Conflict of interest - non existing!

[OBESE]

Let me start of with quoting what is "Conflict of interest" from a wikipedia.

Quote

A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations in which the personal interest of an individual or organization might adversely affect a duty owed to make decisions for the benefit of a third party.

An “interest” is a commitment, obligation, duty or goal associated with a particular social role or practice. By definition, a “conflict of interest” occurs if, within a particular decision-making context, an individual is subject to two coexisting interests that are in direct conflict with each other. Such a matter is of importance because under such circumstances the decision-making process can be disrupted or compromised in a manner that affects the integrity or the reliability of the outcomes.

Typically, a conflict of interest arises when an individual finds himself or herself occupying two social roles simultaneously which generate opposing benefits or loyalties.

So, now to the question - why there is no such thing as conflict of interest on this project? Sure, there are some instances where it is practices, but from my own personal experience it usually happens when one of the involved parties actually point out the possible conflict of interest and asks for anyone else in charge to deal with the situation. Rather than that, we would see that there is no considerations for it. Please correct me, if Im wrong.

Why do I have such belief that conflict of interest on eclipse project is non existing? Due to several reasons, that I have seen myself and been part of. For example I have seen where admin would take up a report that is against a group in which admin himself is involved with, with one of his characters. I even have proof where a decision has been made in favour of the group and when new evidence was presented to the admin, that potentially could change the outcome of the report, the evidence was denied.

I've seen where faction handlers are people representing a rival organisation. I've witnessed favouritism from admins sides when it comes to connections and acquaintances.

When it comes to being the deciding party of a conflict of any kind, outcomes fairness is always based on the deciding party's integrity and professionalism. Do we have that in this project at all times? As I mentioned, that is not the case. I am not saying that everyone is breaching this "conflict of interest" and I have seen very professional members of staff where they have shown and proven that they are not bias and does their job as they should, but yet again there are instances where it's opposite.

I personally believe that there should be rules (if there is not one, that we are not aware of) when it comes who is assign to what tasks and duties to have every decision and feedback with no bias opinions that would be looked at as conflict of interest.

 

Feel free to discuss this matter down bellow in comments...

[alexalex303]

I have the utmost confidence in the administration team to not be biased in their decision making. I find that when a person is making decisions that involve his own interest, they will be even stricter than usual, just to not appear biased. 

Unless you can point to very strong cases of people being biased, I don't see why you would limit and insult the administration team this way.

[OBESE]

30 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

I have the utmost confidence in the administration team to not be biased in their decision making. I find that when a person is making decisions that involve his own interest, they will be even stricter than usual, just to not appear biased. 

Unless you can point to very strong cases of people being biased, I don't see why you would limit and insult the administration team this way.

I speak from my own experience. In no way I have tried or actually insulted no one with my OP. Besides when it comes to "conflict of interest" in real life, in organisations and businesses it is not about not trusting the person or not being confident in their professionalism. Such thing exists to not even go that far where someone could feel like there has been conflict of interest.

When a faction handler tells the faction that he will make sure they are disbanded on their discord due to IC conflict - that is a concern for me. When an admin deals with a report and then ignores possible outcome changing evidence that could punish a member of a group that admin is part of - that is a concern as well. These are not the only things I've seen.

But yet again I will say it - Im not pointing at everyone and Im not gonna point at no one specific, just letting everyone know that such thing exists and been witnessed.

[CaesarSeizure]

I think that no matter how professional anyone tries to be, there is always gonna be a bias towards one side or the other. I think it doesnt make sense to just have the same factions admins handle reports against that faction (at least for in-game reports, forums are different as the cases are viewed a lot more before a final verdict).

And regarding the overall quality of the staff, they are doing a great job in most cases, situations where something is overlooked get handled, at least from what i can see, but look, there have been members of staff that were removed from their positions and even banned, due to abuse of power or willful negligence, so could make a lot more sense to have someone who doesnt have a horse in the race handle those reports.

[OBESE]

On 9/29/2019 at 5:51 PM, CaesarSeizure said:

I think that no matter how professional anyone tries to be, there is always gonna be a bias towards one side or the other. I think it doesnt make sense to just have the same factions admins handle reports against that faction (at least for in-game reports, forums are different as the cases are viewed a lot more before a final verdict).

And regarding the overall quality of the staff, they are doing a great job in most cases, situations where something is overlooked get handled, at least from what i can see, but look, there have been members of staff that were removed from their positions and even banned, due to abuse of power or willful negligence, so could make a lot more sense to have someone who doesnt have a horse in the race handle those reports.

Everything you said is spot on. I've been staff in projects myself and I know how hard it can get and how unpopular the positions are especially when you're issuing bans and warnings to people. So making sure there is not even a chance of COI is very important imo.

[Aldarine]

OP I acknowledge everything you stated but I do want to make sure you are also aware of the appeal process. Should a reported party feel that a punishment decision was made with bias they are always welcome to go through the appeal process and see as the decision is reviewed by multiple staff members all culminating in a senior member of staff making the ultimate decision. Should the appeal process not be taken advantage of in cases of possible bias, no corrective action can be done. The biggest plus about the appeal process is that it takes the final outcome out of the possibly biased parties hands and places it into the hands of one who has no real direct benefit from the outcome.

In the event of a possible conflict occurring outside of reports, people are also always welcome to bring their concerns to the appropriate staff (see staff roster for hierarchy and positions within staff) for continued follow up. Methods already exist for handling possible conflicts of interest, it's moreso a matter a utilizing them appropriately and with your best judgement.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Aldarine
Expanded on my post

[Cyrus Raven]

Not to sound like an asshole, but the least you can do when making posts like these is to cite the cases you are talking about. Seems a bit irresponsible to talk about COI in a community without at least providing some evidence for it.

[Bala]

Let's be honest, where there is opinion, there is some kind of bias and sitting in judgement on someone based on your own understanding of the rules is never going to be a perfect system.

But that being said, I have not personally experienced anything untoward from the admin team as far as conflict of interest is concerned so I have to say that I can't agree with you.

[Xoza]

There are really only two sides... your going to conflict either way. If you suspect biased behavior, refer to rules or escalate it. Mods though work hard to get what they have and I suspect could loose it quickly if they're seen as biased one way or another.

[OBESE]

1 hour ago, Aldarine said:

OP I acknowledge everything you stated but I do want to make sure you are also aware of the appeal process. Should a reported party feel that a punishment decision was made with bias they are always welcome to go through the appeal process and see as the decision is reviewed by multiple staff members all culminating in a senior member of staff making the ultimate decision. Should the appeal process not be taken advantage of in cases of possible bias, no corrective action can be done. The biggest plus about the appeal process is that it takes the final outcome out of the possibly biased parties hands and places it into the hands of one who has no real direct benefit from the outcome.

In the event of a possible conflict occurring outside of reports, people are also always welcome to bring their concerns to the appropriate staff (see staff roster for hierarchy and positions within staff) for continued follow up. Methods already exist for handling possible conflicts of interest, it's moreso a matter a utilizing them appropriately and with your best judgement.

That is a very good advice that I feel many are not taking advantage of. When it comes to bringing concerns to the appropriate staff by hierarchy, often it is very hard to get replies from higher ranked personnel, which does not really make it an effective way of dealing with problems.

1 hour ago, Kyle White Raven said:

Not to sound like an asshole, but the least you can do when making posts like these is to cite the cases you are talking about. Seems a bit irresponsible to talk about COI in a community without at least providing some evidence for it.

You do not sound like an asshole and I see where you coming from, but at the same times I would like to not put such information publicly for the sake of those I might accuse of being bias as administration - therefore being unprofessional. If administration wants to see or hear more specific examples, I can do that with all the proof needed. I dont want to be an asshole either at the end of the day.

 

1 hour ago, GOAT said:

Let's be honest, where there is opinion, there is some kind of bias and sitting in judgement on someone based on your own understanding of the rules is never going to be a perfect system.

But that being said, I have not personally experienced anything untoward from the admin team as far as conflict of interest is concerned so I have to say that I can't agree with you.

I am not talking about having opinion on situations where it is not really unreasonable opinion. You have not experienced it, but sadly I have and of course noone will say "yeah, I was biased" and will just deny it.

6 minutes ago, Xoza said:

There are really only two sides... your going to conflict either way. If you suspect biased behaviour, refer to rules or escalate it. Mods though work hard to get what they have and I suspect could loose it quickly if they're seen as biased one way or another.

As I said to the previous person - no one will openly agree as it could be that they are being biased even without realising it. Also it is hard to prove that someone is biased as it's a decision and you have no evidence how that decision was made. Recently there was a punishment given and in appeal similar situations were shown where the people reported got only warnings and the appeal was still denied. When the admin was confronted with the examples the answer was - I did not make that decision, so I cannot comment on it. I made this one and I stand by it. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by OBESE

[Brawnkoh]

On 9/29/2019 at 1:40 AM, OBESE said:

Let me start of with quoting what is "Conflict of interest" from a wikipedia.

So, now to the question - why there is no such thing as conflict of interest on this project? Sure, there are some instances where it is practices, but from my own personal experience it usually happens when one of the involved parties actually point out the possible conflict of interest and asks for anyone else in charge to deal with the situation. Rather than that, we would see that there is no considerations for it. Please correct me, if Im wrong.

Why do I have such belief that conflict of interest on eclipse project is non existing? Due to several reasons, that I have seen myself and been part of. For example I have seen where admin would take up a report that is against a group in which admin himself is involved with, with one of his characters. I even have proof where a decision has been made in favour of the group and when new evidence was presented to the admin, that potentially could change the outcome of the report, the evidence was denied.

I've seen where faction handlers are people representing a rival organisation. I've witnessed favouritism from admins sides when it comes to connections and acquaintances.

When it comes to being the deciding party of a conflict of any kind, outcomes fairness is always based on the deciding party's integrity and professionalism. Do we have that in this project at all times? As I mentioned, that is not the case. I am not saying that everyone is breaching this "conflict of interest" and I have seen very professional members of staff where they have shown and proven that they are not bias and does their job as they should, but yet again there are instances where it's opposite.

I personally believe that there should be rules (if there is not one, that we are not aware of) when it comes who is assign to what tasks and duties to have every decision and feedback with no bias opinions that would be looked at as conflict of interest.

 

Feel free to discuss this matter down bellow in comments...

I will speak from my own personal ethos, rather than the staff team as a whole.

I go out of my way to not accept reports from individuals in my faction, both on the forums, and IG. I have done so maybe 2 times in 2 months. These situations were last resort situations where no mod+ was available and the rule break was beyond blatant. I also have a personal policy to not moderate my own RP (I will fix tire desync for people occasionally and such), but I do that for everyone. Now, with that being said, there have been situations where I have punished members of my own faction on the spot for rule breaches I have seen. 

I don't do this because I think I am unable to be a neutral party, I do it because of how it's perceived by the individual who is on the other end of the report. With all that being said, I genuinely believe Mod+ is a role that we, as staff, are not put in unless we have the ability to set our bias aside and deal with each situation as a neutral party. 

To add to your counter argument of people not knowing they are biased, and the flip side of that is that just because you think someone is being biased, doesn't mean they actually are in the specific circumstance.

If at any point you have direct examples of this happening, it should be brought through the proper channels to resolve on a case by case basis to either correct, or deny said situation. This is why we have an appeals process. No matter how perfect we all attempt to be, in the end, we are still human.