Excessive Banning & Ban Timeframes

[Cavity]

I believe that Willard's staff team is dedicated to enforcing the server's rules and are very proactive in their jobs. However, I think that they are very excessive with their ban timeframes, and they excessively ban players in general. Please note that I am not making this out of frustration with my own ban; I am simply pointing out what I believe is wrong.


I am deciding to speak out on an issue that I have noticed here in Willard Networks that I believe has gone on for quite some time, and it needs to be addressed amongst the staff team and the way they handle punishments to players. On several occasions, I believe Willard staff has unnecessarily banned players & given out excessive ban timeframes for those that were justified. In the past few months, I have been actively playing on Willard Networks; I have witnessed and been a part of several ban waves that have hit the server, often with the staff team banning multiple players at once for extended periods.

Please note these are the only screenshots I have collected in my time on Willard Networks and do not represent an accurate scale of how many players have been banned in the timeframe I have been on the server. It is way more than this.


Example (Not all logs provided; I believe this ban wave had 12 players give or take)


A ban wave of about 12 or more players hit Willard which pretty much wiped out the entire rebel underground. All players originally received bans of 90 days OR LONGER for a "chip loop" which none of them had any idea was against the rules. It wasn't even implemented into the server rules until after the ban wave, and even so, a lot of players were confused about WHY they were banned in the first place. The problem came from a lack of proper oversight from Willard Staff and Developers for not noticing it OR informing players NOT to sell medical items to the NPC vendor for a profit (which is the entire point of collecting or crafting those items and selling them to the vendor?)

They eventually came to the conclusion that their decision was either wrong, impulsive, excessive, or a combination of the three and went through unbanning or reducing a majority of the players they banned in this wave.

Example:

5 players including myself were banned for a month for metagaming. A ban MAY be warranted as punishment but for a month? That is excessive for metagaming. Why so harsh? Could you, not PM the players and inform them of their wrongdoing? Could you not give a shorter ban timeframe of maybe 2 weeks? Why are players with no ban or bad server records getting month-long bans for a minor offense? There is no reason to ban players for that long over a rather minor offense in which no other players were hurt, PK'ed, or otherwise.

They have already reduced one of these bans because the player was new. This shouldn't have happened from the get-go of this wave anyway.

Example:

ItsLiam was recently banned for 3 months for grabbing items from a vending machine without roleplaying it when no other players were around. How is that NOT excessive? I have seen this done multiple times by both players and staff members roleplaying with people around.

(This is according to Liam and I do not know the full details of the situation)


The point I am trying to make is that the Willard Networks staff team outright bans people for offenses, for EXTENSIVE periods of time for even the smallest thing. Their actions oftentimes seem VERY IMPULSIVE when they do conduct these bans, and they do not think of the bigger picture when banning multiple people for long amounts of time, including KEY players for certain factions.

Since I joined in the past few months it seems that with every ban wave, the underground scene becomes more dead. Players get banned for months and are no longer around and find a new community or game to play. Who wants to come back and play after something that unfair? It's not like these guys are exploiting, cheating, or any other forms of malicious behavior to warrant these long bans. Since I've joined I would say that over 90% of the underground rebel mains have either been banned or PK'ed, leaving the entire rebel scene dead. This in turn makes everything boring because now CP has no rebels to fight, meaning they don't log on. Now there are never enough CPs to commit crimes. Do you see the domino effect here?

Another thing I want to add is that staff goes in and unbans or reduces a lot of these bans AFTER THE FACT. This goes to show that they impulsively ban before having all the facts of the situation or realize they made a mistake later on which they never should've done.

In my opinion, this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and I'd like to hear feedback about it.

 

[Glen]

Example:
View attachment 26917
ItsLiam was recently banned for 3 months for grabbing items from a vending machine without roleplaying it when no other players were around. How is that NOT excessive? I have seen this done multiple times by both players and staff members roleplaying with people around.

(This is according to Liam and I do not know the full details of the situation)

Meanwhile: https://willard.network/forums/threads/rabithunter-cant-keep-getting-away-with-it-free-kaffee.10526/

 

[NanCi_]

What I can understand from this entire situation is that Staff are more inclined to ban someone rather than explain their wrongdoings from personal experience. A lot of servers outside the HL2RP scene will have a higher chance to forgive or even better let you off with a verbal warning with a rough scolding which is completely the opposite on willard where staff see something wrong and its either a !warn [USER] or even worse its a !ban which in a lot of the cases is really silly. Although this is a "Serious RP" server are staff here to just throw the ban hammer or are they here to teach the player base about their wrong doings and give a second chance?

 

[NanCi_]

Meanwhile: https://willard.network/forums/threads/rabithunter-cant-keep-getting-away-with-it-free-kaffee.10526/

"1 strike is given to said staff. strikes are really bad for your record!" - Meanwhile rebels dissapearing for months on end for the tiniest of things

 

[Rebel RP Philosopher]

Meanwhile: https://willard.network/forums/threads/rabithunter-cant-keep-getting-away-with-it-free-kaffee.10526/

Fuck me man, you are required to have a STAFF witness a META offense to actually get it enforced?

Besides to the post, metagame is a game breaking offense that affects the flow of roleplay. There have been servers with zero tolerance policies to meta game and unfortunately that is what is required to restrain people from ruining the rp.

Keep the metagamers banned.

 

[Cavity]

Fuck me man, you are required to have a STAFF witness a META offense to actually get it enforced?

Besides to the post, metagame is a game breaking offense that affects the flow of roleplay. There have been servers with zero tolerance policies to meta game and unfortunately that is what is required to restrain people from ruining the rp.

Keep the metagamers banned.

Completely looked over the entire post except for one thing.

 

[Cavity]

Meanwhile: https://willard.network/forums/threads/rabithunter-cant-keep-getting-away-with-it-free-kaffee.10526/

Yeah! Where is the month-long ban for this staff member? Clearly, he metagamed that entire interaction. Surely he shouldn't be treated any differently than your average player because the staff team is not above the average player... right? BOTH of them actually, considering PMing other players OOC information is metagaming... right?

 

[Szaliwun]

A ban wave of about 12 or more players hit Willard which pretty much wiped out the entire rebel underground. All players originally received bans of 90 days OR LONGER for a "chip loop" which none of them had any idea was against the rules. It wasn't even implemented into the server rules until after the ban wave, and even so, a lot of players were confused about WHY they were banned in the first place. The problem came from a lack of proper oversight from Willard Staff and Developers for not noticing it OR informing players NOT to sell medical items to the NPC vendor for a profit (which is the entire point of collecting or crafting those items and selling them to the vendor?)

I was one of those involved in this and I only came to know about the "chip looping" issue from a good friend, whilst I was still dealing with my previous ban. As a new player I never would have imagined that having an option of selling items for a profit to an NPC was an abuse of the system, since A LOT of people have done the same - I simply assumed that's how it was supposed to be; I only played on Willard for TWO WEEKS.

Since I've joined I would say that over 90% of the underground rebel mains have either been banned or PK'ed, leaving the entire rebel scene dead.

I couldn't agree more; since I was banned, my group of friends stopped playing completely - that's six less people for the server, others are dealing with burnout or are simply demotivated. Now, this may not be a lot, but can Willard really keep depriving itself of players through these ridiculous bans? New players are hard to come by nowadays, even more so ones who are willing to spend their free time to immerse themselves in the niche gamemode that is HL2RP, and treating existing ones like war criminals over stuff that's not exactly damaging to the overall well-being of the server is mad - they have even less reasons to re-join the server after such a punishment.

Yes, you definitely SHOULD punish people for breaking the rules, but maybe take some time to carefully consider what the best course of action is, before swinging a month, or even longer, ban hammer into their forehead.

Example:

When a Player breaks the rules it's a month to three months long ban, but when a Member of Staff does it, it's a strike...

Yeah! Where is the month-long ban for this staff member? Clearly, he metagamed that entire interaction. Surely he shouldn't be treated any differently than your average player because the staff team is not above the average player... right? BOTH of them actually, considering PMing other players OOC information is metagaming... right?

Brace yourself for the nerd emojis

 

[TRL]

I think the fact that players are removed from the server for weeks to months on end while staff operate on a completely different punishment system is atrocious and unfair. They're allowed to break the rules in exchange for strikes, rather than actual ban-time or removal of their authority. That's insane, considering how orthodox their enforcement of the rules on anyone who ISN'T a staff member is.

 

[Astro]

Hey there, I can’t place my input as I’ve been staff for only almost a week. Though, I can help you out by tagging the head of staff and their assistant.
@Neonity
@Memesky

 

[Donavin Jones]

Badass vikings on a ship.



Though, I will say.​

What I can understand from this entire situation is that Staff are more inclined to ban someone rather than explain their wrongdoings from personal experience. A lot of servers outside the HL2RP scene will have a higher chance to forgive or even better let you off with a verbal warning with a rough scolding which is completely the opposite on willard where staff see something wrong and its either a !warn [USER] or even worse its a !ban which in a lot of the cases is really silly. Although this is a "Serious RP" server are staff here to just throw the ban hammer or are they here to teach the player base about their wrong doings and give a second chance?

Couldn't be more true, I've said it before. Staff would rather ban you, and then explain your wrong doing after.
It's like LA cops, shoot first ask questions later. Even if said user has a bad history, it doesn't hurt to simply go 'Hey, can't do that.' Resorting to immediately warning them or banning them is what I'd call last resort, but they fall back to it almost all the time.
​

 

[Donavin Jones]

When a Player breaks the rules it's a month to three months long ban, but when a Member of Staff does it, it's a strike...

Didn't even see this, but yes, that is pretty ironic.
I'm not saying staff get special treatment.


But, I'd say he was given a pretty lenient punishment for what was very clear cut metagame

 

[Fedora]

hey

@Kappatalist and I will look into this thread tomorrow afternoon (GMT time) and discuss our plan forward, the same goes for the other thread.

 

[RedHotGinger]

I'm going to put a take that is purely realist.

When it comes to metagaming, punishment's are likely as severe as they are simply for the reason that it is difficult to detect relatively speaking. While most people who metagame aren't very smart, so eventually get caught, even this will still take time. Metagame is something that you willingly do for an extended period of time, knowingly gaming the system or screwing over other players for your personal benefit.

More importantly, its something that is difficult, overall, to detect. Especially if you are good at it.

So, what this means is that, lets say you get caught in a large, blatant metagame scheme. If you are only banned for a week, maybe two, this means that ultimately, you gain a net-positive. A two week timeout is a drop in the bucket when compared to the potential months-long scheme you can run with fellow cheaters, especially since the recent ban has now made you better at it - since you know what to better avoid when conducting it.
(General 'you's' btw. Not anyone specifically)

I could be misremembering it, but looong ago, during the BS era, the server actually was fairly light on metagame, and punishments in general, for a while. The problem with this ended up being that most people who metagame possibly do it again. Only during round 2, they are now harder to catch cause they know you are looking for them, and now know how to better avoid getting caught out. Which means, the problem is even worse.

So, you ask me, the reason metagame punishments are so harsh is because metagame tends to be one of the more aggressively 'shit' behaviors one can engage in, but also because repeat offenders are common and only get better when caught. As such, the idea is likely to make the punishment of getting caught not worth the risk involved.

This is my own recollection though, and time could have skewed how it was back then.

Is this right? I actually lean towards yes. At least in cases where its blatantly clear that metagame was both malicious and intense. I find its very difficult to mistakenly metagame. Maybe engaging in a mild case of it, maybe an accidental bit of metabait from leaking OOC knowledge, but you are not mistakenly going to cheat for an extensive period.

As for the other stuff, I dont really know enough to comment on.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Is this right?

We've been right up the alley with giving people chances about metagame in particular, because the current state of the server psychologically influences people in a way that people deem it a 'necessary' thing. To quote someone who used to play rebels so severely to a point this was stated:

"Rebels need metagame to survive"

At that point, we started to seriously go to consider how rampant it was that we were no longer going to take patience on it.

* Secret discord servers with screenshots and video clips, etc.
* Private messages on the server being abused.
* OOC chat (When it used to be enabled, and one of the main reasons it was disabled.)
* Forum conversations.
* Personal DMs on Steam or Discord itself.

We used to be quite lenient when it came to Metagame, until we chose not to do so. I'd prefer the draconian approach when it comes to that because I've had situations in the community where:

* In-character coups were destroyed before happening because people started talking OOC to people not involved (massive preparations lost).
* Players getting away from danger before they should be aware of it.
* Entire rebel cells being eliminated / ratted out by someone that pretended to know information gained OOC and then transferred IC.
* OTA raids / Rebel attacks being meta'd between people.
* In the past and not present; staff abuse of that where people were demoted.
* Someone being PK'd in-character, then their whole group of friends know in character somehow telepathically.
* Narrative arcs ruined.

Look, there's a lot that goes into it; but RedHot isn't putting in falsities when he talks about the above. You'd have to basically experience why metagame charges are that severe to understand.

So no, we don't take chances. Otherwise, those that do unfortunately do suffer a bit of wrath from the staff. So it's not without good reason, but I do believe people should go out of their way to communicate about a metagame charge before it's applied - that would solve likely a quarter of them without problematics which is, potentially, what some people are upset about.

 

[Cavity]

We've been right up the alley with giving people chances about metagame in particular, because the current state of the server psychologically influences people in a way that people deem it a 'necessary' thing. To quote someone who used to play rebels so severely to a point this was stated:



At that point, we started to seriously go to consider how rampant it was that we were no longer going to take patience on it.

* Secret discord servers with screenshots and video clips, etc.
* Private messages on the server being abused.
* OOC chat (When it used to be enabled, and one of the main reasons it was disabled.)
* Forum conversations.
* Personal DMs on Steam or Discord itself.

We used to be quite lenient when it came to Metagame, until we chose not to do so. I'd prefer the draconian approach when it comes to that because I've had situations in the community where:

* In-character coups were destroyed before happening because people started talking OOC to people not involved (massive preparations lost).
* Players getting away from danger before they should be aware of it.
* Entire rebel cells being eliminated / ratted out by someone that pretended to know information gained OOC and then transferred IC.
* OTA raids / Rebel attacks being meta'd between people.
* In the past and not present; staff abuse of that where people were demoted.
* Someone being PK'd in-character, then their whole group of friends know in character somehow telepathically.
* Narrative arcs ruined.

Look, there's a lot that goes into it; but RedHot isn't putting in falsities when he talks about the above. You'd have to basically experience why metagame charges are that severe to understand.

So no, we don't take chances. Otherwise, those that do unfortunately do suffer a bit of wrath from the staff. So it's not without good reason, but I do believe people should go out of their way to communicate about a metagame charge before it's applied - that would solve likely a quarter of them without problematics which is, potentially, what some people are upset about.

Metagame punishment is a small portion of a much larger issue within the disciplinary actions that staff take upon Willard players. Players are getting banned way too frequently, easily, and too long for a variety of offenses. There are tons of angry players both on the forums and in the discord server complaining about this banning problem every other day, if not daily.

I wasn't trying to out any particular staff member, but I've noticed that Neonity has a history of handing out lengthy sentences for what I see as small problems that can be resolved with other means.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Players are getting banned way too frequently, easily

I don't disagree nor stand to contend with this point. I've mentioned it to members of my staff before, and it's obvious it's becoming a more frequent issue as an impulsive reaction or "quick fix" due to a difficult, overtime dealing with server attrition. But my eyes are drawn to it, and so are some other members of staff, especially in management. So something will of course get done. Overzealousness is one thing, however I don't often blame my staff who have to deal with some real shitters that contend their ban as far as the maliciousness of a certain ban goes.

 

[NanCi_]

We've been right up the alley with giving people chances about metagame in particular, because the current state of the server psychologically influences people in a way that people deem it a 'necessary' thing. To quote someone who used to play rebels so severely to a point this was stated:



At that point, we started to seriously go to consider how rampant it was that we were no longer going to take patience on it.

* Secret discord servers with screenshots and video clips, etc.
* Private messages on the server being abused.
* OOC chat (When it used to be enabled, and one of the main reasons it was disabled.)
* Forum conversations.
* Personal DMs on Steam or Discord itself.

We used to be quite lenient when it came to Metagame, until we chose not to do so. I'd prefer the draconian approach when it comes to that because I've had situations in the community where:

* In-character coups were destroyed before happening because people started talking OOC to people not involved (massive preparations lost).
* Players getting away from danger before they should be aware of it.
* Entire rebel cells being eliminated / ratted out by someone that pretended to know information gained OOC and then transferred IC.
* OTA raids / Rebel attacks being meta'd between people.
* In the past and not present; staff abuse of that where people were demoted.
* Someone being PK'd in-character, then their whole group of friends know in character somehow telepathically.
* Narrative arcs ruined.

Look, there's a lot that goes into it; but RedHot isn't putting in falsities when he talks about the above. You'd have to basically experience why metagame charges are that severe to understand.

So no, we don't take chances. Otherwise, those that do unfortunately do suffer a bit of wrath from the staff. So it's not without good reason, but I do believe people should go out of their way to communicate about a metagame charge before it's applied - that would solve likely a quarter of them without problematics which is, potentially, what some people are upset about.

Nobody is dissagreeing you with this but more so about the overall use of bans and how they are thrown at like candy.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

thrown at like candy.

Even for small things. It'll be dealt with.

 

[Neonity]

Hello all.

Understandably, there's been quite some concern about bans in the community considering how a lot of them appear to have happened recently. While the numbers presented are heavily skewed and they're not actually as bad as people make them out to be, they are considered large to some. It's not often that a ban wave consisting of 6 bans hits the server. And rightfully so, this worries people. Some people get the idea that they may receive a lengthy ban out of nowhere, even though they've never done anything wrong. This is deeply concerning not only to me, but the entire team, which is why we're going to put an end to that worry.

But before we address the steps it takes to address, let's get the facts on paper first:

---

The Chip Looping Controversy:

A ban wave of about 12 or more players hit Willard

During the first chip-looping ban wave as presented first in this thread, six people were banned. These were blanket bans, based on metrics determined by a database query that simply checked if someone had sold x amount of x in a certain timeframe and earned themselves that much money in the process. In hindsight, this approach was highly flawed. We acknowledge that mistake. We aren't perfect.

Looking closely into the details of those involved after appeal threads were created, we unbanned all but two. The others were reduced to a warning instead because their involvement was not as intricate as we initially believed. The rules were then promptly updated by me and the smuggler system was adjusted in the code to hopefully prevent misconceptions like this from happening again.

---

The Metagaming Incident:

5 players including myself were banned for a month for metagaming. A ban MAY be warranted as punishment but for a month? That is excessive for metagaming. Why so harsh? Could you, not PM the players and inform them of their wrongdoing? Could you not give a shorter ban timeframe of maybe 2 weeks? Why are players with no ban or bad server records getting month-long bans for a minor offense?

3 players were banned. As was mentioned in the other open thread, metagaming is easily considered one of the worst offenses one can commit. And it's also the one most players will typically only get punished once for. Once you get your ban, you know exactly what to do to avoid getting caught in the future. The reason metagaming bans are so severe is to dissuade people from ever trying to do it again. It's undoubtedly one of the shittiest moves one can pull, and tantamount to outright cheating because you're gaining an unfair advantage. It's considered zero tolerance and the rules make this pretty clear, in my own opinion. Feel free to discuss that on the other thread here if you must: https://willard.network/forums/threads/changing-metagame-rules.10979/

---

Liams 3 Month Ban:

ItsLiam was recently banned for 3 months for grabbing items from a vending machine without roleplaying it when no other players were around. How is that NOT excessive? I have seen this done multiple times by both players and staff members roleplaying with people around.

Liam was banned for a long time because he has accumulated a plethora of warnings and bans already. In fact, he's not far off from being the most warned and banned person period. For context, he has 5 bans and 4 warnings. The amount of bans and warns typically determine the duration of your next infraction, even if it's a minor one, relatively speaking. This has not always been extremely consistent though and we're looking to change that to avoid unclear situations like this one. I'll agree with you on this one, 3 months may have been too harsh and hence it was quickly rectified into a more appropriate two weeks. Considering there was no real clear guideline on how long a ban should have been in this situation though, I can not put anyone at fault. The reasoning he gave himself for the ban is quite disingenuous though, considering part of the reason he was banned was for minge-grabbing items from a vending machine, with people nearby, while realistically being unable to do so, as he was standing on the other side of the railing:

Spoiler: Vending Machine

That is the full context of that particular ban. It's not as black and white as was made out to be.

---

Ban Amounts:

Over the last 60 days, 68 bans were administered. This includes the same players being banned several times. The majority of these bans were for NITRP (No Intent to Roleplay) aka the minges you all know and love.
These numbers aren't much. No, not really. GMod servers, including HL2RP, will find several minges join on the same day. Over the course of a single month, we average around 500 unique visits. That includes you. This happens every day. They'll almost always be banned and told to read the rules. They never do, because they were never here to actually roleplay anyway. All things considered, not as dramatic as initially believed.

---

Ban Management:

We've very recently established a Ban Management team. Currently, this consists of @Fedora and @Kappatalist. This team was formed to help curb the issues presented in this thread. Because there is a problem, I agree. Our current ban system is years old, and dare I say, out of touch with the community. We'll fix it.

This team will work with me and @Memesky to establish a new system for bans and warnings and the methodology to approach various situations across the board. The goal we have in mind with this new system is to promote fairness across the board and eliminate as many double standards as possible. This is a work-in-progress though and we ask you to be patient as we work out the finer details. We'll be transparent with you throughout this process and you as players will know exactly what changed and how it affects you while playing.

We'll simultaneously be working on a new and improved, modernized moderation guide for the staff team, so we're all on the same page. This guide will cover the essentials and help assure consistency across staff, no matter which admin ends up claiming your ticket or handling your dispute.

---

Closing Notes:

It's important to remember we're in a period of attrition and polarization. A lot of players (and staff) end up forming some form of negative judgement towards players who don't play their side or just those with differing opinions on how things should run. Don't let things get overly personal and know we're all here to work on forming a better server for everyone. We're all here to have a good time, and I hope y'all can treat each other with respect. Have a good night.

An update on the improved and restructured ban criteria will follow over the course of the coming week.