Allow staff to ban evaders when caught

I do not mean to create this thread to
- Nameshame fellow staff/Sythe
- Start a fight
- Dig my own grave in the staff team

Though, neither do I wish to keep my mouth shut - this is an issue I and several other moderators face. Many staff members have left in the past due to the implemention of the DNT rank - they for sure tried to discuss about it aswell but most likely ended up giving up because having a discussion is near to impossible.

In case you have no clue what I'm talking about please refer to this thread. It is obvious to me the majority of the staff will be against this because it goes against the direction they wish to take this site to. Neither will several users who have disagreed with me before be in favor of this suggestion because they for sure will be signing their own grave, either for the present or the future.

To sum things up; There's a "Staff is Court, not Police" rule in place. This "rule" became active in August 2016. If I'm not mistaken I joined the staff team around the beginning of 2017 and I was referred to this rule quite quickly by several staff members. It is true that I went "headhunting" but I have a feeling the time I spent into looking into posts and users is why I have been accepted into the staff team. I've most likely reported 1k+ ban evaders without being staff and when I became staff I have probably banned myself near the same amount of users, without the help of anyone else. I like to believe I'm indirectly making the market more secure. I am more than aware I must be thorough with all my reports and I must be a 100% sure whenever I'm banning someone. For sure I've banned several innocent users, but when they were I am sure I apologised for it aswell. Mistakes happen. We're all in for creating a million guides on how to prevent getting scammed, how to be safe in trades, though us - staff team, who can make a difference in the market - are being told NOT TO ban banevaders anymore. The only case we're allowed to ban them is when another user reports them with sufficient proof. If for some reason we're coming across a ban evaders we MUST look the other way around and give them another chance in the community, without the need to repay their previous scam victims.

Here's just one simple example:



This is just one example of a scam I could have prevented from happening because I was aware of the user ban evading.

I was told by another ex staff member to set up a list over a period of time of banevaders I have caught but I simply cannot do this. If I can make a difference to the market and prevent users from getting scammed I really wish to do this. I was told by another staff member I can freely do this as a regular user, but this makes no sense to me, because that way I'm basically wasting another staff member's time while I could easily do the work myself.

Anyways myself I believe a suggestion isn't worth my time because I'm fairly sure it'll be denied and I will be accused by several users, but I was told by another individual to atleast give it a shot. I failed at my first TL;DR so let's try it again: I want to give staff members the privelege to ban banevaders again when they are being caught on sight by themselves. Right now we're not allowed to do so, even though I was able to do it for like a whole year without any issues. It appears that's no longer the case. The head of Sythe wishes to take the website into a direction with more population thus more scammers, rather than have less scammers and a more safe market. What they don't realise is this "more population" they are getting are literally the same users getting banned over and over again for scamming.

So.. The real question here is, what does the website itself believe in here? Do you want to give users a second chance even though they have scammed and did not pardon? Or do you want to grant staff the permission to stop ban evaders when they spot them? Of course headhunting for ban evaders is wrong, but what feels even more wrong is letting innocent users getting scammed from their hard-earned money while we could've prevented it.

I mean, I could pretend I'm fine and leave staff team aswell - but that will be pathetic of me as I leave others with the issue. I could also pretend I'm fine and stay in staff, but I'm fairly sure the head of Sythe doesn't want me to be a moderator for the website but disagree with it's direction - not having any joy out of being a moderator. Several veterans of Sythe have already claimed Sythe's dying and while I do not support such sayings - Sythe himself said he's more orientated on other non-Sythe projects anyways, so why shouldn't we (who are active in the market where the scams happen) not have any word in the direction of this website?

 

why shouldnt you be able to ban someone who is already supposed to be banned? if your 100% sure of course

if thats the case thats actually really stupid

 

Agree with Wanta. Support. Why have a community full of scammers? Just going to keep more and more users away.

 

Support. Glad you posted it
I worded my thread horribly and the message was lost in translation. As @A Broken Man said, if the reports are public I don't see any harm in it.

The main counter argument is that it can be a deterrent to new members in the event of a false ban (which I don't really think is often to be completely honest). I for one really enjoy the fact that there are people like you invested in catching these users before they have a chance.

I think if you add up all the evaders caught, you can easily make a case about how many people you prevented from getting scammed and quitting. Which in return should promote more people to join (a safe trade causes word of mouth advertisement).

 

Why continue to ban the same
People over and over and over and over its an endless cycle no matter which way you go on this issue.

And anyone who is half brain dead can get past an ip ban with ease

 

Catching ban evaders/scammers is like a game of “whack-a-mole” - If you hit one of the head, two more will pop out. This has and will always be the case. If you catch someone ban evading and ban them, 9/10 of the time they will just make a new account and continue to ban evade (it literally takes 30 seconds).

As a staff member, why waste your valuable time and resources when you could be doing something more productive?

Richard isn’t stupid and didn’t arbitrarily decide one day out of the blue to change staff policy unless he thought there would be a good reason for doing so.

 

Trying to actively hunt ban evaders seems like the biggest waste of time in the world. We're all on this Earth for a finite time. Ban evaders will just take two seconds to make a new account once you ban them. Why you would waste precious life actively hunting them down is beyond me. Staff time should be directed in making the site better in other ways than constantly playing whack-a-mole with ban evaders.

 

Thats also very true. I would say that if you know someone is a ban evader with 100% proof, then make a report public for all to see, and have another moderator ban them. I don't support ban evader hunting because it is a waste of time. Moderators would be more useful in making these new users more aware about ban evaders/scams.

 

I have two, opposing arguments on this

If a staff member wants to waste their own free time headhunting, so be it
however
It's an endless cycle with little benefit

 

Sythe staff sit as a court - Not bounty hunters.

Courts address issues brought to their attention by their community whether that be local, state, federal, etc - The question is not whether staff should be able to ban users they go hunting for - The question is should it be acceptable that the courts themselves can take action without another party being involved - At that point I would consider staff more police than a court.

If a judge has evidence of a crime(Sythe staff) - That judge cannot just bring that person into his court room and deliver a verdict no matter how good the evidence is. Each staff is essentially a judge and the collective staff team sit as a judges panel.

To use information from a fellow judge for others Judges to act on that information would be biased and basically give Sythe staff the power of police and judge - something that is a massive power creep compared to where they currently sit.

Sythe staff as judges should have to receive evidence from a non-biased party that is not related to the judgement of the case - When you have a judge as the prosecutor of that sythe member how can you expect a fair trial among the panel of judges? You cant.

It's one of the things where if Wortel brings a case to the sythe staff team - They know of his reliability and planning and thus they would already be biased towards him and his case. Where if a 3rd party brought forward the same grievance that 3rd party is far more like to receive a non-biased judgement from the panel of Sythe staff as they don't know him so they'll actually vote on the merits of the case itself - not whos presenting it.

Plus it hurts activity when you go headhunting - Sythe is rapidly becoming just a autobumper fest where users sign up, pay $50 for an autobumper and never visit the forum again - as much as it pains me to say it if theres nobody left on the forum because every staff is head hunting all day long then it will ultimately kill off the site.

As a forum owner you have to have balance, staff sit as court not police thus they should not be allowed to use the extra tools granted to them to hunt for users or at worst they should have defined guidelines before being able to dig into users(I.E- A user must have a TWC for not posting via a home IP before staff can investigate) or some restrictions which give staff as a court reasonable cause to investigate that user.

A court being able to just investigate anyone at will - at any point in time with nobody else involved - and deal out punishment basically gives staff unlimited power because you act as judge, jury and executioner with nobody else involved which frankly is the definition of a dictatorship.

It has been said time and time again that Sythe staff sit solely as a court when you start giving the courts the power of police(which individuals currently hold who come to the court with their grievance) then you might as well just let staff ban whoever they wish because at that point there's no checks and balances on the court - Individuals must come to the court with their grievance & proper evidence before the court can act - that is a check and balance on the court of sythe staff - You run the line of a dictator to begin removing the checks and balances.

Thus,

it is a NO SUPPORT from me.

 

Same sentiment as R if mods want to spend THEIR own time doing so then let them.

 

Using the "staff are courts - not police" should not be applicable in all situations.



If I come across another partypete imposter on my browsing sythe, and it has not been reported by another user, if I ban that imposter then I am directly policing the website.


Obviously in the above situation I am allowed to ban them as I have been told by administrators but there is some weird arbitrary line that is not visible that we are supposed to follow. Although catching ban evaders is quite different as it requires you to go out of your way in an attempt to find/catch them.

 

@Sythe your input is probably needed on this thread

 

Banning people who can harm the community is basically the red-line for a moderator on any forum lol, except for Sith.org. On Sith.org the sponsor money is more important than keeping a healthy community so big Rich decided to keep them visitor counts high.

The OP is almost a rethorical question, its very obvious that ban evaders shouldnt be let back on the website and should be banned and that its stupid if people think otherwise.

Support.

 

You need to use the word Ripple in your post.

 

The act of a staff going out of their way is exactly where the problem lays - At that point your police not a court.

If someone does something illegal and the court notices them doing something illegal the court is allowed to take preventive measures to prevent anymore harm but that court is not allowed to go out on the street and browse for people who the court can punish.

It's one thing to unintentionally stumble across someone who did something wrong and punish them for it - In that case the court has the right to do that because the court has no risk of being a biased party(thus the court can try the case) as stumbling across someone doing something illegal by accident is far different from going out to intentionally go out and hunt them down - that's the job of police the act of going out to hunt down someone on purpose vs it being brought to the attention of the court by a 3rd party or by accident (I.E- As u stated, an impostor of someone who u just stumble across browsing sythe - you didn't go hunting for that person in particular for no reason and then use ur powers to punish them thus u have no reason u could be biased) the act of going out intentionally looking to hunt ban evaders and other users is not OK when sythes community relys on those same hunters to be the judge of their own cases, that's the job of police and bounty hunters which staff are not.


Unintentionally finding ban evaders(I.e through them being twc'd for not posting on a home IP and u notice them evading) or someone's name is blatant impostoring - Common sense sort of stuff I don't have a problem with.

It's when staff want a free rein to go bounty hunting on the community that is not OK with me to do. Wait until its brought to the courts attention to deal with it - Don't just go hunting through the community for ban evaders, scammers, etc.

If there's reasonably an amount of evidence to show that a staff stumbled across someone unintentionally then in that case I could see a punishment being acceptable - Staff intentionally going out hunting for users and banning big chunks of the user base is not lol.

 

There is no 'police' on the website though so your comparison with the real world doesnt really make sense. There is only the legit community, the scammers and the moderators. If the moderators dont make sure ban evaders stay banned then no one else does.

 

seems all the negative feedback goes back to "staff is a court" or headhunting for banevaders. this post is about being able to ban people staff happen to come across, that have already been banned. it isnt about "headhunting" or "policing". that has already been done the first time. its like you sentencing a guy to life in prison, he escapes and you are lazy and dont care to put him back where he belongs. whats the point of the ban in the first place? theres courts in real life and theres also law enforcement. yeah its easy to banevade if you try but if you let them do it more and more people will do it. you have to control them so the site can run as normally as possible with as little scams as possible.

 

Right the moderators fill the role of police & the court - But they only fill the role of police when a third party brings something to their attention(I.E- Skype message, Report a scammer report, report a ban evader report, so on and so forth) all other times staff have not been sythes "police" force but merely a "theoretically" unbiased court.

This gives staff a massive amount of power - It basically gives them the right to get on, scroll through the userbase and ban people they believe are in violation of the rules at any point for anything without any other party being involved - those same people who can get on and ban people at will(assuming their in violation of the rules) are also relied on to moderate those same peoples cases which really doesn't work well and while I don't know the inner workings of staff I know it would be difficult to spend an hour hunting someone down in my own time only to have them try to pardon and remain indifferent - I don't know how often staff refuse to vote or just remain neutral but I'm sure(hopefully) it does happen.

The physical act of the community having to report something for it to be "moderated" is a check on the staff team to keep power creep and abuse out - I'm not saying the team WOULD abuse it but removing that barrier just makes it easier to do so.

It opens a can of worms when you rely on sythe staff to police the forum with no other party involved - What happens when they fail and get blamed for not catching a obvious ban evader who scammed $5,000? U start having drama and a whole bunch of other stuff directed PURELY at staff.

Right now users issues are with one another, the court just oversees them, when the court starts acting as police the blame will be shifted onto pointing fingers at the team, how would u feel if ur a scam victim and staff failed to catch the guy who scammed u $1,000 but caught 4 other guys? Your going to blame staff just as much as the scammer themselves.

Letting staff go police users without reports is just a ticking timebomb - Runescape doesn't do it, RSPS don't do it, LoL doesn't do it - Without reports(automated or through a customer/consumer) they don't go out randomly hunting down people in their community's who have previously broke the rules - no game, forum, industry or other thing does that and it makes no sense to let sythe staff do it.