes due to simply not being adept in things like recent happenings ingame or the forum.

Keep in mind I may not tell you any specific examples due to three separate threads regarding the additional rules/agreements on top of the regular forum rules that you must sign as a mod, mostly ones concerning user privacy and the sort of information that we have access to regarding server-side things.

I speak from experience because of this. During my time as an orange, I've seen VERY many sanction reports. First of all, it is now very clear why the template is needed :|
Like, seriously, use it. Always. I am not even joking.

From this large amount of reports, there have been maybe only one or two, which could have been solved with a simple "Yeah, he is guilty" from everyone.

Every single one - we look at the screenshots and then have to go..."Alright, this makes sense. But what if they have met iearler than the screenshots show? What if they passed each other on unrelated ships. What if ? Check the logs." then you have someone pull the logs. You have to filter out everything unnecessery. Does this make sense? Yes? No? Go further back. Does it make sense? Was something missed?

Because you know what happens if something -was- missed after all of this digging.

The person provides logs. They are unhappy. They were sanctioned wrongly. The whole community JUDGES it. "ALL YOU HAD TO DO IS REVIEW THE EVIDENCE CJ!!!!"
That is why it takes so long. Maybe someone notices something others have missed. I have already seen a few times it has happened - one of which was, for example, a part of the screenshot GUI obstructing something otherwise obvious. Someone pointed it out and everyone had to then review the sanction which seemed very simple in a completely new light and redo the whole thing all over again. And you are -REQUIRED- to look into it all, guys. It is so tempting to just go "agree with the majority of the votes" when the sanction report is 10 mouse-scrolls long. But then the trust that everyone is doing their job breaks down. And mistakes are made.

Or how about when sanctions are linked together. Both parties report one another. Then you need to go as far back as possible to see where it starts. And then try your best to have an impression of what happened ingame from -TEXT- alone.

And it does not help when you are looking at something that you personally have no context to. It is almost never simple to review. But sometimes viewing things without context is good, so you cannot ''skip a sanction just because you do not play gallia or have no idea about how faction Y operates''. Then your observation is just as important and you are expected to post. And explain why you thin that way.

There is no "burning through reports". I remember fondly how I sat in a skypecall with @Reverend Del and @Fellow Hoodlum and they were just going through sanctions. I mistook it from the whole ''3 greens'' thing being nonsense. That sanctions are handled quick and easy. No - it is because the moment the votes are done, THEN you can take the risk of thinking it was reviewed correctly and NOW it is time to post the sanction thread. That is where the fun starts.

An appeal is posted. The thread you see as one post by the sanctioned user starts to grow with hidden posts by the staff members, now discussing what to do. Is this person genuine, are they speaking the truth, what action should be taken, what p...."hey, I posted this a hour ago, can you take a look at it or not?" appears a person's post. Uh, okay. He pointed out that X happened in Y, didn't we see that in the logs? Or was it something that happened before. Oh, on another character altogether? ...uh oh. Okay, time to put the logs together from both involved parties so we can.. "Oh my god, it has been three hours already, can't you even reply to me?" .........

Imagine it was processed wrongly.
Especially during this time when everyone is yelling at how incompetent and slow the team is. If you try to be faster, then mistakes are more likely to happen.

Then a mistake was made. It means that the ''incompetent admins'' who had to go through what I just described above for every. Single. Sanction. Report. to even get to this point - now need to do it again. And everyone's eyes is on them. And the whole community is judging you at this point. It is something that you cannot allow yourself to make mistakes in. Because your fault can just add more fuel to the current problem of the community thinking that the admins are slow.





You know how many greens have come and gone? You know, I can see why. After looking at the whole situation from this side of the fence, it makes perfect sense and there is a reason I do not recall any admin saying that they hated someone for leaving the team. And I am pretty damn sure I remember going "It can't be that hard." somewhere back in my years here.





Uh boy. Guys, trust me on this, just....give it a break.
And this turned out MUCH longer than I wanted it to.




TL;DR
There is no room for preferences and biases, when everyone is waiting for the moment when you make a mistake to shoot you in the head. That thought simply has no time to cross your mind.

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[Dane Summers]

shadowban

No such thing as shadowban on mybb.

You are entirely free to disregard an entire post of several paragraphs based on an error in terms

[Skorak]

I didn't do that. I just pointed this out after it has been mentioned a hundred times.

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[Dane Summers]

I didn't do that. I just pointed this out after it has been mentioned a hundred times.

Shadowbanning was on the old forum board. I was actually unaware that mybb didn't have it.

[Garrett Jax]

To Sindroms:

My experience was similar. I used to plow through lots of text from the desk to try and understand what the screens were telling me. I tried to get the Admins to not assume evidence provided by even other Admins was correct. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions based on the evidence. When I first was Admin, I made the mistake of assuming Dieter, Zelot or some other Admin was correct in their assessment. I got burned when I posted the sanction report, discovering that it was incorrect. Decide for yourself became my personal motto. The other fundamental principle I used was never make a judgement against someone unless you have at least one rule to support yourself. This is what is killing the current staff. That, and poor communication with community members.

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[Alley]

Shadowbanning was on the old forum board. I was actually unaware that mybb didn't have it.

Shadowbans never existed on any forum board we ever had. It's only being mentioned around because someone not too bright (no name policy) took a joke on skype for real.

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Alley was right.

[Wesker]

Shadowbanning was on the old forum board. I was actually unaware that mybb didn't have it.

Shadowbans never existed on any forum board we ever had. It's only being mentioned around because someone not too bright (no name policy) took a joke on skype for real.

So why is dans forum account deleted

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[Sorrontis]

To Sindroms:

... When I first was Admin, I made the mistake of assuming Dieter, Zelot or some other Admin was correct in their assessment. I got burned when I posted the sanction report, discovering that it was incorrect. ...

Do you think that this no longer happens? The admin team is a decent size, but even there, this is not their full time jobs and they have limited amount of time/resources; cutting corners may still be a problem.