Change all indefinite bans to long-term bans

  • Almost 1.5 years ago, Wilee created a suggestion on the ProBoards forum to overhaul the ban system. As Wilee does, it was a bit of a wall of text, but here it is in its entirety:

    Why does it matter that Wilee suggested this before? Because it was actually approved, with 29 out of 34 votes. It was just never implemented, and so much time has passed now that I think a new vote is needed.

    The idea was simple: instead of having permanent or indefinite bans, all bans would have a finite length. Admins would be able to issue bans of up to 24 hours like they do now. But instead of requesting indefinite bans, admins would be able to request long-term bans that last several weeks or months. The requester and the commenters would all be able to suggest lengths, and the Ban Manager would make the final decision. Appeals would work the same way as they do now, but voters will have to take into account that the user can also wait it out.

    One important point is what would happen to our current indefinite bans. My suggestion is to make all of them last until 6 months from now. That will be too short for some people and too long for others, but it is simply not doable to go through all of them one by one. We also have two other types of bans on the indefinite ban list, namely unappealable bans and self requested bans. Those would remain the same as they are now.

    A small thing is that we don't have a Ban Manager right now. I am currently handling indefinite bans as the owner, but if this suggestion is implemented, this task will be handed over to a new Ban Manager.

  • I vouch.

    This is a great system. The current system of needing to appeal to lift a ban works, but this would be an improvement. It gives the ban manager a lot more reason to be it's own role, a lot more purpose and makes life easier for the indefinitely banned players.

    The severity of offences to get you on the indefinite bans list are not all cut from the same cloth, and this system is generally in place anyway - I'd say most people here already have a subconscious idea of how long they'd like a ban to last for different offences, like serial trolling would be shorter than server crashing etc.

    Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

  • I vouch, this would be more similar to the systems other servers use. There is typically some sort of longer-term time period that bans last for before they become permanent/unappealable. I think this could also reduce a lot of the drama in the ban and appeal process.

  • vouch (see   erin), but I think serial trolling should be longer than crashing the server (but not crashing it repeatedly), for I can easily see someone crashing the server thinking it's perfectly ok (though more accurate advertising could partially help with this) or just plain accidentally (I could see an OP doing something out of curiosity and accidentally crashing the server with it, including specific crashes and heavy lag spikes that have already happened, and "oops, I did it by accident" won't fly with a lot of you even if it's true), but serial trolling necessarily has to be a repeated and intentional offence that keeps happening after being told to stop

  • Another vouch on my side, the voters having the knowledge that the sanctionned user could just "wait out" the ban whilst an indefinite ban could seem harsh for some sanctions adds another interesting dimension to moderation on TF.

    A fool's fool fools fools who foolishly accept the foolishness of a fool's fool.