Banning

[Noah]

Lol, Noah, you're overreacting.

ok.ok.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love trying new things out on MLK. Full Speed Ahead :3

[FlipMode]

Well I had to bring up this thread again, because of something that I have been thinking about lately, in regards to how the rules are enforced here and stuff.

So today, another active long time member was apparently banned (not saying who, but the staff will know, as will some of the people reading I guess). But here is the thing, some times jokes get taken a little bit too far and when that does happen the reaction is to warn and ultimately ban them. And I mean, yeah if you do something wrong then you deserve to take responsibility for your actions. But are we really going to just ban every active member that breaks a few rules?
I mean over the past months we have lost (and these are just off the top off my head and most of them are known publicly announced bannings) Amanda, Sillydog, me (for a week but still), Noah and more I am sure I am forgetting.

And these people are all contributive members who helped get the forum as active and a great reputation in the first place but are now no longer here when the issue could have been dealt with without banning them.
Like, unless its REALLY OTT like posting downright OFFENSIVE stuff on PURPOSE I really do not think bannings are doing this place any favours in the slightest.

So my question to what members remain on this site is this - do you think there are alternative to just warning or bans and if so what are your ideas?

I mean, there must be other ways to limit people who like to joke around other than calling them a "troll" and banning them, right? and obviously this does not apply to spam bots, dupe accounts or advertising bots since again common sense would be to ban them without question

Another thing is that - I dont really think there should be any rules per se but that the staff should just use common sense when dealing with reports and questionable posts. But that is another subject altogether I guess...

[Azdgari]

Amanda got banned? bummerrrrr.


I feel both sides of the argument. On one hand, rules are rules, and these people have had a gazillion warnings saying stop, and they didn't. On the other hand, there are non-banned people here who've done and said things that I find absolutely outrageous compared to the generally harmless but incessant fun-poking that landed a few people with bans.

But um, did we ever come up with a convincing reason for not being transparent and letting us know when people are banned? :3

[Arani]

I think that we as mods try to do our best to determine what is right in certain situations. We're not God, alright. We're doing the best we can and if we feel someone needs to get warned/banned, we'll do it, and if the said person has a problem, they can take it up with us and explain and such, and we will talk it over with them and come up with a solution. Sometimes we don't understand the whole of a situation in the heat of a moment, and that's okay, we're only human. And if that's the case we will handle it appropriately. I don't think any change is needed. Again, we're human, we do the best that we can for you guys. I know that it may sometimes seem like we aren't, but we are.

I think that it needs to be dealt with one step at a time. If we think that, in the moment, a ban is needed, we'll do that. But later if there's reason to suspect a difference in what we previously thought or something, we will look back at it and figure it out. There could be alternatives, but I think the system we have right now is pretty good. In case you haven't noticed, the people you mentioned knew what they were doing and knew the consequences of what they were doing and did it anyway. I don't think a thing needs changing here.

[Regulus]

Perhaps I could shed a bit of light on this (if Arani hasn't already ).

I used to think that the banning was excessive, but my perspective of things has changed quite a bit in the past month. Of the bans FM mentioned, all of them clearly broke the rules, except for Amanda, but I'll get to that in a minute. What's the point of having rules if they are not enforced?

I know what you're thinking. The bans seem unfair, and a bit suspicious. We like to joke around and such, and that's totally fine. I know that even I have occasionally posted some questionable things, that, under the right conditions, could be viewed by some as offensive.

But they weren't. And that's really what this is all about. The reason why sometimes members can break the rules and get away with it is because nobody gets offended. When somebody does get offended, that's when action is taken.

If I were a mod back when Sillydog was banned, I would have, at most, edited her post to remove the questionable content. After all, it was only supposed to be a joke, and that isn't any reason to ban anyone. And, that's probably what most of the members here thought too.

But, as most of you probably don't know, there was a parent that complained about Sillydog's post being inappropriate for this site. This changes the situation quite a bit. It means there's a disagreement somewhere, and that's where the rules come into the picture. And, when you look at it that way, that's how Sillydog earned her ban.

Same with Noah. Noah was banned for hacking into Arani's account. That's a severe offense, which, if you read the rules, you would know that such an offense automatically gets a permaban. I know it isn't the first time someone used someone else's account, but in the other scenarios, nobody cared enough to do anything. If nobody gets upset, then why ban anyone? There's no reason for that.

Although I didn't actually see anything, Amanda was clearly trying to disrupt the forum, especially at Noah's expense, and that's why she was banned. She knew what she was doing, and she knew the consequences. It was intentional, and since it caused disruption to other members, action had to be taken. There really isn't much grey area to be interpreted here.

Flip, I'm not sure what you were banned for, but if you feel that you have been treated unfairly, there really isn't much I can do about it now. All I can say is to stay within the rules, and that goes for everyone. They don't exist for no reason at all. They exist to keep the forum clean and running smoothly.

Sure, sometimes some members have broken the rules and gotten away with it, but for anyone who continues to do so, it is only inevitable that someone else will report it eventually. And when that happens, that's when the respective action is taken, based on the rules.

I hope I've helped to clear things up a bit. If not, let me know, and I'll try again.

Oh, and one last thing, there actually isn't anything in the rules about posting private information (such as pictures of another member) on the forum. Such an amendment may or may not be necessary.

[DGFone]

From what I found out about what Amanda did, I have to say that I agree with the ban. It was rude, offensive, and just asking for trouble, which is what she got. So for Amanda's case, yes, I feel that a ban is the appropriate action to be taken.

Despite this, I still feel like bans should be used as a tool of last resort, and that when a ban is issued, that it is done so because there are no other options, and not because it is the easier one. I say this because while yes, most bans are given out for good reasons, there were bans that, from my understanding, should not have warranted a ban and were simply issued out of laziness on the mod team and not because the offending member/s in fact did anything wrong.

As long as the mod team continues to pay close attention to bans, and really looking into them and their cause, I think that MLK will be able to continue on without regular members having to worry about a proverbial 'midnight knock on the door'.

[Regulus]

Despite this, I still feel like bans should be used as a tool of last resort, and that when a ban is issued, that it is done so because there are no other options, and not because it is the easier one. I say this because while yes, most bans are given out for good reasons, there were bans that, from my understanding, should not have warranted a ban and were simply issued out of laziness on the mod team and not because the offending member/s in fact did anything wrong.

As long as the mod team continues to pay close attention to bans, and really looking into them and their cause, I think that MLK will be able to continue on without regular members having to worry about a proverbial 'midnight knock on the door'.

As much as I would like to disagree with this, I don't think I can. I know which specific instance you are talking about, and that seems to be more of a personal conflict between a member and a mod, involving backseat modding. Obviously, the mod won, although not necessarily rightfully so.

Once again, there's nothing that I personally can do about that, especially considering that it happened months ago. I can say, however, that I don't think such an event will happen again, and if it does, I will try my best to fix it, just as I investigated Amanda's ban to make sure she deserved it.

[Tabby]

I agree with regulus, meaning, there's been obvious non-necesary banning, but it can't just go away, banning need to exist, I think that it's a good way to correct people that had gone a little bit far..., I could put myself as an example, i guess, I was literally trying to get to the last terms until i got banned, they banned me a week or 10 days, i don't remember, i just know it worked, I've not had any so bad behavior, I guess. Ofcourse, there are other banning that i see stupid, a little joke does not worth a ban, but if you do things like what Noah did, then you can't only be like ''Oh, please, don't do it again! ^^'', then you won't be solving anything. Banning should be as dgfone said, a last resource, but not give it for little things like a curse or a simple joke, if actons are taken by the offended people get, then anybody could get banned that way, people will always get offended if they overreact, without being the fault of the person who tried to be a little funny.

Other thing, now you're talking about it, is that i don't think posting personal information or pics should be as much permited, it could lead more problems and drama we don't need, ofcourse, i'm talking in the case it is just to try to make a person get upset, like in a mean way.. and not that you should get permabanned for that, tho.

[FlipMode]

At no point did I say anyone banned didn't deserve it. I said that there must be other ways to punish people other than banning them. No offence but it is getting boring as it is let alone banning everyone.
like if you notice a lot of people post in the den moaning that ¨mlk is soo dead today.¨ and I do not think banning active and nice members who just like to make jokes here and there is doing that any favours...

again, i owe nothing to these peopple and i'm not defending them or disagreeing with the decision to ban, it just concerns me that in a forum crying for activity that permanent bans are still being handed out.

Hence I ask if there are any other alternatives.

@LXL Yes Noah was one of those situations where common sense will tell you he should be banned, there doesnt need to be a rule saying that hacking is against the rules because its common sense...

[KingKivuli]

ok time to throw my 2 pennies in on this

Ill start by saying this: I does not matter if you have been here 5 years or 5 minutes you break the rules you break the rules simple as. Depend on what you did, how you did it and your history on MLK will determine the action taken. No one has a free pass from the punishment the mods decide not even the mods themselves. Also to me it doesn't matter if whatever is posted is annoying/upsetting someone on not. If its rule breaking I deal with it, as do the rest of the staff

In terms of 'MLK is dead these days' your the members do something about it. The staff can only do so much. Why not try starting up a new roleplay, write fan fiction. Even if you have an idea but think your not so good at writing just write it anyway and you will get better. Heck I'll give them a read. There are lots of active members, just cause a friend of yours has been banned does not mean MLK is dead. Heck if you have an idea to try and improve MLK for crying out loud PM us or IM us. We don't bite and we do consider everything we hear

Finally in regards to the 'tell members who is banned' no way I'm against that. All that will do is make people rage and scream 'WHY DID YOU BAN THEM THEY WERE MY FRIEND' all at once. If your honestly friends then surely you have other means to contact them be it facebook twitter tumblr msn skype kik phone etc etc which they can then tell you why they were banned. If you still have a problem with it then talk to the mods directly. STOP POSTING AND CAUSING DRAMA OVER IT, all your doing is making things worse and going down the route of getting banned yourself. Also more often than not, members we ban do come back. They are only banned permanently if they have severely broke rules or they have had several previous warnings/bans close together