RIP Public Ban Appeals

[Mrfishstick]

This thread is pretty throughly off the rails so please make an effort to refocus posts here, ban grievance airing isn’t going to lead to anything constructive.

[senpaiyaa]

I do not see private ban appeals as a helpful thing. There is no transparency between the people of goon which is bad imo.

[Oremir]

During the Town Hall Emily mentioned : "Gut-feel, the number of appeals feels like it has gone up. I think this reflects properly that the privatization of appeals is having the desired result (more people appealing)"

Which was NOT the take-away i got from that, at all. Rather i'm hearing that it seems to me that the barrier to break the rules has lowered more then annything, and thus more rule breaking and thus there are more appeals.

[Kotlol]

We already have rules in place for not discussing Ahelps and reports.
Private ban appeals is only the logical step.

[ZeWaka]

Rather i'm hearing that it seems to me that the barrier to break the rules has lowered more then annything, and thus more rule breaking and thus there are more appeals.

And how has that barrier been lowered?

[DioChasek]

Can I point out over the last year Goon servers as a whole have been at record high populations due in part to multiple streamer tides, and as with any influx of new players the number of bans is going to increase just based on increased volume alone?

[Oremir]

Rather i'm hearing that it seems to me that the barrier to break the rules has lowered more then annything, and thus more rule breaking and thus there are more appeals.

And how has that barrier been lowered?

By the way i'm not advocating we should go back public, i'm just doubting the "more appeals" being the result of a purely positive developement.

Right, so my understanding is that, among many other parts one part of the reason the appeals were made private was because there was a concern of people being named and shamed and it was preventing people from appealing. Now i suppose those people are appealing, which is good but there's also little doubt in my mind that that there's going to be a portion of people that with their name now being safely hidden in a private forum feel like the barrier's gone down. I also feels like it's opening up the way for people to make up their own nerative, especially within their private friend groups.

[jan.antilles]

Rather i'm hearing that it seems to me that the barrier to break the rules has lowered more then annything, and thus more rule breaking and thus there are more appeals.

And how has that barrier been lowered?

By the way i'm not advocating we should go back public, i'm just doubting the "more appeals" being the result of a purely positive developement.

Right, so my understanding is that, among many other parts one part of the reason the appeals were made private was because there was a concern of people being named and shamed and it was preventing people from appealing. Now i suppose those people are appealing, which is good but there's also little doubt in my mind that that there's going to be a portion of people that with their name now being safely hidden in a private forum feel like the barrier's gone down. I also feels like it's opening up the way for people to make up their own nerative, especially within their private friend groups.

Making sure I understand you correctly: people feel that we're more quick to ban people since they can privately appeal, and we're banning for things that would previously have been warnings?

If that's what you're referring to, then I can safely say that isn't true. I realize that the people who sit in private friend groups don't trust my just saying that, but if they've already decided that the admins are working against the playerbase for some reason, why would they trust anything I say?

People are always going to make up their own narrative. Nothing we say or do will ever stop them from that. If every single thing that admins said or did was public, they would still find something to criticize. This change was absolutely made to benefit players who want to admit their mistakes and come back without being publicly shamed by the people who treated ban appeals as a spectator sport, and to me that is worth any criticism I may receive.

[Oremir]

Rather i'm hearing that it seems to me that the barrier to break the rules has lowered more then annything, and thus more rule breaking and thus there are more appeals.

And how has that barrier been lowered?

By the way i'm not advocating we should go back public, i'm just doubting the "more appeals" being the result of a purely positive developement.

Right, so my understanding is that, among many other parts one part of the reason the appeals were made private was because there was a concern of people being named and shamed and it was preventing people from appealing. Now i suppose those people are appealing, which is good but there's also little doubt in my mind that that there's going to be a portion of people that with their name now being safely hidden in a private forum feel like the barrier's gone down. I also feels like it's opening up the way for people to make up their own nerative, especially within their private friend groups.

Making sure I understand you correctly: people feel that we're more quick to ban people since they can privately appeal, and we're banning for things that would previously have been warnings?

If that's what you're referring to, then I can safely say that isn't true. I realize that the people who sit in private friend groups don't trust my just saying that, but if they've already decided that the admins are working against the playerbase for some reason, why would they trust anything I say?

People are always going to make up their own narrative. Nothing we say or do will ever stop them from that. If every single thing that admins said or did was public, they would still find something to criticize. This change was absolutely made to benefit players who want to admit their mistakes and come back without being publicly shamed by the people who treated ban appeals as a spectator sport, and to me that is worth any criticism I may receive.

Not at all what i'm saying, what i'm saying to put it very simple was : the public nature of the ban appeals previously was its own form of detterent. The private nature of the ban appeals currently i feel makes the bar to offend lower as, like you said there's no scrutiny from your peers.

So i have a hard time equating an increase in appeals "soley" as people being more comfortable to come forward to appeal.

EDIT: So, i suppose the important part here is the ban to apeal ratio which you'll be better able to judge. But if the ban to appeal ratio is the same as previously it's just telling me there are more offenders in general.

[Leeanei]

Just to be frank, we've had people be too nervous to appeal little things because of ban appeal popcorn people meanwhile the guy who was banned for a too on point necrophilia joke appealed very proudly. The deterrent only worked on people who felt shame. The shameless were totally unaffected, which is not an ideal system at all.

I will say just on a gut feeling we are banning more people than we used to right now. Rules are still being enforced, people are still being shipped out for racial slurs. The only real difference is we haven't had any grand standing appeals since we made it private. It's definitely a more transactional forum now than before we'd have some person pushing 2-3 pages of raw hubris onto the forum.

[Flourish]

I do not see private ban appeals as a helpful thing. There is no transparency between the people of goon which is bad imo.

Feel free to tell people the reason why you were banned.

[Kotlol]

I got a few questions for "The old system of appeals"

1: Did it benefit the community in any way then just expose those who lie about their offense or those who have no shame?

2: Were players able to respond to it? If not.. so what?

3: Did players ENJOY peeking in there for some reason?

4: For those who saw it, What did you do with that information?

I feel.. like I am missing some things since my opinion is: "private or public, doesn't matter. Appeals aren't for me to check unless someone is lying about it."
But other wise... so what? Appeals don't really add anything.

[Cal]

3: Did players ENJOY peeking in there for some reason?

Heck, I could have answered this one even without admin. Yeah, people would get weirdly obsessive about checking ban appeals. It's entertainment for them.

[MoonJesus]

Ngl i check in on the forums every now and then just hoping for a hilarious ban appeal. the feedback forum is all i got now

honestly though i want my appeals public especially if i feel im in the right. like i know we could just make a feedback thread after the fact but still

2020's are the era of flexibility we should be able to choose if we want the appeal public or private

[Mordent]

Ban appeals and admin feedback serve two entirely different purposes and shouldn't be conflated (i.e. just because one offers private and public, that has no relevance on whether the other should offer private and public).

As someone who originally internally advocated for offering both because "why not?", I've pivoted my opinion to "why?". I don't understand any benefit to public appeals that isn't resolved by "just post your appeal somewhere for others to see after if you think it was mishandled (admin feedback) or want to apologize to the community for being a shit with it or whatever". None of this thread has changed my opinion here.