Further improvements to staff transparency

The more I've been following this thread the more upsetting it gets! I cannot BELIEVE the negativity and outright awful things you admin have to put up with when you are simply trying to provide a lovely site!I admit, I've always been scared to post things or do anything that may offend or be taken the wrong way per say but that is all due to my state of mental health. I am literally sitting here, typing this, shaking with rage. A scary sight I might add :P I posted way back, and have sat back to view how this has progressed, and I have to say, I was absolutely gobsmacked. Predators on PFQ?! Accusations that are so horrendous they make my blood boil?! I think it's sickening that admins have to spend their time tracking down predators and I feel blessed to have them looking out for us all. I now think these types of people deserve to have their names up in lights for all to see and be aware of now. I still stick by my first + last letter for other offences however, but think that such disgusting acts by users(I hope they are a minority!) should be named + shamed. I personally like the idea that my PMs can be seen by staff, it makes me feel safer and if, god forbid, a situation should arise where I am being harassed or the such, that an admin is there as a sort of... guardian perhaps? The way I see it is there should be nothing to hide or anything sent in a PM that is negative anyway. I've also found that if you make an honest mistake and let the admins know right away then they are ALWAYS happy to help without judging. They aren't evil dragons with ban hammers.

Sure we are. We're scary, don'cha know! :P Seriously, I can understand why people will look at any form of staff and be a little "aaahhhhh~" sorta-thing. I was that way myself beforehand, but that's because I had a run-in with a member of staff when I first joined the site, and that kinda coloured my view of staff as a general. Thing is, once I kinda told someone about the situation that occurred... Well, turned out that individual wasn't going to be on-staff much longer to begin with, so it kinda evened things out a little - then I got to know a bunch of people, who I can say are most definitely not the people I initially thought they were! They're normal members of the site now, and I'm in a Skype chat with them. Just goes to show, really - you should get to know someone before you judge them. It's a lesson I learned personally ^-^

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Anyways. I'd like to point out that the concept of this is far far far from "Naming and shaming". We don't want to enforce that ideal, but we know it's something that's going to kinda come along with it. We only want to show people the serious offences so that we're not under any of this scrutiny from people who go around spreading lies. We'll probably have to make a kinda 'search' function for the Mod Watch, I think... But I think it'd be best to have that restricted to staff so that we don't get people just using the search function to try and dig up information on their latest 'enemy' and such. The information's located on people's ban pages, too, but if we just want to be displaying ONE specific reason that they were banned, then we don't want to be showing their entire ban history, so... Yeah. >w>: Thing is, we don't mind people having opinions. We honestly don't. But if people are basing their opinions on falsified information and assumptions, then we're obviously going to be inclined to correct them. Or we'll find someone being rather rude about someone, talking about them and basically name-calling in any which way, spreading misinformation through their talk... And yes, that's rule 10! (via. PF1 rules) Most of the time we just ask "How did you come to think this?" - try to figure out why they think this, you know? If there's a genuine reason, then obviously that's something we can work on. If it's them being ignorant and believing lies and making assumptions - about anyone - then we have every right to correct them, or in worst-case scenario's... Apply the rules to them. Sometimes it's the only way to make people learn, and it really is quite sad.

As I was reading this, though its going to be a short reply, that I came to the conclusion that people that makes it their life to make it hard for people, like the staff, doesn't think that "Hey, we're human, the staff is human. We ALL make mistakes." Before they open their mouths to bash someone for something so petty. It just amazes me that they don't think that they won't be punished when they break the rules, and when it does happen, they get all ticked off, that it isn't fair, and that the staff, they could be from any site, shouldn't be able to do that. Hey, I will openly admit, I was banned, though it was a temp. mute(its kind of like a ban), in PF1 for not deleting any finished trade boards I made after they were finished. When I got the PM stating that, I was alright with it. I tend to be a little scattered-brained and don't want to do certain things at times. Made sure that I PM'ed people that I wasn't going to be roleplaying for a couple of days until I get unmuted... It just amuses me at how immature people can get when they get banned when the staff themselves enforces the rules that the person breaks. If that last bit makes any sense to you.

I understand the staff is only human (Everyone here is!...even those who think they're a Pokemon >w>). But from one experience I had on the old site's chat, it just seems that yes, the mods/admins/whatevers can be a little overzealous. Now the reason I say that is because said experience was being banned from the chat on the old site for a week just for talking about how depressing my day had been. I'm not one to name names (because IMO, that's really being a tattle, even if it does make something right of a wrong in any situation), but I do believe (and still do, because I regret going into the chat on that day) that the mod/admin/whatever in question was just having a bad day (though I have to question the point of having a chatroom on a website if your topics of choice are scrutinized *that* much) . But still, there has to be a line drawn at what's acceptable, and I'm glad that you guys are being more transparent. If any of this reply made any sense, please let me know, I just woke up from a nap and probably spouted off some nonsense in with the coherent stuff. X_X

I wasn't completely on-board with this at first, but after reading some of the ways that this system will be balanced (Only major offenders being named) as well as some of the terrible things that have motivated the staff to want to do this, I fully support now. I'm kind of surprised at the severity of some of the things the mods are regularly getting thrown at them (Death threats and child predators! I knew it was bad at some level, but wow!). I guess the fact that I'm surprised that some of these things happen behind the scenes here is proof the mods do an excellent job keeping these things out of the actual community! You guys get lots of respect points from me, not just from facing these things, but by being willing to listen to our opinions before taking major action, as well. Following this thread has been really eye-opening, to say the least.

Says the person with an avatar featuring a lion closing its eyes :p Sorry, couldn't resist! Anyways, yeah. Part of the reason PF1/PFQ are so good for the users who follow the rules is because we cull the people who don't.

This can be said for a lot of the more... 'tight-fisted' sites, when it comes to staff, from what I've observed (Not a great deal, but it's enough to get a slight insight) this is not the case here, read on. Most sites with forums and rules, have staff members who deem themselves as gods, or, in some cases that I've witnessed, military commanders who do one thing, and that's stalk the site for anyone so much as SLIGHTLY breaking the rules, and I mean, small infractions that could be put down to user error, or accidents from a less laid back point of view, these, are the 'Tight-fisted' sites I mentioned before. Other sites, PF1 and PFQ being great examples for this, are more laid back, they still get the same results, but the staff understand that the users are, only human, the majority of this thread points this out, mostly in the fact that you sought the opinions of the userbase on the matter, proving a more laid back approach, and I'll say, a more respected response than the aforementioned sites. The fact of the matter, however, is that it's not down to us, true, we're your users, without us, there'd be no real point in running the site, and our opinions do help you make the site more enjoyable and safer for us. With that in mind, I suggest you, while taking our opinions into account, do what you feel would keep we members safe. That's my full two cents, my previous post still stands, it's one of, if not, THE most effective ways to help keep people under control, and, show the userbase that you're disciplining the rule-breakers properly, without naming and shaming for their exact misdemeanour's.

how about stating: [user] was banned for breaking 1+ rules. Just as a blank statement.

That would defeat the purpose and the aim, so I'm afraid that's not an available solution.

The main reason of this thread is for TRANSPARENCY. So people know who was banned for what reason and why. A blank statement is not really clear, so that kinda will not work.