How not to get banned.

[Empireth]

So many people get banned and warned/suspended for the most bullshit reasons...8 out of 10 times, when I see someone who has been banned or suspended, I think the mods were overzealous. In my own case, I'm on my last infraction. It's been months since the last time I was warned. It's still there. I still have to employ a form of self-censorship every time I even dream of thinking about posting anything, like I'm living in China or something. People who have been on this forum for years get banned just like that for the most idiotic of reasons, not on their side, but because the rules and the mods are stupid.

I think it's retarded. We don't need a freaking tutorial on how to appease the allmighty mods and avoid their fearsome wrath. We need a petition to get the fucking rules changed and the mods to chill. I want a clean and nice forum free from (censored), but not at the cost of any edge and heart that makes it interesting and fun to be here in the first place. I know people always talk and behave worse on the internet than in real life, but in the case of the Escapist, it's almost starting to be the other way around. I have to "behave" better here than I do in real life. Now you might say that means I behave like a douchebag in real life, but it actually just means that I most often behave exactly the same way in real life as I do on the internet, "your moma"-jokes and all. But I can't be myself here, for fear of getting permabanned for the slightest and most arbitrary reason. And I think that's wrong.

on the thread 'if you could save one game in the world, which one do you save?' a guy got a warning for saying 'skyrim'. that's a bit extreme.

Low content post. He could elaborate on why he said Skyrim for example. That way his post promotes further discussion whereas the single worded reply does not.

yeah but it's still not really fair is it, i mean, he just said the name of his favorite game. that's not a reason to get a warning.

He should have said "If I had the choice of saving only one game world, I would choose Skyrim because I like that world and I like the people in it and the visuals."

Like in fucking high school, you have to add 10 words of bullshit to every word of substance to avoid an F

In Sweden we have a saying, I'm sure you have it in english too. The direct translation is "better to free than to punish". The mods here have the opposite idea...

Look. In the end, you're a visitor to this site. If you don't like the rules, you're welcome to not visit this place.

You are quite perfectly allowed to come up with what you may think are better rules for the staff to look over, in an attempt to improve the site; constructive criticism is always welcome. But in the end, what they say goes is what goes. No, you cannot change the rules with a petition. Why? Because it's the Escapist's site.

Now, in response to what you're actually complaining about:

People who have been on this forum for years get banned just like that for the most idiotic of reasons, not on their side, but because the rules and the mods are stupid.

The bolded part is what I shall focus on.

Insulting people is against the rules. And what are you doing just there? You're insulting the moderators. You're not calling their actions stupid, which some may be, you're calling the people themselves stupid. Which, quite frankly, isn't your call to say. I have not seen you attempt to interact with any of us personally, at least, I have not seen you around the Escapist's IRC channel [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/chat/], nor have I seen you try to interact with me personally. So, what you are doing by calling the mods stupid is 1) Being a Jerk, and 2) Not Having Respect for Others. Both of which are the first and second rules laid out in the Code of Conduct [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct], which I'm going to assume you've read, given that you're stating how stupid the rules are.

So why did you call us stupid? You're clearly violating the rules. And you're being entirely disrespectful to people you haven't even bothered trying to communicate with.

No, I'm not going to banhammer you for your post, seeing as you're quite clearly disgruntled with the rules, and doing so would only make you less pleased. So I'm opening up this discussion with you. Which, I'm sure others agree, is quite a "chill" way to react in this situation.

I want a clean and nice forum free from (censored), but not at the cost of any edge and heart that makes it interesting and fun to be here in the first place.

Given this sentence, why did you insult the moderators? If you want it to be a nice and clean forum, going around insulting people and poking at them isn't likely to make it so. Though, one wonders how our rules make it a non-interesting and unfun place. There are plenty of interesting discussions to be had, and there are plenty of ways to enjoy yourself. Granted, this is assuming a fundamental understanding of our rules, and respecting them.

In response to your response about the Skyrim answer:
We do not ask you to answer like you would in high school. We do not demand that you preface your answer with the question. We ask that you elaborate on your choice for the sake of discussion. So no, we do not expect "If I had the choice of saving only one game world, I would choose Skyrim because I like that world and I like the people in it and the visuals." What we would like to see from people is simply something along the lines of: "Skyrim, because [reason]." What I italicised in your quote is unnecessary, and unneeded, but if someone would like to put that as part of their answer, they may.

The reason we ask for the elaboration is that, after a point, a thread of entirely one-word answers is boring. There is no discussion, there is no thought-stimulation. It's simply a bunch of people answering a question. And that's boring. That, in itself, would slowly steer the forum to being a non-interesting and unfun place to be, should the pattern continue and that became the only type of thread on the forums.

I hope this clears up some of your issues you have with the moderation practices of the site. In future, please do not be disrespectful to other persons. Yes, us moderators do count as people too.

 

[Lionsfan]

Sometime I think the "don't be a jerk" rule needs some more...specificity. I've seen mods give warnings/ban for the most bullshit stuff, while some pretty rude shit goes unpunished. It all seems like selective justice. Or rather, random justice.

I think a few weeks ago I saw a guy get banned for saying he thought Grey Carter ought to be fired. Now, I happen to like Grey (as a comic writer, at least), but ffs, you should be able to say stuff like that.

Yeah, that's the thing, there's 15 different mods, and outside of basic stuff "You're a FUCKING IDIOT!!!!" I'm sure they all have their own different takes on what being a jerk means.

Plus, there's quite a few users on here who have developed a great style of passive aggressive posting, which allows them to get away with more stuff

 

[AnarchistFish]

Yeah the rules on this site are really really over the top and it actually puts me off coming here too much

 

[Empireth]

So many people get banned and warned/suspended for the most bullshit reasons...8 out of 10 times, when I see someone who has been banned or suspended, I think the mods were overzealous. In my own case, I'm on my last infraction. It's been months since the last time I was warned. It's still there. I still have to employ a form of self-censorship every time I even dream of thinking about posting anything, like I'm living in China or something. People who have been on this forum for years get banned just like that for the most idiotic of reasons, not on their side, but because the rules and the mods are stupid.

I think it's retarded. We don't need a freaking tutorial on how to appease the allmighty mods and avoid their fearsome wrath. We need a petition to get the fucking rules changed and the mods to chill. I want a clean and nice forum free from (censored), but not at the cost of any edge and heart that makes it interesting and fun to be here in the first place. I know people always talk and behave worse on the internet than in real life, but in the case of the Escapist, it's almost starting to be the other way around. I have to "behave" better here than I do in real life. Now you might say that means I behave like a douchebag in real life, but it actually just means that I most often behave exactly the same way in real life as I do on the internet, "your moma"-jokes and all. But I can't be myself here, for fear of getting permabanned for the slightest and most arbitrary reason. And I think that's wrong.

on the thread 'if you could save one game in the world, which one do you save?' a guy got a warning for saying 'skyrim'. that's a bit extreme.

Low content post. He could elaborate on why he said Skyrim for example. That way his post promotes further discussion whereas the single worded reply does not.

yeah but it's still not really fair is it, i mean, he just said the name of his favorite game. that's not a reason to get a warning.

He should have said "If I had the choice of saving only one game world, I would choose Skyrim because I like that world and I like the people in it and the visuals."

Like in fucking high school, you have to add 10 words of bullshit to every word of substance to avoid an F

In Sweden we have a saying, I'm sure you have it in english too. The direct translation is "better to free than to punish". The mods here have the opposite idea...

Look. In the end, you're a visitor to this site. If you don't like the rules, you're welcome to not visit this place.

You are quite perfectly allowed to come up with what you may think are better rules for the staff to look over, in an attempt to improve the site; constructive criticism is always welcome. But in the end, what they say goes is what goes. No, you cannot change the rules with a petition. Why? Because it's the Escapist's site.

Now, in response to what you're actually complaining about:

People who have been on this forum for years get banned just like that for the most idiotic of reasons, not on their side, but because the rules and the mods are stupid.

The bolded part is what I shall focus on.

Insulting people is against the rules. And what are you doing just there? You're insulting the moderators. You're not calling their actions stupid, which some may be, you're calling the people themselves stupid. Which, quite frankly, isn't your call to say. I have not seen you attempt to interact with any of us personally, at least, I have not seen you around the Escapist's IRC channel [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/chat/], nor have I seen you try to interact with me personally. So, what you are doing by calling the mods stupid is 1) Being a Jerk, and 2) Not Having Respect for Others. Both of which are the first and second rules laid out in the Code of Conduct [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct], which I'm going to assume you've read, given that you're stating how stupid the rules are.

So why did you call us stupid? You're clearly violating the rules. And you're being entirely disrespectful to people you haven't even bothered trying to communicate with.

No, I'm not going to banhammer you for your post, seeing as you're quite clearly disgruntled with the rules, and doing so would only make you less pleased. So I'm opening up this discussion with you. Which, I'm sure others agree, is quite a "chill" way to react in this situation.

I want a clean and nice forum free from (censored), but not at the cost of any edge and heart that makes it interesting and fun to be here in the first place.

Given this sentence, why did you insult the moderators? If you want it to be a nice and clean forum, going around insulting people and poking at them isn't likely to make it so. Though, one wonders how our rules make it a non-interesting and unfun place. There are plenty of interesting discussions to be had, and there are plenty of ways to enjoy yourself. Granted, this is assuming a fundamental understanding of our rules, and respecting them.

In response to your response about the Skyrim answer:
We do not ask you to answer like you would in high school. We do not demand that you preface your answer with the question. We ask that you elaborate on your choice for the sake of discussion. So no, we do not expect "If I had the choice of saving only one game world, I would choose Skyrim because I like that world and I like the people in it and the visuals." What we would like to see from people is simply something along the lines of: "Skyrim, because [reason]." What I italicised in your quote is unnecessary, and unneeded, but if someone would like to put that as part of their answer, they may.

The reason we ask for the elaboration is that, after a point, a thread of entirely one-word answers is boring. There is no discussion, there is no thought-stimulation. It's simply a bunch of people answering a question. And that's boring. That, in itself, would slowly steer the forum to being a non-interesting and unfun place to be, should the pattern continue and that became the only type of thread on the forums.

I hope this clears up some of your issues you have with the moderation practices of the site. In future, please do not be disrespectful to other persons. Yes, us moderators do count as people too.

As you very accurately point out, I've never had any personal contact with any of you mods. As such, when I say "the mods are stupid", I mean that in light of the actions I've seen them take only in their role as moderator. You're misreading my post a bit (or it doesn't say what I intended) if you think it's a personal insult on the mods as persons, I'm sure you're all very decent on a personal level and I wouldn't have any problems getting along with any of you on a social level. So again, when I say that I think the mods are stupid, I'm only talking about the part of the mods that I've encountered, which is JUST their decisions. Such as when I've been suspended myself or I've seen others be suspended/banned. Obviously it wasn't clear that this is what I mean, and I apologize for that. It was never my intention to personally insult someone, and quite frankly, if I wanted to do that I'd use much heavier language than just calling someone stupid. Pretty lame insult...but I get it, an insult nonetheless. So again, not my intention, sorry for being unclear. But I get the feeling that you would agree that I'm entitled to think your actions or decisions are stupid, that's a different matter.

And yes, I appreciate that you're being "chill". This is exactly the kind of interaction I want to have, so I'm very happy that you did indeed not "banhammer" me, but rather chose to talk to me. Especially since another ban would be permanent for me...and 3+ years of membership and participation would go down the drain, sort of. When things like that happen, I think the Escapist is shooting itself in the foot. Some veterans that I've seen banned should be much more valued and appreciated in the community than to deserve a permaban for any arbitrary reason. The people with years of membership and thousands of posts, those are the guy who make the community what it is and took it to where it is today, not to mention brought in their friends and spread tons of newslinks from the Escapist.

Everyone makes mistakes, the problem with the system right now is that they're never really forgiven. My last infraction was months ago, and the last one before that was also months ago (I think). Yet I'm still gonna be permabanned for another one. I'm still not forgiven for those last infractions. And I think that's a major issue. If I could propose just one change to the rules and the infraction system, it's that they should start rolling back after a certain time spent without further breaches of the rules. Over the course of years of membership, I think it's unreasonable to indirectly force people to sort of be afraid to post any criticism or respond to any criticism, etc, for fear that they might slip and say something they shouldn't have. When you mods make mistakes, we can try to appeal it and then all is well. When a member makes a mistake and gets punished for it, there's no coming back. I think that's a bit unfair, and I really believe that it's better to forgive than to punish, not just for their sake, but for the Escapist and the forums as well. I'd rather see 5 trolls (please don't ban me for using the word troll, which I also think is very silly lol) go unpunished than to see one veteran of years of membership and thousands of posts be permabanned. Most "trolls" are not so dedicated as to actually take advantage of this theoretical rollback-system, because they don't care enough to stick around for so long and behave. So they'd still get banned. But it would be immensely useful to the regular posters.

And regarding low content posts, you're absolutely right that one-word answers are very boring. But what we have today instead is people who sometimes simply don't have much to add trying to find ways to dance around the problem. Sometimes they still get caught. In this case, I think it's fine to remove a post or to warn or remind the poster that low content is a bad thing, but I don't think it should be much more than that.

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these things

Technically, the system does have a way for "forgiving" people. Also in the Code of Conduct [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct]:

[HEADING=2]Amnesty[/HEADING]
After every 6 months without any warnings, you will drop down one level on the Forum Health Meter. After 2 years without any warnings, your meter will be returned to 0, regardless of where it was before.

As it stands, you're also no longer on your last legs, thanks to the amnesty system. Just this past week you were lowered by one notch, thus your next infraction would net you a 14 day suspension.

However, with this amnesty system, if someone were on their last bar and, for some reason, understood exactly what was wrong with their posting and vowed to never do it again, their bar would be emptied after two years of no infractions. Which, is completely possible. We used to have an incredibly fair moderator who had been banned prior to receiving the banhammer. People can turn themselves around.

The main issue we have with the people trying to dance around the low-content rule right now is that people seem to be under the impression that "low-content" is equivalent to "x number of words". Which, it really isn't. They also seem to be under the impression that the low-content rule is moderated automatically. Which, it also isn't. If people can get past these misconceptions, I feel that a lot issues people have with the low-content rule would be cleared up.

Personally, I will not permaban someone for a low content post, unless they have an extensive history of low-content posts. Should they be on their last legs and have a low-content post, I prefer to PM them with a warning. Though, usually within a week or two they'll commit a much worse infraction that will net them their perma. I am much more of a person to talk out issues with people, as you have seen, rather than to just ban everyone in my way. But that just brings us back to the fact that each moderator on this site has their own way of moderating, since we're all different people.

As much as we're portrayed as being ban-happy, we really don't like permabanning people. It's sad to have to forcibly remove someone from the community. At least, that's my view. I guarantee you'll be able to find a few other moderators, if not all of them, who will agree with me.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Yeah the rules on this site are really really over the top and it actually puts me off coming here too much

the community is the best I have ever seen online.

 

[Olas]

The low content rule irks me. What ever happened to "Brevity is the soul of wit". Sometimes less is more. If your point can be summed up succinctly and without lengthy long-winded time consuming explanations shouldn't it be?

And yes I have gotten into trouble for a low content post before so I have an obvious stake in this but I still stand by my point.

 

[Evil Smurf]

The low content rule irks me. What ever happened to "Brevity is the soul of wit". Sometimes less is more. If your point can be summed up succinctly and without lengthy long-winded time consuming explanations shouldn't it be?

And yes I have gotten into trouble for a low content post before so I have an obvious stake in this but I still stand by my point.

<spoiler=^ this> This is the response that the low content rule stops. If you look in any other forum you see "this" or "5this" or even "^" That does nothing to advance discussion.

My spoiler explains my answer

 

[Marter]

Also, you should mention you can't post in a thread that is a month old. As much as WE ALL HATE IT when someone creates a thread that was already made, if you post in that already made thread, you get a warning.

Stupid I know, but just a warning to all those who might do it.

Actually, the "one month" rule it just for User Reviews. From the sticky'd <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.284840-User-Reviews-Forum-Rules>rules thread.

<quote=User Review Forum Rules>It cannot also be said enough, but don't bump reviews that haven't received a comment in over a month. They are over and done with, and if you need to comment on them, send a private message to the reviewer instead of bringing the old review back to the top. Doing so will result in moderator wrath.

It's basically to not keep bringing "dead" reviews back to the top, pushing down the new reviews that are currently getting their chance at being read.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Yeah the rules on this site are really really over the top and it actually puts me off coming here too much

the community is the best I have ever seen online.

Ehhhh there's a lot of cool people here but some others drive me up the wall and I have to escape (lol) to other sites to defuse. Not too mention how much people keep up the nerd stereotype here.

 

[GameMaNiAC]

What I don't understand is why you would want to help people who engage in misconduct and are punished accordingly for it.

I'm trying to help users not get banned. Troll or not they are human and deserve a shot for glory. Unless they are a bot, screw bots.

Bots have feelings too, you know! They do! Really!

OT: And yeah, just don't be a dick and post something of relevance to the topic. It's pretty simple, really.

Like, y'know, I only wanted to reply to Evil Smurf but I had to add this piece of text above as well so it doesn't look like I'm not contributing to the thread. Shh.

 

[Paranoah]

How hard can it be its not like you get forced to do by some evil power, be nice for christ sake

 

[StashAugustine]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a classic Trek episode like this. The all-powerful magic genie alien claims to be reasonable. Kirk uses logic to explain how such a being can't actually exist, and suddenly, poof! It ceases to exist, undone by the power of rational discourse. Or something. It's been a while since I watched TOS.

Did he disappear in a puff of logic?

OT: Only just over 100 posts, so if I had warnings yet I wouldn't be long for this forum. I do like finding posts people were banned for, they're usually pretty funny (in a "I can't believe someone would say this" way.)

 

[Evil Smurf]

What I don't understand is why you would want to help people who engage in misconduct and are punished accordingly for it.

I'm trying to help users not get banned. Troll or not they are human and deserve a shot for glory. Unless they are a bot, screw bots.

Bots have feelings too, you know! They do! Really!

OT: And yeah, just don't be a dick and post something of relevance to the topic. It's pretty simple, really.

Like, y'know, I only wanted to reply to Evil Smurf but I had to add this piece of text above as well so it doesn't look like I'm not contributing to the thread. Shh.

Hey I like talking to people

Also, you should mention you can't post in a thread that is a month old. As much as WE ALL HATE IT when someone creates a thread that was already made, if you post in that already made thread, you get a warning.

Stupid I know, but just a warning to all those who might do it.

is this true? the one month thing?

 

[Lyri]

Why on earth are we just writing up the rules page again?
Seriously

 

[triggrhappy94]

Wow Congrads Evil Smurf. I don't pay attention for a week and the thread explodes.
Good job

 

[Pinkamena]

How hard can it be its not like you get forced to do by some evil power, be nice for christ sake

But this is the internet, the most powerful catalyst for evil and dickheadiness known to man!