[Henry]

Staff discretion is already in effect. There are many instances where staff discretion has prevented players from receiving an "escalated ban." Everything is done in a case by case basis. No two instances are the same. Players playing for only a few days doesn't mean they'll keep playing. Also, there is a reason why permanent bans are called indefinite bans. They can be appealed (not including players banned for cheating). Players consenting to fight each other is not RDM. Context is also very important, and is taken into account, which is the reason for death cams. 

Here's the staff guidelines
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qJLp...o6d3Q/edit

In which case, that's great, and exactly what I want, but that is not immediately apparent and I feel some recent bans fail to take context into account. I would still very much like to see ban time reduced so that "indefinite" isn't the default and I would like to see more leniency for returning players. I also think that though the rules and guidelines say that the rules should be applied consistently between players, I still think its obvious to most regulars that they are not applied evenly in practice, but that most often these occur when staff are offline. I think its worth encouraging a culture of reporting all rulebreakers, since right now it seems more common for donors and regulars to get away with a fair amount before any sort of ban request is filled out, and new members can be reported and banned almost immediately.

[Cyrus]

After reading guidelines, I think it's honestly VERY strange how this server treats punishments regarding RDM in comparison to EVERY single other punishment
For those who don't want to go through the document, here's the ban escalation for other punishments

False Reporting/Lying in Reports:
Warning, Slay, Slay, Kick, Ban
MetaGaming/Teaming:
Waring, 12 hour ban, 1 day ban, (discretion beyond this), Teaming:2 week, perma
Ghosting:
Warning, 1 week, 2 week, (discretion beyond)
"Severe Ghosting":
2 Week, perma
Mic Spam:
Short gag, round gag, kick, 1 day bam
Hacking:
Perm
Racism/Sexism/Derogatory Language:
Warning, Warning / gag full round, day ban, (discretion beyond)
Exploiting:
Warning, warning + kick, 1 day ban, 1week+ ban
Trolling/Flaming/Harassing
Warning+Gag, 1 day ban, 3 day ban, 1 week or perma ban

And.. here's RDM ban escalation:
One slay, 2 slay, Perma ban (shorter ban for rdm and leave for some reason, yet no variation on punishment for "mass rdm")


There are a few more punishments for different types of minor griefing (not related to rdm) but those are all more minor issues/punishments.

My main confusion with this is that some grief/minge that could honestly be considered less damaging than a bit of RDM has much more room for punishment and room overall. Someone continually ghosting is far more damaging than an RDMer, and yet the punishment is far less severe? Same with metagming and teaming, and micspam which arguably affects far more players, or maybe even the fact that being racist or sexist affords you far more chances than killing someone? I don't know about you but it's a bit strange that punishments are more harsh on someone who RDMs than someone who wants to continually say the n word, be misogynistic, or harass someone.

And no, I'm not saying that all other punishments should be scaled up and RDM should become similar to the current punishments. I'm just saying that I think it's not very great that one of the most common forms of rule breaking is the most heavily punished and has very little overall escalation in terms of banning. I think that the escalation should be similar or match what currently exists in the rules for all other rules. If banning someone for 1 week or 2 weeks for ghosting/teaming/harassing gets the job done and will reduce griefing, why wouldn't a 1 week or 2 week ban for RDM/Mass RDM fall into the same situation? If someone wasn't going to rejoin after their initial temp ban, then it'll most likely get the same job done as a perma ban while allowing players who WANT to actually play the ability to come back without having to wait for a ban appeal, post on a forum, etc, especially when all other punishments don't really require that.

[Sempers]

mass RDM should be a 2 week ban

change my mind

+1

I'm all for a temp ban on people who made a mistake, but overall do want to come back to the server such as @Cyrus here. But however, for the people who join and then just start blasting, should stay at a permaban. 

With what @Henry said about Donors queuing racist stuff, I too have not seen any of that (Granted I did just kinda sorta come back from a break). But if you do see more of that, please do record it. But with what you said about staff showing more leniency toward Regulars and Donors, I unfortunately have seen some of that. Personally I try to be unbiased as I possibly can when it comes to anything on the server, whether it's mic-spamming, RDMing, trolling, etc. Guests, Members, Masters, Regulars, Donors, and Staff should be held to the same standards. But as other people have stated is that there's a whole lot of grey area and staff members will handle things differently. Like what might be mic-spamming to me, might not be to someone else, and so on. Every situation is different and everyone's opinion is different.

[Loon]

I think it would be pertinent to make bans and other punishments a little more consistent and newbie friendly. A major issue I see is that a player can come one, play for a few days, screw up once, and get a perma ban. Its one thing if its a guest who has joined the server for the first time and decides to rdm, but a player who returns to the server to play and breaks a single rule is liable for a permanent ban given how things are being enforced right now. This thread for example https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho...?tid=12439 the player had been around for a few days and received a permanent ban from one report for killing nobody. We don't have a sliding scale for bans, there's no sensitivity to what kind of player it is, absolutely nothing, the only people who have any lenience are our donors. The threshold for who deserves a ban is so low, it needs to be higher. We shouldn't be banning people who have been around for even a few days, those players aren't likely to be mass rdmers and it drives people away. New players are not likely to appeal to be in the server if they don't have any investment yet, and we don't want to be driving players away who make small mistakes, players don't want to invest in a server if they're going to be banned as soon as someone sees them make one mistake. I'm not saying we necessarily need to stop punishing these kinds of players, but I don't think a ban (permanent or otherwise) should be our first choice. I think the player in that thread should well have just received 3 slays rather than a perma ban. And if it happens again then maybe a temp or permanent ban can be considered, but its evident that was a player that may have actually invested in the server if he weren't immediately banned.

I also think that ban requests should have at least a little required context, because everyone knows when staff are off there can be a fair amount of RDM happening from the majority of online players, so if someone kills an inno while an inno during a prop battle between a number of users, should that really be considered as evidence?

And please, if you take issue with what I said about my example, read the rest, comment on that, because my point isn't about the specifics of that example, its about general rules that might well apply to that example. Also please respond specifically to the rules I think would be useful to the "integrity" of my argument, since people seem to think that my next point cannot coincide with my previous point.

---

I think its especially important that we have some consistent rules that take into account the context of the action. I also think we need some more consistent application of rules for donors. We get people who join and spam the N word, yes they eventually get banned, but donors queue racist stuff and nothing happens unless someone points it out. I've never once seen it punished until I made a complaint in the Discord about uneven application.

> A major issue I see is that a player can come one, play for a few days, screw up once, and get a perma ban.

They're free to appeal the ban. I don't feel like going thru the archives but from what I recall if someone like in your scenario makes an appeal, is reasonable & remorseful, they can end up with a reduction. this doesn't happen often probably because most people that mass rdm or rdm & leave are griefers.

>We shouldn't be banning people who have been around for even a few days, those players aren't likely to be mass rdmers and it drives people away.

Banning people for mass rdm'ing doesn't drive people away. this server's population seems to be fine, no? shitty maps and low staff seems to do it more than banning guests for RDM offenses


> The threshold for who deserves a ban is so low, it needs to be higher.

Not true. I see plenty of donors get their warns & temp bans. I will agree that probably some lads would fall under the constant RDM threshold with the props.

> And if it happens again then maybe a temp or permanent ban can be considered, but its evident that was a player that may have actually invested in the server if he weren't immediately banned.

I think this is where you're getting tripped up man. this is a TTT server first. it's why it takes a while for a shithead racist kid to get banned/kicked. the #1 thing that drives people here is actually playing TTT. mass RDM and RDM + Leave are the two most common things that will fuck up your experience. agree with it or not, this is what has been found to keep a successful TTT server.

Question - whenever someone gets a week or a perman ban, does their ban message say "feel free to appeal your ban at dinklebergsgmod.com"? That may be something to consider to point guests who just made a big fuckup to get this resolved.

[Cyrus]

No message regarding appeals is given initially,to answer your question. I had to Google around a little to find the dinkleberg forums, and probably wouldn't be very aware of them if the phrase "cya on the forums" wasn't a common joke.

[lacer]

After reading guidelines, I think it's honestly VERY strange how this server treats punishments regarding RDM in comparison to EVERY single other punishment
For those who don't want to go through the document, here's the ban escalation for other punishments

False Reporting/Lying in Reports:
Warning, Slay, Slay, Kick, Ban
MetaGaming/Teaming:
Waring, 12 hour ban, 1 day ban, (discretion beyond this), Teaming:2 week, perma
Ghosting:
Warning, 1 week, 2 week, (discretion beyond)
"Severe Ghosting":
2 Week, perma
Mic Spam:
Short gag, round gag, kick, 1 day bam
Hacking:
Perm
Racism/Sexism/Derogatory Language:
Warning, Warning / gag full round, day ban, (discretion beyond)
Exploiting:
Warning, warning + kick, 1 day ban, 1week+ ban
Trolling/Flaming/Harassing
Warning+Gag, 1 day ban, 3 day ban, 1 week or perma ban

And.. here's RDM ban escalation:
One slay, 2 slay, Perma ban (shorter ban for rdm and leave for some reason, yet no variation on punishment for "mass rdm")


There are a few more punishments for different types of minor griefing (not related to rdm) but those are all more minor issues/punishments.

My main confusion with this is that some grief/minge that could honestly be considered less damaging than a bit of RDM has much more room for punishment and room overall. Someone continually ghosting is far more damaging than an RDMer, and yet the punishment is far less severe? Same with metagming and teaming, and micspam which arguably affects far more players, or maybe even the fact that being racist or sexist affords you far more chances than killing someone? I don't know about you but it's a bit strange that punishments are more harsh on someone who RDMs than someone who wants to continually say the n word, be misogynistic, or harass someone.

And no, I'm not saying that all other punishments should be scaled up and RDM should become similar to the current punishments. I'm just saying that I think it's not very great that one of the most common forms of rule breaking is the most heavily punished and has very little overall escalation in terms of banning. I think that the escalation should be similar or match what currently exists in the rules for all other rules. If banning someone for 1 week or 2 weeks for ghosting/teaming/harassing gets the job done and will reduce griefing, why wouldn't a 1 week or 2 week ban for RDM/Mass RDM fall into the same situation? If someone wasn't going to rejoin after their initial temp ban, then it'll most likely get the same job done as a perma ban while allowing players who WANT to actually play the ability to come back without having to wait for a ban appeal, post on a forum, etc, especially when all other punishments don't really require that.

Either you're not reading it right, or you're being intentionally misleading.

One RDM = One slay, Two RDMs = Two slays, Three+ RDMs = Mass RDM = Permaban (except in rare cases where the staff member handling it will choose to give out the appropriate number of slays instead of a ban, calling in the staff discretion mentioned earlier)

The punishment for moderate ghosting is first, a warning, then a 1-week ban, then a 2-week ban, then a permaban. Severe ghosting is a 2-week ban, then a permaban. How is that less severe than the punishment for RDM? If what you said was true, I'd ghost all the time just for the hell of it because I know all I would get is a slay. 

Metagaming is a warning, 12-hour ban, day ban, and from there, it's up to the banning mod/admin on what to do. Teaming is a 2-week ban right off the bat.

My point here is that the punishments for just about anything else are definitely more severe than the punishments for RDM. I do agree with Mass RDM becoming a 2-week ban, mostly because it doesn't appear a lot of the staff have the mental capacity to differentiate between accidental and intentional Mass RDM.

Regardless of anything said above, I really don't think it's fair to call for a change to the Mass RDM rule after you were personally inconvenienced by a completely justified ban.

[Salty]

Let's talk about Teaming for a little bit:

Examples of Teaming

• Innocent players refusing to kill a completely obvious traitor that has done many traitorous things in front of them and is ignoring it. This is teaming.
  
  
• Defibbing innos as a T. This is teaming.
  
  
• Purposely letting innos in the T room, this is a form of teaming and is slayable.
  

Purposely letting innos in the T room, this is a form of teaming and is slayable. If they continue after a slay/warning, then a more severe punishment can be issued like a ban.

I want to say that I agree with Nicky with what he stated on the ban request for Lycan and Crab that we should either remove the first two scenarios or explain in further detail, as they are too broad. Personally, I also think we should categorize teaming into two subcategories like how ghosting is setup, with moderate and malicious teaming. Malicious teaming would be someone who is ruining the round and experience for someone else, whereas moderate would be just people screwing around. I think the way it should be handled with moderate teaming is as follows:

First Offense: 1-3 day Ban 
Second: 1 week Ban
Third: 2 Weeks
Fourth: Perm

Then with Malicious, it should be kept the same as the original rules. 

If you have anything you want to add to this or explain why you disagree with me. please do so.

[soft speckled squirmer]

Not sure if this thread is dead, but can we look at the grapple exploit rule? I get having some map specific unreachable area exploit rules, sure, but making the very act of "using the grapple hook to gain a bunch of horizontal momentum" bannable is silly. It's a difficult to enforce (and honestly difficult to abide by once you know how to do it) rule. Abusing jank is the cornerstone of source, why should this one example be any different? You have maps with low ceilings that make jump-crouch spamming super annoying, since it hides your head hitbox, should that not also be exploiting? Or just the jump pack in general? So far I haven't really heard any reasons as to why it should be a ban-worthy thing, other than "it's the rule."

[Minder]

I think the following rule changes should be made:

1) As far as the rules are concerned, there should be no recognizance of the voice channel. eg. players should not be punished for missing a KOS in voice, missing an "X is confirmed" in voice, etc. This is because the mute function exists.

2) As far as the rules are concerned, a player should only be able to be confirmed innocent by a detective's word in text chat, or the word of a player confirmed innocent by the detective. Also, when a player is confirmed innocent, there should be no punishment for killing them if they do something which would normally require a split-second reaction (eg. activating a jihad, pulling out a knife right next to you.) In these situations you can't expect players to scroll up and check if the player is confirmed, or to possess encyclopedic knowledge of which players are/aren't confirmed.

Re: 2), it would also be a great script addition if you added the ability for detectives to publicly mark a player as innocent or KOS on the scoreboard (tab.)

3) Persistent and deliberate traitor baiting should be slayable. I've seen entire maps get fucked up by huge round-after-round RDM trains started by traitor baiting.

[JesseTheUndeadCowboy]

I think the following rule changes should be made:

1) As far as the rules are concerned, there should be no recognizance of the voice channel. eg. players should not be punished for missing a KOS in voice, missing an "X is confirmed" in voice, etc. This is because the mute function exists.

2) As far as the rules are concerned, a player should only be able to be confirmed innocent by a detective's word in text chat, or the word of a player confirmed innocent by the detective. Also, when a player is confirmed innocent, there should be no punishment for killing them if they do something which would normally require a split-second reaction (eg. activating a jihad, pulling out a knife right next to you.) In these situations you can't expect players to scroll up and check if the player is confirmed, or to possess encyclopedic knowledge of which players are/aren't confirmed.

Re: 2), it would also be a great script addition if you added the ability for detectives to publicly mark a player as innocent or KOS on the scoreboard (tab.)

3) Persistent and deliberate traitor baiting should be slayable. I've seen entire maps get fucked up by huge round-after-round RDM trains started by traitor baiting.

Wait what do you mean by number 1? I don't think players are punished for missing koses in voice chat? Can you explain that part a little bit more please if you want, like do you mean they get in trouble for missing koses? For number 2, I disagree with mainly because if you kill a traitor and pick up a t weapon and you say you are proven, and someone kills you for that it should still be rdm and punishable. I do see what you are saying though about split second reactions when someone pulls out a deadly weapon nexts to you though but mistakes like that can happen and it should still be slayable. Also the game kinda revolves around trust and figuring out who is telling the truth or not, example being who is innocent or who isn't. Now for number 3, traitor baiting players continuously and without stop should be punishable in some way if the players are not messing around with each other or aren't fine with it if that makes any sense. That may already fall under trolling though but I don't know for sure. Hopefully I explained my thoughts right.