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[Church]

Ah yes, my opinion that you clearly wanted isn't the opinion you were looking for so my opinion is entirely discredited.

You really need to take a step back and take a second look at the way you come across in this thread.

Why would you not be open to the other sides opinion in the matter, if you say the reason is exploring the why part. Invalidating one entire half of the group is one of the worst things you can do, not objective proof and it's biased from the start. If you just started the discussion you can always ignore the posts that don't fit in your worldview and everyone's happy.

Shit I needa keep up to stay in the top of most controversial posting forums users.

I knew this would be the talking point.

There is a difference between ignoring someone because they disagree with you, and ignoring someone because their opinion isn’t worth arguing.

I’ve always been willing to debate someone if we both make valid points. But if I’m right and someone else is wrong, then I’m not gonna waste my time trying to explain to someone why they are wrong.

“Oh, so since someone doesn’t agree with you, then their opinion is automatically wrong”..... No chuck. If I say “The earth is a sphere” and you say “The earth is flat” one of us is WRONG and one is right. I’m not gonna argue it.

The reason I will sit here and debate Patel or Rapsey, is because although we don’t quite agree with the way the poll was created, they still make a valid point that there are problems, but they don’t think it’s favoritism. That’s a debatable point. Not “There are no problems, this whole poll is stupid.”

It's easier for Patel and Rapsey to argue the specific points of bias within the staff team because technically neither of them are staff. Once someone wants to have a real discussion about the question of bias, which I have had with specific people dozens of times over the years I've been staff, I will have input for them.

My point, which is not just wrong as you rudely said, is this poll is little more than a drama post. I never said there was no problem or that there was no bias, I know there is because it's human nature that there's bias, this poll has done nothing to further that discussion.

[Uim elon]

Ah yes, my opinion that you clearly wanted isn't the opinion you were looking for so my opinion is entirely discredited.

You really need to take a step back and take a second look at the way you come across in this thread.

Why would you not be open to the other sides opinion in the matter, if you say the reason is exploring the why part. Invalidating one entire half of the group is one of the worst things you can do, not objective proof and it's biased from the start. If you just started the discussion you can always ignore the posts that don't fit in your worldview and everyone's happy.

Shit I needa keep up to stay in the top of most controversial posting forums users.

I knew this would be the talking point.

There is a difference between ignoring someone because they disagree with you, and ignoring someone because their opinion isn’t worth arguing.

I’ve always been willing to debate someone if we both make valid points. But if I’m right and someone else is wrong, then I’m not gonna waste my time trying to explain to someone why they are wrong.

“Oh, so since someone doesn’t agree with you, then their opinion is automatically wrong”..... No chuck. If I say “The earth is a sphere” and you say “The earth is flat” one of us is WRONG and one is right. I’m not gonna argue it.

The reason I will sit here and debate Patel or Rapsey, is because although we don’t quite agree with the way the poll was created, they still make a valid point that there are problems, but they don’t think it’s favoritism. That’s a debatable point. Not “There are no problems, this whole poll is stupid.”

It's easier for Patel and Rapsey to argue the specific points of bias within the staff team because technically neither of them are staff. Once someone wants to have a real discussion about the question of bias, which I have had with specific people dozens of times over the years I've been staff, I will have input for them.

My point, which is not just wrong as you rudely said, is this poll is little more than a drama post. I never said there was no problem or that there was no bias, I know there is because it's human nature that there's bias, this poll has done nothing to further that discussion.

Just in case you missed it.

I’ve always been willing to debate someone if we both make valid points. But if I’m right and someone else is wrong, then I’m not gonna waste my time trying to explain to someone why they are wrong.

We can just agree to disagree.

[Monys]

The next question is in fact the “Why do you believe bias exists?” And that is where the dialogue truly begins. If you walk up to a person and ask them “Why do you believe the earth is flat?”, they will look at you crazy if you don’t first ask them “do you believe the earth is flat?”.

This is where you lose me - everyone already knows bias inconsistency exists, and we're already discussing/open to discussing where it comes from.

This poll changed nothing in that regard. Maybe there are people who think it doesn't exist, and this makes it more clear for them? But no one I know of is disputing that there is a discrepancy. The dialogue is a step ahead of you

This really wasn’t my intent with the post.

Let me give you a very extreme example....

If I ask the server “Does racism exist?”.... and 80% says yes, and 20% says no......

Now if I split the groups up, and I ask the 80% “Why do you believe racism exists?”. What I would get are reasons and examples and scenarios that people have experienced. Then we can work on identifying and solving the issue.

If I go to the 20% and ask “Why do you believe racism exists?” I would simply get back “Racism doesn’t exist”. There is no discussion to be had there because they don’t believe there is a problem.



So what has happened here is that I attempted to identify those who believe a problem exist by the poll..... and instead of getting the chance to isolate those who believe there is in fact a problem, I was bombarded by those who believe there is no problem. I had no intent of arguing the existence of the problem. I have better use of my time like talking with those who are experiencing problems (or atleast feel like they are experiencing the problems) and coming up with a solution for them.

If the 80% thing was true, why wouldn't you have asked them to elaborate like The Underdog mentioned?

Limiting this thing to a Yes or No, like Dj has said, isn't a fair exchange. Whether I am 80 or 20, I should still have an opinion of some sort that has an argument.

Using your analogy, this should be a better response than the 20 saying just "no"

80 - I think racism is a bad thing because XYZ

20 - I am "insert race" and I know that "mod who is of other race" did not treat me different when they knew I was of another race.

[Iron blix]

I just follow the punishment guidelines. Broken rules should be dealt with accordingly no matter who breaks them. Yes, we have written guidelines for punishments. I even comitted them to memory.

[Thierryu1]

I just follow the punishment guidelines. Broken rules should be dealt with accordingly no matter who breaks them. Yes, we have written guidelines for punishments. I even comitted them to memory.

I love you man lol...

[Raj]

Ok the logical takeaway in my honest opinion is:

The community clearly feels bias exists on the staff team. We should aim to understand why they feel that way, and what can be done to rectify the situation.

I personally have always thought our punishment guidelines should be public. However, that's not viable because every punishment would turn into a legal debate (not that it already isn't that away), and loopholing would probably become a really common thing.

A large disconnect is that staff can see players' punishment histories and regular players can't. The other week, I yellmuted someone for what I would classify as minor baiting. From an exterior perspective, it looks like I just might not like that player. However, the online staff at the time understood that my reasoning was
a. They had an extremely large number of mutes in the past 2 weeks (none of which were done by me) and
b. The first thing they'd done after another staff member's 2h mute expired was bait the same exact person again, but this time over yell

I don't know that that issue is solvable without a major change in the way we handle player privacy or reports. I also don't think making any of the viable changes would lead to any real benefit. Rapsey already mentioned how public reports tend to go, and I don't see public punishment histories or punishment broadcasts going much differently. Their misuse would outweigh their benefits by far.

There's also the issue of wondering why someone wasn't punished. Personally I'm open to having those discussions and I assume most staff are. If you'd like to start a thread with examples of that asking for reasoning, feel free to start one. If you'd like an explanation from us in-game, PM us about it when it happens. If you don't think they're justified in their decision and are being biased, report a staff. Ryan does take staff reports pretty seriously.

I also want to emphasize that there's no staff member who's complacent in anything, as far as I know. When we use a punishment command it's broadcasted to all the other online staff, and it's not uncommon for someone to ask for the reasoning on it if they disagree. We're all also accountable to Ryan if you choose to report a staff or appeal your unfair punishment or whatever.

tl;dr:
No real solution with current privacy rules since players can't really be fully informed on a decision. Use report a staff, since Ryan can be fully informed. Maybe worth considering public punishment histories and showing who placed what punishment to remedy that but probably people would just use it to bait each other.

Poll is pretty useless though, you'd have been better off starting by asking for examples. An entry in a poll doesn't require evidence of being wronged or show that anyone was; providing evidence of being wronged does. This poll is just a formality at best and an attempt to stir the pot at worst.

[Patel]

tl;dr:
No real solution with current privacy rules since players can't really be fully informed on a decision. Use report a staff, since Ryan can be fully informed. Maybe worth considering public punishment histories and showing who placed what punishment to remedy that but probably people would just use it to bait each other.

Poll is pretty useless though, you'd have been better off starting by asking for examples. An entry in a poll doesn't require evidence of being wronged or show that anyone was; providing evidence of being wronged does. This poll is just a formality at best and an attempt to stir the pot at worst.

This is a pretty good TL;DR. Punishments aside, if players wanted more know-how about the decision-making process they'd basically have to have some equivalent of staff logs. But that means less privacy for the players. The best we can do on a case by case basis is to inform the player why they were punished and give our reasoning. We can't give them logs or punishment histories. But I do think that it would lessen the perception of inconsistencies in punishments (and thus, the perception of favoritism in punishments).

@Elon Musky I don't deny the human instinct to sniff out something that is unfair (why do you think I ever tried to be staff?), but I also appreciate that people can only act on what they can perceive.

[Uim elon]

Since the poll is so useless..... I would challenge a staff member to open up a discussion thread for this situation, and make it anything other than what it has become here.

If you’re not willing to do that, then you have no right to call the poll useless, because that would mean you are too cowardly to open the line of discussion without it being a court room where one complains, and one defends themselves, and nothing is truly solved. Because that’s all this has turned into, staff trying to defend themselves when no has even accused them of anything..... that just shows a level of guilt on your conscious.

Church has offered to chat in discord, but all he has done here is defend himself or defend others instead of actually listening, understanding and resolving. So one could only assume that an identical thing would happen on discord.

Some of you truly fail to grasp the point of this post, therefore you think it’s useless..... but those who do understand the purpose of the post, although they might not agree how it was conducted, they do see atleast SOME knowledge from it, even if they weren’t surprised by the outcome.

[Patel]

Since the poll is so useless..... I would challenge a staff member to open up a discussion thread for this situation, and make it anything other than what it has become here.

I mean, this is already a discussion thread. Why make a new one and have everyone read this one first?

There is a difference between ignoring someone because they disagree with you, and ignoring someone because their opinion isn’t worth arguing.

I nearly spat out my coffee when I read this. Seems like a convenient way to never be wrong.

Speaking of convenient ways to never be wrong...

We can just agree to disagree.

Are you gonna step up to bat for your opinions or not? The only times I've ever pulled that line are when I don't want to discuss anymore. Not to mention you're the one who wanted to

open up a discussion

So let's start discussing. Your ideas so far are twofold:

- There are inconsistencies with how staff members will punish different players for a similar broken rule, AND this is because of prejudice/favoritism/arbitrary bias.
- More transparency with the punishment process would be good

I wholeheartedly agree with the second (but the keyword is 'more' - not complete transparency). But the first point I see as being completely false.

I'm not just "guessing" that staff members make mistakes more often than they make biased punishments, I know that's the case. If you're going to play the part of 'I know everything' then start by going back to posts from 2013, and reading major discussion threads. If you don't want to do that, that's understandable; maybe you just have to trust people who've lived it/read through it. If you don't, then honestly it's a you problem.

If you do it, you should start to see trends that make you think a) holy shit there were so many problems with completely transparent punishments, and b) wow the staff are pretty good these days. I'm not saying you'll forget about all this, but you'll have a healthy perspective on it and stop having to pretend that you're onto something that no one else is getting. We've been ready to discuss, because this was *actually* a problem long before you got here, and we've ironed out most of the creases.

[Uim elon]

@Patel just give it a rest man.

Just because I choose not to fight every battle that is brought up, doesn’t mean that I’m automatically flawed or I always think I’m right and everyone else is wrong. It just means I have other things to spend my energy on, so I would rather cut my loses than continue on an endless debate.

I feel like I’ve done a decent job expressing my points very clearly. If you don’t agree with them, fine. If you agree with them, fine. I’ve stepped up to bat for all of my opinions thus far. This is no longer an open discussion, instead it has turned into a war with words, which wasn’t the intent of the post.