Nexus
Site Support
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Moderation System Revision
As you may or may not be aware, Stratics has long used a point system for issuing warnings to community members who are disruptive and violate the Rules of Conduct and Terms of Service. This system has been tweaked and changed throughout the years, but has never been clearly and transparently available for all users to read and understand where they stand at any given time. We’ve been reviewing this system and found that in the majority of cases it does not lead to any lasting resolution for even the most consistent rules offenders. In the past we’ve bent over backwards to try to be fair for the individual being warned, but what we’ve typically failed to consider is how much disruption, rule breaking and general antisocial behavior is fair to expose the remainder of the community to. With this firmly in mind we have revisited the moderation system and discussed at great length a system that will be open and transparent, as well fair for all parties involved.
Previously the moderation system used a tiered system of weighted warnings--trolling would result in 5 points, for example--and as the offenses became more serious the weight would increase. When a user reached 125 points in a year’s time they would receive a permanent ban from Stratics, with several short temporary ban periods of 1 day, 2 days, and 3 days at 25, 50, and 75 points respectively. This would allow a user to be warned up to 25 times for some behaviors which violate our Rules of Conduct, something we feel is far too lenient in light of data we’ve collected and analyzed, and feedback we’ve received from a number of community members.
The collected data shows that between Jan 1[sup]st[/sup], and the time we began collecting information, 97 warnings had been handed out by Moderators to individuals with active accounts. Of individuals with any active warning points roughly 60% of all warnings that were issued went to the same 8 individuals, with the remainder being distributed among 48 other community members. This only served to further reinforce the suspicion that our Moderation System was ineffective and needed to be addressed due to a clear lack of resolution for habitual rule breaking.
Beginning after a Maintenance Downtime on May 12[sup]th[/sup], 2016 we will be switching to a revised system for moderation. This system will use the following format:
Each of the following warnings will result in 1 point applied to the user's account.
- Trolling
- Trade Forum Bumps Rule
- Sale Duration Violation
- Number of Auctions/Sales
- Inappropriate Language/Circumventing Profanity Filter
- Advertising (Not Spam)
- Discussing Moderator Actions
Each of the following warnings will result in 2 points applied to the user's account:
- Misuse of Alternate User Account
- Disallowed 3rd Party Content
- Posting Bugs / Exploits
- Ignoring Mod / Admin Warnings
- Player to Player Real Currency Sales
- Personal Attacks
- Posting Private Messages
- Inappropriate Username
The following, more severe warnings will result in 10 points being applied to the user's account, triggering an immediate ban (all bans will be reviewed by the administrative staff, please see below):
- Posting of Personal Information
- Evading Temporary Ban
- Threats to Cause Physical or Mental Harm
- Spammed Advertisements (bots)
- Uploading or Linking to a Virus
- Malicious Attack / Threatening to Hack Forums or Otherwise Harm the Site
- Evading Permanent Ban
- Racist or Pornographic Posts
- Leaking of Content covered by an NDA agreement without permission
When a user has a total of 1, 2, or 3 points, they will not receive any suspension of service.
At 4 points, a user will automatically receive a 3-day suspension.
At 6 points, a user will automatically receive a 7-day suspension.
At 8 points, a user will automatically receive a 30-day suspension.
At 10 points, a user will automatically receive a permanent ban.
All permanent bans will be reviewed by the administrative staff. For bans initiated for the most egregious, 10-point offenses (with the exception of spam bots), this review will happen after the ban has been given for the purpose of determining if it was done in error and should be lifted. If a 1 or 2-point item will trigger a permanent ban, the review will occur prior to the ban being put into effect. As always, a community member may request a review of any moderation action by emailing [email protected], or by contacting a member of the moderation team.
Warning points will expire after a 1 calendar year from the date they were received.
Trade forum specific rules will be handled at the discretion of the Moderators, making use of thread bans, locking threads etc. in addition to or at times as an alternative to the point system. For other areas of the forums, discretion by the moderators may occur, but this will be solely based on the warning history of a users account.
We will also be wiping all currently active points from all accounts. Everyone who currently is not banned from Stratics is starting with a clean slate. It has also come to our attention that users who have turned off their email notifications, currently do not receive a notice if they receive a temporary or permanent banning, and are unable to read the private message sent to their account once the ban takes place. To counter this, we will be installing a system which will bypass this setting and send an email notification only if a ban occurs as a result of a warning being issued. This system will also allow users to View the warnings they receive from the time this system goes in place via a tab on their profile, in addition all warnings will include a point total being sent to the user via PM.
Finally a few clarifications will be added to the Rules of Conduct to better define specific rules in order to help prevent confusion. We would like you all to take the time once the forums are active again to review the Rules of Conduct.
As always we'd like to remind the community if they wish to become a volunteer here at Stratics they may do so by sending in an application using the link in the Sidebar. Currently we are looking specifically for additional Moderators, Event Planning Staff, and Reporters.