Staff Transparency Results

So, after a week + of the Improving Staff Transparency thread being up, we've finally got to an ultimate conclusion on what we think will be the most widely accepted working model. Here, I'll do my best to explain it to the public - As we've already had a large discussion on this, replies to this thread will be closed, but if there are any concerns, please address them via. a PM to me, personally, and I'll take them on-board / answer them to the best of my capabilities.

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Now, whilst we want to improve our transparency, a number of users expressed their concerns at having minor things listed for all to see. Ultimately, this would wind up with us further punishing people, when they may only deserve say, a day's ban or mute, and they may never break a rule again, as the first and only time was an accident (eg. having 4 trade threads and not realising it). So, we've come up with a sort of compromise. Instead of having ALL bans listed with their generic reasons, we've come up with the idea of, on a user's ban-page, having a toggle-able option to make the information "public". Of course, the default setting would be "Private". Minor bans / punishments would not be made public. They would remain private. Repeat offenders (3/4+ times) may have their ban knowledge made public, depending on the situation - but it should be primarily avoided unless the user gives reason for it to be made public (eg. User A Sends PM to User B claiming, "I was muted for no reason"). Major bans (eg. Situations where an individual is extremely offensive / certain degress of scamming / knowledgeable art theft / earns a permanent ban) will be made immediately public. This only applies to the bans that are, as I said, "Major". A list will be compiled within a few days, at latest, on what is deemed Minor>In-between the two>Major. I understand that "In-between the two" is a very vague category, but we'll do our best to make the information as clear as possible. Also, please understand that we cannot list every single situation, and we do have to take everything on a case-by-case basis - Just because something is in "Minor", does not mean that it will NEVER be shown publicly. It is merely a guideline, and nothing more. Additionally, if the ban information is made public, then there will also be some manner of indication, on a banned individuals user page, that they are banned for "x" reason. This will not restrict gameplay in any way, shape or form, and is merely an extension of the information being made public on the ModWatch, to the user's page - so that if an individual were to not seek out the information in the ModWatch, they would still see it on the page they are more likely to visit. Ps. A poll will be added later. Bed time for now, I have to be up for work in 4 hours >w>;

So we've got the list, as promised. We used a very basic "1-10" listing, with 1 being "minor" and 10 being "major". Of course, as I said, there's a vague in-between. 5, being the middle, functions as the point that names can start being revealed - but it doesn't necessarily mean they will be. Anything beyond 5 is a definite name-reveal. 1 - Not reading FAQs / asking repeat questions -- Double-posts / SPAM -- Click-begging -- Having more trade threads than allowed 2 - Double-posts / SPAM -- Click-begging -- Having more trade threads than allowed 3 - Double-posts / SPAM -- Mini-modding 4 - Scamming -- Mini-modding -- General breaking the law 5 - Multi-accounting -- Unknowing art-theft -- Scamming -- Staff Impersonation -- Mini-modding -- Staff going rogue / being unfit for their job -- General breaking the law -- Account transferring 6 - Blatant art-theft -- Scamming -- Staff Impersonation -- Mini-modding -- Staff going rogue / being unfit for their job -- General breaking the law 7 - Blatant art-theft -- Scamming -- Staff Impersonation -- Staff going rogue / being unfit for their job -- General breaking the law 8 - Active Slander/Libel aka. lying -- Scamming 9 - 10 - Inappropriate activities involving minors Or--

1	Double-posts / SPAM		Click-begging	Having more trade threads than allowed		Not reading FAQs / asking repeat questions
2
3			Mini-modding
4	Scamming	General law-breaking
5				Unknowing art-theft	Multi-accounting / Account transferring	Staff Impersonation	Staff going rogue
6				Blatant art-theft
7
8		Active Slander/Libel
9
10	Inappropriate activities involving minors

Thanks Niet <3

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You'll no doubt notice that there are a number of these 'offences' spanning through numbers, like "Double-posts/SPAM" being on both 2 and 3. This is because, depending on the severity of the cases, it could be variable. Of course, we're not taking into account repeat offences here, just first time. The variables are often one of two things - - The severity of the rule broken - The user's attitude You'll also note that we included staff member's going rogue. This is because we've had issues with staff in the past, and of course... We were unable to do anything about it. Now we're going to take an active role in weeding out the bad eggs that pop up, whether they are staff or a normal user. Staff are not exempt from the rules, this is something we are hoping to make clear.

I'm going to make an additional little note to this, since we've become privy to certain individuals questioning why we have to do damage control. The simple answer? Not because of us, I'll tell you that now. Kolink himself, has made bad calls in the past. I've already mentioned this in the other thread - there are certain things out there that exist solely to display the bad calls / things that he has done. That is something that cannot be overlooked as part of why we're doing this, but it's still NOT the primary reason. The main reason his mess-ups were "so big" is because he's the owner of the site, but I assure you, the things that he did are very MINOR in comparison to what someone else did. I can't name them, I really, sincerely wish I could - I'd love to make public every last damned thing they did to the userbase (and us), and give you the name to attribute it to =/ But for certain concerns that I have upon doing so, I can't. Not yet, at least. This person banned people, for what reasons we attempted to find... Simply were not there. They screamed at people in Group Mic Chats for questioning why they had tickets that were months old in the support centre. They screwed up communication so badly, that we didn't dare to do anything with the suggestions forum on PF1. They complained that they weren't being approached with anything that we needed help with, despite hardly ever answering questions that we DID go to them with. That one person screwed us up so badly, that beyond a year after they were kicked out? We're STILL fixing the crap that they did. This right here, is us basically stepping up our game to get it all fixed. We're tired of sitting in the dark and trying to assure people "We're not the bad guys". It's about time we stopped simply saying it, and we started making sure that you could see it for yourself. Perhaps in the future, we'll be able to give more information - the person's username (at that time), and actually capable of going in-depth on what was done. It would probably help explain a LOT of the stuff that's happened in the past... But for now, this will have to do.

This is a final note to inform people that this is now live. This entire idea is now functioning and in-place.

Ohai, don't mind me. Just want to point out something about how we operate on certain things. Sometimes, we need to get your attention. Like, if it's really important. After having had our PMs ignored almost consistently in the past, we've found that the best way to get your attention is to lock your account until you reply to us. Therefore, if you see someone on ModWatch who has been locked indefinitely from the site, but their reason hasn't been made public as described in the posts above, chances are they're not in trouble, we just really need to talk to them right now. Okay? So just relax, chill out and be groovy ;)