Warnings

[NETWizz]

I am just making an announcement that we have decided that we have been pretty lax when it comes to moderation of the forum. There will be very few changes, but the warnings now have meaning. Most of the below is directly from me.

It used to be that we would just keep warning and the warn indicators would go up without consequence. In Fact, it was even a joke that someone poked fun of by messing with their signature to show a 250% warning. Truthfully, warnings had no merit except for us to take notes.

This has now changed.

There are 4 warning levels in increments of 25% ranging from 0 to 100%.

Each Warning level now has an action we take as UTI-STAFF. The first warning for example is just a warning... there are some temporary bans as well some where in the middle of the list, and at 100% you are permanently banned to never return.

Warnings will now be posted with longer comments about 1 paragraph (minimum 3 sentences) and a link will be included too. Any questions or comments can be brought forth via Private Message or IRC (unless banned). With this in mind, private IRC messaging is probably best as arguing about a ban only causes heat in the channel.

You will NOT be banned or punished for talking to an Admin or Staff Member in private. Bans will be implemented only if you go against our written Terms and Conditions in a public forum. In other words, publicly on the forum. If you wish to PM me and call me a moron, an idiot, or give a general shutout, I can take it and will not implement a warning. If you interfere with or cause problems for others, I will intervene.

[DJ Omnimaga]

This is a pretty good deal imho. Some people just abuse their right to post on the forums. And Invisionfree had pretty strict rules anyway, and I'm sure lot of other forums out there have. For example, if someone flamed or spammed in the help section, he could no longer post in this section. If he kept advertising via PM he got his entire PM system disabled. If you advertised on the board or spammed often, you got warned to not do it. Further offense leaded to a ban.


I would even go with 3 levels of warnings if i were you though. Because, normally if you don't get it after 3 warnings, it's because you either don't care, have fun testing staff nerves or can't even read at all. First warning via a post/warn increase, second via pm/warn increase, 3rd temp ban/warn increase, then 4th permban

And ban evasion on the temp ban means permban

[calc84maniac]

Is there any way for the warning level to go down? :ninja:

[bananaman]

Your suggestion DJ Omnimaga seems a little bit harsh. I like the way the net-wiz has set it up.

I think this is a good idea seeing how we had no real system set up to deal with a certain recent event. This should create less confusion/arguments in the future, b/c the rules are now spelled out.

[DJ Omnimaga]

well my solution was pretty much the same, just with lower amount of warnings needed before ban. I guess it all depends of point of views though, plus I may be biased because bad stuff recently happened over here *cough*arcane*cough*


But netwiz idea is pretty cool anyway.

[baorder54]

[alexrudd]

[leofox]

Can you be warned on the forums for saying something on IRC though?

[DJ Omnimaga]

[DigiTan]

I'd like to add that we are hoping we never have to implement any of these measures. In early times, TOS violations were mostly one-time affairs with newbs or very inactive members. Now that's shifting to the opposite case, so I think it's good thing we're clarifying the repeat offenses policy. No one's going to say with a straight face that they didn't know what they were getting into.

Also, if anyone's unsure if a post will cause problems, check with the moderating team beforehand rather than after. No one gets in trouble for double-checking.

[DarkerLine]

I'd also like to clarify something NETWiz said. If you PM us and insult us, we won't take any actions, although we'd rather you didn't because we're really nice guys. However, if you PM other members with something offensive that breaks the rules, and those other members complain to us, we WILL take action.

[AlienCC]

[DJ Omnimaga]

[DigiTan]

Well, there's always the login cookie. And we don't have to check about peanut allergies.

[DJ Omnimaga]

ah lol yeah that :D


but cookies sucks for new ppl registering who only have access at school or library because they always get stolen

[NETWizz]

[NETWizz]

[NETWizz]

Hello,

UPDATE:

I have adjusted the forum's warning system as promised. Someone already set it to 4 warnings which is just perfect and I have tested it too with DJ Omnimaga by warning him 4 times to test the system. I reset it :-)

Here is why it is 4 times. The first time someone is warned, 2 blocks appear, even though the warning increases only 25%. That will rattle them a bit. Second, I chose 4 warnings because we will be giving the verbal warning via the warning system, yet really have a 3 strike policy. I.e. the first warning does not count towards anything. It is considered a verbal warning when your level is adjusted to 25%. You still have all 3 strikes before a permanent ban. By the second strike you will be increased to 50% and at this point at the moderator's digression you may be temporarily banned for a very short period of time about 1 to 3 days at the most.

In Other words, it works like this:
If someone has to be warned for anything, we will use the warning system to log it. Without the Warning system, nobody is going to remember if a verbal warning system is used.

To be fair to everybody in the group, I reset the entire warning system. Everybody who has had a warning > 0 has it set back to 0 and I also cleared all the logs. We have no history on any body's previous offenses, except the warnings table in the database shows a 0 instead of a NUL if the system has ever been used.

We have increased the moderator role at United-TI to empower moderators:
1. Moderators now have the ability to take away posting rights/BAN!
2. Moderators can warn someone more an unlimited amount of times in 24 hours instead of the previous 1 warning a day limit. (I still don't want to see more than 2 warnings a day per user. If we see 3 in one day, it means a cool-off ban should have been implemented).

This does not mean that moderators can move a user to the banned group. It is intended only for temporary BANS i.e. no posting. If a moderator maxes out someone's warning, it will be submitted to the UTI-STAFF for final review/permanent ban

[DJ Omnimaga]

It sounds fair. Go for it.

But I thought UTI banned for something said or done on IRC before? Because this happened with leofox and arcane, altough arcane really took it on the extreme

[Darth Android]