(2016-11-15, 09:45 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:I was more referring to *staff* making the mistakes.
If you have someone on staff making bad bans then mistake is allowing them to remain on staff. And if you have good staff and a less than 5% overzealous/unjust ban then I think that's near an acceptable margin. You're always going to have people that disagree with their ban. Bans generally are done subjectively. If you begin questioning every ban then you're not being effective with your policies and their clarity.
I'm not disagreeing with you; but you need to remember my site is different to yours, subsequent to this, I have the need for this sort of feature, either as an email system (which we currently run); or a reprieve feature (which I am developing). I suspect other sites would be the same.
At the end of the day, different forums have different systems for this sort of thing. I will stand by my staff unless I can see they've clearly done wrong. And I don't tend to have my time wasted.
(2016-11-15, 09:45 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]End result is that you should have good staff with clear policy and guidelines for bans. Then you have no real need for a ban appeal system.
Absolutely. I need to go over the policy and procedure of my site sometime soon, as an aside; so thanks for the reminder.
Welcome back, by the way
"Ban appeals are a waste of time."
"Almost every ban will be appealed and just waste admin time."
1. That's your opinion and the way you handle your forum.
2. That's your outlook and how you see things. Just because you plan to appeal every ban request doesn't mean everyone else will. You can't base everything off how you run YOUR forum and how YOU handle things, because no one person will ever be like YOU.
Let your account be banned without having a legit reason, and not being able to figure out which Mod banned you (Hint: you won't know because you don't want ban appeals, so therefore you can't prevent abusive staff. You CANNOT fix what you don't know is happening)
Just because you don't like ban appeals doesn't mean that every forum that runs MyBB agrees with you. Ban appeals help with 2 things:
1. Finding abusive Staff
2. Lifting/Unbanning a user that should have not have received such a harsh punishment
And saying "you're responsible for your Staff, just remove them if they are abusing" is a horrible excuse for an answer there is because
ONE: it implies you KNOW they are being abusive and TWO: you're letting them be abusive. And everyone knows those are highly bullcrap.
Like I said, you can't fix what you don't know.
Quote:Let your account be banned without having a legit reason, and not being able to figure out which Mod banned you (Hint: you won't know because you don't want ban appeals, so therefore you can't prevent abusive staff. You CANNOT fix what you don't know is happening)
This complaint has more to do with admins that ban indiscriminately, and is written from a user's perspective. I don't see how that involves MyBB. Admins can tell if there are abusive moderators on their own MyBB site because there are logs.
As a forum owner, worry about enforcing your own policies on your own site. Don't mandate policy on behalf of communities you don't run.
Whatever you guys think. It's a suggestion not the story on how people run their forum.
The proposed idea seems a bit complicated. Why bother matching an id to an account? Why not just let them appeal from in their account. So like they sign in and get the "you're banned" message it gives them the appeal option there. (A link saying "Appeal now" that when clicked opens a text box with a submit button.)
In the ModCP or ACP then it'd have a section for handling ban appeals. So it'd show: the banned user, who banned them, what the ban reason was (that was given to the member), any staff only notes (like say a link to a topic about that ban or something), the message that they entered, and a checkbox option. (This way you can mass approve/deny appeals.)
Possibly with a permission system so that if say an admin bans a problem member that a mod (who maybe is friendly with that member) can't then go undo the ban.
Of course there should also be some kind of safeguard so if they appeal and it gets denied that they can't just keep appealing. (Maybe like an appeal limit of say 2-3/admin selectable or they can only appeal <times> in <time span>. And then after that they simply get denied appeals.)
That said I don't think every forum would need a system like this. (I kind of suspect very few would really need this.) In most cases issuing a ban means the end of the story. Very much a way to let them know that they've gone too far and they've exhausted all their chances. Without any sort of method to continue to pick at staff/the community. (At least without going through other, more extreme methods.) So I think this would be better suited to a plugin rather than a core feature.
(I know personally, if I've reached the point where I've personally banned someone... there won't be any appeals as I've got no love for them left. If they had valued being a part of the site then they wouldn't have misbehaved or would have ceased when told the first time. Granted I have not banned a huge number of people this way as I have no need to.)
I'm also not counting bans issued by anti-spam solutions because, honestly, if someone is caught by them then they're probably a spammer and I don't really care. (Plus if they're caught by anti-spam systems then they're likely going to need to take their issue up with Stopforumspam and not me. )
Personally I think that forums are a tyranny, not a democracy. Admins can ban whomever they feel like, whenever they feel like and if they don't want to they don't have to justify it. It's not like admins are elected or selected through some kind of process. And nor do they have to follow some hard coded set of laws. They simply created the site and rules, thusly, can do whatever they like when it comes to moderation. Now, I think it's worth stating that this is not always a good policy to enact. But the admin does reserve right to use/not use it as they see fit.
Quote:Yesterday, 05:54 PM (This post was last modified: Yesterday, 06:11 PM by Zaqre.)
Indeed, it's complex, but again it's an Idea and not set in stone. I gave myself a headache writing it - it's best to start out with a full idea and break it down to where it is manageable. You wouldn't build a building if you didn't have a design/layout to go from.
What if instead of a new Page (and a Ban ID), when a user is banned, they get the "You're banned" message like normal when they log in, but if they are allowed to try to appeal their ban, on that same page they get a button to click "Apply for Appeal" when the button is clicked, they fill out a form, and then it gets sent to the Mod CP to be approved by whoever has permissions to approve of them.
-#1 feature, they can only submit a ban appeal if they are banned and are allowed to appeal (Through some ACP config or something)
-#2 They can only submit the appeal once - to cut down spam appeals AND they have 1 shot to convince they deserve an appeal.
Quote:I'm not disagreeing with you; but you need to remember my site is different to yours
I've run dozens of forums. So don't believe I'm ignorant that my currently largest forum isn't unique. I don't setup every forum I run exactly the same. But I wouldn't use a Ban Appeal feature on any of them.
When you ban you ban. If you have a contact form that's more than enough if someone really wants to take the extra step to get unbanned. A system for this is just not necessary.
Quote:1. That's your opinion and the way you handle your forum.
You're stating the obvious.
Quote:2. That's your outlook and how you see things. Just because you plan to appeal every ban request doesn't mean everyone else will. You can't base everything off how you run YOUR forum and how YOU handle things, because no one person will ever be like YOU.
You're being redundant to #1.
Quote:Let your account be banned without having a legit reason
I tell my staff that all ban reasons must be descriptive enough that both the member and other staff/admins can understand why they were banned. Again this falls to having good policies and good staff.
Quote:Just because you don't like ban appeals doesn't mean that every forum that runs MyBB agrees with you.
Now you've stated that point in three different ways but it's the exact same point. I get it, it's my opinion, and not everyone will agree. That's why I make well detailed responses providing my reasons. I don't just respond with "I don't agree."
Quote:Ban appeals help with 2 things:
1. Finding abusive Staff
Ban appeals might help find them faster but if you're paying attention you'd notice without ban appeals. But at least you've finally made a reasonable point.
Quote:2. Lifting/Unbanning a user that should have not have received such a harsh punishment
Clear policies solves this. And I wonder what experience you truly have running forums.
Quote:It's a suggestion not the story on how people run their forum.
And yet your first response to me was that your site was different than mine. My response applies to not only how I run all my different forums but also forums I've been apart of forums that also make millions per year which I've helped administrate and build.
I have a bans.php page for members to view the latest 100 bans. Sometimes I get a contact not only from the banned member but sometimes I get one from other members about it. Rarely is a ban overturned or altered.
Quote:The proposed idea seems a bit complicated.
Realistically not that hard to build this as a plugin. Doesn't necessarily have to hook into modcp. Better as admincp since mods who are abusive might just deny the appeal.
And another point about ban appeals. If you're going to start allowing appeals and then members are going to get unbanned it's just going to lower the communities respect for your rules. Harsh actions such as bans can set examples so that other members know you're taking policy seriously. If you start overturning bans made by your staff they are going to lose respect from the members. They also might not be so quick to ban other actual policy violators. Have you considered that you may be undermining your staff?
Quote:Personally I think that forums are a tyranny, not a democracy. Admins can ban whomever they feel like, whenever they feel like and if they don't want to they don't have to justify it.
Tyranny and democracy are political terms. Forums are either a business or personal hobby and run by the admin(s) but I understand your point. I just don't like it when people compare a forum to governments.
Ban appeals help with 2 things:
1. Finding abusive Staff
Ban appeals might help find them faster but if you're paying attention you'd notice without ban appeals. But at least you've finally made a reasonable point.
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Here's the thing, if I wanted to watch over my Staff 24/7 to make sure they don't screw up because they got "triggered" I wouldn't hire Staff in the first place and do things myself. As you said, it's a business so that concludes:
Owner (Person who "owns" the forum - Pays the bills to have it hosted)
Manager (Admins - People who make the forum run when you're away)
Staff (Moderators - people who come and go but help make the business go)
I can't sit on my computer 24/7 making sure every action is 100% legit and not biased, and neither can Admins -and the most important part is, YOU CAN'T EXPECT THEM TO... Most forums, a lot of forums (Including this one) have Volunteer Staff. They are not paid to sit in the Mod panel waiting for an action to be made.
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I was redundant because when ever someone suggests something, there are people who always say "Welllllll, my forum does it this way and if you did it this way you would not have a problem.... So you should do it my way" then another person comes along "Nooo, So and So's way still has issues, if you did it this way you wouldn't see that problem at ALL"
Like, I really don't care how you run your forums, I made a Suggestion in the "possible feature" Suggestion part of this forum and the expected response should be "Yeah, I agree.. bla bla bla" "No, I don't agree, bla bla bla" not "You're OBVIOUSLY doing something wrong if you're having this or that issue" - I'm edgy because there's no point in telling someone how 6 different people run their forum, if I wanted to hear about how you run your boards, I would have posted in "Requests / Services / Jobs" or even better "General Discussion".
The absolute point is, I am NOT having an issue on running my forum nor do I want advice, but I am SUGGESTING a feature that I could possibly use along with other people. Simple as that.
With all due respect, I doubt that your forum is a business at 19 members. And there is a difference between 100% omniscience and common sense oversight — nobody's expecting you to keep tabs on your staff at all times, but it is the responsibility of a forum owner to ensure it's run responsibly and that staff members are vetted appropriately.
After the arguments posted in this thread, would have to say I feel like I changed my mind. There's probably not a ton of value to be gained from a feature like this.
Quote:The absolute point is, I am NOT having an issue on running my forum nor do I want advice, but I am SUGGESTING a feature that I could possibly use along with other people. Simple as that.
And you're more than welcome to change your mind. However, I never stated my forum was big and nor have I ever acclaimed nor credited it to be. I am 100% I am sure my sig. says "Beta" in it. So the less members the better - at the moment.
You can't "set up" a forum for people to make you things (I have bought a lot of stuff from developers that I am testing on my test site [Not listed in my sig] before I upload it to the main domain. So in reality, it's still in development, but it's open so I can test it with my friends before releasing it.
Thank you for your input though.