A different look at clause 6 of the server's general rules (circumventing the ban)

[XaxaCao]

Dear Eclipse Community,

Greetings to all.

I suggest revisiting our friend's topic and sharing your thoughts again, as it seems the initial responses did not directly address the specific issues raised.

Let me restate my friend's idea for everyone:

Should individuals who break community rules be banned from reentry? Certainly.
Should those who evade bans be respected? Absolutely not.

Imagine two players, Jimmy and Alex:

• Jimmy: In his first entry to the server, unaware of the rules, violates other players' rights, breaks the rules, and receives a permanent ban after several warnings and penalties.
• Alex: Similarly, in his first entry to the server, unaware of the rules, breaks them, devalues the roleplaying experience of others, and also receives a permanent ban.

Now, consider that both, after being banned, create a new account, evading their previous bans, and continue playing:

• Jimmy: Learns from his past mistakes, understands he shouldn't have done those things, and with his new account, starts playing again, respecting the rules this time to avoid getting banned again.
• Alex: Due to his unethical personality, doesn't accept or understand his mistakes, evades his ban, creates another new account, rejoins the community, but with the difference that he doesn't accept his ban, is very angry, and intends to cause chaos in the server. He breaks more rules, and with toxic behavior, ruins the roleplaying experience and enjoyment for other players. Even if he gets banned multiple times, he finds ways to evade it and, without fear, might even resort to cheating, possibly rallying a group of other gamers to destroy the server and engage in reckless behavior.

Here, the main flaw in the current policy becomes evident: It makes no distinction between Jimmy and Alex, treating both as ban evaders.

As my friend gave his example, let me share mine: In my first entry to the server, like everyone else, I had no understanding of roleplaying and naturally, the rules. But my good friend Diswatch guided me well, familiarized me with the server and its rules, and today, I proudly announce that I've been a member of Eclipse for about 4 years, enjoying the delightful experiences of playing without any trouble and without a single history of rulebreaking or such issues, playing respectfully on this server.

And finally, I would like to say that rules can certainly be updated and changed over time, and should be used in the process of improving server and community conditions. As we remember, in past years some toxic individuals targeted certain minorities and people with different orientations and races, but thankfully, this issue has been completely addressed today. We see people enjoying playing together regardless of their differences, and taking pleasure in being alongside each other.

Since I believe our approach to rules should be preventive rather than absolute prohibition, our view towards rules circumventers should assume that individuals may unintentionally violate rules, and certainly, upon their second chance, they will respect the rules and even educate others to adhere to them. Considering this, after losing their previous account and starting anew with a new account, individuals forfeit all assets obtained through breaking the rules.
As a member of the Eclipse community, I strongly recommend and propose that ban evading rules be changed from a permanent ban on the person to simply banning just their account. This allows the individual to continue playing with a new account and ensures that they won’t face the same issues for not repeating past mistakes
And I ask all my friends in the community, both server staff and players, to express their opinions with full consideration of what I have said.

Best regards.

(PS:I did not intend to spam because the previous topic was archived and I was not given the opportunity to reply, so I opened a new topic.)

[SquirtleSquad]

You ban evade, you're breaking our rule. There's no chance that's going to get altered. 

Don't ban evade. Read the rules. Follow them to the best of your ability. You get punished for breaking a rule, and decide to create a new account to circumvent the ban, you think you're above the rules. What stops you from pulling the same shit again. You're just going to break the same rules and not learn a lesson.

Each ban is handled on a case by case basis. As Ranger said in the other thread, there's not going to be a change in this.

[Quietthecutie]

Staff already responded unequivocally and whilst i dont always agree with staff i 100% stand with the boys on this. so many games/communities are ruined by cheating i have 0 sympathy for it and ban evasion IS cheating. its the worst kind of cheating because no only did he disregard the rules of the server, he refused to take the punishment and instead broke them again, thinking the rules and appeals process was beneath him. in doing so he blew any chance of regaining staffs trust. stop trying to dress it up and accept that he's never coming back.

Edited June 13, 2024 by Quietthecutie

[Bala]

Yeah, ban evading is one of those that I don't think someone should be able to come back from. Not only did you show a disregard for the rules to get banned in the first place, you then show you still dont respect the rules after? Not someone that needs to be here.

For things like using cheats, I come from SA:MP so I think my thought process is a little different. I think cheating that first time is a lengthy ban but an eventual unban, possibly with a stats wipe or something. Feel the same about DSO as well. Do that shit twice though? Be gone and stay gone.

[Eliza]

Appealing the original ban is far much easier than appealing a ban evading ban

[Ash]

5 hours ago, XaxaCao said:

Jimmy: Learns from his past mistakes, understands he shouldn't have done those things, and with his new account, starts playing again, respecting the rules this time to avoid getting banned again.

Jimmy did not in fact learn from his past mistakes if the literal first thing he does is break the rules again

[HobGoblin]

3 hours ago, Bala said:

Yeah, ban evading is one of those that I don't think someone should be able to come back from. Not only did you show a disregard for the rules to get banned in the first place, you then show you still dont respect the rules after? Not someone that needs to be here.

For things like using cheats, I come from SA:MP so I think my thought process is a little different. I think cheating that first time is a lengthy ban but an eventual unban, possibly with a stats wipe or something. Feel the same about DSO as well. Do that shit twice though? Be gone and stay gone.

100% agree with Bala. If you ban evade you show you don't care for the ban in the first place. People who are banned for other things (eg. cheating) should be the ones allowed a second chance if they take the ban and use the appeal system in place.

[MOMA]

+1
For having a better community, this rule is mandatory, but what can be changed in this rule is the repetition of the ban evading or the primary reason for it (for example, if it was for cheating or real-world trading or...) this rule should be enforced.

In ban evaders, there are two categories of players:
1. Those who return to the server which want to destroy the community and server and make it toxic(which constitute a small percentage).
2. Players who can't wait to unban the main account (and as I think this is for they're  interest in this community and playing in ECRP).

A player who has been banned and then return to the community, start everything from 0(due to the loss all the stuff), may have done so out of a genuine interest in the community and server. If they have not broken any rules in the other account(expect ban evading), they could be given a chance to return. This could be after a certain period, such as one year, or by resetting all items on the main account.

The negative aspects of this rule:
1. Anyone who gets banned can do it again and again because they have nothing to lose and you give them no chance to make up for their mistakes.

The positive aspects of this rule:
1. Returning old players to the server with recognition of the qualification required to get unban.
2. After the return of some old players, it is possible for their friends to return as well(assuming they are not ban).

[Ranger]

If you purposefully circumvent a punishment that we issue, you are showing blatant disregard for the rules and system(s) we have in place. All bans are taken in on a case by case except for a few that we will deny without consideration (mainly those who have done serious things such as maliciously cheat (ESP, hunting, aimlock, etc), or those who have performed cyber attacks on other players), ban evasion may sometimes be looked at case by case, I've seen an evader get unbanned at one point in the far past, but for the most part, it will be denied without question for the reason I put at the start of this paragraph.

These kinds of topics will hold more weight when it's not ban evaders or people who are close to those who have evaded making them and trying to push for change. You don't know this, as you are not staff and you do not need to deal with these people, but for the most part, the people who evade are not people who come back to enjoy a roleplay environment, they are here to cause damage to the server in the sense of cheating, PvPing (only), or breaking rules until they get banned via our punishment system. Any point you make about "people wanting to come back to provide something" is, respectfully, not the case; there have only been 1 or 2 people I've seen evade in my 4 years of being in this community that actually came and provided (very good) RP whilst evading, I won't name them, but if you've been around long enough you know exactly who I'm on about, and if you're reading this, you know who you are.

Ban evading is not as simple as flicking on a VPN and playing the server again, you need to properly go out of your way to evade the measures in place that come with an account ban so when someone says "they didn't know", are capping.

Similar to 9 hours ago, on the other topic, we won't be loosening our policy(ies) on ban evading. Archived.