Assembly Hall

it's hard to ask the gms about rules, too. i wanted to know about a rule regarding concord exploits. i filed a petition under the correct category, had it moved to 'game questions', and was told they couldn't answer (i believe the idea is that if they tell people the rules, people will try to exploit loopholes)

i did eventually get a satisfactory answer, but it was difficult communicating, and i think many people'd be turned off by the initial response of 'we won't tell you'

i think it'd be ok if the gms said 'this is the rule, but there are guidelines here, too, and if you try to find loopholes or maliciously go outside the guidelines, you will be investigated and suffer punishment anyway'

I know you are mainly focused on the 'harassment' bans and ignoring the RMT and Botting ones but in relation to those too much information will allow subsequent fiends to capitalize on the intel gathered by their predecessors.

In regards to a jury of two rather than one, a second opinion on permabans. Not bad. But what if they differ? A third to break the tie?

Are you willing to add a caveat that some infractions are so blatant that incremental banning just extends the time that the infraction takes place or adds to a the number of victims and so there does need to be a reasonable case load that are permabanned right off?

As a last thing. Up until now the CSM has been at arms length from Enforcement of Bans. Policy we might advise on if asked but for the most part that is not part of our raison d'etre. As 'private citizens' we may yell and scream and point fingers like any other player. That is our right. But we have no say in the enforcement or punishment although high profile cases may be swung past us more from the 'how will the community react' rather than us in powdered wigs yelling 'off with his head'.

m

I'll add my support for the OP too.
If you review my posts, you will even see I very much so speak out against TS harassment and all forms of tear extraction. I think it takes a very sad individual to come onto a video game and attempt to upset another player for the purpose of their own entertainment. This means I have a problem with probably hundreds if not thousands of EVE players, and yet I agree with OP.

Why? Because CCP seems to be a very disorganized company.
Having submitted petitions on various things - from reimbursement to being doxxed when I was a new player - has really shown to me the completely arbitrary nature of how each problem is resolved.
Just recently I reported someone for using a homophobic slur in his bio. My petition was closed, and his bio was left unchanged for more than 2 weeks. I submitted the petition again, a different GM responded, and the players bio was changed within the day.

These sorts of occurrences have been reported by many players, where they submit the same petition on different characters and get completely different results based on the GM who's responded.

Arbitrary decision making is simply wrong, and yet it is the cornerstone of EVE customer service. The way to change that is to involve more GMs in the decision to ban players.

Lastly, there is the nature of second chances. If TheMittani can decide, while sober, to make a powerpoint presentation that completely humiliates a player, decide to fly that over to Iceland, decide to use his time on stage to present it, decide to tell players to help urge him to commit suicide... and get a one month ban.... there is very, very little anyone else can do that deserved a permaban on the first infraction. But hey, that's arbitrary decision making for ya.

Falcon's "common sense" reply makes no sense when you consider that most of the people being banned didn't believe what they were doing was banworthy AND many GMs don't even seem to believe its banworthy.

I can second this. I have received death threats and racial hate speech multiple times. I watchlist the offender and I have never seen one suspended. The process is very inconsistent.

CCP is not a judicial body, it's a small video game company. They can only devote very few resources to policing the online interactions of their hundreds of thousands of customers, so it would be unrealistic to expected them to do it very well.

However, with that in mind, I think that we have a right to expect that in all but the most egregious of offenses, they would use warnings and temporary bans to keep player behavior from straying too close to the line. Permabannings should be only used after multiple temporary bans, and in cases in which a player poses an actual danger to the safety and quality of life of another player, such as in the case of the fellow who accused Mallak Azaria of **** and reported him to the police, or the fellow who made threatening phone calls to Psychotic Monk's girlfriend and employer.

The practice of having appeals processed by the same individual who decided on the ban in the first place is so unprofessional that I don't even know what CCP could be thinking on that one.