[Idea/Discussion] Additional Context Based Sanctions

Scenario;
-player is at the max number of reports allowed
-players sees another player genuinely breaking the rules
-*reports them
-is banned themselves

That is what it is like already. nfell would have been unbanned(probably) if it wasn't for his criminal history. When the staff decide on bans and appeals they look at what the player has done, the punishment the player got for that, how many times they have been appealed and then the severity of their most recent crime.

You didnt understand me because I said it wrong and I have to say sorry. I meant X amount of severe bans.

I made a mistakes sorry

But nfell was mostly reported and not punished for that "crimes". Many things werent proved

umm if staff is being abusive well no.

The staff don't ban without proof.

But let's stay on topic guys. And remember that examples are exactly that - the discussion is mainly about the general idea of additional contextual sanctions.

They didnt ban him for some things. They were just peoples reports

All reports are looked into before action is taken. Whoever has told you otherwise is incorrect.

Now, back on topic.

Last thing and back on topic

Maxarias told him that his crimes were xxxx, xxxx and probably xxxx and xxxx. Some of them werent proved, I think she was guided by peoples reports on him.
But well, lets go back on topic You are right

Does the system distinguish between an item that was dropped by a player and an item that was dropped by other means, such as mining or breaking wheat, etc.? If not, then this idea can't be done.

I see two fundamental problems here.

1) There are only basic rules
The EMC rules are minimal, basic rules imposed from the provider in order to enable acceptable multi-user interaction and game-play.
The practice in applying the rules, explanations and details are not documented and/or not visible to every user.
Naturally, the provider reserves the right to change the rules and the practices.
These rules are good and necessary, but not sufficient for rich social interaction and a successful development of a community.

2) The Staff is there only to enforce the basic rules
How EMC members perceive the "EMC Staff" varies quite widely.
Many members are expecting things that are not the purpose and function of the Staff.
The "EMC Staff" is providers police assigned to enforce the basic rules.
They already have enough to do, and it is in the interest of the provider not to overload them,
it is in the interest of the provider to keep the things as simple as possible.
But the life is not simple (even in an apparently simple virtual world)...

Some staff members already realize that the unwritten rules / the practice is not optimal,
and they do try to remedy that where possible - on case by case basis.

This community does not yet have a structure and rules of its own that would allow for its development and for more advanced practices in dealing with social (and other) tasks, challenges and problems.

I think an initiative to deal with this challenges within the community would be a natural and a very valuable development.

Currently, I can't say for sure, but I don't think so.

Something that is being added by Aikar will enable this tracking (plus much more) though (I am 99% sure of this).

Reading once again, I'm not sure what you would like to achieve?

- Just try to make sure (as far as possible) that the offense won't be repeated (by adding sanctions)?
If there is a doubt, why not just ban permanently?
If there is only a small rate of repeating offense, then it's probably not worth the effort.
Otherwise, it won't really work, as you are dealing with symptoms, not with the causes.
Also, it would need more work and understanding of the social problems on the side of the Staff,
but the Staff is only a simple police for simple rules.

- Try to improve the community by (at least partially) solving some social problems?
The EMC rules and the staff are not there to solve community problems.
It is quite clear that adding (simple and/or drastic) punishments is not the optimal way,
and (so) you are trying to approach the problem by adjusting the sanctions.

I like the idea that a sanction would last some time and would have something to do with the offense.
But, you can not say that an offender is "playing legitly" if she/he is restricted and it is technically next to impossible to repeat the offense.

I was thinking about the idea that offenders could be sent far away into the wilderness (on all servers?).
It would be so far away, that they need at least 30 hours of survival play to get back to "civilization".
On this way back (if they would want to get back), they would learn to value the civilization and the rules...

For all offenses that are within the game rules and the community, like shop scam,
I think this should be dealt with on the community level, not on the provider / server level.

Good idea!

In essence, I don't think kicks or tempbans always work. People have to wait out the ban, yes, but the moment their ban expires, they're back on EMC, with no lasting damage.

All context based sanctions would be based on what they did wrong (my examples aren't the best, I know that). I personally believe that if someone can't do something for a period of time, it'll put them off doing it in the future. Of course, it wouldn't be the case for some people, but I think it would for some.

Taking this way of thinking into another situation, say that someone usually plays with xray mods installed for whatever reason can't use these mods for a month, but still wanted to play Minecraft. They'd see what real Minecraft is like, and on some occasions may stop using xray hacks because they prefer the fun way of playing. Again, it wouldn't be the case for everyone, but it would for some.

Your wilderness idea is a good one, but I'm not sure how well it would work here. Being dumped miles out in the Wilderness would put me personally off from playing on EMC ever again. Since the sanctions I'm suggesting would all expire after a certain of time, online or offline (excluding simple stuff like chat mutes), it leaves people with two options:

1. To come back on EMC, and spend a short time with a restricted account as a constant reminder and warning not to re-offend.
2. To effectively self ban themselves from EMC, and not play until the restrictions have expired.

For those that don't wish to play with restrictions, they can simply wait the time out. Dumping people in the Wild doesn't give them that second option.
So yes, they wouldn't be able to "play legitly" to an extent, but nothing would stop them going to the wild for a bit, mining, and building up their residence. The main things that would be restricted would be EMC exclusive.

You can't just permaban someone if you think they may re-offend, to me that's just not right. The misunderstanding of the nfell situation, with people thinking that he was banned on suspicions that he may have done other stuff (which he was not banned for), is what's caused the drama that's visible for all to see.

As I'm sure you know, I'm all for community moderation. But some things just can't be done like that.

In both of the examples, the player is being punished twice.

I like the idea of making punishments more contexual in the case of Chat problems. Since it is always a behavior problem and sometimes a language barrier problem, it's never going to be 100% effective regardless of the punishment.

In the chat example, disabling chat with a message that says: "Chat has been disabled for (Reason). You will not be able to use Chat for XX more minutes." would be appropriate. It says clearly why they aren't able to chat and for how long.

Quite often someone who is misbehaving in chat comes back and seems even more determined to cause problems with swearing and obscene language. Disabling their Chat might give them a chance to cool off. It may possibly backfire though, since they would be able to see what others are saying about their earlier "performance".

I don't think Kicking/Banning someone for a Chat offense, plus disabling their chat when they come back would be fair. The Kick/Ban was their punishment and it's over.

The same goes for the second example. Banning and purging seems a harsh enough punishment. The suggested fourteen day probation following the purging, besides being destined to confuse people, is overkill. If they are allowed back, the Staff has already decided they can be trusted. If we can't trust them at that point, hopefully the Staff can see that and won't let them return. Besides, I think someone who's bound to re-offend is likely to behave for a few weeks at least before breaking bad again so I don't think the probation would really solve anything.

If a probation period were to be used, it should be used instead of the Ban and Purge, possibly in more moderate cases where Staff think it is more appropriate. An XRayer could be forced to only be able to use Wood or Stone tools. Someone abusing shop chests could have their Rupee account frozen. Someone using a speed hack could be forced into moving in sneak mode all the time. Someone illegally flying could have jumping disabled.

Although the suggestion sounds interesting, I'm not sure how the confusion it would cause and code complexity could be avoided.

This is why I did this as a discussion. Your points are overly valid, and in fact I couldn't agree with you more. The way you have for the implementation is way better than what I had.

Although I do agree it would need complex code (although you could probably give someone a permission eg: empire.punish.sneak automatically which tells the server that that person has the punishment, and run it like that. I honestly don't think parts of this would need much more than a few lines of code though).

That stills leaves the problem of explaining to sometimes barely literate kids why they can't run. Compare that with getting a message saying: "Banned for 3 days for using Speed Hack.", os something similar when they try to log in.

I like the idea of more context and granularity in punishments. The aspect of being seen publicly might deter more people and I think I might find some situations rather hilarious. I don't think I'd want to be responsible to code or explain it though.

Considering some people don't understand the ban messages, I think some people will never understand, no matter how they're punished. Something like this on login could, at the very least, reduce confusion:

Agree. Kicks and tempbans are used because they are a simple tool, not because it is the best way to deal with any and all offenses.
Damage is probably not the best word, there shouldn't be lasting damage if anyhow possible,
but a lasting positive effect is desirable.

The most valuable suggestion here is to think about what might work for different types of problems and offenses and not just oversimplify like "there are good members and bad members, so if we ban the bad ones everything will be good" ... unfortunately not!

The next most valuable suggestion is to deal with offenders in an intelligent way. This means to try to understand what happened and why, to talk to them, try to get things straight.
IMO, if you show some interest and empathy, you can motivate most of offenders much better to correct their behavior than with bans and restrictions.

More like hundred miles. I guess it might work for minor or medium griefing. Younger players often grief either as "revenge," if they were griefed, and/or out of enviousness. In such cases, I'd expect that playing pure survival for some time would force them to become better players and reduce the chance of repeated griefing - I think that's much more probable than with taking away their possessions (if any).

Perhaps they could be amnestied in some cases, but I don't see why playing survival would be bad for anyone that would like to be part of EMC.

Yes - and everything you do to a member (that's not just right), you're doing to the whole community.
Everyone will ask themselves: for whom the bell will ring next.

EMC provides solid basic rules and EMC Staff provides a good service in keeping that rules.
I wonder if the community can build on that and reach "gentleman's agreements" about further rules and practices, and perhaps even elect its own mediators / conciliators and thus provide for rich, more complex social and economic interaction between members.