[Discussion] Disallow the banning staff member from being anyhow associated with your ban dispute

[Code Monkey]

What rule do you wish to Edit/Add:

• Ban disputes are to be dealt with by 3 staff members, the original staff member that banned the user must not have a say in the situation.

Your version of the rule:

• Ban disputes are to be dealt with by 3 staff members, the original staff member that banned the user must not have a say in the situation, may not give their input on why they banned the user (including messaging of any kind), and may not be in the Teamspeak channel when the 3 independent staff members are discussing it. There may not be any contact of any kind between the investigating staff members and the staff member who issued the ban regarding the individual in question.

Why do you believe this rule should be Added/Edited:

I recently got shafted by this situation and felt it was extremely unfair. When I came into the staff channel a staff member had pretty much felt convinced I was innocent until the banning staff member convinced him otherwise. I am not saying what I did wasn't wrong but in order to have an independent and non-biased investigation this MUST change. This allows the investigating staff members to understand your side of the situation and redetermine whether or not it was okay without having the other staff member convince them differently. I ended up speaking with Bolli and he said they are not supposed to be in the channel in the first place but I want it written in the rules.

 

[Sam]

Hey,

Should the banning staff member have a vote? Of course not
Should the the staff members dealing with the dispute be able to ask the banning staff member questions? Of course they should

The reason the staff members dealing with the dispute asks the banning staff member questions is so they can get an overview of the situation. They must know what evidence the staff member had at the time, what the staff member saw and what the player said and did. I have dealt with several disputes, and I am always inviting the banning staff member to the channel so I can ask questions, but the banning staff member never has a say in the outcome.

You bring up yesterday's dispute talk,
I answered the questions that Grave and others asked me, I also provided my reasoning. After that, I went AFK for a few minutes. When I came back they were posting the denied message.

"When I came into the staff channel a staff member had pretty much felt convinced I was innocent"
First of, this was after the dispute was denied. Second of all, as he stated himself, he felt that you broke no rule after you explained yourself. When the staff member came back into the staff channel he asked me questions regarding what you said,

1. You said that you never saw me coming in the SWAT van - This was not the case, after looking at the video we all saw that you clearly saw the van and me for quite a while.

2. You said that you had good reason to believe that you were being arrested for shooting daymon - Yes, you shot at daymon while he was trespassing, you could have easily talked you way out of it. We even concluded that any jail sentence for shooting at him would be false imprisonment as you never actually hit him with your bullets.

3. You said you dealt with the NPCs within the PD - We also concluded that you did not at all deal with the NPCs.

Your ban would probably been removed if I did not provide evidence of the following;
- You actually seeing me for several seconds before I cuff you.
- That there were no legal grounds to imprison you

I am not saying that you meant to mislead the staff members, everyone can forget details. If the banning staff member can not give his side, reasoning and evidence, then the banned player can just straight up lie about the situation.

Do I think that the banning staff member should not be allowed to tell his side? No, The banning staff member should have all right in the world to give his side. The staff members dealing with the dispute should listen to the banning staff member, look at the evidence, the dispute and then come to a conclusion.

 

[Daft Punk]

I say, Ban dispute should be 2 sided, so the person disputing the ban, then you got the staff member who banned side, and then the 3 staff members can then investigate on that, without the banned user and the staff member who banned.

 

[Imperial Watch]

There are always two sides to a story.
I don't see the reason why the staff member in question shouldn't be able to provide a brief summary of the situation from his point of view.
Perhaps it should be done in a written manner, so you have things on paper on what the staff member thought at the time of the ban, much like an AR.

 

[Slayerduck]

may not give their input on why they banned the user (including messaging of any kind)

If the person who banned someone can't say why you were banned then how do you even plan to appeal or dispute the ban?

 

[Code Monkey]

If the person who banned someone can't say why you were banned then how do you even plan to appeal or dispute the ban?

The staff members handling the dispute can read the ban reason.

 

[Slayerduck]

The staff members handling the dispute can read the ban reason.

That's just dumb, i can already see the 12 year olds mashing their keyboards and making up random bullshit to get unbanned

 

[Rhys :)]

I think that the admin who banned the user should have a say in the ban but should be up to a hierarchy to deal with the dispute.

 

[joey]

They're already not meant to be involved in the dispute process.

@MrLewis said this.

But, how is it fair that you get to put your side of the story if they cannot be associated with the dispute at all, hence they can't give their side of the story?

I understand the issue that some people worry about the possible bias of staff members, internally, but it might be appropriate to have them create a public response as a reply to the thread, giving evidence etc.

 

[GringoHead]

Should the banning staff member have a vote? Of course not
Should the the staff members dealing with the dispute be able to ask the banning staff member questions? Of course they should

Should the banning staff member be in the same channel as the others when dealing with the dispute? Of course not.

Now to avoid having my post removed, I will add more to it.

Staff members, sure, they can get asked questions etc about the ban because that's always necessary but, for them to be in the same channel, interfering and possibly influencing a biased perspective towards the situation can always change an outcome, which, shouldn't happen.

 

[TinySlayer]

There are some statements here which are slightly ignorant of the dispute process, but I'll respond to the issue generally.

The first point is that the ban/warning reason can rarely be full summarised in text box we are given. There is often a large amount of background information that only the person who issued the punishment can fully give and explain. This means they have to be involved in someway, even if not the final decision.

To expand on this, it is often useful to have the staff member in the channel for the discussion, as they can bring up points that we have overlooked, or evidence that is not in the dispute. This is a simple fact of efficiency. Disputes take time and effort, probably more than any other task we do. There are plenty of disputes which never get fully investigated properly due to this. Making the process less efficient is never going to help the people who have wrongly been punished, which are the people that are the most important to consider here.

Next is the point of bias. There should be no suggestion of bias by the banning member in the first place. Disputes are a process of examining all of the evidence, and forming a collective agreement that represents the opinions of the entire staff team. This often can mean that several staff members look at a dispute, often more than 5, even if they aren't all tagged. It is not acceptable for the staff team to come to different decisions from the same scenario, and the only way of achieving this is for the punishment issuer to be involved in the discussion. If we remove them from the discussion, it leads to the possibility that they will act the same way again. Whe accepting a dispute, we always aim to get the original staff member to agree with our decision.

I am not saying what I did wasn't wrong but in order to have an independent and non-biased investigation this MUST change. This allows the investigating staff members to understand your side of the situation and redetermine whether or not it was okay without having the other staff member convince them differently.

To address this point, if there is any question if a bias investigation, this should be delay with through a staff complaint. The same if the original staff member was bias. Therefore, our default position outside the staff complaint process is to assume that the original punishment was as independent and unbiased as possible.

Here is a roughly how it often works. You can see that the staff member is key to the process.

1. Original staff tries to find people to deal with a dispute. OR someone tries to deal with several open disputes by bringing staff members to them on TS.
2. Staff members look at the evidence and decide if it can be denied.
3. If there are open questions which means it could be accepted, further evidence will be gathered from the logs.
4. If there are still open questions which means it could be accepted, the original punisher will be contacted to provide any missing information.
5. Discussion will ensue to get everyone on the same page and in agreement. (Note. I rarely ask the original staff member to leave here, as they don't get a final say. In 99% of instances we can come to a mutual agreement anyway.)
6. Outcome gets posted by one of handlers.

Any question of influencing the decision is normally through the provision of their own evidence, not due to anything else. We are just as much in a position to convince them to change their minds, as they are of convincing us to change their minds.

TL;DR: All staff members should be able to come to the same conclusion based on identical evidence. To do this, everyone needs to be involved.

 

[Code Monkey]

There are some statements here which are slightly ignorant of the dispute process, but I'll respond to the issue generally.

The first point is that the ban/warning reason can rarely be full summarised in text box we are given. There is often a large amount of background information that only the person who issued the punishment can fully give and explain. This means they have to be involved in someway, even if not the final decision.

To expand on this, it is often useful to have the staff member in the channel for the discussion, as they can bring up points that we have overlooked, or evidence that is not in the dispute. This is a simple fact of efficiency. Disputes take time and effort, probably more than any other task we do. There are plenty of disputes which never get fully investigated properly due to this. Making the process less efficient is never going to help the people who have wrongly been punished, which are the people that are the most important to consider here.

Next is the point of bias. There should be no suggestion of bias by the banning member in the first place. Disputes are a process of examining all of the evidence, and forming a collective agreement that represents the opinions of the entire staff team. This often can mean that several staff members look at a dispute, often more than 5, even if they aren't all tagged. It is not acceptable for the staff team to come to different decisions from the same scenario, and the only way of achieving this is for the punishment issuer to be involved in the discussion. If we remove them from the discussion, it leads to the possibility that they will act the same way again. Whe accepting a dispute, we always aim to get the original staff member to agree with our decision.



To address this point, if there is any question if a bias investigation, this should be delay with through a staff complaint. The same if the original staff member was bias. Therefore, our default position outside the staff complaint process is to assume that the original punishment was as independent and unbiased as possible.

Here is a roughly how it often works. You can see that the staff member is key to the process.

1. Original staff tries to find people to deal with a dispute. OR someone tries to deal with several open disputes by bringing staff members to them on TS.
2. Staff members look at the evidence and decide if it can be denied.
3. If there are open questions which means it could be accepted, further evidence will be gathered from the logs.
4. If there are still open questions which means it could be accepted, the original punisher will be contacted to provide any missing information.
5. Discussion will ensue to get everyone on the same page and in agreement. (Note. I rarely ask the original staff member to leave here, as they don't get a final say. In 99% of instances we can come to a mutual agreement anyway.)
6. Outcome gets posted by one of handlers.

Any question of influencing the decision is normally through the provision of their own evidence, not due to anything else. We are just as much in a position to convince them to change their minds, as they are of convincing us to change their minds.

TL;DR: All staff members should be able to come to the same conclusion based on identical evidence. To do this, everyone needs to be involved.

This is exactly what I DO NOT want to happen. As you can see the community agrees with my thought process. They should not be involved what so ever and Bolli himself stated they should not be in the same Teamspeak channel when it is occurring.

 

[Maia]

Why not just deal with the situation with both the staff member that banned and the guy that got banned? It would be a easy way to "control" the situation. It would be like an admin sit but concerning the dispute..

 

[MrLewis]

This is already in place, the banning staff member is allowed to give their side of the situation and their reasoning for the punishment; however they must not be involved in the final decision within the dispute team.