More about banning
In my previous blog I mentioned banning and how I thought of how the process should go. Then a friend of my pointed me to this: http://messageboard.tokyopop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10875
This was posted some time ago and lists pretty much everything that I mentioned. This is very good and makes me very happy but there are some issues left open. What is a banning offense? Easy....look at the ToS and you'll see every reason for banning summed up crystal clear.
Now lets start to make it a little murkier.... Major and minor offenses. Major offenses will get you banned at first strike but not minor. Cool. What are major offenses? Breaking federal laws for one. Hacking the site or someones profile. Causing the servers to crash. All offenses worthy of banning but immediately a problem pops up. Hacking someones profile..... It is doable, especially if people give away their passwords to someone that they can't trust. Who posted the material that got you banned? Basically you as user are responsible for your profile, just as TP is responsible for managing the site. No help there i'm afraid.
Minor offenses. Posting stolen art.....for some reason for immediate banning. However some people never read the Tos (sad but true) and don't notice the messages that tell them to post their own art. In the few cases that i encountered this i contacted the person responsible and pointed out that they were in violation. They apologised, removed the art and are still here. Some are now even on my friend list. Some do change and learn so for this reason i plead to this being a minor. Having said that i must add that the 'Innocence' or 'I didn't know' card can only be used once, post stolen art again and you're out.
Pretty clear so far huh? Well that ends now. Harassment and 'hurtful comments'. What are these and why is this unclear? Because this varies from person to person. What you find offensive is normal to me and visa versa. I'm Dutch but there are people from all over the world here so there are culteral differances as well. So who gets to decide? I guess that at first the people involved. If they fail to settle this the case goes to the admins and the webmaster who will judge it. If they think it was offensive that they will take action by warning the people involved by pm or by suspending or by banning.
That wasn't so bad now was it? Ok, here is a interesting one. What if you have a problem with a admin? Well i asked and in that case the case goes to the other admins who get to decide. Sounds good no? Well.....no actually and here's why. You have a problem with a admin and the case goes to the other admins. This is fine but one thing: They are the friends and colleages of the admin who you are arguing with! I know that they are supposed to be impartial about it but can they be? I know that even I would have trouble remaining impartial should i be asked to judge a friend of mine. Do we, as user, even stand a chance when facing a admin? How fairly are we judged in those cases? More importantly what can we do to make sure this never happens. Do we pick some people randomly and ask then to look? Do we create a panel with some admins on one side and some fans of the offender on the other side and have them sort it out? This is so murky that i can't even tell which way i'm going.
I mentioned this before in my other blog but this site belongs to TP and they can do whatever they want but.....without the users who come here it won't mean anything. We are both needed to make this site work. Ty.
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Getting a warning is written in the ToS. If is is such then it is more than a courtesy to get a warning. Anything in writing to my knowledge is to be upheld. We all agree to the ToS and we expect it to be upheld to the letter. (hypothectical) If I were to do something against the ToS. You would call me on it. If I correct it then the admin or webmaster does not have to become involved. If I do not then you can report me to the admin or webmaster. They are to look at this case by case (if I remember right) to see if I did violate any of the ToS. If I do then I should get a warning. It can be done either by PM (maybe lost), blog or since they have it by email. I am in favor of email. Because you now have a record of the warning. No one can say that it got lost because the servers were acting up. I do not believe Sixxx ever received a warning. And I know that no one complained about her. The webmaster just could not take critism on how the site has been working since 2.0 has been in place. They say that they want our input on problems, yet then never seem to fix the ones that continue to happen. With that said I will say good night!
MACK
2008-02-07 20:13:06
Since this is a sort of legal issue one could take guidance from the courts. Or that is the courts as I know them. In which case it would not be enough that the trial is fair, it should also be perceived as fair by the audience not involved in the particular case. Following this idea the moderators can not regulate themselves in these cases - for such cases would never attain the desired fairness as they'd be both judge and executive in one body. For these cases I therefore suggest one create a panel to examine such cases like a control-board or something like that. (Not totally unlike what you see in many political parties, trusts and larger businesses etc.) So basically you'd get another set of moderators, but these would only go to work if such a case should arise. Though this might be a lot to organize when one consider the hopefully low number of cases such a board would be needed. On the other hand, though, it wouldn't require much work if one could find suitable people for the job. I guess the choice is up to TP.
ZEDR
2008-02-04 12:50:55
I must mention one more thing though about the piece that i wrote about arguing with admins and being judged by other admins. I'm sure that the admins working here are impartial and try really hard to make the right decisions but..... Banning is such a major impact on the user and the community in general bacause of its finality, that in those very rare and special cases i want to remove any hint of partiality. It takes a very special person to look at a case like that and having to judge a co-worker and friend.
TOLLIE01
2008-02-03 00:30:42
I asked about the warnings and apparently it's a courtesy to give one and not a requirement. I also was told that sixxx was send one but the way TP has been acting lately it could have vanished like so many others. There is, of course, no way to tell now if such a message was send or received. For this reason i wanted both a pm as warning and a public blog to counter this eventuality. As for the admins judging other admins.....Even if they are impartial and fair there is always the nagging doubt or even resentment from the rest of us. They don't know us as well as their colleage with whom they are friends and see every day. There is no way for us to tell if it went fairly or not making this a very tricky issue. I think sixxx's case is a good example of this.
TOLLIE01
2008-02-02 08:34:07
I read TMF's post on banning and all of them involved actually giving a WARNING to the person before he or she is banned. Why are they contradicting their so called rules? They didn't even warn Sixxx! Moving on, you pointed out some interesting things, of course, if a user is against an admin it'll be unfair for another admin to do the judging. Seriously, we all KNOW who'll win.
RAIN66
2008-02-02 08:08:46