ISRP Rules and Rulings Reference (OOC)The place to check for rulings, setting and area updates, seminars, new information, and where to participate in discussions for ISRP rooms changes and improvements.
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Posts: 5
Troubling news
It's come to my attention that certain people are getting banned from Enworld....for simeply talking about another person that was banned from enworld, and worse yet, that others are getting banned because they are suspected of being the same player that was banned. Now I realize there are rules to how you can act here, and what you can say, but from what I've been told, both by the original person that got banned, and the victums, yes I said victums, of the magi's decisions to banned these other people, I find it appualing that the magi have taken up a kind of witch hunt attitude about the banned person and anyone even mentioning them. I'm not saying they shouldn't do their jobs, but they should exercise better judgement in how they handle this matter, and if they cannot....then perhapes this version of ISRP is not as good as we thought it would be.
__________________ When you look at a jester, do you see the fool he makes himself out to be, or the wise man that he really is?
No one will get banned for asking. I explained all of this in the Nexus to Sir Dieterich when he asked to talk to me about things some days past.
We won't discuss the particulars of banning with anyone but the people directly involved. However, I can perhaps explain a bit behind how banning works.
When we come across someone who is disruptive, initially it gets noted as nothing more than a passing situation with soft warnings or some sort of reminder to the individual to pay closer attention to the rules.
When it gets beyond that, we Magi as a group begin to note down each complaint, each incident, with snippets from the screen and sections of the logs to back up each infraction. We can see private messages in the logs as well as open ones. We compile this information in a thread specific to each case in a Magi only section where all of us can see it/check on it each day.
Three chances, excluding reminders or soft warnings, are all any patron gets before having their name removed. Done again, it results in IP banning. The banning of an IP will happen, even if there are multiple people using the identical computer/nexus or what have you, if only one person goes too far. If a patron allows others to use their characters, their computer, or has the ill luck to share a nexus with other patrons who don't care about obeying the rules, they can find that they are *all* banned via the IP.
We don't much like to do this. In the case you all are hearing things about, it went on for months with us trying to avoid having to use the ban. It went too far and we finally had to ban the IP. And the individuals who are banned continously try to find new ways to return to the site despite knowing they are not allowed to.
A note on IPs. We cannot prove, nor disprove a statement that someone else is using a person's computer or character or what have you. Warnings and bannings accrue to the player, not the characters. Multiple players of one character can get that character revoked or the IP banned for everyone. Telling us that multiple people use a character, a computer, or whatnot does not get around infractions of the rule. For the purposes of the rules, we will simply warn whomever is playing and count them all the same. So when the banning occurs, if there really are multiple people, they all suffer the same consequence..even if some of them didn't do anything to merit it.
So don't let others use your characters, don't let them use your computers, or at least don't without your own supervision. If they get themselves banned using your characters under your IP, you get banned too.
Banned patrons may appeal their status after a 6 month period. We are happy to provide this. Some of you will recall that at Wizards an IP ban was permanent and irreversible. Note however, that all attempts to access the site during the 6 month waiting period count against any reinstatement.
The banning was put in place for good reason after giving far more opportunities than we are required to give. The 'hunting' spoken of here isn't quite what may be imagined. When we deal with someone from a disciplinary standpoint for a time, we begin to note certain things typical of this player's style, or we note a new character name with a dessie that is essentially that of the banned character. When we see those on site after a person is banned, we will check to logs to ensure the ban is not being broken. We do our jobs, we use the tools we have to do so, and how we do the job hasn't changed at all since the site was moved from Wizards.. Everyone gets the same treatment, no one gets favored over others.
We aren't going to change the way we run the site. I am not going to rewrite the rules without some very clear and very necessary reason to do so. As we have said before, if this site does not provide the space to do what a person wants, there are others out there that will and we have no problems with people playing on them. I hope this helps explain how we go about banning people.
Bright Blessings
Magi Siani
ISRP Lead
__________________ "There is nothing we can't conquer. We'll have our feet on a ship's deck before the Brotherhood open their ports for the trading season. And then we'll show the world what plundering means!"
Last edited by Magi_Siani; 6th September 2006 at 02:30 PM..
Banned patrons may appeal their status after a 6 month period. We are happy to provide this. Some of you will recall that at Wizards a ban was permanent and irreversible. However, during the 6 month period, each attempt to break the ban counts against any appeal.
I may be mistaken on this, but it was my understanding back on wizards that after a 6 (or 12?) month period any 'strikes' (or 'chances') against a particular player was no longer considered (ie, removed, assuming the player had been good)... at least that was the very vague (and I do state her VERY vague, hence my asking) understanding I was given form the boards at wizards, not sure if it applied to the chat... just wondering if I made that up inside my head or if it did/still does apply? Just checkin' is all
Strikes, yes. That is, warnings. If you get warnings or you've lost a character but have nothing further for 6 months, we start you from scratch, clean slate.
IP bans were something else and always were permanent. I tried on one occasion, with another WizO, to get Wizards to hear appeals on them, but they wouldn't hear of it. These types of bans come about because a person or people simply will not heed the warnings and reminders of the Magi and continuously flaunt the rules and ignore all requests to cease and desist. Often with a great deal of attitude and snickering via PMs to their friends about how we stupidly listen to their excuses. We just treat everyone the same, give everyone the same chances, unless they clearly demonstrate they simply cannot be given such consideration.
The 6 month appeal here was written in because we thought everyone should have a chance to have their case heard and maybe show us that they could indeed play within the rules.
This appeal is only given once however. Someone who manages to get back on site via appeal and then gets banned again isn't given another chance.
As a further note, we don't hunt the logs looking for infractions. If we did there'd be a whole lot more warnings and bannings. We are very well aware of people doing things in violation of the rules when no Magi is about. We only go into the logs when we suspect someone is violating a ban, when there have been complaints about behavior, when we witness an infraction and are securing necessary proof for the other Magi, or when we are on Out of Uniform and note infractions.
Siani
__________________ "There is nothing we can't conquer. We'll have our feet on a ship's deck before the Brotherhood open their ports for the trading season. And then we'll show the world what plundering means!"
Strikes, yes. That is, warnings. If you get warnings or you've lost a character but have nothing further for 6 months, we start you from scratch, clean slate.
Cool, thats all I wanted to know Curiousity satisfied.
That way we can look into it and if there was some misunderstanding etc correct it, or at least discuss the specifics of the case with you. Which we can't do on public boards.
__________________ "The Secret of Steel had always carried with it a mystery, you must learn its secret, you must learn its discipline, for no one, on one on this earth can you trust, not men, not women, not beasts"
That way we can look into it and if there was some misunderstanding etc correct it, or at least discuss the specifics of the case with you. Which we can't do on public boards.
i cant believe they are actually doing this it boils me up to hear this.....those magi's need to straigten up soon or no one wouldnt want to be on isrp..magies if you read this STRAIGHTEN UP
If you've figured out a way to send baked goods through e-mail, sure!
*preps "detect poison" just in case :-) *
Also, about the policy of not discussing the specifics of a ban or warning with anyone other than the person: the intent of this is to keep people from being harassed by other players when a warning has not resulted in a ban, or when a ban has been revoked, so that they come in without getting flack for it.
Unfortunately, if someone really doesn't understand why they were banned, they may give out the impression that they were banned for no or little reason. We can't correct that to anyone other than the actual person. If people are still confused, please try to phrase specific questions in general terms, without naming names. I know, that's very hard to do. :-(
You can also try re-reading the section of the CoC on banning where it explains relevant information such that you can't bring back a char that is a replacement a banned char. This also means others may suffer, because if for instance a character named "FreddytheFrog" is banned then we can't allow anyone, even another player, to make a char called "FrogFreddy". If the other person is really a different player, they won't get any warning or ban for doing so, but they do have to pick another char name.
i cant believe they are actually doing this it boils me up to hear this.....those magi's need to straigten up soon or no one wouldnt want to be on isrp..magies if you read this STRAIGHTEN UP
May I suggest you read the Magi responses? We are not doing what we're accused of in the first post.
I would just like to say I think the Magi are doing an excellent job of things here. They are trying to make game play better for all of us. And if that means banning people who are breaking the rules and ruining the fun for the rest of us then it needs to be done.
I know at times it is hard to understand why a good friend might have gotten banned and you may not agree with it. but just sit back and try to look at the situation. Try to see if you might notice anything in the banned person's way of rping that may have caused it, or if they did anything that might have warrented the ban.
Yeah Banning sucks, but it's for a reason. I had a character banned many years ago back when the site was TSR still I believe, by Rexx for something another character did that broke the rules, who I had happened to be rping with, was my character warrented of being banned? maybe cause I didn't do anything to stop it the incident from occuring. But after the incident I spoke to Rexx over IMs about it and we both saw the error of things. I wasn't mad, I didn't go around saying ill things about Rexx, he did what he was suppose to do and I was just at the time naive about things on the site and the person I had been rping with, I found out from others it was some one who had other characters banned and been in trouble in the past. I learned my lesson well.
Now the only time a ban really stinks is when you share a network, with another player that is banned like when people are on DSL/Lan networks in the same house, apartment complex or colleges. I may be wrong (probably am) in this but I was once told that DSL lines into a house carry the same ISP address for all computers on it.
Off topic as this may be, I feel the need to say something about this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sangi
Now I realize there are rules to how you can act here, and what you can say, but from what I've been told, both by the original person that got banned, and the victums, yes I said victums, of the magi's decisions to banned these other people, I find it appualing that the magi have taken up a kind of witch hunt attitude about the banned person and anyone even mentioning them.
In the age of means of disguising one's IP address, individuals who go to all lengths to cause havoc on a site that actually has rules and limitations, and knowing the history of another case that had gone to the length of IP banning back on Wizards, this situation had to have earned such a reaction from the Magi. It isn't done lightly, even as a civilian I can assure you of this.
Without knowing the context, I can see points where 'mentioning' the banned character could warrant action. Advise them to take up their cases individually if there truthfully is a case of mistaken identity not involving their own actions. This 'witch hunt' attitude you insuate is pattently false. The Magi pursue those who earn punishments and refuse to play within the rules of the site. They do not go after innocents typing at the top of their wrists "Ban the witch!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by shistal
i cant believe they are actually doing this it boils me up to hear this.....those magi's need to straigten up soon or no one wouldnt want to be on isrp..magies if you read this STRAIGHTEN UP
This attitude troubles me. That individuals can be so willing to assume that those in authoritative positions are abusing their power without any hard proof in favor of such a viewpoint, while throwing that opinion in the face of valid proof that they have done no such thing... it doesn't sit well with me.
If you think that the Magi enjoy banning characters, you are incorrect. If you think that Magi enjoy issuing IP bans, you are incorrect. If you think that Magi enjoy being accused of underhanded backdooring of said bans, you are incorrect.
As Siani described, in great detail, it takes a lot more than a mistake or an accident to earn that sort of punishment. None of these things are done lightly, and the Magi certainly don't deserve to characterized as cold hearted dictators for showing as much leniency as they actually show.
__________________ Head Developer of the upcoming Veghinix RPG System. Follow the link below to participate in the development of a new RPG.
...behave yourself and don't do things to get yourself thrown over Gabe's knee and spanked for. With Siani holding the spanking stick and Nash and Tre taking pictures for later, no doubt evil, uses.
Seems like a lot of people are just throwing a lot of things from proportion. Most of this seems to be speculated rumour-mongering (and no one likes a mongerer...) but really, if they'd read the CoC and spoken to the Magi about any issues surrounding the ban, then they don't have too much to really complain about. *shrugs*
The way I see it, we've been here a year. It's been incredibly stressful, not just for the players but especially for the Magi who have had to get used to new software as 'moderator' figureheads. We've come to a brand new roleplay site where countless other people who weren't perhaps Wiz frequenters are now taking notice of our chat rooms and trying to get settled too. Like Drina said, they're doing a fine and grand job and maybe this sort of witch hunt (as per Sangi said...) from us players isn't going to help anyone.
...so I think my point is; it's between the Magi and the people with bans, not us to howl and harp around them. Let them do their jobs.
...behave yourself and don't do things to get yourself thrown over Gabe's knee and spanked for. With Siani holding the spanking stick and Nash and Tre taking pictures for later, no doubt evil, uses.
Seems like a lot of people are just throwing a lot of things from proportion. Most of this seems to be speculated rumour-mongering (and no one likes a mongerer...) but really, if they'd read the CoC and spoken to the Magi about any issues surrounding the ban, then they don't have too much to really complain about. *shrugs*
The way I see it, we've been here a year. It's been incredibly stressful, not just for the players but especially for the Magi who have had to get used to new software as 'moderator' figureheads. We've come to a brand new roleplay site where countless other people who weren't perhaps Wiz frequenters are now taking notice of our chat rooms and trying to get settled too. Like Drina said, they're doing a fine and grand job and maybe this sort of witch hunt (as per Sangi said...) from us players isn't going to help anyone.
...so I think my point is; it's between the Magi and the people with bans, not us to howl and harp around them. Let them do their jobs.
Location: The land of red-line shifts and palmettos
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*wants baked goods, too!*
Anyway, I have to say that I agree with Bhrynnie and the others...even though I've probably come close to pushing it myself. (Which I'm trying to work on!)
Keep it clean, guys. There's no need in debating an iron clad decision...it's done. What the Magi say, goes. No amount of bitching is gonna change the answer.
__________________ I believe that no matter how hard you try, you cannot baptize a cat.
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I am convinced that you can say ANYTHING about ANYBODY, as long as you say "Bless their heart" at the end.
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Okay, guys, I've been asking around and there are some really bizarre rumours out there.
(1) The Magi banned 36 players at once.
We haven't banned even a dozen players since we've been on EN World! It's technically possible for 36 players to get banned at once, if for instance a dorm full of ISRPers were sharing the same IP address and one of them got IP-banned. But it's not that those people would have been banned, just that one player. We ban individuals, not groups, but there's no way around the shared-IP problem. It's also possible this got confused with 36 characters because many people play a great number of chars and if they're banned then all of the characters are forfeit.
(2) Someone got banned for arguing with the Magi on behalf of a friend.
No one gets banned, or even a warning, for arguing with the Magi! They would only get in trouble if it wasn't just arguing, but also refusing to comply with a Magi who's asking them to stick to the rules. If you think the Magi is out of line, obey them for now and send us an e-mail to protest. Also, no one gets warned or banned for bad-mouthing the Magi to others, either. But they could get a warning for telling other people to break the rules as a protest.
We ban for Code of Conduct violations: spamming, room violations, cybering, profanity, etc. Hells, we don't even usually ban for those, we give warnings. Only if someone has repeatedly broken serious rules, and after repeated warnings, do we ban the player.
(3) Someone got banned because the Magi thought it was a banned player.
This could happen. When a player is banned, they lose every character that can be identified as having been played by them. It doesn't matter that they've been sharing the characters with others. And they're not allowed to come back under any character name at all until the ban has been lifted. If we have good and concrete reasons to believe that a particular character is being used by a banned player, even it is also someone else's character, then that character could be forfeit. Moral of the story: Do Not Let Other People Play Your Characters.
But even then, it wouldn't be a ban or warning against the player themselves unless it was that they knowingly let a banned player back on site by letting them use a character or creating a new character for them. That's a no-no.
If people hear other rumours that they want to question, send an e-mail to ISRPmagi@gmail.com and we'll try to straighten things out, as long as we can do it without going into details on any particular person's warning or ban.
EDIT: to add e-mail info
Last edited by Magi_Trelian; 7th September 2006 at 03:39 PM..
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