[AC] Alt Account Banning Policy

[Mrloud15]

Hello everyone, here's what I have for the new alt banning policy. 

• Alt Account Banning Policy - A minimum of 2 weeks will be added to the original ban length for every account used to evade a ban on any of our servers. Any accounts used to evade a ban will be banned for the same amount of time as the original banned account. Admins reserve the right to add additional time depending on the circumstances, and only appealed bans will be lifted.

We decided to give everyone a week to comment and make any changes to the policy before implementing it. However, since there is a holiday this week I decided to not count that day as part of the week, so please comment below if you have anything you would like to add or change by December 1st.

[Sapphric]

So, to clarify, will banned alts be unbanned at the same time as the main account, or will they have to appeal those separately? Also, if they appeal for the alts to be unbanned, will all of their alts be unbanned, or will they have to appeal for each individual one?

[redwall_hp]

Sounds good to me, Mrloud.

[slide]

So, to clarify, will banned alts be unbanned at the same time as the main account, or will they have to appeal those separately? Also, if they appeal for the alts to be unbanned, will all of their alts be unbanned, or will they have to appeal for each individual one?

I would say they should have to request an unban for their alts as well, either in their main accounts appeal or separate appeal(s).

[Cyotie911]

So, to clarify, will banned alts be unbanned at the same time as the main account, or will they have to appeal those separately? Also, if they appeal for the alts to be unbanned, will all of their alts be unbanned, or will they have to appeal for each individual one?

 

Any alt accounts will be unbanned at the same time as their main account.

[schererererer]

Any alt accounts will be unbanned at the same time as their main account.

But they have to name the alts to be unbanned as well, no?

[Cyotie911]

But they have to name the alts to be unbanned as well, no?

Yes, and I would like to state that the unbanning of all alt accounts should be done by an administrator or higher.

At the discression of an admin, alternate accounts could remain banned if we believe that the person appealing isn't the actual owner. I.E. compromised accounts that are trying to become unbanned by someone that isn't the owner or, someone who admits in their first appeal that they were using someone else's account as an alternative account to circumvent their existing ban. Bottom line, the owners of all accounts need to appeal for them.

[Mumberthrax]

What system do we have in place to track what accounts are alts of other accounts? word of mouth and old ban appeals? Obviously the irc .alts command only shows us which accounts have connected from the same IP addresses, so that's not a documentation tool so much.

[Cyotie911]

What system do we have in place to track what accounts are alts of other accounts? word of mouth and old ban appeals? Obviously the irc .alts command only shows us which accounts have connected from the same IP addresses, so that's not a documentation tool so much.

With this policy, I suggest that we start labeling the main accounts in the alternative accounts ban reason.

[Mumberthrax]

Before this gets made official - apologies for being so damned late on this - but how does this contrast with our current policy?

 

edit: for example, forzaire's ban extension follows the same procedure outlined above, right?

66 weeks + ( 2 weeks per alt * 69 alts) = 204 weeks. This puts your new unban date on May 24th, 2018

 

I'm okay with this I suppose, and it doesn't seem like we are changing anything despite the lengthy discussions we had in our two admin meetings. The only thing that seems to have changed is that alts would be unbanned at the same time as the original instead of being "permanent" bans.

 

We have no upper limit on ban lengths for such situations, right?

 

No distinction is made between the two kinds of ban-evasions, i.e. 1) avo-esque compromised accounts hopping on one after the other with each ban just griefing or spamming for the hell of it 2) barneygale/forzaire types who use alt accounts just to play or flaunt a disregard for the rules.

 

I'm not saying that I have an issue with this per se, just trying to make sure I understand. Again, I apologize for waiting until the last minute to post this...

 

edit2: and what about when someone with a known or declared alt account is banned in the future or has a note added? Is their alt immediately banned, or do we wait until someone says "oh hey, isn't that X's alt account? He's evading!"

 

these are +2weeks for each evasion, not each evasion "session", right?

 

we are not doing any kind of reset of the ban time before adding the two weeks as that might be too complicated, i guess.

 

not going with the super simple "Evade once: double length. Evade twice: ban for a year"

 

we are of course keeping head admin prerogative to extend ban durations for those who are particularly harmful to the servers/community, correct? (edit: ah i see "Admins reserve the right to add additional time depending on the circumstances")

 

is there any sort of metric by which we define one account a "main" account and another an "alt" account?

Edited December 1, 2014 by Mumberthrax
formatting

[Mumberthrax]

So here's a bullet point revised version including some of the content from the comments below mrloud's original post. It's not well organized, but it's the main stuff i gathered and isolated:

 

Alt Account Banning Policy:

• A minimum of 2 weeks will be added to the original ban length for every account used to evade a ban on any of our servers.
• Any accounts used to evade a ban will be banned for the same amount of time as the original banned account.
• Admins reserve the right to add additional time depending on the circumstances.
• Only appealed bans will be lifted.
• At the time at which an appeal is allowed or afterward, a player may appeal for their other accounts to be unbanned, and if the "main" account is unbanned then the alts are as well
• Unbanning of all alt accounts should be done by an administrator or higher.
• At the discretion of an admin, alternate accounts could remain banned if we believe that the person appealing isn't the actual owner
• Bans for the alt accounts will include the name of their "main" account

 

I have three proposals. One of which is a complete overhaul of the ban system entirely. the other two are more conservative. I'll express the two conservative proposals first.

 

• The above policy, but with a default cap of 1 year on all bans that are extended through evasion with the +2weeks process - except in cases where head admins determine a longer ban is appropriate of course.
• Known or previously-declared alt accounts are banned at the same time as other bans - we don't do it passive-agressively and wait for them to evade with an alt
• edit: (tentative suggestion) If during the evasion of a ban with an alternate account a user breaks other rules, then the overall ban length should be extended by some amount in addition to the extension purely for the act of evasion itself.

 

 

That's the most conservative modification. Here's the version I think is dead simple:

 

• The same policy as above including the default 1 year cap and auto-banning of known alts, except instead of the +2 weeks process, we use this: evade once, double ban length for both accounts; evade twice or more, ban for a year.

 

---

 

Now here's what I really think we should be moving toward. Maybe my above suggestions would be best for an interim policy, and I think the following is what we really should be considering.

 

Overhaul of nerd.nu ban system.

• Most bans should be temporary bans with automatic unbans if the user verifies via website or plugin they have read the rules or relevant section
  • These would include: crop grief, minor grief, pvp/fly/speed/macro hacking, spam, trolling, etc.
• egregious rule violations should be normal bans without automatic unban - essentially a permanent ban requiring appeal and believability regarding whether they have reformed
  • These would include: harassment, being a fuckwit source of toxicity in the community (being a dick/disrespecting others), security threat, massive rule violation, compromised accounts, ban evasion, breaking the law, etc.
  • These would also include those who have had several temporary bans in the past, and continue to demonstrate a disregard for the rules
• illegitimate bans of any sort should be appealed, and appeals claiming the ban is illegitimate do not follow any time limitations
• Appeal time limits (for those not claiming illegitimate ban) are not manually-processed automatic unban periods. they are a time at which your appeal will be considered. It does not guarantee that you will be unbanned just by repeating the rules and promising to be good. Recognition of what you've done and how it affects other players, an apology, some method of tangibly demonstrating your remorse or that you are reformed. This needs fleshing out but the point is that it's not something left up to wily-nily inconsistent enforcement of "ok ur unbanned lolz" sort of deal like we have sometimes.
• Bans apply to any and all known alt accounts of the player banned. Bans on alts for ban evasion must be appealed.
• Ban information needs more space for details - minecraft does not allow much space in the chat entry line. Perhaps a link to a special profile page on the website which includes all relevant information about their ban, and how to appeal it.
• Times until appeals (for legitimate bans) will be accepted would follow our normal routines more or less, and in the case of ban evasion it would follow the procedure above - evade once, time is doubled; evade twice or more and time before appeal is heard = 1 year.

Ideally evaluation of appeals must follow some set of criteria. A checklist of requirements perhaps which seek to evaluate if the appeal is sincere based on conduct outside of the appeal and past history, whether the player attempts to empathize with those they have harmed, any legitimate demonstration of remorse or of having been reformed... basically just a more stringent set of requirements than the easily deceived "have you read the rules and are you sorry?"

 

Possibly such appeals should be handled by admins if they are uncommon enough thanks to the temporary ban system. But if the set of criteria for approved appeal are prepared effectively then it probably would be fine being any staff member or the staff member who banned the player.

 

Phrased in another way:

 

The appeals section should not be the "ok read the rules and reply back stating you have done so (whether you're being honest or not) and I'll unban you" section, nor should it be the "I was banned long ago for x (eg. grief) and i just now realized that I can actually be unbanned and have fun now but you're going to ask me to read the rules and I'll forget to reply saying I've done so and will try to log in a week from now and be disappointed that I can't play" section. It should be for bans that are believed to be illegitimate, or for those who have broken some serious rules and wish to be given a second chance.

 

If you grief some crops and forget to replant, or you're having a bad day and being a little shit, then you should get a temporary ban - these work like our current ban system except they're automatic. You basically go into time out, and when the time is out you're back. But if you demonstrate a pattern of being banned like that, then you get a regular ban that you would need to appeal. Such an appeal for a legitimate ban would only be heard after a reasonable amount of time in which for you to cool down and perhaps develop some maturity or responsibility.

 

---

 

I further propose that policy on bans, whether for ban evasion or otherwise, should be placed in a separate location from the rules. It isn't a rule, it shouldn't be something players have to read in order to play. It is something that should prossibly/probably be public, but a separate document on adminstration/moderation policy.

 

edit: hopefully last suggestion regarding overhaul of banning policy/system: when a player is unbanned, have it documented in something accessible in-game, like adding a note saying "unbanned: griefing, xray, and jaywalking".

Edited December 1, 2014 by Mumberthrax
forgot something

[Mrloud15]

I think it's worth looking into an overhaul of our ban system, but I think that discussion would be better suited for its own thread (maybe copy and paste that bit to a new thread?). 

[Mrloud15]

The above policy, but with a default cap of 1 year on all bans that are extended through evasion with the +2weeks process - except in cases where head admins determine a longer ban is appropriate of course.

I'm fine with this

 

Known or previously-declared alt accounts are banned at the same time as other bans - we don't do it passive-agressively and wait for them to evade with an alt

I think this could create more work than it's worth by some of the players who share accounts, but I would be willing to give it a try if others are.

 

edit: (tentative suggestion) If during the evasion of a ban with an alternate account a user breaks other rules, then the overall ban length should be extended by some amount in addition to the extension purely for the act of evasion itself.

I like this idea.

 

I would like to get this new policy up by Sunday, so please make any comments before then.

[Mrloud15]

Closing and moving to the archives.