So...how are bans handled?

[Mishia 74]

I'd first like to say - if this gets out of hand, please lock the topic.

I asked before hand if this is okay to discuss.

---

In my opinion, bans are handled badly (as players can be banned with no case against them) and the appeal process is a very lengthy process in which you usually get a response every few days like: we are working on this or this is under review.

 

I feel that if a player has been banned and no evidence has been given from the staff member who has banned the player, the player should be un-banned until the staff member has sufficient evidence to rightfully ban.

 

Again, most bans are one-sided and other members of staff are certain this is true.

 

With this said, please discuss.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Mishia

[Chiqa 742]

Personally of the bans that I know of first and , they had evidence and where justified. I have no issue with our ban process.

[Tazinsky 93]

Ban process seems fine to me, but i could be biast since ive never ran into the wurm police.

[bigsteve 378]

Sound like u are assumed guilty, and have tomprove your innocence.

[Madt 1,178]

I'd have thought there could be no ban handed out without solid evidence first anyway, whether it be logs, server logs, screenshots etc.

 

How else would you ban someone, on a hunch?

[Firestarter 1,210]

I'd have thought there could be no ban handed out without solid evidence first anyway, whether it be logs, server logs, screenshots etc.

 

How else would you ban someone, on a hunch?

[Daash 183]

Let me take a wild guess... you or someone you know did something stupid and got an account banned ? am i close ?

 

Anyways bans are handed out when the gm:s/devs have proof of foul play and from what i can see historicly they are deserved.

 

So its nothing to discuss really.

 

If you or anyone else get banned you can plead to the head gm to look into it, it has happend that accounts have been unbanned with penalties.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Daash

[spellcast 983]

There is always evidence.

No one gets a ban just because we feel like it, and all relevant information is collected and available for the entire GM team to review.

 

Most of the delay in the appeals process is because we never act alone as GM's, and tend to get multiple viewpoints on most cases. Often a ban is not even issued immediately, but only AFTER several GM's have weighed in on the case. 

In any event, usually we do not share the specific logs or records of what we have learned because doing so would reveal details about how the data is collected and stored, making it easier to circumvent.  We DO tell the person that was banned WHY they were banned and what they were banned for but we do not post that information publicly.

 

Nor do we discuss bans (indeed any punishment) with anyone other than the affected player because it is not relevant to disclose those details to the community at large,. 

 

We do not issue bans lightly, and there is always a reason behind the ban. 

[MrCak 72]

As an experienced Sandboxer I can tell you all with 100% confidence two facts.

 

1. I have never (yet) been banned.

 

2. Unfair bans happen commonly.

 

 

The workload on GM's or moderators is astronomical so you have a ratio to balance, if you allow random players to GM you gain more chance for corruption and have to use your actual GM hires to moderate the moderators, if you only use your hires then response times go up and approvals are more slapdash to attempt the avalanche of requests, appeals, investigations.

 

So from the perspective of a lover of Wurm, I want to see her protected from malfeasance but at the same time killing the players off kills the game too. We should make sure bans have sufficient evidence BEFORE the ban is enacted, it is far easier to get banned than unbanned.

 

[EDIT] This is not saying Wurm does not already act on this system, this is just my opinion on Wurm and Sandboxes in general.

Edited April 11, 2015 by MrCak

[Mishia 74]

There is always evidence.

No one gets a ban just because we feel like it, and all relevant information is collected and available for the entire GM team to review.

 

Most of the delay in the appeals process is because we never act alone as GM's, and tend to get multiple viewpoints on most cases. Often a ban is not even issued immediately, but only AFTER several GM's have weighed in on the case. 

In any event, usually we do not share the specific logs or records of what we have learned because doing so would reveal details about how the data is collected and stored, making it easier to circumvent.  We DO tell the person that was banned WHY they were banned and what they were banned for but we do not post that information publicly.

 

Nor do we discuss bans (indeed any punishment) with anyone other than the affected player because it is not relevant to disclose those details to the community at large,. 

 

We do not issue bans lightly, and there is always a reason behind the ban. 

yet - in some cases I know, the player has not been given evidence.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Mishia

[Mordraug 2,542]

I have no knowledge whatsoever of any wrongful banning stories.... that said.... 

 

I know MANY stories of people who, given their track record and ridiculous amounts of evidence against them, should be on about their 5th ban by now.

 

My 2 coppers.

[Chiqa 742]

As players and none staff we have no way to make sure bans are justified,

We do not have access to the records, nor  should we.  I trust to the GM team to handle things.

[KanePT 699]

 

I'd first like to say - if this gets out of hand, please lock the topic.

I asked before hand if this is okay to discuss.

---

In my opinion, bans are handled badly (as players can be banned with no case against them) and the appeal process is a very lengthy process in which you usually get a response every few days like: we are working on this or this is under review.

 

I feel that if a player has been banned and no evidence has been given from the staff member who has banned the player, the player should be un-banned until the staff member has sufficient evidence to rightfully ban.

 

Again, most bans are one-sided and other members of staff are certain this is true.

 

With this said, please discuss.

 

I think you're mostly thinking of temporary account suspension.

When there's a conflict with an account (scams, account sales gone wrong, etc) they'll usually suspend that account while investigating stuff, many MMOs will do the same.

Then depending on what they find out they'll either restore the account with extra premium time, or ban it, if they have evidence to support that.

 

What might be the issue is that having a mostly volunteer and skeleton (as in bare minimum) staff it might take longer than other games, which makes it a bigger inconvenience.

 

That being said, i was never banned (in-game) so i can't tell you my perspective.

[Minirawl 18]

Some bans are good, but the moderation sucks.

There are still many players that hack and macro, just yet to be caught.

[woad 14]

Having very limited knowledge of actual cases, my impression is that the opposite is true, that there is an abundance of caution before banning.

 

Accomplished liars can get away with a lot in this game, as in real life. It's the transparent liars that have a hard time defending themselves.

Edited April 11, 2015 by woad

[Chiqa 742]

I can see instances where a quick ban might be thrown down while things are sorted out so that silver/items do not disapear.

[Madt 1,178]

Re-reading now, I guess the OP meant instead of banning first and then opening a case and going over evidence while the player is still banned, you'd rather they go over evidence and discussion until a ban or no ban is decided, and then issue the ban?

 

I'd agree that that method is more fair, it saves a player from having to wait for their case to be proven innocent to be able to play again. However, with that method it could mean that the ban is discussed completely privately with the player having no knowledge that they may have a ban coming their way, thus no chance to defend themselves. Then the ban will be issued and any appeal would be denied because it's all been decided already.

 

That may seem fair, but I have to be honest and say that sometimes GM's do make mistakes, they are only human. I've seen GMs of past that had no idea how a certain game mechanic works, or that a certain thing was possible to do that was generally widely known by most players, but news to them. So it's very possible that someone could get the wrong end of the stick.

 

Wurm generally has always had a ton of grey areas. For example, let's pretend there's a common trick to make a forge burn longer by fueling it with sprouts. Some people hear about this and think ah cool, let's try that out. Then one day an average joe using sprouts gets seen by a GM, they ask him why he uses sprouts, "Oh, its a trick someone showed me, makes forges burn longer." then suddenly they get banned for exploits.

That's a completely unfair ban right there. Nobody knew it was illegal, it was commonly used and some GMs have probably seen it happen but thought nothing of it, except for this GM who's first hearing of it and deciding it's ban worthy.

 

That's a pretty bizarre example, but I have seen instances like that happen first hand.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Madt

[Ayes 3,715]

Having played the game for many years I have never had any contact with anyone that has been banned, so I can't comment on their point of view if they have been. Beyond this, since there are a number of GM's consulting in accord on these types of cases I have little doubt that any of them have been unjustified. More likely there are those who get by without being banned when they should have been due to either being undetected or walking on the razors edge of feigned innocence.

 

I am confident that the GM's handle bans properly and in the end have no further concern for those who have been given the swift kick out the door.

 

=Ayes=

[Mishia 74]

Re-reading now, I guess the OP meant instead of banning first and then opening a case and going over evidence while the player is still banned, you'd rather they go over evidence and discussion until a ban or no ban is decided, and then issue the ban?

 

I'd agree that that method is more fair, it saves a player from having to wait for their case to be proven innocent to be able to play again. However, with that method it could mean that the ban is discussed completely privately with the player having no knowledge that they may have a ban coming their way, thus no chance to defend themselves. Then the ban will be issued and any appeal would be denied because it's all been decided already.

 

That may seem fair, but I have to be honest and say that sometimes GM's do make mistakes, they are only human. I've seen GMs of past that had no idea how a certain game mechanic works, or that a certain thing was possible to do that was generally widely known by most players, but news to them. So it's very possible that someone could get the wrong end of the stick.

 

Wurm generally has always had a ton of grey areas. For example, let's pretend there's a common trick to make a forge burn longer by fueling it with sprouts. Some people hear about this and think ah cool, let's try that out. Then one day an average joe using sprouts gets seen by a GM, they ask him why he uses sprouts, "Oh, its a trick someone showed me, makes forges burn longer." then suddenly they get banned for exploits.

That's a completely unfair ban right there. Nobody knew it was illegal, it was commonly used and some GMs have probably seen it happen but thought nothing of it, except for this GM who's first hearing of it and deciding it's ban worthy.

 

That's a pretty bizarre example, but I have seen instances like that happen first hand.

Another example:

A previously banned player calls up his ISP to change his IP. An innocent other player also does this - and by coincidence this player gets the banned players IP. He then tries to connect to Wurm and it says he is banned.

[spellcast 983]

I can see instances where a quick ban might be thrown down while things are sorted out so that silver/items do not disapear.

 

This is about the only time that an account will be banned immediately by a single GM, in the event of an account dispute or a potential scam that has significant monetary value. In many cases these are temporary, and if done in error we reimburse lost premium time.

 

As to 

 

yet - in some cases I know, the player has not been given evidence.

If you have been banned and not given a REASON for the ban you should contact the GM who issued the ban or the head GM with a request for information.

If you are referring to someone else, the GM team would not tell you the reason, only them. If they are telling you they were not told the reason for the ban, they either:

  1 - need to follow the advice above

  2 - have not been completely honest with you.

 

as for evidence... see above, we do not usually give "evidence", particularly in cases such as a macro, as that would reveal a lot about the methods we use for detecting and tracking information and make it easier for those players who wish to circumvent our processes and methods.

 

This is not to say we are perfect, indeed we spend a LOT of time reviewing bans and cases, and are always trying to improve our processes.

 

 

Another example:

A previously banned player calls up his ISP to change his IP. An innocent other player also does this - and by coincidence this player gets the banned players IP. He then tries to connect to Wurm and it says he is banned.

Very rarely do we ban IP's other than known proxies that are being actively used for creating characters used in harassment cases, and the chances of an innocent player ending up with a banned IP is fairly small. If a player WERE to end up in that situation they can contact us on the forums and we can look into the matter. In any event, that is not an unfair ban, as the ban was not enacted to block that player, but to block a player that DID need to be banned. (a reason we rarely use IP bans in the first place, they are far too easy to circumvent and there is the small chance of something like this happening)

[woad 14]

Misha, the IP example is not wurm's fault. The innocent player should be able to know that his trouble started with his new IP and simply change it again.

 

Furthermore, I can't imagine this would ever actually happen.

[Mishia 74]

Very rarely do we ban IP's other than known proxies that are being actively used for creating characters used in harassment cases, and the chances of an innocent player ending up with a banned IP is fairly small. If a player WERE to end up in that situation they can contact us on the forums and we can look into the matter. In any event, that is not an unfair ban, as the ban was not enacted to block that player, but to block a player that DID need to be banned. (a reason we rarely use IP bans in the first place, they are far too easy to circumvent and there is the small chance of something like this happening)

I disagree, I know multiple people that have received an IP ban first time. As well as this, what if their IP changes (like an anti-ddos script may do) and it is a suspected proxy method - how can the player prove this him/herself?

 

A very good example of this is using a dedicated server - you can issue IPs on request.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Mishia

[Mishia 74]

Misha, the IP example is not wurm's fault. The innocent player should be able to know that his trouble started with his new IP and simply change it again.

 

Furthermore, I can't imagine this would ever actually happen.

It could happen and yes it is a very small chance of it occurring.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Mishia

[Bloodscythe 2,225]

I'll contend  people have to make a concerted effort to reach the point of being banned.   By the time it reaches that point there is not only conclusive evidence but several layers of peer review.   Many many more times than not we as players are given the benefit of the doubt unless all other reasonable explanations are exhausted.  I don't know any game that wishes to ban or take action against it's player base, it's counter intuitive.   No one likes to receive correction, as such bad sentiment flows from corrective actions taken regardless of it being justified.

[Wurmhole 3,650]

just like real crime, if there is probably cause, GMs take the primary suspect(s) and lock them up (suspension) to prevent them from hiding evidence, fencing the stolen goods, harming others.  Then after completing review of all the evidence, either lift the suspension if not guilty, or make it a perma ban.