Board Thread:Community Discussions/@comment-26047195-20150709043335/@comment-25625534-20150710044925

TheShadowAssassin wrote: FortressOfNight wrote:

TheShadowAssassin wrote:

FortressOfNight wrote:

Luke McSwagger99 wrote: Dama: I agree; and I imagine that the prior admin approval would be acquired through discussion in PM or something like that.

Obi: I suppose I should have titled it a "vote" rather than petition, as that seems to line up with my original thoughts more. I'm not opposed to the idea of it being in the petition format you suggested though. As the discussion moves on, we'll see which format the community would prefer it in.

Fortress: What I think you're not getting is that this wouldn't be for handling specific offenses; that will always be the admins' and CM's job. It would be a tool the community can use as an effective reaction to users with persistently irritating behaviour. I've seen users easily act in ways that are certainly found constantly annoying and disruptive, but aren't usually eligible enough for kicks and are rather vague when it comes to the point of reasonable requests to stop within chat. You expressed some good points, though I have to personally disagree when analyzing them in a practical context. While a thread submitted to an admin's wall pertainining to the matter would be a civil way to present your complaints (provided that it doesn't erupt into a flame war when the user being complained about sees it), it would be difficult to present evidence of "offenses" as it's the user's vague behavior we're dealing with here. Personal dislike for that user's conduct would definitely leak into the vote/petition/whatever we decide it to be, which is not a bad thing but is rather the essential basis of the entire idea. After reading your comments, I'm now leaning towards implementing this as a petition requiring prior approval of one admin before submission to ensure that invalid petitions aren't being thrown around, and requiring final approval of the majority of the admins before passing. I agree that the admins are certainly the most qualified group for examining users and issuing discipline, and they would still maintain their power here. Through this, the community could not only express their general thought, but could also use the petition system as a tool to back up their reasonable requests, causing users to take things like "Please stop behaving this way" etc. more seriously as opposed to the community having to deal with the uncontributive annoyance for months until everyone finally is absolutely sick of it after a long period of time, someone gets legitimately offended and hurt, or something else bad enough happens to justify a ban. It would put a handle on behavioral issues should they arise in the future, and provide for the community a better means of expressing their feelings towards the behavior of particular users.

Oblivion: What do you not understand about it? If they haven't done anything ban-worthy, they don't deserve a ban, and should not get one. Simple as that. Thing is, I have seen far too many instances in which a user says something potentially hurtful to another user. And while what the user said isn't technically against the rules, it certainly puts the other user down a lot. This kind of behavior, putting other users down by means of minor insults, sarcastic remarks, and mockery, is not exactly against the rules, but it certainly pushes the limits of what isn't allowed. It is also unnecessary behavior and should be prohibited. If it's offensive, then it's against the rules. If they're asked to stop but don't, they're breaking the rules. As a mod you should use your judgment and common sense to tell what is and isn't against the rules. If there's an issue that's troubling you but mod(s) are refusing to take action about, then they're at fault, not the system. Making a ban petition system is too complicated a solution to a problem that originates with poor mod ethic. Most of the time the user just passes it off as a "joke". I have always been told that there is a certain truth behind every joke, and most of these jokes that users make aren't even funny anyway. Warning them for such behavior usually results in the user telling the moderator to go "re-read the rules" and to use common sense, for their little insult was just a "joke" and they should not have been warned for it.

I am tired for feeling a certain way about something and having another user come up to me with a snarky remark regarding what I said. It isn't pleasant, it's uncalled for, and yet in all of this: it isn't even against the rules and they can hide behind the claim that it was "just a joke". There's not really a way around difficult people... someone will always find a way to complain, even if it is ridiculous. But thankfully the personal attack policy covers jokes. "Even though you may view it as a joke it may still be viewed as derisive or derogatory by the user being joked about." Jokes of such a nature are still against the rules, so really there's no ground to stand on with "re-read the rules". The line is, for the most part, yours to draw depending on the instance.