[2 dismissal] Proposal for Reworking Warning Guidelines

[Kaed]

Right now we have an automated warning system on the forums wherein moderators issue warning points and people are given posting restrictions based on how many warning points you have, and they wear off over time.

I would think, ideally, that the system is supposed to train people to improve their behavior.  I'm one of those people who might be a little, uh, spicy at times.  I've had player complaints against me in the past, and been a bit of a jerk at times.  I'm working on it still.

However, we don't really seem to have any guidelines of what things can be issued warnings and when.  Currently, moderators respond to reported posts and issue warnings if they feel the post in question deserves one. They do not, however, seem to be under any obligation to check when the reported post was made, or whether they made a warning against the players conduct already at a date after which the reported post happened. This can result in situations where someone was issued a warning, was punished, and then is issued another warning after it wears off for something that happened weeks or months ago.  Possibly after their behavior has actually improved, undermining the entire process of 'training people to improve' and instead makes it about finding as many ways and reasons to punish them as possible.

So I propose a simple thing: No pre-dating warnings before an existing warning of a type. 

I.E., if you were warned about 'Abusive Behavior' for a post on 8/25, you can't be issued another warning for abusive behavior for something that happened on 7/15 but was only reported by someone on 8/27.  However, if you return on 8/30 and go right back to being a jerk, that's fair game.

It would also be good if someone who has never received warnings before only got warned for their most recent post of issue, instead of getting a warning for everything they've done up until then.

[Skull132]

More regulation for the regulation gods!

That should sum up how I feel about this. It's generally pointless. Usually a warning is issued within a month of a forum report. Which, IMO, is fair game. This opinion stems from the fact that I interpret the forum warning system slightly differently from you. The goal of it isn't as much to "Train people to improve", as it is to escalate action against members of the community in a consistent manner. While true, people can improve, we are not here to train them: we are here to moderate our community members.

While I agree that retroactive punishment is a butt, it does have valid uses. In-game, punishment can be retroactively escalated if it is found out that a person has broken specific rules before (this has happened). This should also be the case on the forums. We shouldn't have to "Wait for the next offence" to remove someone from the community who's already got enough warnings on their log to get close enough to tripping one of the counters.

[Kaed]

1 hour ago, Skull132 said:

 

While I agree that retroactive punishment is a butt, it does have valid uses. In-game, punishment can be retroactively escalated if it is found out that a person has broken specific rules before (this has happened). This should also be the case on the forums. We shouldn't have to "Wait for the next offence" to remove someone from the community who's already got enough warnings on their log to get close enough to tripping one of the counters.

That isn't my experience. If someone is warned for say, power gaming, they receive that warning and things move forward from there.

They don't receive a ban for a player report of power gaming that was done a week before they actually got their official warning.

Because that doesn't make sense. It's like a conversation like this.

"Stop that or you're banned."

"Okay fine."

"Actually just got a report you also did the same thing 3 weeks ago so I'm banning you."

Not to mention that "posting behavior" is a lot more complicated than issuing negative points for every instance of bad behavior reported regardless of the time frame it occurred in.

As an extreme example, is someone who enters the form and is rude to people in 7 different suggestion threads over the course of a week before any of the reports are acted on and gets 1-2 points per reported post really deserving of the permaban that they immediately get once action is taken against them and they get 10+ points over the course of a day or two?

Perhaps after that week of coming in and being rude and being issued a single warning they would have behaved themselves. You are denying them the chance to improve in favor of exacting as much punishment as possible.

You shouldn't be looking at it as "why should we have to wait" imo.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Kaed

[Arrow768]

On 24/08/2019 at 20:02, Kaed said:

So I propose a simple thing: No pre-dating warnings before an existing warning of a type. 

Voting for dismissal as this does not work due to the nature of the forums.

The forums receive soo many posts that moderators can not check every single post that is made and therefore we have to rely on the community to report offensive posts.
The issue with that is that some areas get more traffic than others, therefore offensive posts in areas with more traffic are discovered faster than posts in areas with less traffic.

Implementing your solution would prevent the enforcement of rules (and punishment of the players for breaking the rules) if a post violating the rules in a high traffic area is discovered before a post violating the rules in a low traffic area.

[Flamingo]

As both skull and arrow have already outlined, the end goal of our warnings system is not to train our members to be better people (this is just a beneficial side-effect and hopefully something that happens), it is to prevent them from being abusive or otherwise breaking rules repeatedly. If someone breaks the rules a bunch then they should be warned for it, not given a free pass because they were abusive and no one noticed for a week. Furthermore, as arrow said, certain areas of the forums simply aren't looked at as much. There's sections that get like... a post per month, maybe, and I for one do not check certain areas because I simply am not interested in them. I think a policy like this would not be in line with the way we currently moderate and as such am voting for dismissal.