long bans is the forum equivalent of parents using corporal punishment on their children instead of actually working hard to come to a lmao. it is as inefficient as it is lazy and cowardly.

This post was last modified: Dec 4, 2016 at 1:22 PM by T-man.

I don't particularly like how it's always a game to you. I imagine there are people who come here for the community and see other members as more than NPCs and people to get a rise out of for fun.

The metagame as it exists mechanically in the forum is a supplement to posting and a means to be rewarded for posting what the community deems to be worthwhile content. I don't think the staff will ever see moderation as another element of the game, at least I certainly hope they don't.

i don't know how any of my comments in this topic have led to the insinuation that I treat anyone here as an NPC, or that my suggestions towards making Banning an actually useful part of the Old Guard skill branch's toolkit suggest that I enjoy getting a rise out of players.

I don't think the staff will ever see moderation as another element of the game, at least I certainly hope they don't.

They have done since the dawn of MFGG.

Seeking out bans is a lazy playstyle. As a Heel your role is to play the bad guy, but when you receive a ban that means you lacked any sort of subtlety or finesse. It means you took it too far and nobody is having fun anymore but you.

The rules exist for a reason and they're incredibly lenient, your suggestion for shorter bans is clearly just an excuse to allow you to break them without suffering any serious consequences. If anything more lenient rules should lead to longer bans when they occur (though I still like my Cool Off idea). Shorter bans lead to more rule violations, which is something nobody who cares about this community has any interest in.

Receiving a ban isn't part of the game, it's someone being asked to take a time out from the game so everyone can get a break from them acting like a shit.

That said getting a rise out of people (don't pretend you don't love it) IS a legitimate playstyle and one that can lead to very well-seasoned results

Seeking out bans is a lazy playstyle.

oh yeah i definitely agree; i just wanted to see who gets the first one. right now i don't know what i could do to get a small ban like six months or whatever so until i find a way i'm gonna stick around; don't worry. to that end, i'm still waiting on a response for my question about Blood Meter resets.

Shorter bans lead to more rule violations, which is something nobody who cares about this community has any interest in.

is there any evidence for this?

That said getting a rise out of people (don't pretend you don't love it) IS a legitimate playstyle and one that can lead to very well-seasoned results

getting a rise out of people for its own sake doesn't really interest me and it never has. i'm only interested in delivering the voice of the cosmos to all. if that happens to annoy some people then that's their choice, but it is a mistake to confuse this accidental effect with my purpose on this forum.

Shorter bans lead to more rule violations, which is something nobody who cares about this community has any interest in.

is there any evidence for this?

Admittedly no. I'm just going off prior experience with MFGG - like you said, most users who come back from a ban come back salty, and I don't see how a shorter ban would make that any better. Some people just want to watch the world burn.

Honestly I think the classic MW system of cumulative bans is pretty effective, basically the only difference with my Cool Off concept is that users can voluntarily return from a ban if they demonstrate that they're ready (and if they commit another serious violation during the remaining duration of their would-be ban, their ban then resets but with no ability to Appeal)

fwiw I like the Cool Off idea

This post was last modified: Dec 4, 2016 at 4:08 PM by Spritanium.

Thanks, I always thought it was a good one; I think the admins suggested that it wouldn't work, but I really think it's important to reward people for wanting to come back and post even if they've caused trouble recently.

I guess the real question is what's the goal of banning people, and is what's happened / happening effective at that goal?

If the goal is just to get people to Go Away, for the most part that doesn't seem to work on members that get banned. Not too many people have been banned and didn't come back after their ban was up, I don't think. People who have been banned a lot have left but so have people who have never been banned at all so not that great of a metric.

If the goal is punishment, I dunno how effective it is as a punishment past a month tops. It ends up in the Cruel and Usual territory past that though if it's someone you want to be part of the community and who wants to be part of the community.

If it's conflict resolution, by the time long bans are up there's no opportunity to resolve conflicts. either people are holding grudges that are difficult to resolve or it's just been too long for communication about what happened before to not be really awkward and weird.

If a ban is for Healing purposes like Cooling Off I think short ones can be pretty effective at that, but not so much for longer ones....

I guess there's other Goals of banning I don't think of here either. I mean this is just from the perspective of how you want the ban to effect the individual who is banned; obv there's also the perspective of how the ban affects the community too and that has its own answers.

i don't know if I really fully 'get' Oracular's reasoning about bans (but I've been in a admin position of a lot of forums, less so in the banned member position) but I welcome the unconventional approach to thinking about it- it can get our gears turning and maybe find something really good that we wouldnt have otherwise thought of

which parts do you disagree with?

instead of banning members on the fly we should have a member pick/ban system at the start of each season

which parts do you disagree with?

i dunno if i disagree with anything I haven't given it too much thought. I think we're kinda missing the point talking about how long bans should be when everyone probably has different ideas of what bans are supposed to do

I think the most important thing to wonder is why anyone would follow the rules if the maximum ban length was trivial to wait out.

@Mario To respond to your post, I'd say bans can be for either punishment or healing purposes. More so the former when we're talking about repeated bans. I don't agree with bans longer than a month unless they are permanent, and permabans should only occur for users who have received several temporary bans without demonstrating any positive desire to be here.

And yeah "Don't act like a jerk" has always been too vague and exploitable. It would only really work as a rule if the entire community was on the same page about every issue, which is neither true nor desirable. I'd actually say on new MW the only bannable offense (apart from blatantly nefarious things like flooding, malware, etc) is making a flame that gets reported, so the rules (and moderation style) should definitely reflect that leniency

permanent bans don't really work because years down the line people usually change and tend to want to come back, this time as a constructive member

they end up hiding their identity as well until its revealed because they're technically ban evading and breaking the rules again

yeah the whole permaban deal for anything short of blatant raiding/posting illegal stuff is a bad idea. i'm glad we stopped trying to grandfather all that in

I think most communities start out using bans simply for the "Go Away" factor. I mean, that's really what bans seem like they're supposed to do anyway, make people Leave. When you have a big commercial board, it makes a lot of sense to make people go away that are doing bad things. When you have a smaller community board, it can be valuable to keep your community thriving so long as you still have that activity flow. Minus World is in a position where those outlooks don't really work. I think our attitudes towards bans really started to truly change when we realized This Is Everyone We Have Left, This Is The Community For Better Or Worse so keeping people around became more valuable. Activity has picked up since then and it doesn't seem as important but it does seem like everyone talking about it is on the same page that we don't really want to resort to harsh bans unless for some reason we have to.