I originally posted this in another thread, but it occurred to me that it might get buried there in another conversation. I hope it's not inappropriate to post it in its own thread. I'm very new to the server, so maybe my perspective can be helpful. 1. I don't know anything about the background of recent events, because I either a. haven't been here for it, or b. can't get anyone to explain it. 2. There is no "right to privacy" belonging to a person you punish, which applies to the reasons for their punishment. The punishment itself is public, and to then say "we can't talk about it" isn't protecting some "right" of the person punished, it's avoiding accountability by the person giving out the punishment. With power comes accountability. In our legal system, one of the limitations placed on those who exercise the power to punish others is that they are required to state that punishment publicly in open court, and state the reasons publicly as well. You can't very publicly say "you're banned," then say "but the reasons for banning you are private, I have to respect your right to privacy." That's a transparent and illogical evasion of responsibility. 3. When I first started playing here, I was very impressed by the handling of a grief report -- evidence required, cases handled openly with a record left in the "grief report" forum. Made me feel like if I put effort into building here, that it wouldn't get destroyed because people are held accountable. And that if I put some effort into building here, it couldn't be arbitrarily taken away by anyone without some due process. 4. In a healthy system, accountability applies to everyone, or no one. It applies to users, it applies to staff, and it applies all the way up to the owner. My suggestion is that the "banning" process be required to be conducted publicly, that a thread be created for every ban, and that in order for a ban to be enacted, it must be done in such a way that a record is available on the forums. That's how it has to be done in real life if you want to take away someone's rights or take away their property. That's how it should be done in a healthy community/game world/playing field. Thanks for reading. (*edit* -- by "our" legal system, I meant the Anglo-American common law system as presently operating in America. Sorry, very America-centric of me just to assume that)
I partially agree with this, if my understanding of your suggestion is correct. Are you saying you want us to be allowed to say why banned users were banned, or you just want us to be allowed to mention their names?
Is accountability/transparency a good thing? Of course it is. Should we work towards increased transparency? Yes I would say so. Is 100% transparency always practical? No. - The amount of work that this would require staff would be enormous. I don't think that players quite appreciate some times how many people get banned. The number of trolls/advertisers/spammers at spawn is actually very high. To require a thread to be posted with evidence for every one would be unrealistic. The staff are accountable by the way, albeit not accountable to the player base for every ban. They are accountable to us SAs/Phys. We check bans etc and make sure that staff are acting correctly. I guess that being accountable to us and not everyone is the result of balancing accountability with the player base and practicalness. I would like to point out a difference though between real life and a game. Unlike the real life punishments that you talk about in your post, staff don't take away a person's right when they are banning them. There is no 'right to play ECC'. Similarly, the staff aren't elected by the general player base. They aren't accountable to players in the same way that politicians are accountable to the electorate. That being said, of course greater transparency is to be strived for and I can ensure you that it is something that we intend to strive towards because no one wants a repeat of recent events. I just think it is important to remember that sometimes accountability/transparency must be balanced against practicalness.
I'm going to post some paragraphs that I wrote in a forum conversation. The wording might be odd because of the way it was written (towards another point), but the general theme is the same and applies to the transparency issue. The key sentences are highlighted in green. We (the other previous banned users and I) fought hard so that everyone in this community has a right to know what's going on and to not be struck down when you talk. It may be a black mark in ECCs history, but with it we can make new strides to combat it. (which is currently being discussed with all the mods) I even state in the post that, "I think that we need to move forward from this, but we can't forget about the past." Is there such a thing as too much information? Without the complete knowledge, one cannot fully understand the situation at hand. I included both sides of the story, the root and peoples own perspective to make sure that the reader is able to make an educated decision for themselves.
I think the community should be able to petition the staff for answers to their concerns, including those about particular bans. It is not practical to release details of every ban, the staff do not have this kind of time or person-power, but if there is significant community concern, then the staff should make a statement. Perhaps we could make a petition format, that someone can use to start a petition in the staff requests forums. And, if more than 10 people comment on that petition in support of it within 72 hours , then the staff should make a statement addressing their concerns. This way the community gets the transparency they want, while the staff's work load remains manageable.
i dont know if this an appropriate place to put this, but i know i know dont talk about banned players, so i simply ask no one says names as i dont need names. I would basically like to know what happened and why a lot of expierenced players got banned. I think i ought to know as it seems like everyone else already knows what happened.
It's interesting that you mention this -- I was lurking on the forums a few days ago when a post popped up that explained all of the drama, and invited people to (respectfully) discuss and resolve what had happened. That post disappeared within 5 minutes of its posting. I beleive that (on this server anyway) there is a *very* fine line between respect for others and censorship for the sake of thought control. I wonder if our collective toes haven't gone over the line.....
Well, much as I'm in the same boat of wondering just what in the world was going on, I think that's a conversation for another thread. I just think the "banning" process ought to be more transparent, especially for donors. I haven't really thought about the "censorship" angle, and I'm very new, so my opinion should probably be discounted.
