The second chance proposition

First off: Please this argument is not about "PERMA BANS SHOULD BE PERMANENT" as this idea has already gone FAR out the window. it is also not about "ADMINS AND MODS HAVE BACKBONES" as this is also not the case anymore.


What this is: The second chance policy is pretty simple, so simple my mind is almost blank trying to explain it. Basically if a member who has been permabanned or banned for a long enough period of time feels that their ban was unjust or if they can convince the mods that they have changed and can behave once more, they're given a second chance to try again. Many members have been permabanned and over enough time and by popular vote, were unbanned, even if their offenses were more severe than other perma'd members, it's time those other members got a chance too. We're all human and equal here, Let's treat our members that way. Before you tell me about permabans being permanent just take the time to review yourself on how many permabanned members we have here with us today. or have had that came back only to prove they were still bad members. If even bad members like Biddy and Cutman could come back to cause more trouble. can't good ones come back too? And before I hear the ol' "We mods have backbones this ain't gonna fly" let's also remember the "This is our forum if you don't like it tough,"
Kinda contradictory that they have a backbone for the rules yet, they can do whatever they want.
Permabanned members have been brought back on many occasion and to consider the term anything more than just a title is pretty unjust to it's true meaning. all permabanning really is is just banning a member until a much much much later date. the board doesn't even have a permanent feature. It's time we got to hold real trials for members or even just let the mods decide on it. Let the members vote or nominate who they feel has changed or shows signs of readiness to return, or just let the mods get to know them. If a member is nominated for a second chance, then any mod who has the time can sit down with them one on one in an im convo or even the mfgg chat to just sort of hear it from them. I'm sure if they'd give some banned members a chance they'd see their capable of functioning here again. And even if not, what harm will it do to try? A normal member isn't going to blow up the board, or torch the GC. once they slip up the second time, they're done. Just that simple.
Please allow me to sight the case of Vihuri,
If you missed it Vihuri was Zash. He came back for about a week before Shyguy grey rebanned him. in all honesty I had already alerted a higher up authority that he'd be coming back and what did that authority do? Nothing. He was kind enough, reasonable enough, to let it slide. I'd nominate him best guy but I'm not sure if he wants me letting his name slip or something. ANYWAYS... Zash in his return did nothing truly ban worthy. he was an upstanding member and even became fast friends (hurf durf) with Msr.Afforcer. his only reason for being banned again was simply because he was permabanned before.

And then there's Jinpen!
Ol' Riley Bungalow. He phished for about a year about what happens when he comes out of the closet?! NOTHING! he's completely fine! allowed to stay etc. So is this the lesson we want to teach our members? "You can get back in by sneaking in under the raider and hiding out long enough"? I should certainly hope not.

It's all starting to turn into a rant and I apologize.. I'll cut to the chase:
Times are changing MFGG, it's time we tried to be a little fairer to our members behind bars. Not just for me *****ing about Zash's banning but for other members who were our friend here who kicked the bucket. this post might have been more influential if I'd done this before MB came back. or Delly. But the point still stands... Permanent bans just aren't working or fair sometimes, and it's high-time we started giving our members a second chance.

and now my mind's blank again >.>;

Hurf durf?

What does my having been friends with him have to do with anything?

This post has been edited by Mrs. Aforcer on Nov 18 2008, 03:58 PM

Imagine if MFGG had a voting for things like this.

Don't they already?

I guess that would be fair. We could vote to bring banned members back, depending on what they did.

Either this or we get better moderation.

geez are you like obsessed with zash or what

you bring this up like every two months

I'm so glad I don't have to care anymore

actually ShyGuy Grey banned him without reading my original topic in the mod forum

so yeah

Seriously, get over it and move on. He was perma'd for a reason and it should remain that way, unless he can prove that he has truely changed his behavior.

There shouldn't be perma bans, just 12 month bans tops.

Though its just my opinion and open to debate.

Freedom must be grand.

Well, I have a few different ideas concerning this. Here they are:

Idea 1: I think that MFGG is just too damned big for the mods to handle everything.
They just looks for stuff that might be ban-worthy and ban without question. It's not bad, but I bet most of us would do the same thing if we were in their position.

However, I do think that some bans are a little too much.

For example, let me take the recent warn I got in that Gay Marriage topic:

Yeah, it was offensive. Yes, it was bad. No, it wasn't inappropriate for the context it was in. I was actually trying to stop a flame war, and ended up contributing to the topic lock.

Normally, I wouldn't care. It's simply the fact that I have to wait three months in order to view the CCC and the General Friendliness again. I also lost my hard-earned SHH badge.

Things like this are annoying. I bet the mods just scanned the topic for ban-worthy posts and banned.

If the mods actually spent time reading these topics when they're made, they would probably have to worry a lot less.

I think second-chances would be an excellent idea, considering that a lot of people end up doing things like this on accident and end up getting banned. Not just perma bans, but normal bans as well. Either way, three months for the casual member status is a bit much. While it does lower spamming dramatically, it's just too long. A month and 150 posts would probably do. I mean, I see members with SHH badges and only 100 posts. And the while average MFGGer likes to gain 50 posts a day, it simply isn't like that for all people.

tl;dr: We need second chances, for both normal and perma bans. I also think that the casual member requirement should be lower.

Idea 2: We should get a better warning system. Not a day ban system, but an actual warning system. For example, mods can add up to ten warn to a member's warn count, decreasing permissions for each.

For example, let's say someone bumps a month-old topic. One warn.
If they flame someone, add three warn.
Forum raids would be five or so.
Spamming would be 2-5.
Etc.

In order to be a casual member, a member would need a hundred posts.
From there on, they would be one until they obtained four warns. In order to re-obtain casual status, they would need to wait for the warn to lower to zero (let's say about a week per warn). If someone got seven warns, they would not be allowed to create any new threads. If someone got nine warns, they would only be allowed to create about ten posts a day. On their tenth warn, they would get banned until their ban level returned to seven.

While I do understand how hard this would be to implement, it would probably be a more efficient system of banning. Members who did really bad things would lose permissions, whereas small things only raise the warn a bit and don't do much.

tl;dr The idea is, make a warning level system as opposed to the "how long a ban do you want" system we currently have.

Also, I'm not trying to complain about my warns, but to propose different ideas for the system we currently have.

Well, it depends what they did. If somebody came just to spam up the forums, that should be forever.

I'd hate to be there the day you guys get guns!!

And what about a misunderstanding of the rules? It's not secret, and it's *especially* true on a forum like there where non-ban-worthy behavior (which, like ban-worthy behavior, is given judgement by our moderation staff) is something that you observe in others?

I have been banned because of a misunderstanding of rules. Does "everything goes" really mean "everything goes"? Most times, it doesn't, but someone might be used to a different system and would produce a post that is considered "SPAM" by the moderation staff.


I think the warning system should be better. No fancy forum gizmos, just a no-bull****, one-on-one warn that eliminates any and all confusion (as in, not a 'kinda/sorta' warn posted publicly on the forum so as to cover one's posterior).

well, they did that with Marth, Mechabowser, and Jinpen (and i think they tried it with petey pirana), and it seems pretty nice.

yeah, we should do this.

Yep...

of course, i mean the people who are serious about coming back

not like cutman, biddy, those people who don't give 2 ****s about coming back.

most people change

Did anyone actually read my other post? >_>

yes, we should do this, but not tell the banned members. at least not officially.

let their friends tell them.