In regards to the recent bans

[Haste]

Seriously, just talk! There's nothing preventing you from working together with the devs and finding a conclusion to this silly drama fest.

I'd suggest you make a shared skype chat with all of the relevant devs and admins

I tried to make this happen on day one or two of the strike. I'm not sure why, but it never happened. Makes it all the more surprising to read that the strike supposedly slowed down the administrators' decision-making. I was under the impression that the admins just laughed off the strike (an impression strengthened by the not-so-subtle jabs Jansen made at the strike itself in the OP) and moved on.

I'm happy to admit that the terms of the strike are nothing short of ridiculous. I'm also fairly certain, however, that the strike could have been lifted a few days in if the admins were willing to simply speak directly to the people involved. But they weren't, unfortunately.

I believe I made it abundantly clear to an admin or two that the strike's purpose wasn't to interfere in "admin business" or to second-guess admin decisions. The strike was an attempt to push for fair/equal treatment of all players. Sanctioned players normally receive evidence / a clear reason why they were banned. To my knowledge, these six didn't get either at the time the strike started. Nor did any of them get any closer to getting that information in the few days that passed since their bans. To an "outside observer" like us developers, it looked like the admins were just waiting for the community to forget all about the sanctions and move on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Hence the strike.

If we decide to revert the decision, we are going to open a way for every further unpopular decision to be reverted by such a 'strike' and we as Admins essentially lose every bit of authority we need to keep the server running and community intact. If we decide to keep the decision, then the Developers involved might stop working and we certainly look like cruel rulers, which might make things look less appealing for members, newcomers or returning people.

No matter how silly the terms of the strike arguably are, nowhere do they say that the decision needs to be reverted or that the strike will not be lifted unless the players are unbanned. So I'm not really sure where you're getting this from. The terms push for transparency and equal treatment. If the players undeniably deserved their bans, then they should remain banned. I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise.

[Antonio]

Why did you do it this way?

This might have been handled differently, that is true, however, if we had gone by the 'standard' approach, the people would have been warned, sanctioned a few times and by the time we would have had enough bans to justify an indefinite ban this way, the people in question would have adapted their attitude in a way that makes them act in what could be called 'grey areas', where they still might have been harmful, but nearly impossible to sanction for rulebreaking.
This is why we decided to make a two staged vote for this, one vote to see if we really want to do this, with all problems it might involve and a second vote to decide whom to ban.

I don't know what's more laughable, the quoted paragraph or the entire post altogether.

I simply cannot fathom how can you think this was the right way. You're actually saying you banned those players because you thought(?) that if you proceeded with regular sanctions (which you were supposed to do in the first place, especially after the "clean slate" joke you sold to people since it clearly wasn't applied here) they "wouldn't improve" and thus banned them immediately to what, "save them the trouble"? What kind of an excuse is that? The whole point of warnings, probations and tempbans is that people improve their behavior, and then if they don't, you go with an indefinite ban. That's how it always was, and that's how it always should be. But I'm sure you are aware of all that already, you just don't care enough because you know you're untouchable in your little green empire.

This only proves the obvious that you banned those players because you didn't like them, not because "we trusted our judgment" or any other silly excuse you'll come up with. That directly violates the rule 0.0 of the admins - "Treat everyone fairly and without bias." which you somehow decided to overlook while banning those players. That also explains why there is no evidence for most of them, and for those that got it, it's insufficient for a 7 days ban, let alone an indefinite one. At least you admitted it in front of the community that there was no evidence and the bans were made outside the rules, but that does not mean you're forgiven or that everything will be okay now. What I'm surprised with is that you literally say "Yes, we abused our powers to remove people we personally don't like" with 0 remorse.

As for blaming it on the dev team - you should be ashamed of yourself. The main reason dev strike was organized is to remind you, the admins, that you have rules to follow and responsibilities to stick to, and not go around on ban rampages, removing people you don't like, and that you are not above anyone. Quite a few people misinterpretated that into "oh they just want their friends to be unbanned". It doesn't matter if the worst or the nicest member of the community was banned, or if the decision was poor on an entirely different subject unrelated to bans, the way it happened is simply wrong.

I am curious though will you be punished for openly admitting you in fact did use admin powers to remove people you don't like based on "your judgment call". You definitely should be, because this behavior as well as taking you 2 weeks for writing a post that could've come on the first day on top of closing the admin feedback thread and barely communicating with anyone as well as poor previous decisions really make a good case for showing you're incompetent and unable to uphold the basic rules you agreed to stick to when you accepted to be an admin.

[Wesker]

What is the fix? Who knows, now? Personally, I'd swallow my pride, place the six on probation for an indefinite time, describe the offending behaviors to all six banned individuals and then start over with the whole thing by implementing Rule 1.0, or whatever that rule is called now, from this point forward.

THIS

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[Goldberg]

Why did you do it this way?

This might have been handled differently, that is true, however, if we had gone by the 'standard' approach, the people would have been warned, sanctioned a few times and by the time we would have had enough bans to justify an indefinite ban this way, the people in question would have adapted their attitude in a way that makes them act in what could be called 'grey areas', where they still might have been harmful, but nearly impossible to sanction for rulebreaking.
This is why we decided to make a two staged vote for this, one vote to see if we really want to do this, with all problems it might involve and a second vote to decide whom to ban.

I don't know what's more laughable, the quoted paragraph or the entire post altogether.

I simply cannot fathom how can you think this was the right way. You're actually saying you banned those players because you thought(?) that if you proceeded with regular sanctions (which you were supposed to do in the first place, especially after the "clean slate" joke you sold to people since it clearly wasn't applied here) they "wouldn't improve" and thus banned them immediately to what, "save them the trouble"? What kind of an excuse is that? The whole point of warnings, probations and tempbans is that people improve their behavior, and then if they don't, you go with an indefinite ban. That's how it always was, and that's how it always should be. But I'm sure you are aware of all that already, you just don't care enough because you know you're untouchable in your little green empire.

This only proves the obvious that you banned those players because you didn't like them, not because "we trusted our judgment" or any other silly excuse you'll come up with. That directly violates the rule 0.0 of the admins - "Treat everyone fairly and without bias." which you somehow decided to overlook while banning those players. That also explains why there is no evidence for most of them, and for those that got it, it's insufficient for a 7 days ban, let alone an indefinite one. At least you admitted it in front of the community that there was no evidence and the bans were made outside the rules, but that does not mean you're forgiven or that everything will be okay now. What I'm surprised with is that you literally say "Yes, we abused our powers to remove people we personally don't like" with 0 remorse.

As for blaming it on the dev team - you should be ashamed of yourself. The main reason dev strike was organized is to remind you, the admins, that you have rules to follow and responsibilities to stick to, and not go around on ban rampages, removing people you don't like, and that you are not above anyone. Quite a few people misinterpretated that into "oh they just want their friends to be unbanned". It doesn't matter if the worst or the nicest member of the community was banned, or if the decision was poor on an entirely different subject unrelated to bans, the way it happened is simply wrong.

I am curious though will you be punished for openly admitting you in fact did use admin powers to remove people you don't like based on "your judgment call". You definitely should be, because this behavior as well as taking you 2 weeks for writing a post that could've come on the first day on top of closing the admin feedback thread and barely communicating with anyone as well as poor previous decisions really make a good case for showing you're incompetent and unable to uphold the basic rules you agreed to stick to when you accepted to be an admin.

+1

What is the fix? Who knows, now? Personally, I'd swallow my pride, place the six on probation for an indefinite time, describe the offending behaviors to all six banned individuals and then start over with the whole thing by implementing Rule 1.0, or whatever that rule is called now, from this point forward.

THIS

+1

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[Freeport7]

What is the fix? Who knows, now? Personally, I'd swallow my pride, place the six on probation for an indefinite time, describe the offending behaviors to all six banned individuals and then start over with the whole thing by implementing Rule 1.0, or whatever that rule is called now, from this point forward.

THIS

+1

[Tarator]

What is the fix? Who knows, now? Personally, I'd swallow my pride, place the six on probation for an indefinite time, describe the offending behaviors to all six banned individuals and then start over with the whole thing by implementing Rule 1.0, or whatever that rule is called now, from this point forward.

Sounds like a plan.

Also, I don't think there's anything more to be said. People in previous threads and posts have summed it up pretty well.

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[Wesker]

ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLRIGHTY now that im at a laptop again lemme elaborate on my opinion.

NONE of the people really deserved the ingame ban, at all. None of them were super harmful Karst, meph, lyth, carter, impy, especially snoopy.

To an extent I can see what Garrett is saying and I agree with the probation part, but only for a select number of people. From what I understand (or can possibly gather rather) Lyth and carter were banned for their attitude on the forums. If they are really that toxic just use probation. Don't ban them from ingame when they both barely play the game. The others aren't really harmful at all on the forums and don't deserve probabtion, when have Karst and Impy especially gone around harassing people on the forums? Meph just memes around in flood, I don't really see the need for him to have a probation either.

But yea please unban these people from ingame at least, they are very fun to lolz around with and play with. They are very much better than the silent engaging atlantis's and dreads that I run into in Liberty.

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[Backo]

I found it really surprising snoopy ended up being perma'd after he used to be a moderator a few months back and kept temp banning me every week or two for a week or so. And even that said I don't see why he got perma'd nor wish him to be so (even if he nearly got me perma'd).

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Republic of the Sword and Sun

[Stoner_Steve]

nowhere do they say that the decision needs to be reverted or that the strike will not be lifted unless the players are unbanned. So I'm not really sure where you're getting this from.

2.) The Administration shall concede to any further terms laid out after the discourse and evidence requested above is reviewed by the development team, should we deem more terms necessary to continue work on the mod.

Remember how I said having a vague "give us what we want" wouldn't work out

[Xenon]

Here is a bit of an insiders viewpoint on the whole drama, be assured that Ill use the flames that eventually light this thread up to cook me a delicious meal, alternatively you just play nice and things can be discussed in a civil manner.

There has been silence regarding the recent bans for a while now, we are sorry for this, but the discussion took a bit longer than usually, this is related to us having to decide how to deal with the situation as a whole, considering that whatever decision we take here will have further consequences, not only for the people involved, or us, but the community as a whole.

Now time to answer some questions that might have been around:

Why did you decide to do this?

Over the last year, maybe more, we as Admins have seen a huge increase in what might be called misbehaviour on the forums and ingame, those of you that are here for longer know that this has always been around to some degree, however at least to us it felt that the problem was growing and seemed to threaten the community.

I also seen that, but not as detailed as you guys, because the reports reach you, not us as community members, but i understand that some actions were threatening the community of discovery as a whole and that is not acceptable for any wise administrator, so i understand this point very good.

Why did you ban the people you banned?

We have tried to find out which people have shown a problematic attitude in the past until now, then we voted on everyone on the list we had worked out. The list contained more names than just the ones that ultimately got banned, some had been permabanned before, some had shown a very problematic attitude in the past, but it seemed to us that these people had seen that they did something wrong and improved their behaviour accordingly, which could not be said about the people that got banned in the end.

I appreciate very much the second chances and i think everyone should have a second chance, but depending on the size of damage he/she caused and the amount of willingness to achieve peace and abiding the rules without lurking on the grey areas or as i always said, walking on the rules borders. It's not going to cause a sanction for the player who do so, but it will constantly harm the community in a deadly way and will end up in destroying this great place. I have seen other servers more organized and more successful than discovery and it only took few months for some trouble makers to completely repel everyone from joining that server and eventually it's a forsaken place now. I think personally, that second chances are good thing, because we are humans and we usually do mistakes but the ones who deserve a real break are the ones who admit their mistakes and show the willingness for changing to better.

Why did you do it this way?

This might have been handled differently, that is true, however, if we had gone by the 'standard' approach, the people would have been warned, sanctioned a few times and by the time we would have had enough bans to justify an indefinite ban this way, the people in question would have adapted their attitude in a way that makes them act in what could be called 'grey areas', where they still might have been harmful, but nearly impossible to sanction for rulebreaking.
This is why we decided to make a two staged vote for this, one vote to see if we really want to do this, with all problems it might involve and a second vote to decide whom to ban.

I think that each one who was banned on this community, and i am not talking about the only 6 players, but everyone else who was banned before, KNOWS exactly what they did and which rules they broke and which grey areas they were camping at. The problem seriously is that those players know exactly why this decision is being taken against them but not admitting it's validity and protesting in this wrong way (Dev team and community) and causing more damage than usefulness. I would suggest what @Garrett Jax said, swallow your pride and put them on probation. That's it, end of story. They did enough to destroy this community and each one of them is different from the other. So for example, @Impyness is not having the same problem as @Mephistoles , but it's completely different. Some walk on grey areas, and some troll too much etc.. , I think the best thing to do is to admit the mistake and start for there to correct this attitude. We are here to play and enjoy our time and i think that there is no need for such problems actually and it should be rooted out from the start.

But nobody even got evidence, show them the evidence?

A few of the banned people have asked for evidence, we have given it to the people where we have conclusive forum evidence, in some cases however there is not a lot of evidence on the forums and we had to use different sources and had to trust our judgement, see above why.
What should be said here is that the Admins technically do not have to give out any evidence for this decision as it is not related to the rules. It is a decision that was done outside of the rules in order to 'develop and safeguard the health of the Discovery Freelancer community, official server, and forums; which has been our task ever since.

Evidence don't have to be solid in all cases, i mean they don't have to be direct screenshot. Our admins here are not machines, actually they are human beings so sometimes from the amount of bad attitude and attempts to walk on the rules borders, the admins conclude that that person is no longer useful for the community, then he/she becomes not only useless for the community but also harmful and here comes the problem. The admins have to be honest with what they do, so they see what's happening on the server logs from every interaction, and they see the amount of troubles caused by walking into those grey areas. In simple words, sometimes the admins don't have direct evidence but, they sure have a bunch of reasons and those reasons were built over lots of interactions and attitude given from the banned players through the time of being here. I think the best thing to do in this case is to clarify every single reason that led to this decision and not to public but to the banned players only. I know that they might claim that they didn't receive any, but then that's their problem. Also there is an appeal stage which is in different words, another chance for every banned player to prove that his attitude changed and now he/she fit for being in this organized community.

Is this decision final?

No, it is not yet, we are still discussing it and here might be changes, as we acknowledge that the way this was done, might not have been as fair as we would have liked it. This does not mean that the people in question are all going to be unbanned, just as much as it does not mean all of them have to stay banned.


Why does this take so long?

The so called "official Dev strike" has added another layer to this already rather complex decision. If we decide to revert the decision, we are going to open a way for every further unpopular decision to be reverted by such a 'strike' and we as Admins essentially lose every bit of authority we need to keep the server running and community intact. If we decide to keep the decision, then the Developers involved might stop working and we certainly look like cruel rulers, which might make things look less appealing for members, newcomers or returning people.
The people that complain that our decision takes too long or that claim that they could decide this much better and faster than we can, how would you decide?
Is this something that you would decide without trying to take every possible outcome and its consequences into account, or is it something that you would try to think through as well as you can?