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+--- Thread: A new idea for the Violation Process (/showthread.php?tid=113585)
A new idea for the Violation Process - Zelot - 03-22-2014
So, one of the recurring complaints of the community and the reasons for burnout among admins is the time taken and amount of work that goes into processing violation reports. It is no fun, no fun at all, and rightly, the admins do not want to create another level of power among the forum staff. The problem with that is that as the number of players on the server, and thus the number of violation reports has increased, the number of admins, on the whole has remained fairly flat. I tend to think this is overall a good thing, as too many voices in the pot when it comes to server policy and development of rules, as well as rp moves, makes admining the server in an effective way difficult. The downside is that the thing that makes governing the work of the server easier, makes dealing with the violations harder.
Now, one of the nice things about having admins in-game is that they can defuse situations before they start, or during, or even after without a violation report needing to be put in, and without a sanction needing to be levied. There has always been an general admin rule ( I am not sure it is still followed, though I would assume it is) that rule violations can be dealt with without involving reports and sanctions, with admin help or without, but that once a violation report is submitted it must be acted upon. This helps to maintain a level of fairness and it removes the idea of certain players receiving special treatment and in this goal it is successful. The downside is it removes much of the flexibility that might be able to reduce the workload by requiring every report that comes in to go through formal processing.
My idea is to compromise both ideas just a bit to hopefully bring about less workload on the admins and a somewhat less acrimonious process for the community. Think of the idea of pre-trial mediation in legal systems. Both sides sit down with a neutral mediator and try to settle things without the need of a trial and sentencing. I think we could bring this idea into discovery with significant benefits. It requires compromising the idea of not creating another layer of staff just a little, and it requires changing the idea that once a violation report is put in it must be acted upon, just a bit.
The admins would pick a handful of mediators, who would be asked to talk to both sides when a violation report is submitted. This mediator would try to arrange a settlement between the two sides. If a settlement could be agreed to, the admins would be notified and the admins would close the report without it needing to be processed or acted upon. Many times people put in reports that contain some version of "I don't really want to get this person sanctioned, but I want to make sure they understand the rules." Often times people are so upset in the process because they have lost their credits, or time, and know they will not get them back, because of course, that's not how the sanction system works, and it makes them much more aggressive to the other side, and makes grudges last much longer. With this system, small infractions could be dealt with by an explanation of the rules to the player, with the mediator making sure the player understands, if that is acceptable to the reporting player. Or repayment of lost credits, which might lessen the hostility between players involved.
Now, every, lets call them, mediation outcomes, for lack of a better term at the moment, the mediator would submit the skype log or pm record of all the discussions between the two sides and the mediator, and would have to be approved by a small quorum of admins, maybe three. This would help to make sure that players weren't being taken advantage of in the process.
So this would allow violation reports to be nullified after being reported. The mediators would be working on behalf of the staff, while not being strictly part of the staff. I would imagine a skype chat with the mediators and two or three admins. This wouldn't even require a new permission group to be created on the forums. The individual violation report could be pm'ed from an admin to the mediator, and a report on the outcome could be pm'ed back to the admin. The mediators wouldn't even need to have access to the violation report section of the forums.
Obviously if a satisfactory outcome was not agreed to by both sides, the report would not be closed and would continue through the process and be looked at as a normal violation report by the admins. I think this could remove a significant amount of the violation reports to be processed and could also possibly reduce the hostility involved in the process.
Now, I think this is a good idea, but I am sure there are some downsides I missed, or ways to improve it I didn't think of, so please, any feedback is welcome. Aside from that, it's really an admin decision to discuss this idea or not, but I would hope that it could be made into a positive enough idea that they might use some version of it to help improve the process. This is just an outline of an idea, it would need some key details of a process filled in, but I would think that would be for the admins to come up with themselves.
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Vipera Berus - 03-22-2014
Its an interesting idea, It might work but again might not. That said though I did think the thread title meant something completely different.
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Divine - 03-22-2014
To lessen the amount of work the admins have in processing the load of violation reports, I'd suggest dropping the amount of rules to a minimum.
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Zelot - 03-22-2014
(03-22-2014, 05:20 PM)Divine Wrote: To lessen the amount of work the admins have in processing the load of violation reports, I'd suggest dropping the amount of rules to a minimum.
Well, as this thread is about a particular idea, and not general problem solving, maybe we could keep the discussion on this idea?
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Divine - 03-22-2014
It's quite related to this particular idea, as your idea is centered around lowering the amount of violation reports the admins have to deal with.
Yet you've brought up something that takes more people into the spin by having those then mediate between the one who submitted the report and the one who supposedly broke a rule.
In context of that, your idea might even work given the case that for a start of this all, the overall amount of rules that can be broken by certain individuals is dropped.
So, whilst you're already on step no. two, I'd suggest dealing with step no. one first.
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Zelot - 03-22-2014
(03-22-2014, 05:31 PM)Divine Wrote: It's quite related to this particular idea, as your idea is centered around lowering the amount of violation reports the admins have to deal with.
Yet you've brought up something that takes more people into the spin by having those then mediate between the one who submitted the report and the one who supposedly broke a rule.
In context of that, your idea might even work given the case that for a start of this all, the overall amount of rules that can be broken by certain individuals is dropped.
So, whilst you're already on step no. two, I'd suggest dealing with step no. one first.
You still seem to be discussing reducing the number of rules, this idea is not about reducing the number of rules, it is about the idea of creating mediators, not only for reducing the amount of work, but also to create a better atmosphere among the community. Now, if you have comments about this idea, I welcome them, but if you want to continue to discuss if the best way forward is to reduce the number of rules, I suggest you create your own thread, and put forward your own idea, but this thread is to discuss my idea.
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Remnant - 03-22-2014
- Keep the amount of rules the same.
- Find responsible players to carry out such an idea.
I for one, am in favor of an idea like this. It would lessen the load on the green-text quite a bit. Of course, the people who do this would have to be responsible, although there are a few lurkers around here who may be able to handle such a thing, that would be all up to the powers-that-be I suppose.
Tldr; +1
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Zelot - 03-22-2014
(03-22-2014, 05:51 PM)Moveit56 Wrote: - Keep the amount of rules the same.
- Find responsible players to carry out such an idea.
I for one, am in favor of an idea like this. It would lessen the load on the green-text quite a bit. Of course, the people who do this would have to be responsible, although there are a few lurkers around here who may be able to handle such a thing, that would be all up to the powers-that-be I suppose.
Tldr; +1
It is not even that the mediators would have any real power, as they cannot enforce anything, nor would they have access to special sections of the forums. They would be people who, out of love for the community and a wish to give back, would try and help people settle things amicably. If they can't, it still processes through the same, so they really have no power to hurt things, a bad mediator would just not help things.
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - Divine - 03-22-2014
(03-22-2014, 05:45 PM)Zelot Wrote: ...Your inability to comprehend cause and action, along with your reading incompetence never stops to amaze me. But hey... you'll get to it one day. Maybe.
You still seem to be discussing reducing the number of rules, this idea is not about reducing the number of rules, it is about the idea of creating mediators, not only for reducing the amount of work, but also to create a better atmosphere among the community. Now, if you have comments about this idea, I welcome them, but if you want to continue to discuss if the best way forward is to reduce the number of rules, I suggest you create your own thread, and put forward your own idea, but this thread is to discuss my idea.
As for your idea, I'll say it again, line for line... so you can understand it this time eventually.
Quote:In context of that, your idea might even work given the case that for a start of this all, the overall amount of rules that can be broken by certain individuals is dropped.With the same amount of rules we got right now, the workload of the mediators you proposed will just shift the general workload from the admin-team to external-sources (external as you mentioned the mediators would not even need to have access to the violation report).
So, whilst you're already on step no. two, I'd suggest dealing with step no. one first.
It's outsourcing the issue. And likely a proper solution for the moment, yet not a reasonable solution on the long run if you just keep fixing the effects instead of trying to create an overall-package that's also addressing the essence of the issue.
But hey, whatever you deem fancy feedback to your idea. It's not like this forums ever had been different. Or you.
RE: A new idea for the Violation Process - SnakThree - 03-22-2014
I don't see how this would affect the main problem - people breaking rules either intentionally or without knowledge that those exist.