Wizards Den Banning Policy

Definitions

• Indefinite: Refers to a ban with no defined end time. This type of ban generally requires a successful appeal for it to be removed. Indefinite bans which have no extra requirements may be called appeal bans.
• Voucher: Confirmation from a member of the admin team of another well known SS14 or SS13 server that you have played on that server for a significant amount of time without any recent major issues. A voucher is required when appealing a voucher ban.
• Voucher ban: A ban which requires a voucher to appeal. These bans can also typically only be appealed after at least 6 months from the date of the ban. They are often used as an alternative to a permanent ban that allows players to return if they can demonstrate an ability to follow a server’s rules.
• Warning: A warning is a clear communication from an admin that some behavior is not acceptable. Warnings should always be paired with an account note making note of the warning and behavior.
• Permanent ban: A ban which cannot be appealed. These bans are sometimes called perma bans.
• Game ban: A ban from the servers. A player who is game banned cannot connect to the servers during the ban.
• Role ban: A ban from a specific role or roles.
• Ban evasion: Attempting to circumvent an active ban.

Special Banning Requirements

Permanent Bans

Permanent bans should typically only be placed as the result of an unsuccessful appeal of an indefinite ban or a voucher ban. Except for cases of ban evasion after an accepted voucher ban, a vote by the admin team is required to place a permanent ban. Placing a permanent ban may be an option in a vote for the appeal. It is recommended that any indefinite ban after a prior voucher ban within 6 months of the date of the current ban be upgraded to a permanent ban.

Voucher Bans

Voucher bans should typically only be placed as the result of an unsuccessful appeal of an indefinite ban. Except for cases of ban evasion, a vote by the admin team is required to place a voucher ban. Placing a voucher ban may be an option in a vote for the appeal. Unless the prior indefinite bans were solely for contacting the player, it is recommended that any indefinite ban after a prior indefinite ban within 6 months of the date of the current ban be upgraded to a voucher ban.

Banning Guidelines

Evading AHelp

A player is considered to have evaded an ahelp if:

• They disconnect almost immediately after breaking a rule or after being arrested/killed for breaking a rule.
• They disconnect during an ahelp where they should have reasonably believed the administrator was investigating an issue that they contributed to or were suspected of contributing to.
• Without responding, they continue to play after receiving at least 2 reasonably spaced ahelp messages asking them a question since their last response.
• They do not respond at least 5 minutes after receiving at least 2 reasonably spaced ahelp messages asking them a question since their last response.

If a player evades an ahelp:

• Their ban should be extended by at least 7 days.
• Their ban may be extended up to indefinite.
• If their ban is extended, it must include an instruction to appeal to explain the situation or continue the ahelp.

Ban reasons

In most cases, ban reasons should clearly communicate the reason for the ban to the banned player whenever they are not evading a ban. Admins should be able to easily identify the reason for a ban through either the ban or account’s notes.

Alternate account bans should typically be in the form Alt of OriginalUsername or AltUsername alt of OriginalUsername.

Bans of additional non-username information should typically include another ban on the GUID of the targeted player and should have a reason with just the account username. The earliest placed ban’s reason will appear for the player when trying to connect.

Offense Table

Modifiers Table

Grouping and Stacking

• When separate offenses occur, the suggested time should be determined by summing the suggestions for each separate offense.
• Offenses across multiple rounds can always be treated as separate offenses, but are not required to be.
• Offenses within the same round are “grouped”, and not separate offenses if there is no relevant ahelp between them¹⁴ and if any of the following are true:
  • the offenses are non-grouping and one is necessary for the other to have occurred, or
  • the offenses are in the same grouping category.
• Grouped offenses should use the guideline for the most specific offense.

Role Ban Rounding

The total time of a role ban may be rounded to the nearest available autofill.

Examples

AME Sabotage

A technical assistant sets the AME to 50. Their offenses are:

• Self antag
• Station sabotage
• Unreasonable incompetence in role Self antag and station sabotage are part of the same grouping category, so are treated as only station sabotage. Both remaining offenses can have the new player modifier applied if the player is new to the game, which would allow the offenses to result in only a warning and an instruction to read the rules. The station sabotage offense may optionally have the role specific modifier applied. Any of the following total suggestions are valid:
• With new player modifier
  • W - 3d GB + W - 7d RB
• With role specific modifier
  • W - 3d GB + W - 13d RB if the role ban is applied in addition to the game ban, or
  • W - 13d RB if the role ban is applied as an alternative

RDM + Lying

A player RDMs another. When asked why they killed the other player, they say they haven’t done anything all round other than walk around, despite having just beaten the victim to death with a bat. Their offenses are:

• 1x RDM

The lying in ahelp modifier applies. The resulting guideline is:

• 36hr - 4.5d GB

Over escalation with history of issues

A player over escalates in a way unlikely to result in the victim’s round removal. They have a prior offense of RDM, a prior offense of self-antagging, and a prior offense of griefing the arrivals terminal. They have no prior bans. The offenses in this case are:

• 1x over escalation

No modifiers apply. Only the prior RDM offense is relevant because it is the only one in the same grouping category. The prior RDM offense means that for the current over escalation incident, second offense guidelines are used.

Appeals

Appeals of Mistaken Bans

Unless the ban was an upgrade resulting from an unsucessful appeal, if an appeal disputes the events which were used to justify the ban, the first appeal of a voucher or permanent ban may only be declined after it has been verified that it was appropriately placed.

Appeal Hijacking

If an appeal is currently being processed by someone, it is generally best to let them finish processing the it. Cases where it may be acceptable to “hijack” an appeal are:

• the processor has not responded to the appeal recently,
• the processor has somehow indicated that they are not going to process the appeal, or
• a head game admin has told you that you can process the appeal.

Processing by Trial Admins

Trial admins may only process appeals if each action they take, excluding internal discussions, is checked and approved by a supervising propermin before being taken. Supervising propermins are responsible for ensuring that the appeals are processed appropriately, including ensuring that the trialmin performs appropriate investigation of the ban if they are also performing that part of the processing.

Appeal Procedure

Standard Procedure

1. Check appeal format.
2. Checking for ban evasion and denying the appeal if it is found is highly recommended, but not required.
3. If you placed the ban, you can not continue processing the appeal.
4. Collect information
   1. Check the player’s history of appeals.
   2. Make a reasonable attempt to verify any claims made in the appeal by the player, or accept them to be true.
   3. Check the player’s note and ban history.
   4. Reading the ahelp that led to the ban is highly recommended.
   5. Attempt to contact the banning admin.
   6. Ask the player questions that are important for the processing of the appeal.
   7. Attempt to allow the player to respond to information which will be considered in the appeal that it would be unfair to not allow them the opportunity to address.
5. Run a vote
   • An attempt to contact the banning admin must have been made prior to starting a vote. A ping in #game-admin-appeals-meta notifying them about the appeal and 24 hours of time to respond is considered to be a sufficient attempt.
   • Votes must run at least 24 hours unless the net vote criteria is met.
   • Votes must not be closed if there is ongoing discussion unless the net vote criteria is met.
   • Votes must be made in one of the designated internal appeals discussion channels.
   • Votes should present as much relevant information as possible.
   • Votes should indicate if the ban is within guidelines, preferably by presenting the guideline range for the ban.
6. If the result is to upgrade the ban, deny the appeal and inform the player of the upgrade on the appeal’s thread. The player must be told how and when they can appeal again, or explicitly that they cannot appeal again.
7. If the result is to deny the appeal, deny the appeal.
   • The player should be told when they can re-appeal. This should typically be double the time they were given for the last appeal for the same ban, or two weeks if there was no prior appeal for the same ban.
8. Check for ban evasion and deny the appeal if it is found.
9. If the result is to reduce the ban, replace the ban with a ban with the reduced length, tell the player the details of the reduction, and mark the appeal as accepted.
10. If the result is to remove the ban, tell the player that the appeal has been accepted and accept the appeal.

Net Vote Expedited Processing

This is an optional expedition to votes done under the standard procedure that can be used at the discretion of the processing admin.

Net votes cannot result in an upgrade to a voucher ban or to a permanent ban.

If an appeal is being processed using the standard procedure, votes can be processed earlier than 24 hours, even if discussion is ongoing. To do this, the vote must have at least 10 “net votes” for the winning option. Net votes are only possible when all vote options which affect the outcome of the appeal are distinct rather than on a spectrum. Distinct options are ones where voters are unlikely to be equally in favor of multiple options. Remove/reduce/deny and Remove/reduce/voucher votes are both considered to have only distinct options. A vote with multiple options for how long to reduce a ban to is not considered distinct, even if each option is split into its own yes/no vote. This means that a Remove/reduce/deny vote cannot be processed early if there is also an ongoing vote for the reduction time, even if they are separate votes, unless the net vote is to remove the ban or deny the appeal.

To calculate the number of net votes, subtract the total number of votes for all other options from the winning option. The processing admin’s vote can be included. Staging votes, votes made to make an option easily available for voters, can not be included.

Net Vote Examples

In these examples, the vote numbers are remove/reduce/voucher.

• 4/5/2 = no positive net votes, can not process based on net votes
• 2/6/2 = 2 net votes for reduce, can not process based on net votes because the threshold has not been met
• 3/1/1 = 1 net vote for remove, can not process based on net votes because the threshold has not been met
• 0/0/5 = 5 net votes for voucher, can not process based on net votes because the threshold has not been met and the winning option is to voucher
• 10/0/15 = 5 net votes for voucher, can not process based on net votes because the threshold has not been met and the winning option is to voucher
• 14/0/3 = 11 net votes for remove, qualifies for expedited processing due to net votes

Speedy Appeal Procedure

This is an optional alternate procedure that can be used at the discretion of the processing admin if at least one of the criteria are met:

• the ban is a temporary ban and the player indicated on the appeal that they are ok with it being processed without a vote,
• the ban length is less than or equal to 14 days,
• this appeal is older than 7 days and no other admin is handling the appeal, or
• the result of the appeal is obvious.
  • Similar appeals of bans for similar situations are almost always accepted.
  • So little effort was made in the appeal, that it is improbable it would be accepted.

The speedy appeal procedure does not allow upgrades to voucher or permanent bans due to the voting requirement those bans have.

1. Check appeal format.
2. Checking for ban evasion and denying the appeal if it is found is highly recommended, but not required.
3. If you placed the ban, you can not continue processing the appeal.
4. Collect information
   1. Check the player’s history of appeals.
   2. Make a reasonable attempt to verify any claims made in the appeal by the player, or accept them to be true.
   3. Check the player’s note and ban history.
   4. Reading the ahelp that led to the ban is highly recommended.
   5. Attempt to contact the banning admin.
   6. Ask the player questions that are important for the processing of the appeal.
   7. Attempt to allow the player to respond to information which will be considered in the appeal that it would be unfair to not allow them the opportunity to address.
5. Make a determination on the desired outcome, then use #game-admin-appeals-meta to find another admin that agrees with processing it using that speedy outcome.
   • The second admin must not be the banning admin.
   • The second admin must agree with both the outcome of the appeal and with the decision to use the speedy appeal procedure.
   • If you are aware of any admin who disagrees with your proposed outcome or with the decision to use the speedy appeal procedure, a hidden post must be made on the appeal itself indicating that speedy processing is contested, and the appeal must be processed using the standard procedure.
6. If the result is to deny the appeal, deny the appeal.
   • The player should be told when they can re-appeal. This should typically be double the time they were given for the last appeal for the same ban, or two weeks if there was no prior appeal for the same ban.
   • Use the “Speedy Appeal” saved action to notify the player of the process that was used.
7. Check for ban evasion and deny the appeal if it is found.
8. If the result is to reduce the ban, replace the ban with a ban with the reduced length, tell the player the details of the reduction, and mark the appeal as accepted.
   • Use the “Speedy Appeal” saved action to notify the player of the process that was used.
9. If the result is to remove the ban, tell the player that the appeal has been accepted and accept the appeal.
   • If the appeal was processed using the speedy appeal process and the ban time was within guidelines, you must be able to articulate why the appeal was accepted and should do this on the appeal itself.