[TheUltraFish]

It has been about a month since the test has been started on how to handle third party ghosting on the PH server.


Now I want to see what you all think since everyone has either had time to use the new guidelines or seen them in action.


Previous protocol that is still written in the Staff Guidelines is:

1. Forceswap to the same team (for at least a map)
2. Ban for 2 weeks
3. Permanent Ban



Pros: 
[*]The ghosting stopped and everyone on the server knew who the ghosters were or could be even if the staff had to leave.
[*]Did not clog up the forums with PH ghosting ban requests (guidelines for swapping ghosters first was put in place before locked and archived ban threads were a thing on the forums used to be an immediate 2 week ban)
[*]Ensures that proper ghosting evidence is achieved before the swap


Cons: 

• Players caught ghosting could argue the swapping in front of the entire server creating hostility throughout the server
  
• Users thought it was pointless to submit ban requests since most of the time they would get an answer similar to: "We do not ban 1st time ghosters, but we have added them to a watchlist so we can get them next time."
  
• Staff members were stuck babysitting players who wanted to ghost and would try to continue at a later time or after the staff left. Also having to watch potential ghosters was mentally trying at times if there were multiple groups along with everything else on the server.
  

[*]

With the new method, the new Staff Guidelines for ghosting via 3rd party would be like:
1. Ban for 24 hours
2. Ban for 2 weeks
3. Permanent Ban

Pros:

• Immediately gets rid of the ghosters.
  
• Encourages reporting by community members to get faster, more satisfying results
  
• Has trusted still get used to gathering ghosting evidence and has them get used to using the forums
  

[*]
Possible Cons:

• Staff could be seen as ban happy
  
• Could more easily be abused by staff in the future just to get rid of someone
  
• Could clog up the forums if ban requests remain unanswered by upper PH staff
  
• I don't know all the cons I had to stretch to figure out three which is why this is a community discussion
  

[*]

Some may be asking, "but Fish, why don't we just revert back to the 2 week ban like before?" The main reason being, a first time offense resulting in a 2 week ban seems a bit long for me. Most other punishments have shorter length bans before they get to week long bans if not permanent bans. This is of course making the exception of harassment, extreme toxicity, ddos, and hacking where most bans are immediately long if not permanent. 

        
The voting will be simple, vote for the one you like and discuss whether if you approve or disapprove of the possible change.

[La Flama Blanca]

One concern that I have with the immediate jump to the ban is that there is inherently a higher evidentiary burden required to conduct a ban rather than a mere team swap.

It is true that staff members should always be trying to get a plethora of evidence before conducting any action against swapping, but that is not always easy to do. No one wants to ban someone by mistake, so staff members may end up being overly cautious when the initial punishment is an immediate jump to a ban. That could leave more ghosting players on the server and reduce staff responsiveness to the issue. The simpler team swap option, however, could have potentially little to no impact on the alleged ghosters in the event that it was done so by mistake. If the forceswap is done after the alleged ghosters are already dead, then they will miss no rounds, but will just be stuck "doubling up" on either a prop round or hunter round. Not that big of a deal.

I know that when the alleged ghosters then try to argue or swap themselves back onto the other team, my suspicion raises significantly. These actions are highly suggestive of ghosting, and could make a ban more warranted as they would then be directly disobeying staff actions.

Anyways, just my initial thoughts while I was reading through this.

[TheUltraFish]

One concern that I have with the immediate jump to the ban is that there is inherently a higher evidentiary burden required to conduct a ban rather than a mere team swap.

It is true that staff members should always be trying to get a plethora of evidence before conducting any action against swapping, but that is not always easy to do. No one wants to ban someone by mistake, so staff members may end up being overly cautious when the initial punishment is an immediate jump to a ban. That could leave more ghosting players on the server and reduce staff responsiveness to the issue. The simpler team swap option, however, could have potentially little to no impact on the alleged ghosters in the event that it was done so by mistake. If the forceswap is done after the alleged ghosters are already dead, then they will miss no rounds, but will just be stuck "doubling up" on either a prop round or hunter round. Not that big of a deal.

I know that when the alleged ghosters then try to argue or swap themselves back onto the other team, my suspicion raises significantly. These actions are highly suggestive of ghosting, and could make a ban more warranted as they would then be directly disobeying staff actions.

Anyways, just my initial thoughts while I was reading through this.

Theoretically, the amount of evidence would not change very much if at all. One thing that has been taught on gathering evidence is, if there is an unban request, will the evidence I gathered hold up? The other being, if they would submit an abuse thread against me, would my evidence hold up? If the evidence gathered does not hold up to these standards, the staff member(s) should not proceed with a punishment/ban.

As far as I know, we do not swap people who are allegedly ghosting, we have swapped people in the past that we know are ghosting. Sometimes you only need a round of evidence to make it obvious while others, it takes several if not over a map to collect convincing evidence. Catching ghosters is a by case basis and that should never change. However, something that has not altered is the amount that is needed. If a staff member cannot collect or provide proper evidence then the user would not be banned anyways, how would that change from what currently do? If a staff member cannot collect proper evidence users should not be punished for what they might be doing.

This method is similar to the older way of punishing users. At first, ghosters were permanently banned for ghosting from the beginning of the server to early 2018. When it became more common, the upper staff lowered the initial ban to a 2 week ban in early 2018. The only reason why the forceswap was added to the ban requests clogging up the forums on a near daily basis similar to how TTT rdm has occasionally been known to do. With how the forums are set up now, as long as someone properly archives the ban requests, they should no longer clog up the forums.

Annoyingly, ghosting is a daily issue on Prop Hunt with tools like or similar to Discord being a popular way of doing so. I do not suspect it to change continuing forward.

[Haxune]

Possible Cons:

• Staff could be seen as ban happy
  
• Could more easily be abused by staff in the future just to get rid of someone

I'd like to think we have good staff, and that this wouldnt be an issue. Also a good community for that matter, who would report the staff abuse.

Overall a +1 on these changes from me.

[Ryzif]

I think the new protocol is a bit more useful and fulfilling to those on the server. When I say this I mean that as far as a team swap goes, it's not really a punishment. It's a warning. It's saying that we know you're ghosting and we would like to stop before it escalates. Some people do join the server without information on the subject and we can of course let them know from then and hopefully they will follow the rules. However, there are plenty of people who join with just the sole intention of ruining everyone's fun. A 24 hour ban is a little more of a shock to the system then a team switch. A force swap then two week feels a bit weird now that we've had the new protocol. It's like a massive jump on a punishment whereas if you've been banned for a day already, hopefully you realize this isn't up for discussion. I feel like the day is more useful because it illustrates that we are not backing off our rule. People who are pressed to follow rules and receive the repercussions will always have a resentment for those enforcing the rules. I don't think it will be an issue of people watching staff and thinking they are abusing it or going crazy with it. I'm hoping they will take it seriously when disrupting the community and realize it's their first strike. It will definitely feel more of a first strike then the force swap because of the actual punishment involved with it. Staff of course has to be careful when gathering evidence as was said because some issues aren't always cut and dry. It's hard to say really what is the better strategy because of the pros and cons. If someone does get banned by mistake which I'm sure will be rare but 100% possible. At the very least it was twenty-four hours and not the starting ban of two weeks. I'm not sure, just some thoughts on the matter. I just lack the experience in this specific exchange.

[VolfVoss]

I 100% like the newer procedure of banning the players for 24hrs immediately. 

The immediate action shows the community members but also the violators, that we (the staff) are serious about making the server a fun/enjoyable environment for people to play/relax. 

This method also helps community members feel more comfortable/confident that their efforts in making a ban or pinging staff about issues are being answered swiftly and not just for to swap friends on the same team. I can say that it has been somewhat frustrating to have players report ghosters via ban request then having to say "these players haven't been forceswapped, we'll put them on the list". I believe that this phrase being used so much has caused many players to stop making ban requests because essentially nothing was getting done about the issue. The "action" was adding them to a list, which is not even a slap on the wrist to the violators because they have no idea about it. 



Now onto the staff side of things.

This being implemented has gotten the staff more involved with Ghosting more than I've seen previously. I've seen more community members messaging staff directly about people/problems, and this is fantastic to say the least.  With the new procedure we can finally throw out the  "we'll put them on the list" phrase for the most part.  The forceswap step isn't bad, I feel it just wasn't enough to stop people from ghosting. I'd say easily 65% of the people who were forceswapped reached the 2 week ban. During this test period of having the 24hr ban I didn't find anyone in our watchlist who was banned the 2 weeks for ghosting, and we dished out well over a dozen tbans during the test period. 

I agree that there's a possibility of the staff looking ban crazy, but I'd rather look ban crazy than do nothing while letting people continue to ruin the fun of PH for the players.

[Kina]

I've personally never seen the point of swapping ghosters since the rule was introduced, I get it was to unclog gbans or something along those lines. Swapping them usually didn't stop them from ghosting. An argument can be made that Banning them also wouldn't stop them, but at least it gets them off the server for a day. Also, ban requests flooding the forums? TTT floods them with RDM ban requests (I haven't seen if that is changed if it has).

[Jammin]

Not gonna vote because TTToxicity but I feel that ample warning for no ghosting is given:
1. On the loading page
2. When the MOTD is loaded in

We actually jump right to a two-week ban, albiet ghosting isnt as prevalent in TTT.
I'd recommend just an24h ban, 2 week ban, and Perma. Ghosting soils the integrity of the game.

Again, I don't feel qualified to vote, but logically a ban make sense. It shows the honest playerbase that you guys are serious, and a 24h step allows test mods to also issue first punishment.

Edit: add punishment for calling out ghosters openly though!