Lighten down on the rules/rule overhaul

Grave knows what's up. Already said like 100 other times, you can't ban people for stupid shit (at least permanently) for stupid shit or the forums never going to grow. Also the temp bans are way to fucking long, I just saw some really active dude get banned for 1 month for plagarizing (should of only been 5 days). I don't care I heard this was a black market trading site I didn't know we still followed rules like we were in a highschool.

 

That guy was Stui -.-

I caught on after his 3rd or 4th post...

 

As n4n0 said, this is already being discussed. However, I think some of these rules should not be lightened:

Advertising: The only people who get banned for this really, are people whose only posts are spam for their website. We don't ban gold sellers who advertise their sites, and generally if I see someone advertising a website but they have other legit posts, I infract and move on. To my knowledge, this rule is only meant to keep off ad bots and people who only use sythe as a means for free advertising.

Sharing accounts: Very few bans come of this and the last notable time this happened (correct me if I'm wrong) was Lym/Lyt, who were pardoned for that offense. Also, shouldn't we be discouraging multiple from using the same sythe account if our intent is to have more users?

Self/fake vouching: It's hard to tell if a vouch was faked with bad intent or not (IMO), and most people who do fake/self vouch have bad intent (IMO). There have been a lot of cases where people get scammed because they've trusted another member's fake vouches, I do not want to see the punishment for this rule being lightened any further (it did use to be a permanent ban).

Bad character/blackhat: Can you give an example of a blackhat offense that wouldn't be harmful to the community? I can't think of any myself besides maybe DDOSing

 

Advertising is now only an infractable offense (except for ad bots / ad accounts, obviously).

 

• I was banned for being associated with "Skype Crew"
• I was banned for allegedly creating a phisher or some shit
• Syed was originally banned for trolling
• Any bans where the person is just said to be a nuisance
• Being part of hacking communities but not hacking any members
• Messing around with RATs, but again, not using them to scam members
• Any stupid or harmful shit you did a long time ago; people change
• Being a general asshole, trolling, pissing off people
• Anything malicious if it doesn't cause direct damage: DDoSing, impostering, etc
• Anything someone does after they're wrongfully banned or banned for a stupid reason should be considered as a "fuck this shit" moment rather than rational decisions.

Yeah, a lot of the things I listed can be done in a way that it causes damage to the community, but they can also be done in a non-harmful way. If it's absolutely apparent that the person caused damages to members, then sure, permanently ban them, but otherwise, if you just ban them because "rules are rules" then that's unfair, at least in my eyes. This also includes someone making a dumb decision once and then getting a shitload of fire over it. If someone has been a contributing member for like 2-3 years, legit the entire time, and then does one thing that's bad, he shouldn't be permanently banned over it. To be unbiased, I'm going to list a few cases, including some people I particularly dislike.

• Stui was banned for being caught up in the moment and doing a few stupid things that didn't cause harm, but his case was mistreated based on the rules and now he's an even bigger piece of shit to the community
• Punker was legitimate for a long time, came forward with something he did and said he would pay back what he took to the rightful people (by the way, the person he counter-scammed did scam Arcus and others) but he was just tossed to the curb
• Spyike helped out the community a lot, donated, was an active moderator for a while, and then when the whole Spyike/Sythe drama happened a lot of people were banned and deleted. Spyike should have been let back, unless I'm missing some important details.
• Plznate paid people back, and again, unless I'm missing details, should have been unbanned. Going from what I saw posted on his pardon, he paid everyone back and never meant to scam anyone.

One problem I have with the current enforcement of rules are that most of the times they're overly strict, however, at times the staff let them slip to permit someone who they do like to come back. This almost happened with plznate, and it happened with Syed after he hung around the IRC. Syed is probably my best friend, and I'm glad he is unbanned, but it's unfair to others when he gets unbanned for doing all the shit he did, and then others get no free passes for breaking the same or even lighter rules.

 

1 month for plagiarizing is a bit harsh, I agree.

But in Nerfed's case it wasnt. He had at least 4 chances to change his attitude and thread but refused to do so (even currently in his dispute that is still ongoing). At first, I was like "its obvious that you copied and pasted shit from wikipedia", and sent him a PM saying he should edit it. After he refused and called me a smart ass, I reported his thread and yarrow intervened saying he should include his sources. Still nothing. Then Syed posted; and he basically called him out. Etc, etc.

imo his ban should remain not only because of the plagiarizing shit he did, but the lying and possible intent to get that guide verified and sell it.

 

Admittedly, stui's case could have been handled faster, and maybe if it had been he wouldn't have ban evaded. However, he also faked a scam report against hahanerd for a partyhat set, and claimed that his brother made the report. http://www.sythe.org/showthread.php?p=11100835 He was the one messaging mods with proof for the scam report, and unless his brother also shares a skype, I don't see how that's possible. He was banned earlier today again for evasion. Some people question why we pardon people who evade repeatedly, others say we're too harsh in banning people. It's hard to please everyone, personally I think stui's ban is warranted.

Punker attempted to counter-scam for much more than arcus was scammed for, and he went about it using illegal methods (blackmail, hacking, etc.) We might just have to agree to disagree on that one, but I don't think he should be allowed back.

Spyike allowed the buying and selling of sythe accounts on his forum: http://www.sythe.org/9855605-post5.html and he himself was looking to buy moderator accounts.

Plznate: http://www.sythe.org/11052267-post3.html
We might just have to agree to disagree on that one, but I feel that abusing his position to get a 4-month interest-free $4K loan (and lying about his intent) is pretty bad.

He posted the full guide in the free guides section, he couldn't have intended to sell it

 

I dont agree with the monthly subscription instead of donations, could maybe add a VIP rank which you have to pay monthly for, but you would have to get something good to buy that...

I agree with removing adverts for donors, seems we dont have enough benefits tbh..

 

Yeah I don't think monthly subscription would work for Sythe as we don't have botting perms or anything similar to offer to entice people to renew their VIP subscription.

 

Someone should create some sort of program (maybe like something like SwiftKit) which would give people more of a reason to come to Sythe.
If Powerbot didn't have the bot alongside the forums I doubt they'd have that many numbers online.

Also, I think we should allow sales of serial keys for programs such as Photoshop etc.

 

Notice how these occured after their bullshit ban. We can't expect to make someone feel like they're permanently banned, and then assume they won't be pissed off and will act all calm and nice about it. In these cases, I think they should have been treated like Syed, and pardoned for their actions after their ban.

And these also represent one stupid decision after years of contribution. The right thing to do in the cases above, I think, would have been to ask them to pay back the rightful people, plus 1.5% or so interest per month on it, which is what most credit cards charge. And by the way, two of the four I quoted above, I want them to remain banned, but I won't tell you which. I just used them as examples.

 

I have proof that he intended to sell it but I think he should be let off with a guide section or full market ban.

OT: I'm all for the lightening of rules and I'll bring up some of the topics which have not been discussed in the Staff Lounge.

 

So that's when the 5 day ban should of been issued. I'm pretty sure he'd get the message after 5 days, in a month you risk losing a very active member and him making vading accounts, getting pissed off at staff etc, probably going on to scam. I'd also like to see a cut-back of unprofessionalism upon closing threads, part of the reason why I don't frequent this site as much now. The mods close it and then they say something that they know will piss off the OP, seriously just close the thread if you're going to close it, and leave a professional message if you wish to do so, not some message that you know people won't be able to respond to, and that you know will piss them off.


An example would be like this.

"Denied for obvious reasons, if you think this should be implemented you might as well be promoting scamming. mmkay?"

 

Intends to sell guide copied from wikipedia. Posts in free guides section. Sorry, I guess I assumed a pre-medical student would have been smarter than that

 

Done.

 

I really agree with giving people who fake/self-vouch a TWC rather than a 3 month ban just sayin'

 

Locked as rules have been amended greatly in the past month or so.