[Forum] Bring back archived punishment appeals

[Fuz]

Removing them gave zero benefits to people. 

Adding them back allows people to understand the rules better and look at any punishments which have been voided and helps the community interpret the rules better. 

[Sineye]

+Support

[vacant]

+1 keep the new ones being archived for all to see as they don't include usernames anymore. 

[MikeyyyG]

+1 Punishment appeals are a great way to increase your knowledge of the rules. 

[Aldarine]

-1

I see no benefit to having punishment appeals that have been closed to be viewable by everybody. Each appeal is personal and should remain as such. If you ever want to know the outcome of your friend's appeal, feel free to ask them privately. People shouldn't base their own appeals or knowledge of the rules on successful or denied appeals. 

[MohammedAli]

+1

It clearly is a public matter therefore should be available to see.

5 minutes ago, Aldarine said:

-1

I see no benefit to having punishment appeals that have been closed to be viewable by everybody. Each appeal is personal and should remain as such. If you ever want to know the outcome of your friend's appeal, feel free to ask them privately. People shouldn't base their own appeals or knowledge of the rules on successful or denied appeals. 

It is not personal because the outcome of the punishment appeal does not only affect staff or the appealing party, it affects the whole community. As a member of the community, I would want to know who is returning to the server and why they are.

[Rubsmeister]

+1, punishment appeals are often indicative of how staff interprets certain rules and helps give a better understanding of the rules and what to do and what not to do. It is important information that should be public for everyone to see

 

[Kencyt_Portugalai]

Huge 1+

[CaesarSeizure]

+1 I think a lot of people with fairly clean records, have stayed that way because they check out reports/appeals. It is a really good way to learn from others mistakes, as a lot of RP scenarios can have already happened.

Additionally saying that it is personal is BS, as the appeals themselves are visible, just not the conclusion. You can watch an appeal while its being decided, but the moment it is completed, it becomes personal?

[SaltyPython]

+1. Disagree with decision to make appeals hidden. I understand not wanting to "out" people for being punished, but then might as well hide concluded Player Reports. (please don't!)

Like people before me said, it allows us all to understand the rules better.

Edited August 26, 2020 by SaltyPython

[nikoh]

Big +1, as a community member who browses the forums and punishment section often, I have to agree that the removal was a shock. I understand making things confidential and private, i.e., usernames, characters, punishment history, is a good thing, but the Punishment Appeals section is a very useful place for members who want to play by the rules and make sure their interpretations are on par with staff members. Creating a gap between the staff and the community in this way may not prove to be as beneficial as first though. 
 

Not trying to insult staff in any way/shape/form. I trust the staff in their decision making, I just want to be able to know what those decisions are by reading punishment appeals, etc.

[LeftSharkie]

+1

[Aldarine]

19 hours ago, MohammedAli said:

+1

It clearly is a public matter therefore should be available to see.

It is not personal because the outcome of the punishment appeal does not only affect staff or the appealing party, it affects the whole community. As a member of the community, I would want to know who is returning to the server and why they are.

I don't know the specific reason they were hidden but it was in time with the punishment appeal guidelines changing to just using your character name as opposed to account name. It would be very unfortunate for somebody to go through old archived posts to find the account name of somebody with ill intent. It's still personal information that shouldn't really be exposed to anybody. 

[kenichis]

-1

They were hidden because they had the account names of the players making the appeal. New appeals no longer have those names. There is literally no benefit from punishment appeals, I can see why I would want to see reports as we can actually learn rules from them and to be honest they are quite fun to scroll through but I don't feel the same with appeals. I think this change should stay.

[nikoh]

4 hours ago, kenichis said:

-1

They were hidden because they had the account names of the players making the appeal. New appeals no longer have those names. There is literally no benefit from punishment appeals, I can see why I would want to see reports as we can actually learn rules from them and to be honest they are quite fun to scroll through but I don't feel the same with appeals. I think this change should stay.

/amembers gives the usernames of the staff so that doesn’t even seem to be a big issue

[TreMetal]

+1, doesn't make much sense that they are gone.

[Dylan Ortiz]

+1 x100000 like others have said if you can see the appeal before they are archived what’s the difference they are a good learning curve and I personally do read them to gain knowledge.

[Hilbert]

Oh yea this is actually good one,, +1

[WobblierDog15]

+1

[sophy16]

-1

[Amaim]

+1

[Pazz]

From what I've gathered they were hidden to prevent player account names (not staff members, just regular players) from being made public. But I believe that it'd be good if they were public, just for the sake of being able to look into punishment appeals in the past to see how certain rules/decisions are viewed. 

A possibility is to separate the old punishment appeals (with player account names) from the new ones (which no longer include these account names), and make the archive with the appeals without account names public again. It's unfortunate that it wouldn't include every single appeal that has ever been handled, but it'd be a decent compromise, as staff wouldn't have to remove the account name from every single old appeal, and the players would get insight into new handled appeals again.

[Smuggl]

+1

[Grape]

+1

[Osborn]

Hello, thank you for your suggestion.

We discussed this our last senior staff meeting and we've decided to keep it as it is right now. The two reasons why were decided to hide the archive is because

1) Account names, we no longer want players to have to publicly announce their account names given recent events. Admins in /amembers can now request for an alias, which is separate from their account name. 
2) It removes the ability for Senior Staff to efficiently handle punishment appeals (which we have a lot of) case by case basis. A lot of players tend to use other appeals as an example why their appeal should be accepted, despite the situations having different circumstances, and it just creates another efficiency barrier. We have no interest in explaining in 6/10 appeals why they're not receiving the same outcome as X did, we want players to focus on their situation and not anybody else's. 

Player Reports are still public, reports against staff members goes into the player reports archive and there are no transparency issues. A player's punishment appeal is between that player, the staff member and Senior Staff.