"Archaic Bans"

[Weapon]

I am making the Very Large Cranium decision of choosing to start a non-roleplay thread on the forums.

What's more, it is a poll.

We have at least one, and I do believe more, case(s) of people who have ban evaded, been caught ban evading by the staff, and have been allowed to continue playing without having their bans formally reversed.

So this is a poll. Should the staff be required to formalize an unban for somebody who has been caught evading an "archaic" ban?

Of course, you also then need to define an archaic ban. Slippery slope territory indeed.

Regardless, current stare decisis holds that evading a ban after a period of time with sufficiently good conduct now means that the ban can, apparently, be evaded indefinitely.

I do not think this is an acceptable state of affairs.

---

Recruitment | Task Force Prometheus | ICN FIRESTORM

[Kauket]

if someone was secretly ban evading this entire time and got unbanned, you should be rebanned. defeats the point of being punished in the first place. why should anyone get sanctioned if we can just evade it

---

[Weapon]

That was not a poll option for the following reasons:

1. I do not believe that enforcing a ban from 3+ years ago is a reasonable or sane way to treat a human being unless it was over something that was irl illegal.
2. The staff have clearly decided that this is how we're doing things, so instead of debating that, I'd rather see about codifying it.

---

Recruitment | Task Force Prometheus | ICN FIRESTORM

[A Magpie]

if someone was secretly ban evading this entire time and got unbanned, you should be rebanned. defeats the point of being punished in the first place. why should anyone get sanctioned if we can just evade it

One could argue that the point of the ban is to correct the behavior. The admins do not want that behavior in their community and so ban the individuals that engage in it. If someone gets banned, but then is able to, while circumventing their ban, not engage in the behavior that they caught a ban for, then the ban served its purpose as a corrective action. The player's server assets are already forfeit and deleted as part of their ban so all of their existing progress is gone, no matter what. They have to keep their old identity under wraps as much as possible, they can't be familiar with their friends or they'll be sniffed out. They are still in effect exiled from the community, and proving they have improved their behavior beyond saying "trust me, bro" in their appeals is much stronger than popping back in six months later to say "I won't do it again." I'd say that viewing bans as a punishment at all makes them needlessly antagonistic. It's the cry of the tilted, the sore loser, the mildly inconvenienced: "I'm going to get you banned."

[Sombs]

I'm only aware of one particular individual that matches this case, and to add insult to injury is rather blatantly open about it. With the benefit of the doubt, I'm going to assume this isn't a veiled, indirect trial-by-forum.

Punishments like bans are tools to encourage or provoke corrected behavior. More often than not, they fail, especially in Discovery's community, where people are just way too easily giving into intrusive thoughts. In the few cases where people aren't falling back into their old patterns, the ban served its purpose as corrective tool. That is the primary line of thinking we should have when it comes to treating and differentiating between general malevolence and situational crashouts.


Rumors of people evading bans sadly often are not just rumors but facts, with only so much that can be done about. When that particular punishment fails, others need to be considered.

In the particular case I am hinting at above the ban-evasion is not only confirmed but somewhat portrayed, either knowingly or not, with blatant obviousness. Surefire way of provoking reactions, and while I'm not missing a certain irony in who voices their opinions on the matter at hand, one can hardly blame anyone to feel, at first sight, something unjust is being endorsed. In the context of the ban-evasion serving as foundation to prove an improved spirit, sportsmanship and even commendable and qualitatively high standards of roleplay, one must ask whether pursuing further punishment for the sake of further punishment is a healthy path to take. Sometimes it pays off to just roll with it instead of getting vindictive for the sake of vindication.

Does it mean this unprecedented case should set a new standard? No.
Does it warrant hard specifications to be laid out? No.
Does it mean other people will just get away with ban-evasion if they just behave well enough or fly under the radar? No.
Does it mean we need to make a mountain of a molehill? Nope.

I'd rather trust the current greens and oranges to think their decision through, as usual on a case-by-case basis, with rules and previous rulings being guidelines to consider than hardlines to follow. Hardlining doesn't get us anywhere.

---

---

Uncharted System Stories: 18 | 32 | 34 | 37 | 38 | 85

Templates: Character | Transmissions

---

[Sally]

It makes total sense that unbans aren't formalized; for one if the staff is aware a specific person that was formerly banned is back again they can apply a probation period, keep tabs on their behavior and decide if they're worth keeping around again. The secondary reason is they get the bitter/toxic and drama-farming crowd (like Nyx above) off their backs for unbanning someone they hate (usually a big list of people) because nobody likes dealing with toxic whiners, specially on volunteer work, the banned person might also prefer to keep quiet on past shenanigans and start with a clean slate.

Other than that I mostly agree with what Magpie said too, sanctions are there to correct behavior, not solely as punishment, permabans are pointless because they sustain in the terminally-online delusion that you can exclude individuals by just deleting accounts; you can ban accounts, not people, good luck with trying this approach and fail every single time someone wants to come back, though.

---

"I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute." - RMS

[R.P.Curator]

Once again, Discovery Drama!
Awwww!
Levels of "misbehaving" and their associated corrective measures:

Warnings:
- Verbal
- Text - Discord, OF Pat on the head or Forum

Sanctions - missing ships; credits; etc.

Bans:
- Temporary: depending on the severity; the "likeablility of the person" and who and how the person irked - can vary from 1 week to several months

While all the above are in place to ensure that the faulting person is made aware of their disruptive (or in some cases just stepping on the wrong toes) behavior; they have the intended desire to entice / persuade or even force the person to either change their behavior to a more palatable one for the community (or in some cases just certain individuals) or refine their shenanigans so that they don't get caught. That is the horrible truth of It.

- Permanent: now, permanent is permanent for a reason: said person/s are either beyond redemption or have just stepped on the wrong toes too many times or just too hard (another horrible truth).
If the person in case qualifies for the "Villain, no redemption ark" scenario, that ban is deserved and should be enforced via modern methods. Usually, Its warranted. There are some exceptions, considering the young age of some persons in the community, they may mature and reflect. Those cases require a certain amount of time to pass from said ban, and probation with close monitoring of the impact of the returning person in the community. Everyone loves a good redemption ark. BUT those cases are rare and the returning person may have just "refined its methods".

P.S.: I got a 1 month ban for having "Oinkers" in my /1/2/3. "Oinkers" were my weapons, my warpigs. Seems I stepped on someones LARGE toes and triggered some childhood trauma, most plausible about weight or its excess. I'll never know.

[jammi]

To an extent, I agree with Magpie. Ban appeals generally aren't actually very helpful, because you're simply getting a wall of text where someone attempts to feed staff whatever insincere bullshit they expect we want to hear.

The only extremely narrow situation where they are helpful is where the banned party doesn't actually understand why their actions were harmful, and tries to proffer the wrong platitudes as a result. Either way, the entire process suffers from words being wind.

I obviously can't speak for staff as a whole, but my personal view is that there is nuance and context involved here. Trying to strike a balance between pragmatism and community health against moral hazards and perverse incentives.

If a substantial period of time has passed, an evasion is detected, their conduct demonstrates change, and they are then asked to submit an appeal disclosing their former identity(s), reasons, assets, etc, it should be at least considered.

If the ban is then lifted, that should be announced in the original ban thread. I don't think there is any obligation to link that original ban to the user's current public alias.

I think people have many reasons to want to reinvent themselves. Some people want to leave behind baggage, drama, and prejudices associated with their prior actions. Try for a clean slate where they can contribute to the community without being tarred for their past.

I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, especially given how vitriolic this community can be, and how long grudges can be held for. Staff is still aware of who that person is and can monitor them, without needing to out them to the wider community- that could even be counter productive to any rehabilitative effect.

Bans should primarily be about changing behaviour, or quarantining individuals that have proven to be unable to change, or engaged in illegal activity.

---

News article library, feedback and content requests.

[Groshyr]

Unlock the can of discord "evidence" and see yourself burried in all sorts of bueno

[Karst]

(The following is just Karst's opinion, not a staff statement)

I am not overly bothered if people with prehistoric bans are playing, if they're not causing trouble, for a number of reasons.

Very old bans were often made by teams that don't have a single person in common with the current, people whose decisions we might now heavily disagree with. They may have been for violations that aren't even in the rules anymore. And long time banned players may have repeatedly tried to appeal, and perhaps unjustly been denied. Following due process is all well and good, but remember, the staff are human, and they make mistakes. I can look back myself and find decisions I made that I would make differently now.

I'm of the opinions that bans generally have a sort of natural expiration. Basically this:

1. I do not believe that enforcing a ban from 3+ years ago is a reasonable or sane way to treat a human being unless it was over something that was irl illegal.

The point of a ban is to end someone's undesirable behavior, right? If that has been achieved, I don't see much of a point in continuing it indefinitely just for its own sake.

This falls under the wider umbrella of letter versus spirit of the rules, in which I am a strong proponent of the latter camp. I see no benefit in sticking to ironclad protocol when it clearly isn't achieving any practical purpose.

---