Originally Posted by Templar
Staff in general have had a historic problem with abuse of power in response to being shit-talked at by a user, [...]
I'm not aware of this, could you give some examples?
alright guy
Member
Originally Posted by fudgiebalz
I'm not aware of this, could you give some examples?
Sure!
A known problem back in 2014-2015 was staff banning people from in-game events for harassment and spam. Granted, spamming in-game was against the rules, but there were plenty of cases where "harassment" was boiled down to saying "fuck you" to the staff in charge, because of prior run-ins with the particular user. I do not know how common this still is, but I can reasonably assume it still occurs at least on occasion, as we are all humans.
I'm not saying that these weren't reviewed later and overturned, nor am I saying I fault the staff entirely in the moment, but the argument they were intended to support was thus; Members of staff are prone to knee-jerk reactions, like common users, but they hold power that they must be responsible with. Thusly, when they do things like this, they must be held to a higher level of scrutiny.
If you wanted specifics, I'm not positive I can access the ban reports from 2014-2015 anymore, with me no longer being staff, and I'm not sure they'd even still be there, with the propensity we have to wipe backlogs, so I apologize.
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Ordinarily the right way to go about "vetting" varies; however, some things done are:
1) Check the profile for any infraction history. If there are infractions - how severe are they? How recent? Etc.
2) Check recent post history. What does it look like? Are they posting anything constructive? What sort of maturity are they displaying?
3) Forum, in-game, and discord activity - are they active? Are they contributing in anyway to the community?
4) Personal anecdotes - who here has interacted with this user? Was it a positive experience? Can anyone attest positively or negatively to their demeanor/character?
Plus or minus other elements. That's just a practical small thing I came up with that I know I see being followed either intentionally/deliberately or just intuitively.
---
As for examples - I'd rather not "out" specific users. That's not particularly appropriate. In general, very rarely do we "drop the hammer" on users. I think the fact that many veterans of Toribash can identify more than two handfuls of users who continue to break the rules repeatedly and are one or another still coming back speaks to that. There's many toxic users with 20+ infractions on their main accounts and bans on alts as well that you may still interact with day to day if you actively engage in-game and on the forums.
In contrast, things like power abuse are treated very heavy handed (as they should be). Just like you stated, staff can and SHOULD be held to a higher standard than regular users. Due to the sensitive nature of when staff are caught abusing their power, I'm not going to feel comfortable dropping names. But I'm more than confident in higher staff like suomynona immediately shutting down any inappropriate situations performed by staff with a much shorter leash and badder bite when those situations do arise.
Hope that helps. I apologies that I'm declining to include specifics. That's a personal choice.
1) Check the profile for any infraction history. If there are infractions - how severe are they? How recent? Etc.
2) Check recent post history. What does it look like? Are they posting anything constructive? What sort of maturity are they displaying?
3) Forum, in-game, and discord activity - are they active? Are they contributing in anyway to the community?
4) Personal anecdotes - who here has interacted with this user? Was it a positive experience? Can anyone attest positively or negatively to their demeanor/character?
Plus or minus other elements. That's just a practical small thing I came up with that I know I see being followed either intentionally/deliberately or just intuitively.
---
As for examples - I'd rather not "out" specific users. That's not particularly appropriate. In general, very rarely do we "drop the hammer" on users. I think the fact that many veterans of Toribash can identify more than two handfuls of users who continue to break the rules repeatedly and are one or another still coming back speaks to that. There's many toxic users with 20+ infractions on their main accounts and bans on alts as well that you may still interact with day to day if you actively engage in-game and on the forums.
In contrast, things like power abuse are treated very heavy handed (as they should be). Just like you stated, staff can and SHOULD be held to a higher standard than regular users. Due to the sensitive nature of when staff are caught abusing their power, I'm not going to feel comfortable dropping names. But I'm more than confident in higher staff like suomynona immediately shutting down any inappropriate situations performed by staff with a much shorter leash and badder bite when those situations do arise.
Hope that helps. I apologies that I'm declining to include specifics. That's a personal choice.
Need help?
Creati0n says: still my favorite. <3
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Just Use Thunder!
Creati0n says: still my favorite. <3
I sacrificed my firstborn for this great human being to join (M) ~R
Just Use Thunder!
Originally Posted by Templar
Sure!
A known problem back in 2014-2015 was staff banning people from in-game events for harassment and spam. Granted, spamming in-game was against the rules, but there were plenty of cases where "harassment" was boiled down to saying "fuck you" to the staff in charge, because of prior run-ins with the particular user. I do not know how common this still is, but I can reasonably assume it still occurs at least on occasion, as we are all humans.
I'm not saying that these weren't reviewed later and overturned, nor am I saying I fault the staff entirely in the moment, but the argument they were intended to support was thus; Members of staff are prone to knee-jerk reactions, like common users, but they hold power that they must be responsible with. Thusly, when they do things like this, they must be held to a higher level of scrutiny.
If you wanted specifics, I'm not positive I can access the ban reports from 2014-2015 anymore, with me no longer being staff, and I'm not sure they'd even still be there, with the propensity we have to wipe backlogs, so I apologize.
What kind of in-game events? Are people not allowed to ban anyone they please from their own servers?
alright guy
Originally Posted by fudgiebalz
I'm not aware of this, could you give some examples?
My access to staff complaints (and the entire help section) was removed (and threads deleted) because I called bullshit on sir's handling of one of my complaints. He also threatened to remove the rest of my posting permissions.
Originally Posted by Bodhisattva
In contrast, things like power abuse are treated very heavy handed (as they should be). Just like you stated, staff can and SHOULD be held to a higher standard than regular users. Due to the sensitive nature of when staff are caught abusing their power, I'm not going to feel comfortable dropping names.
Super admins and (to a lesser extent, ninjas) are allowed to do what the fuck they want. Since Hampa doesn't get involved in forum 'politics', there's no higher authority to tell them to rein it in. Power-abuse gets called power-amuse and lesser staff laugh it off because you're not going to keep your staff position if you call bullshit on high staff.
It's how it be.
Last edited by Ele; May 20, 2020 at 08:43 AM.
