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Gramz

Clearer Standards Regarding Discipline and Punishment for Server Rule-Breaks

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The server has a living document of rules that is constantly tweaked to accommodate the needs of the server, but I cannot find any documents that instruct players what the penalties are for breaking rules. 

Fear RP, Non RP, and DM all have varying degrees of punishment. I have heard 2 DMs results in a permanent ban, but I have also seen countless "permanent" bans lifted via appeal. Honesty and contrition seem to go a long way here. Again, I'm just guessing because I do not have access to any information regarding the implications of punishments for breaking rules. There are guidelines for staff (x violation = x minutes of A-Jail, etc), but without those being public, it is difficult to know how serious each violation is, or how important it is for that violation to cease occurring. This is probably because so many rule breaks occur on grey-areas of debate, but once the punishments are rendered, a Fear RP violation is a Fear RP violation is a Fear RP violation. So, the ambiguity surrounding the rendering of the decision does not really concern my suggestion. More clarity is good. 

Suggestions specifically are:

1) Include information about punishments with the server rules, so that they are clear for all to see. Examples: A) Two counts of deathmathching will result in a permanent ban. B) 3 counts of breaking Fear RP will result in a one month ban. Et cetera...

2) Include information about punishments on forum reports of rule breaks. Example: Player X will be punished with Fear RP violation #2. The punishment for this is 15 minutes of a-jail, and the next violation will result in a one month ban. 

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"it is difficult to know how serious each violation is, or how important it is for that violation to cease occurring. "

^ This is one of many reasons why the punishments should be public information. An implication to the reason stated above is that I simply do not report people for non-rp and fear-rp breaks (or at least at a far lower frequency than DM), because I see so many violations handed out with few bans, it seems to me that DM is the most serious violation by far. Fear-RP and Non-RP seem more like slaps on the wrist with many chances for rehabilitation, but I could be completely wrong! Again, just guessing, it is all I can do. 

I am curious what some of the unstated reasons for classifying this information would be. 

Flucifal: "that is staff information only" - why?

"just follow the rules and there won't be an issue." - I do follow the rules and there is an issue, it is stated above. 

I am actually surprised there is opposition to this, because I do not know the reasons why this information is "staff only." What are the benefits to keeping this information private?

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Personally I'm of the mind that there should be at least some obscurity, because it gives people the impression that each rulebreak is "serious" rather than "no big deal."

If you knew you were going to get jailed for 10 minutes for whatever offense and it's not considered "that bad," this triggers your brain to relax when it comes to your behaviour surrounding actions that would lead up to you doing that offense.  If you aren't sure exactly how severe the punishment will be, you will be more wary of straying over the line.

Edited by Victor Einhart
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Fair. Ultimately unconvinced, but open to compromise. Again, anything is better than the status quo shroud of uncertainty. So if we need to keep some ambiguity or opacity regarding length of time in jail, ban length, etc, I'm fine with that. 

Or alternatively, why not just have serious punishments for the rules and make those punishments public?

If the concern is relaxed adherence to the rules, then publicity guarantees everyone knows that every rule is serious and what the consequences are for breaking each. 

I don't see what benefit obscurity captures that publicity couldn't also capture. 

Also, brains across the server are all clearly relaxed when it comes to some rules more than others. "no meta" is a meme. I'm skeptical that public punishment guidelines would decrease the quality of RP. 

Most of this really stems from just wondering. And wondering why I have to wonder. 

 

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-1 players should know the rules inside and out if they have been allowed onto the server. Also, if players knew the amount of admin jail they would get for committing a offence, a minority of people would take that time to get revenge on someone, Eg. (Breaching NLR) 

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There is no need for players to know what the punishments are for breaking a rule, all that needs to be known is what the rules are.

 

11 hours ago, Gramz said:

^ This is one of many reasons why the punishments should be public information. An implication to the reason stated above is that I simply do not report people for non-rp and fear-rp breaks (or at least at a far lower frequency than DM), because I see so many violations handed out with few bans, it seems to me that DM is the most serious violation by far. Fear-RP and Non-RP seem more like slaps on the wrist with many chances for rehabilitation, but I could be completely wrong! Again, just guessing, it is all I can do. 

I don't see how listing the punishments for the rules is going to change that. If people are getting slaps on the wrist for non-rp / fear rp issues then they're still going to slaps on the wrist, regardless of if it's publicly announced that they could receive a harsher punishment. And just like how you don't do it now, I believe that you'd most likely experience the same thing (as this change would do nothing to change what you see in regards to what punishments are actually handed out) where you'd see them not getting harsh punishments and thus end up in the same position of not reporting because you feel like there's no point.

 

12 hours ago, Gramz said:

because I do not know the reasons why this information is "staff only."

I can only speculate as I've got no knowledge of how things are actually done behind the closed doors, but it could be because they're guidelines and are not actually set punishment limits.

If they are just guidelines it's possible that as one moves up the chain, that they may have a bit more freedom to go beyond what is listed and to issue punishments that are more severe, while of course lower staff members may be instructed to follow these as a policy due to lack of experience on the staff team. If they're guidelines then they're intended to be an internal thing to help staff carry out their duties and not actually the limits of what punishments are.

On the other hand if they are actually the maximum punishments that can be issued for all staff, then I have no issue with them being listed publicly for all to see. As listing them when staff may go beyond what's listed just leads to the people caught violating the rules / their group bitching more.

 

13 hours ago, Gramz said:

also seen countless "permanent" bans lifted

Yeah "permanent" bans are generally just indefinite bans as they're just bans without a set unban date, not that they always last forever.

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Personally i think there is no need to know how long the Ajail sentence is, as it doesn't change anything for you.

Regarding the severity of each rule break, i'd like to point you to the report/punishment section. Based on how many breaches of each rule type are needed to get banned + punishment appeal denies, you can see what is severe and what is an acceptable mistake.

so DM - 2, MG -3, NRP - 6. Obviously any cases of mass rule break are instant bans. A big number of rule breaches fast usually leads to a non-RP ban. These ofc are all punishments that you can appeal for a chance to get unbanned and based on previous conduct as well as the appeal you will be back.

Any serious breaches like RWT or cheating are instant bans.

What im saying is that the info is out there, simply need to look and you can deduce yourself what is more severe. New players should't worry about whats more bad, as every rule breach is bad and instead should focus on trying to follow rules, rather than thinking how much Ajail time will i get if i break this rule.

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SUGGESTION DENIED

Thank you for your patience while this suggestion was being reviewed/researched.

After reviewing/researching this suggestion, we have decided to deny it for the following reason(s): 

  • There have been recent published updates regarding the rules and changes.

This decision is final. Unless instructed to, do not post another suggestion pertaining to this topic. You will still be able to submit other suggestions on the forums.

Regards,

Chunder

 

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