As an addition to what Stavik said and off the back of what Pee Money said, the fact you've been here a long time should factor into whether or not you get banned for a rulebreak, but not in the way that you want unfortunately. Given that the benefit of having been here for a long time is that you become the person to use your experience and playtime in liaison to advise newer players that they've broken the rules, as I often hear in liaisons "Listen mate I've been here for X years I know the rules and you [Insert rule here]" The flipside of this however is that because you know the rules, we expect you to follow them, moreso than the average wet behind the ears hobo fresh off the boat.
The decision to issue a ban is determined on a variety of factors as Stavik has pointed out in his post, as
@Ant Arni made a good point about intent and context, it is worth mentioning that they are infact taken into account when opting to ban/warn or take no action.
The recent example being vaulting. I should hope that upon asking any person who considers themselves a longstanding member would be able to tell me without hesitation that you shouldn't vault through objects, walls, doors and gates etc.. the list goes on because it's deemed to be exploiting. That goes double if you can't open them via normal means, prisons (be it Poseidon or police), faction specific gates, houses, towers and everything else that is "locked" Triple if your doing it infront of others to whom you should, as a longstanding player, be setting the example.
Below is a sample situation under the basis of the staff teams inform and educate process.
Player A with 3 hours on the server VDMs someone threatening to shoot him because he hasn't read the rules.
Player B with 300 hours on the server VDMs someone threatening to shoot him despite knowing about the VDM rule.
In my opinion Player B has committed the worse offense and frankly deserves to be banned because he has broken a rule he knows exists whereas Player A is ignorant of the rules, because he doesn't know, will more than likely be pulled to one side by an admin, asked "Why do you think I've pulled you to one side" and then the ensuing conversation that generally results in them being kicked off to read the rules with a timer on return. If they return within that timer they get banned for breaking the rule, if they come back after the timer a note will be placed on them to tell other staff they'd been advised to read the rules and further rulebreaks are to result in a ban.
Though I feel that you should be looked upon more harshly when a longstanding player obviously breaks the rules, I don't feel the same holds true for minor slip-ups and unban appeals, unless you have a particularly lengthy record (In this case you get denied or perm'd), your long service to the community as a player should definitely be taken into account, not to suggest of course that you shouldn't be held accountable for the rules that you have broken.
This is where
@TCK Pee Money is an example (not necessarily a good example), he has been here for a very long time and accrued a lot of bans which he has appealed and got unbanned. Now that isn't to say he has never complained about a ban, or that he hasn't ever done rather silly things after having been unbanned, but ultimately every time he has been banned, he gets back on the figurative horse, makes his appeal and gets on with it.
Whilst on the topic of post-ban behaviour, there are certain things that have become increasingly common, direct or indirect status updates when a member of a group gets banned, which often results in warning points, further posts/replies/actions that lead to further bans and warning points. It's all a little unnecessary, longstanding players should know who to contact if they have an issue with a ban/report. Incase that isn't clear, or perhaps you didn't know the "correct proceedure" is to send a private message on the forums with the nature of your issue in a single message with all of the staff leads as recipients, so we can all view it, ask questions then deal with the issue.
The best post ban behaviour I've seen in a long time from a longstanding member was
@Jason Detiri who in 2y10m had never had even so much as a warning, got banned for rule 2.5. He never made a sly comment about it on the forums, didn't immediately message a lead, didn't try to lie or pull the wool over our eyes, just got on with his appeal. Out in the open with the truth of the situation, with what seemed to me to be a genuine apology.
There were people who were genuinely shocked that he was so truthful in his appeal, myself included, but it left an impression, hence the fact I can remember it two months down the line.
To respond directly to some comments
Another thing I would like to add on to this is generally that when a long term faction player is reported, they can get off with a less harsh punishment/ get away with greater mistakes than a long term rebel player, and rebels generally seem to get harsher punishment than those in factions who have given a similar amount to the server in terms of activity, rp, and livelihood(the difference being that the faction person obviously has a couple more ts tags)
We'd received some feedback from the community regarding this and are looking into it. It is worth noting however that we receive notably less complaints about groups of players when they are in factions than we do when they are rebels, this is likely due to the fact the most vocal complainers are the Police and Poseidon, with Police probably edging as the leader in that category. Factions tend to be more closely knit and unlikely to pass information to the staff team (even those in senior faction positions) about rulebreaks inside the faction. The other side of this is that long term faction players (see Police/Poseidon/NHS leadership) on the whole have less bans/warnings than their rebel counterparts probably for the aforementioned reasons.
It should totally matter about intentions, and some admins will allow you to get away with things that others wouldn't
For example let's say your car flips over and you use a car to ram it back onto it's wheels some staff will be ok with it understanding why you did it however some would urge to ban you for VDM. Or you might be stuck inside a rock so you get restrained to drag you out of the rock, it depends on which staff member see's it on whether or not it's considered exploiting and worthy of a punishment.
I think it shouldn't matter if you're new or not, it should just matter about intention and whether or not it's actually ruining someone's experience.
There is a lot to be said for intent, and of course intent should obviously be taken into account, but in equal measure awareness of what is going on around you matters a lot too, for example I saw several longstanding players, continuously ramming into a flipped car that had rolled into a drainage channel, yes they were trying to upend the car, however they were doing in in the middle of a packed Kavala, just off Kavala bridge, with players watching their attempt. The players watching then go on thinking ramming cars is acceptable, they get pulled aside for VDM, Them: "But we saw ... do it" Me: "Ughhh....."
With regards to the second situation, send an admin request first, then you have the benefit of logging the fact your stuck before committing to any action. Also there's the added bonus that an admin might just fix you themselves without you having to take any risk.
This, precisely this.
I cant say I always follow the rules, but I never do anything that would give me the upper hand. Anything I'd do would be harmless and usually gives people a laugh.
If the rule break is harmless and the intention is to solve a problem or create a fun scenario, then a ban should be the last thing that pops up in the admins head when (s)he spectates it.
Simen, aren't you proof that what Ant says already happens?
I think a lot of what the issues stem from is the inconsistency, what one admin will ban for, another might not.
i personally feel that a solution to this would for admins to stop doing ‘on the spot bans’ apart from the obvious mass rdm’ers and dupers.
But if people are involved in a situation, and everyone is enjoying themselves, and individuals aren’t abusing the server for personal gain then I don’t see the need for a person to be banned. I believe in the phrase ‘no harm no foul’. All admins record, so instead of the impromptu bans perhaps admins could submit reports themselves if they feel a rule has been broken. Might seem a bit of a lengthy, but not nearly as lengthy as the process of getting unbanned (believe me, I’ve been there). At least this would give people the opportunity to defend their actions and then reasonable action to be taken.
Let’s take for example a recent report in which the accused used a derogatory term, the reporter was asked if he felt upset by the term, he said no. And as such the reported wasn’t banned. However if an admin spectating this in game had heard it, I could most certainly say he would have been banned.
Tl:dr- too much inconsistency with impromptu bans. Get staff to submit reports to be reviewed so that there is sufficient consensus of a rulebreak with a victim.
(obviously I know this suggestion is very basic and doesn’t take into consideration the need to insta ban; racists, mass rdmers, dupers etc. But it’s something I believe would help keep the server from banning long term members)
remember. It’s just a game.
Say an admin using playstv catches 3 rulebreakers (if only) over a 4 hour restart they've then got to close their game, meaning can't be on for the beginning of the restart. Cut that 4 hour video down into the 3 clips, upload the clips, send the report. Reports don't get actioned for at least 24 hours, then an admin makes a decision based another admins decision? Turning a process that takes 5 minutes and making it longer, for the purposes of review? I take it you'll give these volunteers their time back in some other fashion because you've just doubled the amount of reports going in, as well as tripled the time it takes to issue a ban?
The thing you forget is that unban appeals are bottom of the pile of admin activity, if there are a dozen reports to be reviewed and actioned the unban appeals then take even longer to process. This does not make the waiting time any better, especially if the report outcome is the same as if I would have banned you 1 day previously, except the fact you've wasted a days worth of appeal time by having to reply to my report.
With regard to that particular report, if you slowed the video right down, you could hear he actually does say khaki. If the player ended up banned for that and in his appeal posted a video asking for you to slow it down and you'll hear the word khaki, he'd have been unbanned.
In short, admins will not be at anytime in the near or distant future be required to post a report, to waste their limited time, to deal with bans seen from admin cam.
Spot on. I've seen players banned for jokingly running their mates over in cars (where, I should add, it was quite clear that they are just fucking around and not actually VDMing). The context of the situation is crucial and the rules should always be flexible if there is no ill intent. For example if you watch Unlucky George's videos, particularly in the earlier ones you'll notice him breaking all sorts of rules, but he was always excused by the admins because it was all in the name of fun. The same treatment that was always applied to him should be applied to everyone else.
I also agree with this, which is why I always thought the staff team was better when it was smaller and tighter-knit. There was less coverage admittedly and there was still some inconsistency, but far less than there has been in the past year or two since everybody and their nan was recruited into staff. Back in the days when it was split into game admins, admins and management, there were never more than 12 or so people that were part of staff (including management) and it was so much easier to communicate and get a general consus from each other when discussing bans. While I do see benefits of having a larger team, it makes it harder to communicate and manage, thus causing consistency problems.
The mindset of the staff team has moved on, things that you would have been able to do before have been properly nailed down, what I witnessed in late 2015 when it wasn't even that bad by comparison to what I heard from the times before I started, would lead to removal from the team and bans now.
As a former staff member you should be more than aware the benefit of hindsight and extra information, there's often more to a situation than it appears from the outside, in the past as it turned out you should have been banning people for running over their mates... they were exploiting the fact it healed you to 100% They had codewords for it, so it couldn't be caught in reports. Though I agree with the point of a more consistent opinion, but with a team triple the size that was going to be an inevitability, but one we constantly try to mitigate.
As for UnluckyGeorge he falls into the same category as LIRIK and EvalBetty for more recent examples, they all got excused for rulebreaks because they brought traction to the server, and the tradeoff of new players, entertainment value and memes (Ram Ranch) made it worth it. That's not to say we ignore streamers ChloeLock was pulled aside and kicked off to read the rules for breaking NLR.
I would say 1 fuck up every month is a good record, when you take the play time, in the heat of the moment you will fuck up somehow.
That record would be the highest by far, for any player, pretty much ever. If you are managing to break the rules once a month, despite being caught and warned by the staff team you more than deserve a ban, if you maintained that record after being unbanned a permanent ban should be issued.
