TOPIC: My view on some of the excessive bans

So this message goes out to the current SSRP staff

Recently i received complaints about people being banned for hacking, racism, DDoS threats, simple rule breaks, Recent warnings.

I will go over these reasons quickly for all of you.

Hacking,
I still see admins banning users for Hacking up till this day. And when the rap sheet is checked or when the admin is confronted about it. in no instance have i been presented with any form of proof that shows that the user was indeed hacking. You cannot ban someone for speculation, you will have to go to a lead team member and provide your proof towards the lead team member and then they will decide wether your proof is valid or not.

When dealing with a hacker that confesses. and has never been punished before for hacking. Ensure you tell them that they are getting warned for their hacking. You can do so by a KICK so they are forced to unload their hacks.

DDoS threats
A DDoS threat is just a threat and are empty words 9 out of 10 times. These people should receive a warning, mute before even concidering banning them.

Racism
As disgusting as it is. People who are showing any form of disrespect or racism need to be given a chance to better them self.
They should also receive a warning, mute before even considering banning them

simple rule breaks
I still see people getting banned for propsurf or prop climb.
even though it did not really disturb any roleplay i still see people getting banned for this. which is ridiculous not even a single warning given. Please do ensure to warn people for these offenses before even considering to issue a ban.

Recent warnings.
Being banned for 10 + recent warnings....
i keep seeing people getting banned for 10+recent warnings.
And often when i check the rap sheet they are warned for separate rules they broke that have no relation to each other what so ever.
If someone breaks nlr then rdm, then prop surf, then big gun as mutant and then rdm and rdm again.
you should not just ban him for all the warnings he had prior to his last warning unless they are related to it
What you should use is all the related warnings which are 3 times rdm.
Therefor a ban should be RDM + 3 recent RDM related warnings.

If someone breaks a single rule and does not break that rule again it means they have progressed and learned from their mistake. there for should not be punished harsher by pulling that warn they learned form in any future punishments.


These are just a few things on how i look at things.
The only thing that is a solid 100% policy is the way we deal with hackers. THAT should be followed to the dot.
Other things are just my views because in zarp we are about giving people second chances.

Maybe this is giving people more than just a second chance but I appreciate the post Para and the information before.

As I told you I will voice my opinion on here. Whilst I'm all for users being given fair treatment but I also disagree with a lot of the things here. I think it's very unrealistic to expect staff to let someone break a bunch of rules and get a bunch of recent warnings only to then be allowed to continue doing so regardless of no effort to improve or poor conduct when approached by staff or other users.

One of the arguments made that people must be warned for the very specific rule they'd be banned for regardless of a massive amount of recent punishments makes no sense in my eyes and I think staff are well within reason to ban someone if they're breaking a bunch of rules and showing no will to improve regardless of if it's the same rule. The extreme of your argument that was also stated on the teamspeak being that a user should be allowed to break all of the rules on the server without being banned as long as they don't break the same rule twice.

In the end I think we need to entrust staff to judge if the user is showing an attitude that is appropriate or not. You did recognize that the banned user that sparked this debate had caused harm and was harmful to the community yet you thought it was better to disregard subjective thought and logical thinking in place of treating everyone exactly the same regardless of their history and the harm they end up doing.

I will however say that I do think there should also be a big difference between someone doing something where it causes no harm and someone that does something that causes actual harm and I agree that seeing harsh punishments handed out for doing very minor things that do not affect anyone should not be a a thing as it is unreasonable.

Disagree entirely, my view on Zarp is that it doesn't have enough bans. The rules are simple and clear, yet I see people who get 10-15 punishments in a month. How is that even possible?
I got punished in my first week, I was not aware of every rule and Mix3rz gave me a warn without even a verbal or anything first. Ever since that, ZERO f1's against me. No verbal or warns. How I play is how everyone should play, imo.
There is people who are only known for rule breaking and gather 100 punishments in a row. Then eventually get a small ban, say they will change, get unbanned, eat, sleep, repeat. You're saying staff are hitting too hard for banning after 10 warns... They shouldn't even have a single warn.
But anyway, these are just my two cents on the matter.

My short opinion is that people don't learn from mutes, they just don't. Muting someone isn't going to do anything if anything it is just going to provoke them, there is so many people in this community that get away with stuff now that they would be cm banned like a year ago, yes. I understand things have changed but I just feel like people are getting away with things that they shouldn't be getting away with.

Tyler Durden wrote:
I agree with part of what Para has said, but here I 100% agree with Tyler.
When a user is warned, they are notified and told to read the rules. At this point, they should go and read through the rules if they want to not get warned again, and should read all the rules, not just the one they were warned for.
If a user is breaking a lot of rules and ends up with 10+ recent punishments, they deserve at least a day ban for the recents. If the recents are all for the same rule, the ban should be longer. When an admin is trained, they are told to ban for 10+ recent punishments, so you can't really fault people for doing what they were told to in trainings, and I totally agree with 10+ recents being a ban.

In regards to banning someone the first time they break a minor rule, that is completely unfair. Unless someone has been constantly doing other things or had a lot of recents on top of breaking this minor rule, then they should not be banned for it, and if they have done other things on top of it, it should always be stated in the ban reason. The staff ethos states to take a player's rapsheet into account when punishing them, and so that is what should be done. If they have not been given a chance to learn from a mistake, give them the chance. If they continue to make the mistake and clearly intentionally continue to make the mistakes, then and only then should they be harshly punished for it.

Amen.

We're a fairly divided community when it comes to things like punishments. Some people believe the punishments are too severe for the acts committed, some too lenient. Perhaps it's time to upload a staff document where staff can read what to do in terms of punishments, I know staff are supposed to take the initiative and figure it out for themselves; only going to the lead team when absolutely necessary - but sometimes, people just need that extra bit of info, y'know?

The other day I was on SSRP server 3, late at night. Anyone who's been on that server late knows that it is a breeding ground for trouble, chaos and carnage. Sometimes things chill out a bit, but there are a lot of people who just wanna cause havoc for no reason. There was an incident where I had two users complaining about each other causing problems, and while I was observing their behaviour, I ended up having an issue with one of those users where they went on about how an admin's job is "easy", how players shouldn't be allowed to get away with things that are right in front of the staff (which they weren't, but this player was adamant that everything was going to hell very quickly - which it wasn't), and just went on a bit of a tirade about how the staff on ZARP were atrocious and wouldn't handle issues properly.

Ironically, this same player later broke rules in spawn and left the second they were about to be punished. While one could argue that this player's tirade was more a testimony to how I deal with players, the player himself seemed very angry at the staff team in general and how a lot of the ways ZARP staff deal with things just wasn't how a server should be run.

I think it's this kind of situation that provides a bit of insight into how users view the way we handle rulebreaks, if we're too lenient, we get chewed out. On the other side of that, if we're too harsh, we get chewed out. And unfortunately, it's very difficult to find a balance as everyone has some opinion of what's fair and what's not fair.

I think the biggest problem this community has regarding this kind of issues, is the fact that there's absolutely no consensus. No admin should pull rank on another admin. If a decision has been made by staff, it should be respected by all others, otherwise remove that persons adminship. Narexa bans a guy, Para removes it. I made a report on Pennybomber abusing middlemen, Countinroy accepts and Clarky goes the second after and denies it. How many times have I had admins give me mix answers on certain questions... "Can I comeback to where I was after a RDM? Or is it NLR?" - Some say I can, since it was RDM, others say I don't.
There should be more consensus between admins, the rules are clear, they shouldn't be picked on by each admins personal opinions.

I think you raise a good point, Archick. United we stand, divided we fall. But I also feel as though there are some instances where a higher up member of staff should be allowed to intervene - as long as they let the staff member know the reason they're going to intervene.

If everything else is your own pov on things then why are you try to get everyone else to follow the same path as you?

For me, personally, the worst point made here is the one about Hacking. That should be a permanent ban, regardless of having a warn or not. Because a player who has tools to hack and was caught hacking, will likely hack once again as soon as he feels there is a low chance of getting caught.

Father Watson, I don't believe there's such thing as "too harsh" in Zarp. The only people who may find something too harsh are the ones that have broken rules or currently break rules. The rules are there, if they make the decision to break them, they should have the stomach to deal with the consequences. Worst thing I saw on a sit was a guy, who rdmd me and others, tell an admin "You are going to ban me? You can't, it's my first time, you have to give me a talking to ". That "" really got on my nerves, the audacity of many players in Zarp, who keep breaking rules, would drop so quickly to humbleness if they started getting bans and actually fearing they could lose access to a game they love.
Unban appeals should only be viable for people who were punished incorrectly. There should not be unban appeals for "Oh, it's only my 47th warning this week and I swear again I'm going to change, even though I did not change the first 47 times".

its only mine 47th warning this week cmon guys nu ban

My only issue with that Archick is that there needs to be some kind of balance. There is such a thing as "too harsh" in the sense that if someone disrespects - which isn't actually a rule in some servers - they shouldn't be banned for saying something harsh to someone else. There is such a thing as "too harsh" if someone gets banned for RDM'ing one person just because they didn't know the rules. There is such a thing as "too harsh" when people get banned for things that they might not do again if given the chance to actually improve.

I know where you're coming from - in some instances, it can be grating to deal with someone who clearly doesn't respect the rules. But people are strange and can change at the slightest thing. Of course bans are a much more viable option to someone who isn't going to obey the rules, that's naturally the best option if they show that they're not going to follow the rules, but if I banned someone every time they RDM'ed, I'd probably be banning a lot of people who might have a different side to the story, people who might have just been killing a friend and didn't think much of it as in their mind it's a joke, people who killed for a viable RP reason but didn't give the right warning, etc.

I just think it's important to remember that there's a difference between being the authority, and being a dictator.

Personally I agree the most with Para here, though I understand what Tyler means. Some people will never learn and others will not understand until they're properly punished.

But I always believe in second chances, no matter what. unless you're Hitler then you can go and fuck yourself

Thanks for this!

Archick wrote: lol I got 10 punishments in under 4 hours lol

I asked Tyler to bring this up in the community team meeting, I'm not sure if he has forgotten or not.

I disagree on the hacking policy we have. If we're supposed to kick them on first offence if they confronted and apologized for their mistake, then why do we have an appeal system? It makes no sense. You're not giving hackers 2 chances, you're giving them 3.

Credits to Morgan

Dankmemes wrote:
Bringing that up with pride only helps the fact that you did not get unbanned.

I also hate it when a staff member instant warns me for CDM when I am lagging without any form of verbal warning or talking to AT ALL!