[POLICY UPDATE] IP Bans and the Forums

Krysyy already stated some of these things aren't possible - allowing PMs while also retracting the ability to reply or create threads - and banned players can still view the EMC website. They can still read everything, bar the supporter pages, which they probably couldn't access anyway. They just can't reply, they can only appeal.

Now im confused thou, whith this new policy, what can the IP banned players not do?

Yes, it can be sad to see some IP banned players go completely, but as stated before, if an IP ban is issued, the player has done a lot to deserve it. Not once about typical offenses, but often multiple times and/or something serious. Plus, they can still appeal if they truly want to change.

Krysyy DOES consider that people can change. The appeal process no longer requires you to log in to forums, and it has been that way since May thanks to JackBiggin. If you truly want to be involved in the community, PLEASE think before you say/do. If you don't remember the rules, then re-read them. As Krysyy has said, most players who get IP banned eventually cause trouble on forums. If your friend gets affected by this, move on. Sometimes we have to accept things even if we don't like them, because we cannot just run away from everything we don't like.

Correct, we all makes mistakes. Even staff make mistakes. They are humans with feelings, not robots.

True, but as someone has already stated, there are other social media they can use outside of EMC. One player who knows he is going to be affected by this gave his Skype out for those who want to stay in contact with him, which is a smart solution to keep in touch with friends.

I agree with 99% or more of staff's decisions, including this. Even if I don't fully like something, I can still agree, and do think from all perspectives, not just friends and the banned.

That is only possible to the current IP banned members, which got a notice, so just acted quickly. But in the future, you wont be able to post anything if you are IP banned, so your friends will just think you disappeared, althou you tried to communicate with them

I 100% agree with this policy, the idea is if you get ip-banned you go through the appeal process and then see from there. Staff are pretty damn generous here and even help out as seen above with Krysyy. I don't really see a thing to complain about. The player did something the owner and staff believe to be wrong and gave up their interaction with the community, nothing unfair about this and its pretty decent. Contact information as well is a really good thing to do, update was necessary and just fine.

Okay, I'm skipping the last couple pages.
I've read enough of this.
I think we've seen all sides now.

Edit: Just found this quote.

Ah, okay! Thanks!

This is a misnomer - it's not an "IP ban".
Actually it's "Person ban", where the set of accounts (alts) used by the person in question is estimated based on the used IP address at the time when the ban is placed.
As opposed to an "account ban" where only one account is banned.

A real "IP ban" is not worth the effort, because it is quite easy to change the IP address, and because if you forget to delete the "IP ban" after a week or so, you've effectively banned some other, completely unrelated people.

When placing a "Person ban", it is a good idea to very carefully consider that there might be other persons using the same IP address, or even sharing accounts.
In some countries, it is normal to have even several layers of NAT (Network Address Translation), where many people use one IP address. This is also, more and more true for mobile networks even in Europe: some providers put mobile devices behind NAT, so you're using a relatively small set of external IP addresses together with many other (unknown) people.

Very late to the party ... I was away for almost 2 weeks. This thread shows once again a beautiful discussion. I'm glad to see the effort put into this - it is the effort that makes the community.

That's really a great advice for everyone!

Keep it simple, honest and clean and you won't entrap yourself in absurdities.

So this is also a misnomer - and I'm very glad that this is the case. Abolish the death penalty. I guess we can find an appropriate name for the "permanent (account or person) ban". Perhaps simply "Long term ban."

This is precious, that's the way to go!
Several months ago I was asking myself if and when the time will come to ask you again, whether every EMC member is welcome to freely and openly discuss and criticize your actions and decisions in the Forum. I'll take this quote as the new answer. Congratulations!

A true community manager serves the community and reports to the community.

If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.

i think this is a worthwhile caveat that most people objecting in this thread would consider worthy.
alot of people are like well i still message banned folks, a simple skype/ facebook address would solve this and still limit access to the site.
maybe add to the appeal process a way to add contact information to the banned persons profile? seems like a simple and compromising solution.
tbh i think that solves any problems others might have.

Oh my goodness...
I am here daily to read any new EMC News and this particular argument against the Staff Policies has me severely miffed.

I was here in the beginning, when we had ~150 players and a banned player graveyard.
I was going through hell irl and Justin, Jeremy and NurseKilljoy were very welcoming and people I consider my real friends.

I was here when Justin promoted Aikar to developer and eventually Aikar bought EMC from Justin for an undisclosed 10s of thousands of real American Dollars.

I was here when Jeremy and ISMOOCH were discarded from the Staff because they were running their failed OBAM Gaming Network community.

Through it all, I've respected the Staff here at EMC.
I don't agree with everything that has happened and I will find fault with future decisions made... I'm only human.

However, the issue I have seen here from the moment this was posted has been eating at me.
Krysyy has been overly engaged with those of you who wish to puncture holes in everything she has said. Others have offered some very futile arguments against this decision being made at this moment versus the moment IP Bans were implemented.
You can all thank Justin, Jeremy, NurseKilljoy and I for the improper implementation of this ban method. We were an open server with an IP/Username Blacklist Server back when EMC was a Survival Server and an Arena Server.

I personally quit the Staff Team long ago because I hated having to tell paying members that they were not immune to our rules or that they deserved more chances... I admit, even as an unpaid volunteer, I was biased towards our paying members and would let slide where a free member would be judged harshly.
I was never quick to ban anyone, but I did it to everyone who deserved it. I personally IP banned 2 Diamond Supporters who were friends of mine because of their foul behavior.
I have always encouraged players I had to reprimand to change their behavior and return after a short ban. Usually I would kick someone and explain the reason which helped to curb unusual behavior.

My main point here is: Aikar owns EMC. Krysyy is appointed by Aikar to handle community relations.
Everyone else here is a player or a lower level Staff member. What Aikar or Krysyy say is final word on everything. Their appointed Staff are extensions of them and what they say and do is a reflection of what Aikar and Krysyy have trained them to do.

Refusal to accept the rules of the community is decided by judge and jury (Staff). Your country's laws about free speech and right to protest have no bearing here. This is a private entity that is bound by the laws of the country in which it resides. Those laws only extend to privacy and commercial law.



I'm now a Retired Disabled Combat Veteran of the U.S. ARMY and I lost everything in a house fire on 29 February 2016. I filed CH 13 Bankruptcy in January 2015 and converted to CH 7 on March 1 2016. I live in a modest apartment and I am slowly building my life back up. I will return to EMC once I get a new computer and I am happy that after all that has happened, EMC still thrives!

Aikar, Krysyy, and all of your Staff are doing a wonderful job and I hope you will all continue to do your best for this community we all love.

Exactly. But at the same time, Krysyy appears under the title "Community Manager".
A paradox?
With a good reason.

It is true that it's essentially only Aikar and Krysyy, and in the end only Aikar is responsible.
And no - the final word have the members, they will or will not spend their time and money on EMC.
Without a living community, EMC would be just a Kingdom of (soon) 500,000 ghosts.

Yes - and it is important to have that in mind.

There is no judge and there is no jury - there is no court. Just a sheriff and the deputies. And more than that - the very same person makes the rules and decides about the punishments. The rules are often tuned to meet the staff needs.

Legally - yes.
Socially - that's not enough, that wouldn't work. Can you imagine a living and thriving online community where the service provider wouldn't grant rights to free speech and protest? I can't - because (our) people, even children, are accustomed to enjoy freedoms, respect, dignity and other human rights IRL. We teach our children to hold those achievements of our culture as precious. It's about how we value people, about how we treat each other. Why would they accept anything less in their favorite online community?

With a good reason!

Good luck!

[About Krysyy]

Kryssyy most certainly does not back down to criticism.

There is an issue with staff which bugs me right now, Kryssyy is aware because I PM'd her.

Sorry for the beep, that will be shared in due time (because I am going to follow up on this). BUT.. At a time when this issue has blown over and absolutely not within the Holiday season.

And then this happened:

Also:

Now, I have this issue of keeping things which players private message me private. It's my policy. I don't care who it is.

So in my own words Krysyy's response more or less was: go for it. Which I intend to do. In due time.

But M1ner... Keep very well in mind that there is a HUGE difference between constructive criticism and plain out slander. Apologies if I'm stating things which you consider to be obvious, it is not my intent to do so. But it is my experience with the EMC community that this small tidbit is often easily forgotten.

Which I think is exactly what Krysyy did with starting this thread.

Just my 2 cents.

(massive edit / rant):

Wrong.

The decision to accept a banned players appeal is a staff made decision. And with staff I mean staff. And with that I mean all the players who are considered staff. No, I have not been there, I did not get a quick peek behind the scenes nor did I try to get sensitive info from those staff members I consider my friend (though, as a side note, I cannot help notice that many appointed staff members become peculiarly distant after their appointment. Personally I think the sometimes mentioned "community appeal" as being a requirement for becoming staff is a bogus one).

BUT.... There is a reason I shared that

The thing is... Do you know the problem with lies? (no, I'm not insinuating that you're lying!). But do you know the general problem with them?

The problem with lies, especially when done as a group, is to get everyone on board and to make sure no one flips their mouth. Because there will be nutjobs (like me) who will see through you. Or, in my case, better put: who pay attention to details and then add 'm up.

I cannot share everything here (convenient, I know, see my policy above) but I have seen too many staff members either explicitly or casually (I'll bet they didn't even realize I picked it up) share that they were either actually busy with or that they had this process upcoming. Search for Foxy (I believe you can find evidence in the SSRC rant, but I'm not sure from mind!) where at least 2 staff members mention the voting with regards to him (they were against his appeal).

I have seen these issues mentioned too many times from too many staff members, even those who I personally don't value too highly (not shared, and no offense guys) and even they kept to this story. Even though (personal opinion) I'm sure that if there was a lie which the staff was trying to uphold then they'd be the first to spill the kinds of details which, seriously, I'd pick up.

I'll be honest with you: I'm not the type of person who would spit that out in the open if I were to have discovered something. True. Sometimes I dislike some of the staffs decisions as well, but when I have a beef I take it to proper private channels. Touche.

But I can honestly say that I never caught the staff to have uttered any inconsistencies when it comes to this voting thing.

In fact.. I once caught a staff member semi-afk and when talking about it it turned out he was checking out "ban videos". They didn't share at first, but later I discovered that the reason for that was.... (the staff member in question never told me, but others shared something about a vote regarding a certain player (nothing explicit)).

@Staff: if you feel addressed by my post, please: it's not you, it's me. Sometimes I pay specific attention to details and I more than often know to connect the dots. I sincerely believe that although I did share 'some' things here, I'm not explicit enough or taking it too far. If you feel I did you might want to turn to PM instead.

As always: only my 2 cents.

I have a question to which I also think to know the answer to.

Banned players can either dispute (I believe this is too often forgotten) or appeal to their ban.

Would it be considerable for IP banned players to perform a 2-stage appeal?

An appeal is an appeal, but would it be doable to allow players to specifically appeal to their forum "ban"?

Now: I can understand if this isn't feasible. The forum lock-out is basically a part of the whole IP ban procedure. I get it. But I can't help wonder if this couldn't create some middle ground, especially for those who were caught in between.

It might also help staff (I think) to monitor the intents of the player at hand. If they "forum appeal" (my idea) and then their post history shows that all hell is breaking loose then yeah.. Maybe you could tie this with the main appeal. If you mess up your forum appeal then your main appeal gets postponed for at least another year.

But if they show to be consistent and sincere for a considerable amount of time... That could account for something as well.

Just my 2 cents (how predictable)

Well said. I agree, and I do keep that in mind.
Still, IMO, this isn't a valid reason, and it would be ridiculous to restrict discussions and criticism for the whole community. Because it would mean dissolving the community, taking away the common ground.

The EMC community did mature a lot during lat few years and it also does mature and build its culture through discussions in the Forum, especially if there is a degree of so called "drama". That's why I think that issues of concern for the whole community should be discussed openly, and not in PMs.

There's a catch 22 - if the community does not discuss and criticize, people won't learn / build the community's culture on how to discuss and criticize constructively.

What bit would be wrong?

Whether the staff members vote (yes, they do) or whether they gather and process opinions in any other way doesn't change a bit of what is written above. The essence is responsibility and representation. What EMC staff does internally doesn't matter on this level.

Compare: When a skipper collects opinions from his crew (sometimes it can be a voting as well) that does not reduce his / her responsibility - not a tiny little bit. No matter what, it's 100% the skipper's decision and responsibility.

All the cents from you have been adding up!

i got a dollar already

Thanks for reminding to me vote, otherwise I might go bankrupt if I keep this up

What''s the difference between a permanently banned player and an IP banned player?

As far as I know, permabanned players can appeal, whereas IP banned players cannot, and all alts they have are banned as well.