Make Pardon voting Anonymous (or change it).

Hi,

The pardon system is currently flawed as pointed out by Poonjabber:

I wholeheartedly agree on the moderators following like sheep, and the no time taken to research. What staff take is what evidence is presented in said pardon, and don't tend to do much digging. This is exploited especially in old bans when said staff were not around so they do not know any different.
It's not their fault, it's a pain in the dick to dig through every pardon and research every single one. No one is going to do that unless they have no life outside of this forum.

If someone has collected a series of supports, it's easy for another moderator to come along and say "support" if a friend staff member has done so, or if a certain member is popular / has been popular for fear of being disliked. There are numerous factors involved with the voting, and the less bias / unthoughtful votes the better.

This is why I suggest to make voting anonymous. You annihilate the bias of friends voting, community hatred and others.

On a negative note it will enable easier voting which infact may encourage lack of research.

I'd like to hear your views.

 

Nah, we already see very little of the staff, pardons/disputes are the only section where we get to see the thought process and justifications that the staff makes for unbanning, and we can critique staff members using that information- to lead them to improve.

IE. certain staff members just tend to wait for a global/admin to post and then bandwagon onto their thoughts rather than use their own. I feel like we should be able to see that and give feedback on it.

I do agree that it would probably make bandwagoning harder, but I think being upfront with it is better in the long-run.

It'll be a very slippery slope where only the Sythe users will lose out because staff members WILL(100% guarantee) talk to each other about their votes on pardons/disputes. We just wouldn't be able to see it.

 

Would it be possible to have some sort of system where the vote AND give reasons? At the end of the seven days the results would show in a forum post or something of the sort?

That way we still get the transparency of seeing who voted and why but we also keep everyone from knowing each other's votes until the seven days has expired.

 

I thought same thing.

Have it so admins can only see those posts and then after the days are up, make them public.

 

I personally agree the pardon system needs some serious kind of reform after this wave of pardons and how they've been handled / n4n0 specifically's track record.

Not sure if this is it, because this removes the aspect of justification but I do think some ideas need to be bounced around to change how it works.

 

More like something along the lines of;

Before opening thread, do a thorough research on the member.
If found anything, when opening the thread, post everything./If something is found and didn't admit - instant veto.

 

I recommended that the first post on a pardon should be all relevant information in staff lounge and research in a hidden post so only mods can see it, but it was turned down because it was too much effort but honestly there's not that many people pardoning at the moment and I think this would solve the research problem before people start posting their supports/ no supports.

 

The 'too much effort' excuse is getting old to see now a days.

 

I agree, getting old as fuck.

Any ease of use suggestion is auto-denied because of it being "too difficult" - its like the 2014 vb4

 

Sigh


I would be up for having the first post be information we have available on said user. I dont think anonymous voting would make much difference.

 

Anonymous voting wont change anything. Just need a lot less blind support

 

1) People tend to have a different opinion when they have the option to state it anonymously
2) People should be allowed to see who said / posted what.

I don't like this idea tbh.

 

All matters that can be public should be -- including pardons. The SL was designed to house sensitive information, not to allow staff to avoid the public eye.

The more the community is able to see of staff action and decision making, the better.

 

The moderators we have are not old members, most people who pardon are old members.

Ignorance is bliss. There is nothing wrong with moderators waiting for someone of higher status to post their opinion on the situation. Yes, they are more inclined to follow, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

No change is needed to the pardon system other than it having more than enough supports to get through the first stage. If they really deserve to come back, it will pass the voting in the usl. Following this, only 3-4 supports should suffice.

 

A moderator shouldn't follow unless they are certain about why they are supporting it. PIAV almost had enough supports to get into usl because nobody bothered to look into either of his accounts. That is very problematic because everyone took Roary's word since he posted a support and mods followed him without looking into it themselves. A mod doesn't need to be around for 2-3 years to simply browse through the users threads and accounts to see if everything is according to what they said. A lot of people lie or hide facts in their pardons and only recently it seems the due diligence hasn't been performed to ensure their word is actually correct.

 

I agree with that, all you have to do is punch something into Google. Research is a very important job of being a staff member in my opinion. Especially when it comes to letting banned members back into Sythe.

 

Administrators are the leaders of the forum, their words should be stronger than yours in a political standpoint. This also causes influence on other members including staff. Looking at past reports, especially ones that are older than 3 years can cause confusion as all details aren't stored there. Is it necessary to look at past reports for each case when the user is suppose to confess their wrong doings? There are specific staff members who do this on occasion for reports that dwell further than the reports shown, this causes a waiting game for those unaware of the situation. No staff member wants to be called out for their ignorance for something controversial as the pardon system. The rebellious ex-staff members would cry their eyes out. There are consequences to the actions staff members make which is why it's a very sensitive topic. At the end of all of this, it's not up to you on how these "sheeps" should act.

 

I have no idea what you are trying to say but it is certainly the job of the staff to thoroughly research anyone who gets pardoned if everyone on staff is too new to remember them.

 

Which is why there are a lack of supports for pardons. No one wants to deal with that just to let a potential threat back in the community.

 

When the pardon sticky was reformed the intention was to do a thorough check. I just got lazy probably. I will make that procedure.