[RULE SUGGESTION] Asking for others to report

I'd prefer a warning first, and ban only if repeated.
Then, some people might just like to be warned by you?

I wouldn't add rules for what is (and should be) common sense.
Such rules often create more problems than they solve and you end with a mess of rules where people are kind of encouraged to believe that everything is ok to do what isn't explicitly forbidden with a detail rule, and on the other side fear doing anything unusual, because there might be something in the huge pile of rules what can be interpreted as interfering and no one really has overview / perspective.
We have this situation in RL (in many countries) and it is not good...

The bans for false reports weren't actually this long previously; when the system was first introduced; but I know that there's so, so many false reports that go through each day. So in this case definitely, I think it has to be this "strict" and it's actually quite justified from a player point of view - I've heard stories of fake reports and there's too many for such a community-reliant system.

Also, if it's like
"Guys just /report and /ignore him" I don't mind at all
but if it's
"REPORT HIM HE'S SCAMMEING MEE"
I do think that it's uncalled for, but just telling them to PM a mod and how to do it will usually fix things.

I don't see it too often.

I was thinking about joke reports - that's where I think a warning would be enough.
False report is a different category, as it is mostly falsely accusing, which is a serious offense.

Hmm that makes sense. Max was talking about joke reports yesterday briefly and how she made it a 2 day ban. I think she just got sick of people joke-reporting her for flying at EMC events, which is understandable. Haha

A 2 day tempban is a warning. Abusing the report system is a significant offense. It clogs our database unnecessarily and effects our response time. We spend a significant amount of time researching reports.

x9001

If it happens too often, then it is more like problem of the system.
Perhaps adding a warning and request for confirmation directly into the /report function would help.

How about something like "hey buddy, we have a problem with that, what you did was bad / harmful / not acceptable, don't do that again..."

That's precisely what a tempban is. - A warning.

There's not a problem with the system when someone reports someone else for being awesome / etc. You're effectively calling the police in EMC - and in real life your local police won't tolerate those kind of calls either.

I bet, especially if you're 13, that they will have a nice talk with you the first time you call them to check if your neighbor is awesome. Or would you expect to be friendly invited to spend the night in the station?

Perhaps it could work like this - the first time (or every time?) a user uses /report, she/he gets a warning and has to confirm. The warning contains the information that /report is not like calling a friendly mod, but more like calling police, that jokes are not welcome and that false report is an offense and can lead to sanctions.

Two retirees are walking through the zoo. "Do you know that the old monkey is dead?" "What? Really? There was nothing in the newspapers?" "Oh, not that one. The old one from the zoo!"
=> 3 months of jail

I don't understand the significance of that story.

What is the thought process behind reporting someone for being awesome? There is absolutely zero reason for that. Reporting with completely false information is the same as disrespecting staff, and also perpetrating a lie. There does not need to be a warning for either of those.

That's just it, we don't look at age.

One of the benefits of the internet is that if you act mature, it doesn't matter if you're 8 - you come across mature. We don't treat a 13 year old any differently than we do a 50 year old. I mentioned this once before, but we aren't going to have the case of a 13 year old griefing, and tell the victim we won't do anything because they were young and didn't know.

Everyone is treated equally, and I assure you, I'd be fined or hauled off if I called the police for a random reason.

I've lived for some time in a system where you would most probably get 1-3 months in jail for telling a joke like the one above. I see a distant connection to joke reports and tempban, that was the association.
I was referring to joke reports, not false accusations.
It's the same discussion as before, about what sanction is too mild, what too harsh, and what just optimal.
I guess mods don't want to be known, feared and disrespected as "brutal EMC police."

Some jokes deserve jailtime. That sir, was one of them.

I just want to add a minor point to this: Maxarias isn't going to temp ban anyone (and neither will other staff) if they report something that they thought was a legitimate report. She's talking about people who are clearly abusing the reporting system. And there's a good reason why she and other staff don't want people abusing the reporting system (even with jokes). If people could see the large numbers of reports that staff has to weed through, they would understand that. Every false or joke report takes time away from real reports and other aspects of our jobs (which are already voluntary and uncompensated).

Maybe they thought you were an airplane.

Fair enough
Although, it's not "my way" - I don't hold any patents on empathy
I guess most mods are human and would want to be perceived as friendly helpers and not as feared brutal police. ;p

Most, eh?