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Foolishness
United States3044 Posts
A handful of the long-time members of the TL Mafia forum have recently been discussing the state of the banlist, and we are all of the opinion that some sort of change needs to take place.
The banlist used to be a place where people would actively discuss and share their opinions until a consensus was reached. These days the ban list is an incredible eye sore to read. People demand ridiculous punishments seemingly out of pure spite, discussion seems to be one extreme argument versus another, and because of a lack of community input, flamewheel has just been letting hosts have the final word. While the banlist is still serving its original purpose (keeping the pesky inactive players in check) everyone seems to feel that the banlist is not properly fulfilling its duty towards behavior bans.
While there is no easy answer to fix this problem we feel that there are some concepts we want to preserve while trying to revamp the ban list. As I stated above, the banlist on TL Mafia has always emphasized the "community decision" over one person deciding the outcome every single time. As it has always been, people should be able to freely express their opinions on any of the matters at hand. Furthermore, we want a system that should be flexible to growth should our forum expand.
Right now a lot of punishments feel so arbitrary as the hosts are the ones handing out the bans, and it's impossible to know how the host feels about each issue. That said, continuity should be an important part of our system. We want to put the emphasis on the players instead of the host, so that the players know exactly what to expect out of the banlist. And of course if it doesn't work out we can always revert back and learn from the experience.
Our proposal is to create a council of a few members who are quality users of our forum to decide the outcome of the bans. These members would be the decision makers for each of the bans in question. Of course this is only needed when we have bans where the punishment is not obvious (the council need not worry about simple inactivity bans). Anybody is free to put in their opinion, and it's the council's responsibility for considering all the points of view before making a decision.
Currently the thought is that the council will have five members. Qatol and GMarshal have both agreed to be members, and I don't think anyone would have a problem with either of these two being on. The remaining three members will be elected from the community by vote. Anyone who has hosted a game is able to run. The banlist moderator no longer has a decision making role unless he chooses to run for a position on the council, otherwise his job is merely to record the decisions of the council (and of course dealing with all the bans the council is not needed for).
Remember, the council only exists to settle bans (mostly behavioral) which the punishment is not obvious for. And not all the members of the council need to comment on every issue that is presented. We also reserve the right to replace people on the council if they aren't being responsible about the job (though the exact criterion for this has not been decided).
--Foolishness
Note: please keep the discussion in this topic related to the banlist and the idea of the council. We always have a list of things that need to be changed/improved, but we want to stay focused on this idea for now. Of course, if you have suggestions/ideas for improving something else about the forum (such as the queue, hosting games, the library, writing guides, etc) do not hesitate to PM me.
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A banlist is pointless. Just use WOTC and host blacklists and we good.
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banlist council is stupid
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like the current system is better than a council
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honestly modkill equals 1 game ban
repeated modkills equals 3 game then 5 game
and then don't really ban anything else imo unless its posting role pms/revealing your team
use WOTC and Blacklists for hosts and games then people that suck to play with won't get into games and it all will be good.
We need to move away from a bunch of people with no moderation powers deciding stuff to the hosts and players deciding who plays in the game.
wisdom of the crowd and blacklists.
modkills for inactivity.
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I nominate redFF for the council
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If this actually passes through all people on said council need to be elected. People being able to proxy into this setup just will prompt similar annoyance with the banlist thread in here as it will seem like the same people running the stuff again, just instead of 1 person it would be 5.
Either all are elected or find a new setup. Also a host should still IMO have complete control on insta pushing forward warnings in this system. If he wants someone warned council should auto put it through provided its not a reason like "i hate this guy".
Bans are usually always the controversial issue and usually its the severity in which minor infractions purposeful or not can bring.
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Newbie here.
From my understanding surely a way for bans/warnings to expire and keeping the current system is optimal. I mean hosts should have the right to have a say in how punishments from their games are carried out. I think the issue is that warnings etc stay on the list forever. Surely better to have an amnesty after a couple of months or something. It makes the list easier to handle and means that people who leave the forum due to a ban can come back and play if they waited long enough. Making them sitout games seems unnecessary to me if they haven't played in ages.
As for this council thing, I don't see how it is much different from what is currently in place. To me the most important thing is that the host gets a say. Aside from that, I am pretty easy.
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I'd be down with this if:
1. council members rotate out (like beginning of each year or something. year is a long time)
2. for important "council decisions", all 5 council members need to have an opinion. that ensures that decisions come from a decent variation of viewpoints. Otherwise, if there is an issue, and someone on the council does not like the person in question while the rest of the council is indifferent, that one council member could invoke the ban if the other 4 aren't free to comment/don't care.
security council works for UN, could work for TL.
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I don't mind being elected (I'm actually kinda confused about why I'm being proxied in), but I think GMarshal should be put in automatically because of his position in the staff as our staff liason. The whole point of this group is to deal with the situations which are extremely emotional and likely to require TL staff intervention. This group needs a solid working relationship with the TL staff, and I think having GMarshal as part of it will ease that.
I'm not going to comment on the actual proposal here because I'm still undecided on whether I like it. Will comment later after thinking about it more.
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nobody should be auto'd in except gm, but a council is pointless. What's wrong with the solution I laid out.
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Let's leave the UN out of this OK?
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On February 15 2012 12:15 Probulous wrote:
Newbie here.
From my understanding surely a way for bans/warnings to expire and keeping the current system is optimal. I mean hosts should have the right to have a say in how punishments from their games are carried out. I think the issue is that warnings etc stay on the list forever. Surely better to have an amnesty after a couple of months or something. It makes the list easier to handle and means that people who leave the forum due to a ban can come back and play if they waited long enough. Making them sitout games seems unnecessary to me if they haven't played in ages.
As for this council thing, I don't see how it is much different from what is currently in place. To me the most important thing is that the host gets a say. Aside from that, I am pretty easy.
The problem with players getting off with time, is that you get players who get modkilled, and then come back later, only to be modkilled again. Sitting out games means they actually have to care enough to come back and get removed from the banned game list. Then, if they get modkilled again, anyways, they have to care enough to sit out three games, and so on. It stops things like people from showing up on their christmas break, getting modkilled, showing up again on summer break, getting modkilled, etc.
I'd be fine removing warnings/ban counts based on games played without incident since they were issued, though. That shows that someone's actually playing and caring enough to not get modkilled.
@RedFF:
I don't really like the idea of WOTC, since it can introduce certain players not being able to play simply due to personality or playstyle, and it feels like it can be abused.
I'm fine with host blacklists, though, and don't they already exist? I know some hosts won't let some players play in their games.
On-topic:
I"m not sure how much I like the idea of a council deciding punishments. Would all decision making processes of the council be made public? For example, PM logs, IRC logs, or however they decide on something? Would their decision making meetings be able to be sat in on by unrelated people to ensure consistency? How often would they be elected, and how often would they be changed? Do they have to keep any minimum level of activity and effort?
There's a lot of questions I feel need to be addressed, to ensure transparency, consistency, and fairness, if we wanted to do a council.
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just keep the current format and only ban for modkills or specifically playing against wincon/ruining the game.
Any bm can be handled by hosts and other players fine.
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I don't like the idea of a council, we should restrict it to people who saw the game
Discuss the bans post-game and then talk about them here (ie talk about them in the game thread)
A council here after the initial discussion could work.
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On February 15 2012 12:54 redFF wrote:
just keep the current format and only ban for modkills or specifically playing against wincon/ruining the game.
Any bm can be handled by hosts and other players fine.
The games in here can get aggressive enough as it is. This would probably lead to worse insulting and general shitty play. I am all for hosts clamping down on people insulting others. The general feelings that insults are fine here is the one thing that annoys me about the mafia forum. I would be really happy if we could stamp them out.
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I really like that you're trying to make the ban list more democratic, but I'm not sure that making a small council of people (even if they are popularly elected) is the way to do it. It still strikes me as a kind of insular arrangement, as it would just create a small oligarchy to make major decisions, which isn't really much more democratic than having the host decide. Thus, I don't think having a council would really make the ban list that much less contentious. In addition, behavior bans really don't come up all that often, though I know that when they do pop up, they cause a lot of discussion and drama. The vast majority of bans are handed out due to inactivity and failing to vote, though. So, it seems kind of like overkill to go through the trouble of electing people to the council on a regular basis, just to handle possible drama maybe once every few months.
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On February 15 2012 13:15 Probulous wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 12:54 redFF wrote:
just keep the current format and only ban for modkills or specifically playing against wincon/ruining the game.
Any bm can be handled by hosts and other players fine. The games in here can get aggressive enough as it is. This would probably lead to worse insulting and general shitty play. I am all for hosts clamping down on people insulting others. The general feelings that insults are fine here is the one thing that annoys me about the mafia forum. I would be really happy if we could stamp them out.
In game is in game and you should be able to post how you want.
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On February 15 2012 13:28 redFF wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 13:15 Probulous wrote:On February 15 2012 12:54 redFF wrote:
just keep the current format and only ban for modkills or specifically playing against wincon/ruining the game.
Any bm can be handled by hosts and other players fine. The games in here can get aggressive enough as it is. This would probably lead to worse insulting and general shitty play. I am all for hosts clamping down on people insulting others. The general feelings that insults are fine here is the one thing that annoys me about the mafia forum. I would be really happy if we could stamp them out. In game is in game and you should be able to post how you want.
Well this is where we disagree. It isn't my decision but I would be happy if we could stomp it out.
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On February 15 2012 13:15 Probulous wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 12:54 redFF wrote:
just keep the current format and only ban for modkills or specifically playing against wincon/ruining the game.
Any bm can be handled by hosts and other players fine. The games in here can get aggressive enough as it is. This would probably lead to worse insulting and general shitty play. I am all for hosts clamping down on people insulting others. The general feelings that insults are fine here is the one thing that annoys me about the mafia forum. I would be really happy if we could stamp them out.
I don't think making hard fast rules on behavior/insulting is a good idea. seems a bit too restrictive; in mafia you have to be able to criticize and call out people. my current game, NMM1 got more heated than usual, but it was easily tempered by GMarshal warning us. I haven't seen anything worse than my game yet, TBH.
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EPT
