Ideas & Suggestion: Reform of Warning/Ban system

[Steampunk]

Topic:
Reform of Warning/Ban system

Short explanation (in notes):
*Removal of Warnings (not including bans) after a period of time (1, 2+ Months)
*Removal of Permaban or Long Time Bans for Warnings
*Kicks to not be counted as Bans (i.e if this system to be used, kicks should not add up or "counted" with the bans, bans to be seperate)

Detailed description (why should it become added):
This goes back a long way. To understand why I am asking reform is to first understand who I am (or at least the relevance). I started playing Gmod for... Quiet a few years ago. But almost immidietly I went into RP servers (when they were more popular) and begining with Serious RP. From there I've been going from one Serious RP server to another and I found Perp. It was a very exciting and new, one which was not the same as DarkRP, yet not as plain as Serious RP. It had good mechanics which made it very enjoyable to play and a server to relax from the other servers I played on. But, here is where things started to get a little murky. The server is stated to be Serious Roleplay, which I by that fact treat it as one. That means that I should have the ability to have the freedom to properly construct and follow through different situations via IC and instead of it being followed through OOC. An example of what I mean is the rule "3.22 Highway Driving- Players should at all times drive on the correct side of the highway and should not perform unrealistic". The problem with this is where RP situations kick in, and when immidiet descisions need to be made (such as driving while being chased by police) you are in some way forced, maybe a road block, traffic or otherwise situations where you have no choice but to drive in the other direction. This is an IC situation, but the rule states that its against the rules. Rules and OOC should not drive IC descisions of such form, a person being forced to make a descision with all the proceedings made IC should not be a bannable or warning offence but of course, this varies from case to case.

So, why am I saying about rules? What does this got to do with Reform of warnings. Well, this is based off my own experiance and knowledge. I have 13 warnings and a handfull of bans, which by many cases would mean a permaban. I will not state that all of the warnings are unjustfull and I will say some of the warnings are fairly given but many of the warnings came from the slightly single-mindedness of the situations. I feel that situations almost unavoidable are bannable or warning offences which makes it hard to not break as said it would have been unavoidable. But, these are the rules stated and I am not going to disuss rules which overlap IC and OOC. But, keep in mind what I said above because the point I am trying to make is not everything is so black and white. I was nearly enraged, and fustrated over some accusations from one of the administrations staff insinuating that I was some form of troll based off my warnings and bans. This, I felt was direct insult to me who takes Serious RP, well seriously. And I felt that this administrator had unfairly accused me for this. I have for the record always read the rules after a ban or a warning (believe it or not), but as stated above; often its not that simple to follow the rules and actually playing the game. Another thing I hoped the staff member would see is the lengths between each warning or ban and the regularity I have broken the rules. According to the forums, I have been a member for a year, which adding up the warnings gives me around a warning per month but I've been on this server longer then that (add maybe a handfull of months, but don't quote me on that). So, even if a warning a month is slightly questionable, bear in mind the really strict rules which as said above hard to avoid. Even though I have already said one example, I'll give you a real example which this happened to prove this isn't baseless theory. So, I was on my car, badly hit by police and in chase. The wheels were almost completely gone (maybe even completely). I made a sharp turn to the right, then another directly to the left. I ran over 4 people during it. I got a warning for it. Do you believe that the warning is justified? A near unavoidable and unforeseen crash into pedestrians. Of course its definatly a course for concerns but it should have been taken IC, not OOC.

There is another factor; Unfair bans. My recent ban was 6 months, due to excessive warnings. What was my ban before that? Exactly same. On the day I was unbanned, a situation occured (possible reason of driving on the wrong side of the road) which lead to a warning. Now, the reason and the ban given in any other server would be seen as near corruption, unethical but becasue of this warning system it somehow justified.

So, I have rambled on about the reason behind it but I have a solution. As said above, warnings could be limited time, lets say a month or two. This could be used to more accuretly represent if the person has the intention to break the rules or not regularly. Thus also remove permabans and long time bans for mearly warning alone. I see this as a more justifull way of dealing with warnings, and permabans and long time bans should be given out when having excessive bans instead of excessive warnings. The reason aswell is that warnings are far more easily obtained then bans, also thus more of them gives more and more unfair bans for sitautions given. Bans are given upon the situation in question, and bans should not be generalized of warnings. So, this is sort of a protest against the black and white view from the admins and the stupid "just read the rules" thing, because as said often its not as black and white as people want to see, yet I have come up with a possible solution which gives people, possibly like me more justice.


Optional additions:
I will be fair and I accept all opinions about this, I also thus do not have personnal hatred towards administration as they did their job even if the situations were scepitcal at best. Some warnings and bans are diserved and I did wrong, but some more were highly sceptical because of this warning system which gives people far worse punishment for the crimes they have commited

 

[StephenPuffs]

While it's your right to rage against the machine, warnings are often reviewed before giving out of ban to see how they may have been issue in the past. So it isn't simply a number that is looked at as you may simply assume. Warning totals may be used as a reason in a ban but it is typically when it has been something that user has been warned about on multiple accounts so we shouldn't have to warn again. As for your running over of 4 people, if you posted a demo showing the incident from your perspective it may be appealed based on the discretion of the reviewer. Also you contradict yourself quite heavily by saying we should remove warnings but then also use them to check if someone repeatedly breaks rules. We don't remove them so we can check exactly that, however the time between the times warnings were added is a consideration.

While I understand sometimes IC things may lead to things that rules disallow like your example of going the wrong way on the highway, the likelihood of anyone paying for damages done to another vehicle by doing so are close to none we simply do not want this kind of behavior regardless. We are willing to review any rule/law you find unclear and feel it needs changing which is why we have a section on the forums for exactly that. I also understand there are perhaps some things in the rules that prevent what may seem like a reasonable behavior, they're often phrased in ways to help prevent any sort of abuse or unfair behavior. So if you have specific thoughts of what may improve them as I said before make a post in the appropriate section.

Back to your original point though, multiple warnings can and always will lead to some bans as they're often an indication someone does not know the rules too well. While your case may be different and you're a victim of circumstance, it doesn't help your appearance based on your record of when admins have had to talk to you. But if you received two bans in a row for simply warnings only, I would agree that seems like a bit much if they're unrelated. You can always appeal or put effort into an apology much like how you put effort into this post. Lastly, you may find some staff even have somewhat of a troubled past on the server but they turned around and didn't have to be talked to in awhile so their application was reviewed and accepted despite those issues.

 

[Steampunk]

While it's your right to rage against the machine, warnings are often reviewed before giving out of ban to see how they may have been issue in the past. So it isn't simply a number that is looked at as you may simply assume. Warning totals may be used as a reason in a ban but it is typically when it has been something that user has been warned about on multiple accounts so we shouldn't have to warn again. As for your running over of 4 people, if you posted a demo showing the incident from your perspective it may be appealed based on the discretion of the reviewer. Also you contradict yourself quite heavily by saying we should remove warnings but then also use them to check if someone repeatedly breaks rules. We don't remove them so we can check exactly that, however the time between the times warnings were added is a consideration.

While I understand sometimes IC things may lead to things that rules disallow like your example of going the wrong way on the highway, the likelihood of anyone paying for damages done to another vehicle by doing so are close to none we simply do not want this kind of behavior regardless. We are willing to review any rule/law you find unclear and feel it needs changing which is why we have a section on the forums for exactly that. I also understand there are perhaps some things in the rules that prevent what may seem like a reasonable behavior, they're often phrased in ways to help prevent any sort of abuse or unfair behavior. So if you have specific thoughts of what may improve them as I said before make a post in the appropriate section.

Back to your original point though, multiple warnings can and always will lead to some bans as they're often an indication someone does not know the rules too well. While your case may be different and you're a victim of circumstance, it doesn't help your appearance based on your record of when admins have had to talk to you. But if you received two bans in a row for simply warnings only, I would agree that seems like a bit much if they're unrelated. You can always appeal or put effort into an apology much like how you put effort into this post. Lastly, you may find some staff even have somewhat of a troubled past on the server but they turned around and didn't have to be talked to in awhile so their application was reviewed and accepted despite those issues.

I understand what you mean. But the problem here is that, well it isn't justified if you get bans from wall the warnings put together, bans are there to punish for induvidal situations and not of every single situation where an admin was present. Because of the simple fact I find it hard to believe that an admin would specifically add the arguments against this, and there is no way to fight or stand your ground if a warning has been given unjust, as I understood it there is no appeal to such warnings and if there is no appeal then possible unjust warnings go into the persons "list" and lead to an unjust ban. The short term is for me good because you can see more clearly if a person is repeating/has not read the rules currectly in a smaller time-span then a one-off situation where often happened to me, long term also has the negative effect of adminsitration "pre-judging" the character involved. I get the belief that admins expect me to be a 12 year old kid with no knowledge where in fact I'm a 16 year old aircraft mechanic trainee with lot of knowledge and experiance. Or, it would be easier if the warning system was not entangled with punishment what so ever, just as a reguletory system. Punishment would be given direct, ban or any other punishment to be able it to be justified and able to be defended for each situation then all of them together

 

[Minilarro]

The staff member dealing with a situation/incident will look into your warnings/bans and come to a conclusion. This system works fine and does not need to be changed. I will not give examples of warnings/bans as no situations are the same. The rules are there for a reason, and you agree to them upon joining.