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