Unban Stir & Lighten Up & Appreciate the Community More

[OddieTheRock]

You know, I'm surprised you guys haven't just permabanned Stir, cause he did make a whole lot of offenses.

I'm now gonna regret joining this fire, aren't I..

Permabans haven't been a thing for some years.

Well, what if they were brought back..

List of projects I eventually plan to finish after the indefinite hiatus is over, assuming I don't abruptly cancel them:

Spoiler

Mario's Rather Unusual Trilogy (Mario's slightly unusual Boss Rush (Completed), Mario vs. Some Unusual Foes (In development), Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier (In development))
Sonic's Foray into Random/Unusual Zones (spin-off of Unusual Trilogy, in development)
Angry Birds Slingshot Frenzy (In development)
Super Mario Flashback: Really Good Edition (In development)
Super Hilda DX (In only conceptual phase)

Yes, I am aware that I have about 6 or so fangame projects currently in development at the same time. And yes, I am also aware that all of this is very ambitious.

+ List of projects I'm helping out with in some small capacity during my hiatus:

Spoiler

Super Mario Bros Dimensions 2 (as a spriter, only for Mario's sprites)
MFGG Community Fangame Project 3 (as a spriter)
WordGirl ReWired (as a artist)

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

I don't think that's always the best route. Just because they got rid of it doesn't mean it never happened. If it was a very minorly offensive thing they did or they didn't know it was offensive then yeah, just tell them to remove it. Otherwise people can really abuse that by posting something, getting it out there, then deleting it when staff says so.

edit: that's in response to HylianDev and Pedigree. In response to Ostrich, I don't think permabans are a great idea. Unless it's a spam bot, getting rid of someone forever is too unforgiving.

[HylianDev]

yeah a year is enough. worst case scenario, ban them every year lol

Hylian's day job, little did we know, was saying controversial things on the internet.

you fool!!!! you fixed it wrong!!!!

Bibby Team

[DJ Yoshiman]

This'll be relevant to the topic depending on the answer:

Are any warns and punishments to members publically viewable by any one registered on the forums?

[Mors]

This'll be relevant to the topic depending on the answer:

Are any warns and punishments to members publically viewable by any one registered on the forums?

No not yet, but this was suggested a while ago and I believe most of the stuff found it a good idea.

3DS: 4313-6691-8820
Switch: SW-7679-1093-9792

play my fangame pls

[DJ Yoshiman]

This'll be relevant to the topic depending on the answer:

Are any warns and punishments to members publically viewable by any one registered on the forums?

No not yet, but this was suggested a while ago and I believe most of the stuff found it a good idea.

Okay, so that suggestion is probably a good idea that ties into this particular situation.

A take-away for this situation would be similar to when I was managing a store and we had a very problematic individual. Eventually I had other staff come to me saying "I don't understand why she's still working here and hasn't been reprimanded at all." For privacy reasons, so it can't be used for fuel for staff to harass another one, I told the staff that they are unaware of everything that had been done already, and I cannot disclose it, just like I won't disclose anything regarding them to other staff.

As some one who hasn't been around to know and understand the situation, I can just come out of this saying "good god, a year ban, who the hell deserves that after one bad act?" But if the individual had a bad habit of infraction after another, we don't get to know or see that, and if we did, it would suddenly make sense that they've received the ban. You'd have to look at everything as a whole (and obviously as a consistent, constant string of bad behaviour).


As for the viewing of warnings and punishments, that could lead to harassment and/or members bringing up those actions to bring even more heat into a potentially horrible argument. It's a tough choice to make, and dependent on whether the staff want a proactive style or a reactive style.

[DavidCaruso]

I'm just barely crawling out of the woodwork and I don't know enough to comment on this specific Stir / Drei situation either, but I was really surprised to see you guys are still using the old warn points system. Just to give some context, this idea was borne out of MFGG3 -- the first iteration of the phpBB boards back in 2010 -- under seemingly very different conditions than the current boards. If you look at the IPB forum archives, moderators were often banning 15-20 people a month manually (and MFGG3 was even worse). Many of these members were repeat offenders, and almost all of them (plus their friends, and sometimes friends of friends) would try to appeal the ban in some way, usually by bringing up cases where another person got banned for the same infraction for less time -- or just spamming you on PM / MSN / IRC, a lot of the time.

The end result was a huge amount of stress on the mods, since you not only had to take the individual situation into account but also all the dozens of similar situations in the past few months (two situations were rarely the same), and then adjust for that specific member's history and warn log on top of that, and then keep your cool with ten angry messages after. And of course, being human, sometimes you'd mess it up and half the board would turn on you -- sometimes even if you didn't mess it up, actually.

The goal of the point system was basically to take some of that decision-making process, and therefore some of the stress, and shift it off of the mod team. In theory, all a mod now had to do was place an infraction into one of a few categories, and the system would take care of the rest (the user's previous history was now taken into account automatically -- which helped counteract any mod bias, real or imagined, but also destroyed the perspective that a human moderator could bring). In the warzone that was MFGG3, this also had the much-needed effect that banned users would blame an abstract "system" instead of an individual moderator.

It was essentially a contrived solution to help manage an incredibly tense environment, and it barely worked even at the time. Members protested the system back in 2010, including myself (before I joined the staff), for the exact same reasons you guys are now. There were cases on the 2010 boards too, where people were banned for absurd amounts of time for what seemed like minor infractions, because their warn points built up; infamously, one member got banned for a year because he posted a GIF of a guy clapping (an event which indirectly led to The Split months later, more or less). But back then you could call that a necessary evil, because the board would have been impossible to manage at that traffic level and at that level of teen angst, without a codified system in place. The community was gigantic and yet basically falling apart at the seams; the points system was there to help keep things together and avoid all-out "class warfare", so to speak.

Again, I'm not qualified to say for sure, but I'm wondering why the same system is still in place all these years later. In 2010 the forum had hundreds of active members, maybe even thousands, but now it seems like there are only a few dozen -- returning oldbies aside, maybe -- and it seems like things are relatively peaceful, outside this thread. What are the advantages of the warn points system in the current MFGG, compared to manual bans? Do the boards have more tension than they seem, making this kind of system necessary to manage it?

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

I'm in agreement that the warn system is in need of change but I dont like the idea of getting rid of a system completely. The % thing is really unnecessary and I don't like it, but some standardized system needs to stay. If we start handling things case by case everything becomes a grey area and everything can potentially become a big battle as to whether or not the right action was taken. It also opens the door for extreme staff bias or feelings that staff is being biased toward someone. If we have a standardized warning system that suits MFGG better than the % system I think that'd be the best solution (so probably something similar to the discord, like we discussed).

[HylianDev]

infamously, one member got banned for a year because he posted a GIF of a guy clapping (an event which indirectly led to The Split months later, more or less)

I remember that hahaha

Hylian's day job, little did we know, was saying controversial things on the internet.

you fool!!!! you fixed it wrong!!!!

Bibby Team

[Pedigree]

Is Stir still banned for a year? If so, why?

 

[The Dark Warrior]

Okay, so that suggestion is probably a good idea that ties into this particular situation.

A take-away for this situation would be similar to when I was managing a store and we had a very problematic individual. Eventually I had other staff come to me saying "I don't understand why she's still working here and hasn't been reprimanded at all." For privacy reasons, so it can't be used for fuel for staff to harass another one, I told the staff that they are unaware of everything that had been done already, and I cannot disclose it, just like I won't disclose anything regarding them to other staff.

As some one who hasn't been around to know and understand the situation, I can just come out of this saying "good god, a year ban, who the hell deserves that after one bad act?" But if the individual had a bad habit of infraction after another, we don't get to know or see that, and if we did, it would suddenly make sense that they've received the ban. You'd have to look at everything as a whole (and obviously as a consistent, constant string of bad behaviour).


As for the viewing of warnings and punishments, that could lead to harassment and/or members bringing up those actions to bring even more heat into a potentially horrible argument. It's a tough choice to make, and dependent on whether the staff want a proactive style or a reactive style.

You have a point where people in staff positions need to look at what the offending users have done as a whole before they consider their actions and tbh, Stir does have some things that if brought up do deserve to be examined based on the context of those situations in which he definitely do deserve punishments. But the rest...sorry to say but I disagree on several parts of the analogy. First off, there is a massive difference between employment at a store and volunteering in a community that is open to all who come here to make fangames. Privacy reasons are to be held for the employee's stay in the company since there are laws in place that govern the ways businesses have to handle and protect their employees. This is not the case with a lot of Internet forums which the people on staff do it on an unpaid basis and which is no different than doing volunteer work in your community.

Secondly, I have seen publicly viewable warn and ban logs work out in other communities such as SMWC (example here) because they keep a policy of transparency on what those users did do to deserve those warns and bans, which reduces the severity of the disruption of the community some of those people used to be involved in in the case of bans.

Additionally, if people are harassing others or bringing them up in heated disputes, I am certain those people would do harass and argue already even if there isn't a publicly viewable warn/ban logs in other communities simply because they can and those are the people the staff needs to warn and ban from their communities that they are a part of if they have to break rules governing civility. But to have an open transparency policy stands to benefit any community that use it.

…

I am also going to have to say this and I will go on record with this. Even tho I agree with you all that the ban is a bit harsh for a minor offense, I noticed a glaring hypocrisy on the people who do stick up for Stir more zealously than I from my observations over a year. If this was anyone else who isn't a part of your friendgroups and whom you don't like, I am certain that a lot of you would be less willing to stick up for that person no matter the situation because in your minds that person deserved everything that happened to them, and that may be true, but I hope to god you have the self-awareness to consider this and whom you prop up and whom you demonize.

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

Yeah actually after reading that I think perhaps showing the warns as well as the bans publicly isn't such a bad idea. If anyone bullies someone for them then they will just get a warn/ban themselves anyway.

[Vert]

Is Stir still banned for a year? If so, why?

He is, and I assume because he broke the rules.

The staff as a whole agreed on a year-long ban so I dunno what else there is to say.

[GothGirlGangBlasterMaster]

I dunno what else there is to say.

that's good
it means you can leave the conversation and let people who have valuable input contribute

for any inquiries please contact me in hell

[Vert]

I dunno what else there is to say.

that's good
it means you can leave the conversation and let people who have valuable input contribute

I'd love to contribute my input but there's not much to contribute in this case. I absolutely wouldn't mind to hear some arguments we haven't already gone over.

Drei did a bad thing and got banned. Staff agreed on a year because he's a repeat offender and was unbanned just before. And then?

[Pedigree]

But as you can see by reading the thread, the staff doesn't agree that a year ban is warranted. So, if they're reducing the ban then when will they do it?

---

Blaster Master is right. If you have nothing to add to a thread, then perhaps you should stay out of it.

 

[Vert]

But as you can see by reading the thread, the staff doesn't agree that a year ban is warranted.

No, some of the staff doesn't agree that a year ban is warranted. If all of staff thought a year was too much then it wouldn't have happened to begin with. It feels like I'm repeating myself here.

[GothGirlGangBlasterMaster]

It feels like I'm repeating myself here.

you are but you're also changing your answer every couple of posts

for any inquiries please contact me in hell

[HylianDev]

But as you can see by reading the thread, the staff doesn't agree that a year ban is warranted.

No, some of the staff doesn't agree that a year ban is warranted. If all of staff thought a year was too much then it wouldn't have happened to begin with. It feels like I'm repeating myself here.

if all of the staff disagree with what the staff did... then who are they disagreeing with?

the natural implication of what Pedigree said is that some disagree, if you ask me. I think you just want to shut the discussion down.

Hylian's day job, little did we know, was saying controversial things on the internet.

you fool!!!! you fixed it wrong!!!!

Bibby Team

[Vert]

the natural implication of what Pedigree said is that some disagree, if you ask me.

I would've agreed with you if he actually brought that up, but so far he hasn't so I'm honestly not sure. With Pedigree I find it hard to gauge these things.

I think you just want to shut the discussion down.

nahhh