The Automated Ban List - Page 860

Hey there,

A while ago (maybe a week and a half), my friend was banned for two days. He's a nice guy, and very intelligent, and I wondered what he had done to deserve it-- turns out he posted a couple memes, and got a little two far into an argument, the combination of which resulted in a pretty shitty post. All of this is irrelevant, except that it got me to thinking about the rules (commandments) of Team Liquid, and how they are interpreted and enforced.

I started reading the Automated Ban List a little bit, and noticed that on a lot of your bans specifically, the justifications were odd musings on judicial necessity and the power you hold as an Admin (they were amusing, witty, and poignant, all), and they got me thinking about the judicial system within Team Liquid even more. In the United States (where I'm from), potential constitutional violations are appealed through a large court system-- the simplified version, however, is that if a citizen feels that his or her constitutional rights have been violated, they can appeal the violation to a higher court.

I think that this would be a great idea for Team Liquid to implement. It would work in a slightly different manner, but I think it would fix a couple problems that Team Liquid, in my opinion, has with its system of governance.

Firstly, the problems: the posts on Team Liquid are moderated by a group of Administrators, Moderators, and Banlings, all of whom have equal power over visitors, all of whom have a lot of experience and trustworthiness, but all of whom have slightly different standards with regards to what is acceptable and what is not. For example, the second commandment states that one must "be smart or creative about [flaming], and [to] make sure the flame was warranted to begin with." In this example, it's up to the banling/admin/mod to determine what is "smart," "creative," or "warranted." With every ban, admins/mods/banlings set, to a small extent, a precedent-- it is judicial law-making, but I don't think there's a problem with that. My problem is that there is an inherent conflict of powers and contradiction of precedent when two mods/admins/banlings disagree. Let's say iNcontroL is trollin' as usual, and you think he's crossed a line substantially. You want to slap a two-day ban on him to remind him that even he doesn't have free-reign over Team Liquid. But say Plexa disagrees with you. He only wants to give iNcontroL a warning. Whose authority reigns supreme? You might reason that Plexa is an admin, and you are a banling, so Plexa has authority over you, but what if you have already banned him? Can Plexa unilaterally reverse your ban? What if heyoka, not Plexa disagrees with you? Does he have power over you? What if Plexa bans iNcontroL, and you disagree with Plexa? Do you have any authority to appeal to Plexa? What if both you and heyoka disagree with Plexa? Does it take both of you to overturn Plexa's ban?

This hypothetical is not likely, but I'm using it merely to illustrate my point: the subjectivity of what warrants a ban with a lack of a clear order of authority can lead to contradictory precedents and unreasonable decisions. I understand that it takes a good amount of loyalty, experience and intelligence to have power on TL, and I respect all mods/admins/banlings for being such wonderful contributors, but unless there is a method by which a clear pecking-order can be established, the precedent previously set by all of the admins/mods/banlings since TL's beginning can and will be compromised by contradictory decisions, no matter how reasonable these decisions are.

The other two problems I have with TL's system of judicial governance fall hand in hand: firstly, the language in the TL 10 commandments regarding appeals of punishment is unclear in my eyes. The language in the third commandment states that "If [one believes] a certain ban was a mistake, [one] can contact a Mod through PM or in our IRC channel, but please be respectful about it." Should someone who has been given a week-long ban PM the mod/admin/banling (at this point, I'm just going to lump all of these positions into "mods") who banned him expecting a reduction in ban-length? Should the mod be expected to reduce the ban-length? Generally, I don't think so. I don't think that a mod will normally be inclined to reduce a punishment based on a PM-- certainly it's happened before, but, generally speaking, mods won't be inclined to show weakness by reducing a sentence based on a PM. In fact, I think that mods need to show strength in their decisions, or else there will be trash-posters who abuse the "apologize your sentence down" policy that may or may not be in effect. So long story short, my first problem is that there is not a definite way to appeal a ban that will maintain mod strength.

My last problem is in the same vain, from what I've read in the Automated Ban List thread (the Liquid'Meat one), less than half of the bans listed have, in my opinion, insufficient reasoning behind the bans. By this, I mean that the reason the people were banned (all references to bans include temp-bans too) were largely one or two sentences without any quote in reference to what the person did wrong. While I'm sure the people being banned know the post that got them banned, these spotty reasonings for banning don't allow people to reason correctly or accurately what will get them banned.

Here is my humble proposal to fix all of these (perceived) issues-- accept or reject my ideas to whatever extent you feel proper:

1. Install a new system of moderation discipline, one that begins with banlings who comb through every thread, warning and banning people as follows:
a) Every ban justification should have a reference to a section of the ten commandments. The first commandment and ninth commandment provide banlings with ample elasticity to mete out their righteous judgement;
b) Every ban justification should quote the offending post and explain why it isn't acceptable; and
c) Every ban justification should include a short-list of previous offenses.

2. If a person believes that he or she was unfairly banned, that person should collect all of their evidence as to why he or she believes that he or she should not have been banned, and contact a moderator with that evidence. This next step works like a Court of Appeals process. The moderator will here arguments on both sides and either affirm the banling's decision or overturn it. If the decision is overturned, and the banling still feels as though the person should have been banned, the banling can appeal to an admin, who can again either affirm or overturn the mod's decision. I suppose that if the admin disagrees with the mod, and re-bans the person, the banned-person can appeal finally to Liquid'Nazgul, who can act as the Supreme Court.

3. In order to install this system, there may be a need to recruit more banlings as moderators and administrators will no longer be handing out bans directly.

4. Authorities of appeal should use ban-precedent brought to them by the appellant as well as the extent to which the format of the ban was followed properly by the banling in order to determine whether or not to overturn a ban. In my opinion, proper ban procedure (including all relevant information) should outweigh whether or not the person deserves to be banned, but, of course, that is up to the discretion of the appellant mods/admins.

I love Team Liquid, and I'm proud to be a member. I submit this not to say that mods are too strict. I submit this not to say that the ban-process is sloppy and inappropriate. I merely submit this to offer my brain to Team Liquid because I want to help improve the site. I want to contribute in this way to Team Liquid, and I think that my suggestions are reasonable, implementable, and will help TL run more smoothly.

Respectfully submitted,
Morte.422