Admin Abuse By Jasper

I have to say that the mods do seem stricter lately than I remember. Has there been some sort of decision taken that we need to know about? I'm ok either way; however it would be nice to know if we're going to get toasted for stuff that used to happen without consequence in the past. Peace.

Well this has been already discussed extensively in #zk. So to keep it short: Insults are not okay. Repetition leads to (prolonged) bans.

It's a full ban including IP because he's known to make smurfs. At least he'll have to use a VPN now.

I'm happy to see that Moderators are being more strict with toxic players.

All the trolls should be banned to protect our respectable and fun community of players.

I expect the admin team would be more inclined to review this incident with a view to leniency if it had been initially raised through discord PM and/or admin report, rather than making a circus of it in #zk and on forum in an attempt to "shame" Jasper. That would be a precedent we are in no hurry to encourage, given the prevalence it has already.

I doubt most other players would have received a three-day ban for the behaviour in question. This ban is also related to the context of Firepluk's mod history and his general attitude towards other players.

I will also point out that given that the reaction of some players in #zk was along the lines of "wow, finally" this is not a universally disliked modaction, whatever the general feeling may seem to be from this thread.

[Spoiler]

Having watched the replay:
Given that Jasper was the target of the abuse in the game* shouldn't he have recused himself and referred it to someone else? (this is normal moderation policy in most environments I've been in)

* The combined abuse by o_o and Firepluk** would have been enough to substantially upset the vast majority of people, sufficiently so that I wouldn't trust even Spock to be unbiased without a few hours to cool down. And the mere appearance of impropriety is worth avoiding.

* * I doubt either on its own would have been too bad, but in the context of the other? Bad.

Aquanim

quote: I doubt most other players would have received a three-day ban for the behaviour in question. This ban is also related to the context of RUrankFirepluk's mod history and his general attitude towards other players.

Should the penalty notice be updated to state this then?
One of the most important things when in comes to moderation is not confusing users about why actions are taken. For instance, both myself and Firepluk were confused by the forum ban as it seemed unrelated to the crime. While Jasper may not have been in a good state to provide a detailed notice at the time, now that other admins have had a chance to see it I think it would be worth updating. I also think it may be worth referencing the context of Firepluk's statements, as that's a big part of the reason for the severity of the triggering incident (along with mentioning the longer term behavioural pattern), but might not have been obvious to him.

A good example of a non-confusing notice is the kind given to CatLady way back when. It stated that it was for a general behavioural pattern and provided specific examples. Additionally, the actions taken (mute and a later lobby ban for mute evasion) were clearly related to the behaviour and thus no further clarification there was needed.

So, my 3 day ban has finally elapsed. I won’t whine here about the unjust nature of this ban. I just want to state some facts and attract attention of involved and related parties so everyone could get a clearer picture of what happened and what can be/should be changed in order to prevent such future incidents.

1. Since when do you ban players for days without providing a clear explanation and a chance to appeal/ask reasons through normal channels(on site report button, in-game pm)?

My story: Game just kicked me, I tried to reconnect and it said – cannot reach the server. Chobby didn’t say I’m banned or anything like this. When I tried to go to zero-k.info and see what’s going on I didn’t get much either – it just said I’m IP banned due to I quote “Abusing players and destroying games”. Honestly, I totally forgot about discord for the first minutes after receiving my ban. Haven’t used it in quite a while(months).

I could not use my page, I could not understand the reason of this severe punishment and horrible(?) crimes I’ve commited that deserve such prolonged vacation from my favorite game.

2. Since when do you execute punishments before the crime has ever been commited(3 day forum ban)?

My story: I haven’t violated any forum rules this time, nor even previous time I’ve been banned.
I quite enjoy talking on forums and participating in civilized discussions. Why some random individual can suspend my rights to do so without even having a valid case on his hands?…

3. Since when do you apply prolonged punishments without consult with other moderators over minor misbehaviour when you ARE an involved party.

My story: We’ve had a game on http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/718328
I welcome everyone interested to go and check it. I wasn’t even the main heckler here nor I said something so horrific that should have put me at 3 day ban.
Jasper just was under some amount of stress this game and instead of proper use of his admin/moderator privileges which is !exit in case of unbalanced game(7v6 that derailed into 7v5 right from the start) he used it for banning one of parties that contributed to it(by his opinion). Immediately after this game was over Jasper went to his “admin console” and banned me right away.

There is also a part about my rant on #zk towards Jasper… I’m aware this was counter productive and kinda was made out of anger towards him. Kinda provoked by not even the ban itself but an inability to get in touch with somebody else and ask for explanation at least…

What is the most disgusting for me in this story that I’ve been coming to zk after quite a long break I took by my own needs(played like maybe ~10 games for 2 weeks in total) and immediately I got penaltied by a prolonged gtfo-style ban from everything-at-once for a slightest misbehavior that hardly warrants an hour of mute…