Pardon Changes

With the spirit of allowing back more users easier with the DNT system, I think now is a great time to visit the pardon system. I think there are a few things that should be discussed.

1) Conditional supports. Seeing as the DNT is parole, we should allow conditional supports back to pardons. Unbanning people with DNT, TWC, certain forum bans, etc. I think this would help let more back people onto the site if we could offer this. Unless a user is still considered a threat to the community, we could pardon most people to a DNT

2) Auto-pardoning old offsite offenses. Offsite offenses that are older than 2 years should be considered auto-pardoned. If it's blackhat and nothing is newer than 2 years, we should consider the user reformed. If it's a scam that's older than 2 years and it's since been refunded, we should not intervene. If it has not yet been refunded, we should simply require them to refund it in order to return. (Shin has the credit for this idea)

3) Single offenders. If a user scammed say $10 and only that $10, we should make an effort to let them back if they refund that. I'm not sure about an auto-pardon, but maybe letting them back with a TWC that they can get removed through the normal TWC dispute process. But those who only have one offense and do not ban evade should be allowed back easier.

4) 3 months between pardons. Half the time and let people post them more often.

In the spirit of changing things and allowing users back, I think the pardon system should be looked at and changed up a fair bit. While I don't think it's broken, I think it could be doing better. Any other thoughts/ideas you have, feel free to spitball them below.

 

@Bus369 @M Legacy @Alex_J_Leon @Lean @Yousuckv2

Just tagging a few people who may have views on a possible change in the pardon system.

 

Very good ideas, the current pardon system does need to be majorly fixed.. a lot of your suggestions regarding the DNT ranks both make sense and add a bit more guidelines to the rank in general. My only additional feedback would be if the pardons do get looked into there needs to be a lot more stricter policy' and consistency' into both the process of how the pardon' are viewed and dealt with. Currently just by viewing the last couple of months worth of accepted and declined pardon' you can clearly see there is no consistency whatsoever and a lot of the accepted pardons are in the same situation/worse situation then that of the people that have been declined. I do understand it can be hard to keep everyone on the same understanding as there is so many mods throughout so many markets and this is no way a attack but right now it just seems these massive decisions (The future of people' Sythe access) are coming down to either politics (have seen multiple supports on serial offenders because they know/like the person on a personal level) or just how they are feeling on the day (have also seen a lot of mods offering different support/no support decisions on threads with the exact same offences which doesn't seem to hold that consistency) which is really impacting to people that generally really want to return to the community and have done all the right things to achieve so.

(Btw i'm not trying to be salty or anything. I know in regards to my personal situation i have done the wrong thing and ultimately have to face the consequences of my actions, I just really want to see a more positive change that will be applicable for Everybody and not just certain users)

 

1. Conditional supports seem like a great idea to just get some people back into the community to get more activity.

2. Cant see any reason to not agree with this one

3. Not really got an opinion

4. Support for lowering pardon times cause 6 months is a long time to wait in between pardons but isnt so bad with DNT trade

 

would place emphasis on people being given TWC for at least some period of time

 

Holy fuck yes.


Total support that revamps or scraps this garbage ass current system.

@Sythe do these pls.

I haven't had to pardon since like very early 2015 and I still hate this garbage system, current pardon system is flat terrible, period.


I'm fine with all these ideas.

 

Could we implement something like a deposit system? Similar to how gambling hosts and service workers currently make deposits.

If we unban a user for scamming on or offsite we can make them a DNT until they put a deposit down.

Once the put the deposit down, slap them on a TWC rank for 6 months, and a "trade limit" rank for at least 12 months or indefinitely.

The "trade limit" rank would concur with the amount of their deposit. So a $100 deposit would give the user a $100 trade limit.

If they were caught trading over $100 they"d be rebanned and the deposit will go to Sythe.

If they don't scam for 12 months then the deposit roles over into a donation rank equaling exactly 1/2 of their deposit, and the entire deposit is donated to Sythe.

The deposits will be kept in a seperate fund and tapped into for up to the amount of their deposit to reimburse scam victims. If a victim is scammed for more then the deposit they will only receive up to the deposit amount for not viewing the rank properly. If they rescan for less than the amount of the deposit the victim will get a refund and the remainder would be donated to Sythe.

 

Deposit system doesn't work with sythe, 99.9% sure this is always shot down.


Also the timeframes u suggested are insanely long, I'm assuming u meant those as neogiable timeframes and not actually 6 months and 12 months, that's worse than the current system.

 

Yeah it would depend on the situation. All of those numbers were just suggestions meant for the purpose of example.

 

Not sure why 1 was removed in the first place but don't see why it's necessary in the first place. Instead of waiting until they pardon to do these things, if they do something that would merit a TWC upon unban when they first get banned, just give them a TWC with their ban. If they're banned for gambling debts ban them from all gambling forums at the same time they receive their ban. I don't think there's really a getting pardoned with DNT, it's more of an either or type of deal so ya

2. I was pretty sure if the scam had been refunded we didn't ban them anyways? Sh4d0wii was banned for old scams but unbanned upon seeing he'd already repaid them on Powerbot (he's also banned again for scamming over there but that's not relevant) and i've seen other people unbanned because they were banned for scams they'd paid back offsite already so? Also you need to be careful with your wording because it should be a 2 year or older offense at the actual time of the ban, not when they attempt to pardon/get unbanned. Meaning that if the offense took place over 2 years ago and we find out about it here and they've not repaid it, they get banned until they do. As for blackhat stuff I disagree with a time period in certain situations because we could have users who haven't actively done it in a while but they could've been heavily, heavily involved in even some illegal type shit but we could have someone who posted a year ago about a RAT once and they wouldn't qualify which doesn't make a ton of sense. Also it doesn't seem logical to allow users to get away with things because they were caught a fair time after doing something, it just means they weren't caught and didn't admit it because they didn't want to be caught which i'm not sure is behavior that should be rewarded? Once again with this timeframe thing I assume it will be 2 years since the offense when they get banned, not them just waiting 2 years after committing a recent offense and getting autopardoned???

Not even sure why you posted #3???? This already happens?? The reason you don't see it often is well?? Show me one person who only scams once and then never vades??? Doesn't happen very often and usually even if it does happen there's a lot more to the situation and it's not just $10. Petty scams in singular occurrences followed by no additional offenses are very uncommon but when they do happen I see no trouble with these users being pardoned as a matter of a fact these are the users that do tend to be pardoned quite easily so?

Trade limit won't work because if they want to they'll still scam whatever they can, needs to be a full ban from market like currently. Deposits also won't happen because staff don't want to be responsible and I was also told they tried this once and a staff member ran off with a bunch of money intended to go to scam victims or at least tried to so yea btw who are you vading

 

@Bus369 I know you're very outspoken about disliking the current system. I'd love to see some ideas you have to contribute for changes.

@Yousuckv2
1) There are some pardons where the user seems like a good guy but they're sketchy, they keep getting into messes, etc. The whole reason they were taken out was because we were told we need to either trust the person to be a full member of the site, or not at all. With the DNT parole system in place, that no longer makes sense when we offer a DNT system. So really, I don't see why not.

2) It would be 2 years upon being caught/admitting it. If any money is outstanding after those 2 years, they would need to refund it first. After that, they would be unbanned. With blackhat, look at it this way. There are users who just joined the site and have to pardon not a week later. Do you think they're wanting to return if that is the case? Some of these users haven't participated in ages and it's some mistake they made back in their youth. That's what this rule is attempting to cater to. Realize, 2 years is a lot of time online.

3) I would venture to say that a good portion of scams are by one and done people. Not every single scam is a from a vader. That being said, these users have considerably less offenses than said vaders. They should be allowed some form of easier passage through the pardon system. While our voting on their pardons certainly do reflect the significance of their offenses, I feel there should be something written into the system to allow them back easier.

4) Returning to the last point I made on number 2, six months online is a long time. A lot of pardons involve 3 or less scams. If they make an effort to refund those just to get slapped with a denial, why would they want to come back? They showed good faith in refunding, and we shoved them away with saying "come back in 6 months." I can't blame them if they think that we'll just keep saying that, so some of them give up. I think 3 months is a much better time frame. In comparison to all the pardons, returning pardons are pretty small. There is a reason for this, so let's get users to return and try to pardon again if they are denied.

 

Most important thing to me is to 1st and foremost scrape the time frame per pardon down, 6 months is stupid long, this is my top problem with the pardon system, I'm okay with 3 or less.

2nd thing is I hate how few pardons seem to get through, staff need to start being a lot more generous, unless its a major offence or a huge unpaid scam, I think almost any pardon should get through without hassle, especially if the offence is older than like 6 months- 1 year.

3rd I hate the USL and how its setup, 1 week to vote and its completely hidden? Why cant there be a subsection for usl voting where the pardon section is where votes can be seen, why cant there be a staff lounge section like "usl pardon discussions" or something where staff can discuss issues/opinons there if they want to, hidden voting is downright stupid, if we can see the first stage why cant we see the second?

Toss out thisrovide evidence of trying to without success (there must be proof of at least ONE MONTH time being passed for attempting to contact the victim for each pardon separately.)

Making people wait a month because they forgot to skype message or email a guy they never heard back from in the first place is downright stupid, just adds another month onto the pardon process.


My biggest biggest issue is time, the pardon system is FUCKING SLOW,6 months between pardons, 1 month wait if u forget to contact, 1 week in usl, and then 7 months 1 week u find out if u get back or not, that is STUPID LONG, then you find out the pardons system is trash as hell anyway because if a staff doesn't like you, your fucked, and if they don't vote in ur 1st pardon, they hide their vote and roast u in your usl pardon, its ridiculous.

I want to make everything shorter, I hate how long the timeframes are, I want to get pardons down to every 3 months or lower if I can.


I'm just ranting a bit, but hopefully some of this makes sense, that's some of my thoughts atm.

I haven't touched the voting yet btw, because that on itself is terrible and I don't want to write a book yet.

 

You gave a fuck to read it. And I did read every bit he said I just kept my answer short and simple. Why would I require post count/attention lol.

 

The one month between pardons clause will likely remain. One of the main focuses is getting people refunded. Whether it might be tedious or not, we want people to get their money back. We often give them skypes or emails to contact, so it's not like we just hope the victim contacts them within a month. Would you instead feel 2 weeks is a better time frame?

As for the USL, the same goes with CDT voting, OMM voting, etc. It's best to keep that stuff private. I would like to add a note in the pardon thread that they may contact an upper staff member for feedback on their pardon so they can improve next time they make one. I don't see why we can't give feedback on the 2nd stage, similar to the first stage.

As for generosity on pardons, any way you can write some form of guideline to voting that you think would be fair?

 

2 weeks is better, that way u don't have pardons sitting there from june 5th to july 5th waiting on contact.

USL why cant there be a public voting section and then a private section for discussion? all u'd have to do is copy the pardon to 2 sections instead of 1, if staff are to lazy to read the discussion board before voting, they probably shouldn't be voting on the pardon in the first place, that gives you your place for private discussion and my place for public usl voting.


First thing I want is to abolish the veto unless sythe himself veto's a pardon, I don't think any staff should have the power of veto admin or not, theres a reason ONLY THE PRESIDENT has the power of veto, its not a power meant to be shared among a group, make it so no administrators can veto pardons besides sythe.

I'll keep posting as I think up and write an actual system, but theres some food for thought for you.

 

Keep in mind, it takes 2 admin vetos to nuke a pardon. You really have to do something pretty bad to get 2 admin vetos, it hardly happens. I'm not sure about voting ever becoming public as it's the same as CDT applications and OMM applications. Instead of releasing the votes, the respective leaders give the applicant feedback as to why it was rejected and what they can do to improve on their next application. I feel that is a much better process. Example: a USL pardon was voted 0-6 and was thus rejected, it's much better to give some feedback as to why it was rejected than just say "your pardon results were 0-6" which would demoralize most people.

 

When my pardon failed I was told "it failed" and "we cant release SL discussions or anything regarding SL"

Has that changed? because my personal expierence is if it fails in the USL you guys stonewall like a bunch of fucking walls.

Also I want the veto removed because of the case regarding Lean, that was biased as fuck and the only person I trust not to be biased on this site is Sythe, I never want to see an administrator who doesn't like someone keep that person off the site ever again tbh, its suppose to be democratic, not a fucking dictatorship, That's why In AMERICA WHICH IS A DEMOCRACY ONLY THE PRESIDENT HAS THE VETO, NO-ONE ELSE.

 

Considering Sythe seldom if ever votes on pardons, I think it's best to reserve the veto power to admins. As for that response, that's pretty absurd. Feedback should be available to those who ask for it regarding their pardon.

 

this sounds great to me, but for blackhat autopardons, (serious ones, not just an angry 'IM GOING TO KILL YOUR INTERNET' rant, people who dox etc) what if they just bettered there blackhat skills and managed to remain more hidden. Theres a lot of banned users, I'm assuming a small % for blackhat, but blackhat users are really good(atleast they'd like to think so) with manipulating information, and people.
I understand mods still have to vote and the staff is supposed to be able to see the snakes in the grass, I just think a blackhat user could have an account from 2005, with 200 vouches, got caught rating people etc, then just moved to a different alias and never got caught.
Does this make sense? that blackhat users could simply be better at exploiting a rule change like this one?

 

Certainly does, but even now they currently get away with it. We pretty much allow most old blackhat offenses in unless we find something new (in which case they wouldnt be eligible). So really, we already do that, so why not write in the rule.