Policy [AC] Policy on Banning Alt Accounts

[Mrloud15]

Hello everyone, 

 

About a month ago a thread was created regarding our policy on permabanning alt accounts. Dumbo proposed a new policy in this thread (see blow) that I liked. I think it would be a good idea to implement it, and I would like to know what everyone thinks about it.

 

 

Here's dumbo's post from the thread: 

 

I agree that permabanning alts doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and we could probably come up with a better way of dealing with such situations when they arise. Additionally, we don't have many guidelines on how the original ban length should be altered due to ban evasion. Instead, we should create a policy based on the philosophy that we ban people, not accounts. From this point of view, all of a player's alts which were banned due to evasion should be unbanned at the same time, but these instances of ban evasion should compound the original ban length.

 

My proposal is that if a banned player is caught alting, the new unban date will be set to the latest of either:

A) Two weeks after the previously declared unban date; or

B) The addition of the previous ban length to the time of the most recent evasion.

 

For example, if I were banned for one month for x-raying (we'll say 4 weeks for simplicity) and I evaded one week into my original ban, two weeks would be added to my ban, pushing the unban date to 6 weeks after my original ban. On the other hand, if I were to evade my ban 5 weeks into my original ban, the new unban date would be set to 4 weeks after this ban evasion, or 9 weeks after the original ban. When my unban date is reached, both my main and alt accounts would then be unbanned.

 

This method of banning would ensure that at least two weeks are added to the ban for each evasion. This length can, of course, be changed depending on how severe an offense we consider ban evasion to be, but I think the basic model is sound.

 

There is also the bridge we would need to cross between compromised accounts and ban evasion: where do we draw the line? It's not infrequent that we have griefers on Creative who repeatedly log in from other accounts as soon as they are banned, but from my experience, very few of these players tend to appeal their bans. If a player with 20+ banned alts were to appeal, we can't necessarily unban all of these accounts, as they are more than likely compromised. If this situation does arise, I recommend we just unban the main account after the given ban length (the main account being the one which was first used to log onto our servers), and keep the rest banned as compromised accounts. In most cases, it isn't difficult to tell whether a player is using legitimate alternate accounts, anyway.

 

If we do decide to implement this policy, or something like it, I think it would be best to open this discussion to the public before any of the changes are made official because of some of the responses we received from changing the rules without first talking to the community. 

[tompreuss]

Many of us, and many of those before us, have stuck to this rule that evading a ban on an alt account results in permanent ban of the alt account (and from the poking around I've done, in most cases time was tacked on to the original ban if applicable). And you're right, it really doesn't make a ton of sense. And Dumbo's improvements sound reasonable, certainly.

I'm curious what the reasoning was for the rule's introduction in the first place. Does anyone know?

[Denevien]

I'd assume to stop people from just throwing money at the problem, especially when the game was much cheaper.

[Cyotie911]

Many of us, and many of those before us, have stuck to this rule that evading a ban on an alt account results in permanent ban of the alt account (and from the poking around I've done, in most cases time was tacked on to the original ban if applicable). And you're right, it really doesn't make a ton of sense. And Dumbo's improvements sound reasonable, certainly.I'm curious what the reasoning was for the rule's introduction in the first place. Does anyone know?

To my knowledge, this rule was developed before there were compromised account lists and was a punishment because it was harder to check if an account was an alt or not. We didn't have the lookup tools that Deaygo provides us with now. The punishment fit the crime better.

[Cyotie911]

It also became a deturant for someone to borrow a friend's account to play on because of the risk of it getting banned too.

[Dumbo52]

To my knowledge, this rule was developed before there were compromised account lists and was a punishment because it was harder to check if an account was an alt or not. We didn't have the lookup tools that Deaygo provides us with now. The punishment fit the crime better.

 

I think the proposed policy should fairly effectively deter banned players from alting. While it's fair to players who have played on alt accounts once or twice but learned their lesson, it's also a strict punishment against those who continue to do so. Since this constitutes global policy, I'd be interested in hearing opinion-based feedback from more of the heads on the topic. If there are no dissenting opinions, I don't see a reason not to bring this topic to the public.

[Mrloud15]

Since no one seems to be against this, I will be making a public post with the proposed policy tomorrow to give the community a chance to voice their opinions on the matter.

[Mrloud15]

The pubic thread seems to have run its course, so I would like to see a decision made about this sometime soon. I have created a poll to help move things along, but please feel free to still discuss this below if you would like.

[Cyotie911]

Let's not make a public poll about this. While I am all for community input, we should be the ones to make policies. That is part of our job.

Instead, let's discuss some new ways of dealing with alt accounts and ban evasion policies and make a decision together. We don't need to have an open. Poll regarding something like this only to have disagreements between staff members due to differences in opinions. We need to make a decision about this and make a new policy. If anyone is in disagreement, they can be in a disagreement with us, and not other staff. That is ultimately our job and is something we need to be able to deal with. The rest of the staff shouldn't have to deal with any unnecessary drama.

[Cyotie911]

Also, sorry for not seeing your post earlier or I would have tried to say this before the poll went up.

[Mrloud15]

Let's not make a public poll about this. While I am all for community input, we should be the ones to make policies. That is part of our job.

Instead, let's discuss some new ways of dealing with alt accounts and ban evasion policies and make a decision together. We don't need to have an open. Poll regarding something like this only to have disagreements between staff members due to differences in opinions. We need to make a decision about this and make a new policy. If anyone is in disagreement, they can be in a disagreement with us, and not other staff. That is ultimately our job and is something we need to be able to deal with. The rest of the staff shouldn't have to deal with any unnecessary drama.

The poll is only for this thread in AC, and I only made it because it can be hard to get people to comment on threads like this. I don't think anything useful would come from a public poll. 

[Cyotie911]

My apologies, I misunderstood what you had said. When you said you were going to make a public post and then in your next post said you were going going to make a poll. I assumed you were talking g about making a public poll.

[slide]

The only reason I don't fully support the change is because it feels forced because people are complaining about their alts being banned. Changing and giving in just yet again shows that we don't stick to what we decide to do. I would support it however if we keep their alts banned, because that was the rule at the time, and they even knew that was the consequence. To me it just sends the message again that you can essentially do whatever you want and if you complain hard and loud enough, not have to deal with the consequences.

[BeastBruiser]

did we come to an official decision yet? I'm wondering if barneygale will see this and try to start something again

[Mrloud15]

Slide brings up an interesting point. If we go ahead and implement this policy should we keep alts banned under the old policy banned, or should we apply the new policy to every alt account banned in the past?

 

I'm not sure what I think yet, but I would like to get this discussion started again so we can make a decision one way or another.

[Dumbo52]

When our new policy does get put into effect,  I believe we should require the owners of accounts banned for evasion whose main account was already unbanned to submit a new appeal in order to have their alts unbanned. I don't think it would be fair of us to apply one set of rules to accounts unbanned after this is implemented and apply a different, stricter policy to those unbanned beforehand. Keep in mind that this change isn't happening because people are demanding it; it's occurring because we've decided that the new policy is more fair.

[schererererer]

Bumping due to relevant appeal: https://nerd.nu/forums/index.php?/topic/2663-barneybot-vivalahelvig-head-admin/#entry20150

The public discussion on this topic was closed by cyotie in August, and this admin discussion saw its last post over a month ago. Due to this extraordinary delay, the implication to the greater public is that we've decided to keep permabans on alts and have neglected to tell anyone our decision, despite this being far from the case. Stagnation like this is ultimately incompatible with a vibrant and active server - we need to set hard deadlines to take action.

Can we make a final, public decision on this?

[Mrloud15]

Closing and moving to the archives.