[UPDATE] Appeal System Upgrades

I hope to never see this! I dont want anyone to see this! Be good! After all Santa Claus is watching But I think its neat that Jack is so busy! This is why I love this community!

Kryssy you use purple theme too?

Purple kisses on the way I do. This is just some randomness. I have no idea why. I use blue. Congrats on being cool!

So I went over some of my PM's, at least tried to, I really dislike being stuck with only cellphone access. Anyway, I stuck my nose into a few issues where it didn't belong. Still stand behind those actions, but that's not the point here.

My take on the whole appeal process in general? None of us can probably imagine what kind of effort is being put into it to try and make / keep things fair and unbiased. And I base that comment on the bits and pieces I picked up over time. And those I saw for myself.

Bans and such are a nasty business, but rest assured that they're also not being taken lightly either. You may not like certain actions / decisions. I know I don't. But yeah... There is so much more to it..

Anyway, #minirant

I know this is an old thread, but I think a topic as this is always relevant, especially considering the recent events. And well, I never got to comment because I was offline during my post above.

First: Although this system is fun and all I do see a problem with it: it hides information from me as a non-banned player. When I try to help a banned player all I can really do is to direct them to http://appeal.emc.gs/ but I cannot help them any further because I don't get to see what they're seeing.

To my knowledge this information is also not available in the wiki. So I cannot tell a banned player the current steps they should take. Why is that?

Two: Banned players have 2 options: to appeal a ban (which means admitting that they did something wrong) or to dispute it (when they think the ban was unjustified). But why does only http://appeal.emc.gs/ exist and not http://dispute.emc.gs/?

I think this is a big deal: this afternoon another player got banned, got online with his alt and most players told them: "you should appeal at ....".

But wait a second guys: appealing means admitting that you did it. In this case the player shouldn't appeal, he should dispute. My point: a player new to this might accidentally send in an appeal while he meant to sent in a dispute. Even the URL says as much: http://appeal.emc.gs/ and https://empireminecraft.com/wiki/appeal/.

Wouldn't https://empireminecraft.com/wiki/appeal-or-dispute/ be more to the point?

Third: I think there's an unhealthy atmosphere growing right now where the impression is being generated that players are "guilty until proven innocent".

Note: I am not questioning the staffs decisions in the recent punishments.

But I cannot help get the impression that as soon as a moderator takes action against a player that they immediately "hide" behind the rules: "Please follow the proper procedure", which is to either appeal or dispute.

As a bystander I cannot know this to be true or not: but recent events give out the strong impression that once a player is banned that they also won't easily get to hear why. The moderator apparently doesn't need to tell anything about it (which I think is plain out wrong if that is true) and instead the player has to dispute or appeal.

But how does one dispute if you don't even know any details as to what happened and why exactly you got banned?

Here's my growing concern with the whole thing: transparency, I think that's severely lacking right now which I don't consider to be a very positive thing.

I understand that you cannot set up a specific line of events because, as stated many times by staff already: every situation is different, and I respect that. But surely there's some kind of uniformity at work here? Because (no offense!) "every situation is different" can also be explained as: "we reserve the right to treat one banned player different from the other", especially because it's totally unclear for any outsider what the exact procedures are.

But that brings us onto a slippery slope.

Note that I'm not saying that the is system broken, nonsense. But I do think you guys shouldn't "hide" behind automations such as these either. It is an impressive setup where coding goes, but in the end all it does is hide important information from us players.

As such my official comment about this new system: I think you should be more transparent about what exactly players can expect to happen when they find themselves or their friends on the bad side of a moderator.

As someone who more than often helps players I want to be able to tell players what they should do other than "Go to http://appeals.emc.gs, read carefully and hope for the best".

At the very least make it more apparent that players can appeal AND dispute (see second comment).

By forcing them through the appeal page for information, it means that we know for sure they're getting the right information (and with little parts of the system being tweaked soonish, this is really important). Directing people through to the appeal page is the BEST possible thing you can do, since it means there's no question whether they're getting the info they need or not.

There's no harm in adding the info to the wiki though.

Because it's an old link that just linked the old appeal page, which didn't offer a dispute option. It's been that way since forever. I can make dispute.emc.gs work too though.

---

It's important to note that the current appeal system is currently a middle ground between the old "heres a list of links" and the final product. There are changes that'll be made at some point (although the majority are just tech ones).

Krysyy getting the message across twice as powerful

Normally I would have taken this my message above to PM but I really believe the part which I emphasized needed to be shared in public, thank you for that. I strongly believe this information should be more out in the open, but I'll follow the proper procedure for trying to make that happen

Thanks for your comment (and your time!). I'm certain that this clears up quite a few things for quite a few players (at least I sincerely hope so!).

If anyone is still unsure about the transparency of the frontend of our appeal system, here is the code which runs it.

Code:

[template=format-hidewikicrap][/template]
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.1/css/font-awesome.min.css">
<div id="baninfo" name="baninfo"></div>
<script>
    var STATE = "";
    var staffban = "";
    if (EMC_USERNAME == "") {
        var STATE = "0";
    } else {
        // Checks go here for perma vs temp vs no ban
        $.ajax({
            type: "GET",
            url: "https://empireminecraft.com/api/pinfo.php?name=" + EMC_USERNAME,
            dataType: "json",
            success: function(data) {
                var uobj = data;
                console.log(data);
                console.log(data.banned);

                if (uobj.banned == "1") {
                    var STATE = "2";
                } else {
                    var STATE = "1";
                }
                console.log(STATE);

                // second one
                $.ajax({
                    type: "GET",
                    url: "https://empireminecraft.com/api/pinfo.php?name=" + uobj.banned_by,
                    dataType: "json",
                    success: function(data) {
                        var bannerobj = data;
                        if (bannerobj.user_group > 5) {
                            var staffban = uobj.banned_by;
                        } else {
                            var staffban = "Krysyy";
                        }
                        if (uobj.banned_by == 'EmpireMinecraft' || uobj.banned_by == 'Maxarias' || uobj.banned_by == 'ignoramoose' || uobj.banned_by == 'Aikar') {
                                var staffban = "Krysyy";
                        }

                        if (STATE == "1") {
                            document.getElementById('baninfo').innerHTML = '<center><i class="fa fa-check-circle-o" style="color:green;font-size: 172px;" aria-hidden="true"></i></center><center><span style="color:green;font-size:72px;">Good News!</span></center><br /><center>You don&#39;t have any active punishments, so you don&#39;t need to appeal right now. Keep up the good work!</center><br /><center>If you would like to discuss a punishment that has already expired, please contact that staff member via a forum PM. You can do this by visiting their profile, and clicking on the[B] Start a Conversation[/B] button on the left of the page.</center><br />';
                        }

                        if (STATE == "2") {
                            var appealcontent = '<center><i class="fa fa-ban" style="color:red;font-size: 172px;" aria-hidden="true"></i></center><center><span style="color:red;font-size:72px;">You Are Banned</span></center><br /><center><span style="color:red;font-size:1.4em">You are currently banned by ' + staffban + '</span></center><br /><center>You currently have two options. Your first option is to appeal this ban. You should appeal the ban if you agree that what you did was against the rules, and would like to apologize and explain why you deserve to return to the Empire. Your second option is to dispute the ban. You should dispute a ban if you think that it was unfair, that you did not deserve to be punished, and that the staff member who banned you acted incorrectly.</center> <br /><br /> If you choose to appeal the ban, you should include:</center><br /><ul><li>Whether the ban is temporary or permanent</li><li>Which rule(s) you were banned for breaking</li><li>Why you broke those rules</li><li>Anything else that you think is important</li><br /><br />If you choose to dispute the ban, you should include: <br /><ul><li>Why you think the ban is unfair</li><li>Which staff member you think acted unfairly</li><li>Any evidence you have against the ban</li><li>Anything else that you think is important</lI></ul><br /><br />If you successfully appeal a permanent ban, your account will be reset. This means that everything, including (but not limited to) your residences, rupees and Vaults will be cleared, and you will begin again as a new player. This does not apply to temporary bans or successful disputes.<br /><br />Use the buttons below to start an appeal or a dispute.<br /><br /><center><label id="SignupButton" style="width:45%;"><a class="inner" href="http://pm.emc.gs/' + staffban + '" target="_blank">Appeal This Ban</a></label> <label id="SignupButton" style="width:45%;"><a class="inner" href="http://pm.emc.gs/Krysyy" target="_blank">Dispute This Ban</a> </label></center>';
                            document.getElementById('baninfo').innerHTML = appealcontent;
                        }
                    }
                });

            }
        });
    }

    if (STATE == "0") {
        var randomnumber = Math.floor((Math.random() * 999999) + 100000);
        document.getElementById('baninfo').innerHTML = '<center><i class="fa fa-lock" aria-hidden="true" style="color:gold;font-size:172px;"></i></center><center><span style="color:gold;font-size:72px;">Please Login</span></center><br /><center>We need you to login to the Empire Minecraft website with the account that you would like to appeal the punishment so that we can check some of the details of the punishment. If you don&#39;t have a website account, please fill in the form below and we&#39;ll get back to you as soon as possible. Things that are good to include in your appeal include the reason why you were banned, which rules you were banned for breaking, why you broke those rules, and anything else you think is important.</center><br /><form action="/misc/contact" method="post" class="xenForm formOverlay AutoValidator" id="appealform" name="appealform"><dl class="ctrlUnit"><dt><label for="ctrl__guestUsername">Minecraft Display Name:</label></dt><dd><input type="text" name="_guestUsername" value="" id="ctrl__guestUsername" name="ctrl__guestUsername" class="textCtrl" autofocus="true"></dd></dl><dl class="ctrlUnit"><dt><label for="ctrl_email">Email address:</label></dt><dd><input type="text" name="email" id="ctrl_email" class="textCtrl"></dd></dl><input type="hidden" name="subject" class="textCtrl" id="ctrl_subject" value="Ban Appeal: No website account (' + randomnumber + ')"><dl class="ctrlUnit"><dt><label for="ctrl_message">Appeal:</label></dt><dd><textarea name="message" class="textCtrl Elastic" id="ctrl_message" rows="5"></textarea></dd></dl><dl class="ctrlUnit submitUnit"><dt></dt><dd><span class="button primary" onclick="fixSubject()" id="sendbutton">Send Appeal</span><input type="submit" value="Confirm" accesskey="s" class="button primary" style="display:none; border-color:#ebb300;box-shadow: 0px 0px 8px #ebb300;" id="confirmbutton"></dd><input type="hidden" name="_xfToken" value=""></form></dl>';
    }

    function fixSubject() {
        subjectPlayerName = document.forms["appealform"]["ctrl__guestUsername"].value;
        console.log("test");
        console.log(subjectPlayerName);

        $.ajax({
            type: "GET",
            url: "https://empireminecraft.com/api/pinfo.php?name=" + subjectPlayerName,
            dataType: "json",
            success: function(data) {
                var uobj2 = data;
                console.log(data);
                console.log(data.banned);

                // second one
                $.ajax({
                    type: "GET",
                    url: "https://empireminecraft.com/api/pinfo.php?name=" + uobj2.banned_by,
                    dataType: "json",
                    success: function(data) {
                        var bannerobj2 = data;
                        if (bannerobj2.user_group > 5) {
                            subjectStaffBan = uobj2.banned_by;
                            console.log(subjectStaffBan);
                            document.getElementById("ctrl_subject").value = "Ban Appeal for " + subjectPlayerName + " - @" + subjectStaffBan;

                        } else {
                            subjectStaffBan = "Krysyy";
                            console.log(subjectStaffBan);
                            document.getElementById("ctrl_subject").value = "Ban Appeal for " + subjectPlayerName + " - @" + subjectStaffBan;
                        }
                        document.getElementById('sendbutton').style.display = 'none';
                        document.getElementById('confirmbutton').style.display = 'inline';
                    }

                });
            }
        });
    }
</script>

EMC_USERNAME is a variable used across the site to track your username.