My impression of MU mods, is that they aren’t the type to ban people because they have some axe to grind.
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So, my stance is probably unsurprising, considering the fact I made this thread about stricter banning, but I think MU mods are generally reasonable when banning people. In fact, I thought they were too reasonable when they made that thread, or perhaps it’s better to say that I thought they weren’t acting on things that deserved to be acted on.
With that in mind, it’s also unsurprising that I completely agree with Marl. I think MU’s banning processes have been mostly fine, and the issues I had with them don’t really have a relation to what’s being discussed here. I read Helz’s posts about his ban and I think it was warranted. The lack of communication afterward is not the first time this happened on MU; I know of at least one other case where the mods refused to communicate with someone after they were permabanned, and quite frankly, in both cases, I understand.
I’m not familiar with the main situation in this thread (Achro/Phighter); that being said, I am surprised that Phighter can eat so many bans and still not receive a permaban. You can check MU’s moderation history and notice Phighter’s name appear there quite a few times. He’s been quite consistent for literal years, and Achro calling him a bully is unsurprising, because that is how the guy plays. And yes, I know that he plays the way that he does on purpose, but I don’t think purposefully doing bannable things for any reason makes it any better.
This is something I’ve taken issue with in the past, and I understand why you think banning people = villainizing them. If someone gets a prison sentence in real life, that also looks like villainization to a degree, because the person is being removed from society at large, and there has to be a reason for that, so many would conclude that person is not to be trusted. If somebody gets banned from a site, especially one that has some reputation to uphold, it’s also natural to conclude they must’ve done something bad and they are not to be trusted. That is the unfortunate connotation which comes with punishment. It always gives some kind of negative aura.
That being said, I feel like it’s… unavoidable, and it’s also a matter of perception. I’m of the opinion that as long as a reasonable justification is given (which was my primary talking point in the MU thread I created), banning people isn’t villainization by intention, it’s just a matter of how other people perceive it, and I don’t think that can be influenced a lot. If you say “we like this person, they’re fine, but they did something bad and therefore they are getting banned” it sounds more ridiculous and it’s also biased (“why would you ban them if you like them and you think they’re fine? why are they fine and not X person?”). It also creates the issue of setting a precedent; if you say that for one player, but not the other, that’ll look like the other is being villainized. So, banning should be opinion-agnostic and based on whether rules and principles were actually broken or not.
I do think some ban descriptions make it seem like a ban is out of principle rather than because rules were broken. I definitely do believe that is a thing, and that ideally, it wouldn’t be. But I also understand why.
TL;DR: I don’t think banning = villainization. I agree that it seems that way, but I don’t think it’s possible to negate that feeling – there just needs to be clarity in the process. My MU thread was about this and I have taken issue with the lack of evidence presented. I think it’s best to at least make your reasoning clear so that everyone knows why a person got banned. You know, like court decisions (as much as it pains me to draw this comparison, because courts and forums are far removed from each other in terms of gravity). You can come to your own conclusions after, and you may certainly feel that some of the bans were unjustified, but at least you… know why.
I feel like a signup ban would be better for that sort of thing. The issue was with game integrity, and a person can’t destroy game integrity if they can’t sign up for games. Permaban from the entire site doesn’t really correlate, it’s more extreme than it needs to be. Though at the same time, I also agree with Marl that it’s probably possible to appeal the ban right now.
I think MU could use more clarity in regard to bans. I also thought this about a year ago. Yet, I don’t think when they’re banning someone, they’re trying to send a message about people’s personal lives and how they view people with a history of abuse. It’s not really about that. It’s about whether a rule was a broken, and how extremely. I don’t think they’re 100% consistent with their banning processes, and I think they weigh a person’s attitude and responses more heavily in some cases than they do in others, which makes the moderation imperfect. But as a whole, I think it’s okay, at least in terms of approach. I do think how a person felt and why they were breaking rules is important to consider; at the same time, I don’t think considering that should excuse a person’s actions 100%. It’s a fine line, but it exists.
TL;DR:
- I honestly can’t say much about Achro’s ban without extra context (I would need to read the posts from Achro and the moderation team in order to make a proper judgment);
- I think Phighter has done this sort of thing so frequently that him not getting permabanned by now is a mystery (this isn’t slander, it’s objectively true that he has eaten many bans for behaving like this, just check MU’s moderation log);
- I think Helz’s ban was warranted;
- I think Story’s ban should’ve probably been a sign-up ban;
- I don’t think MU bans are aimed to villainize people, and while I do think that some bans were made on principle rather than due to rulebreaking, I understand these cases.
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ok I’m sorry I know this isn’t the point but now I’m imagining a world where the modlog looks like:
Achromatic has been banned for one month for calling another player a bully and weaponizing reports. We respect him greatly and hope to see him back on our site when his ban expires.
Zone_Q11 has been blacklisted for three months for gamethrowing. We respect him greatly and hope to see him back on our site when his blacklist expires.
[etc.]
Arete has been banned for two months for flaming another user.
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No, exactly, that’s what it would look like if mods included personal feelings about the player in their reasoning. This is a slightly silly example, but I honestly believe it’s not far removed from what would happen.
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I gave a terrible example earlier tbh. I also want to make it clear I don’t know most of MU staff personally, but the ones I know/have met are very nice people.
That being said, my initial point was about something else, mainly about how being closer to a certain circle might affect the way you get treated by them regardless of your past achievements or who you are. I had a mixed experience with it and have cases where I can say on some of the occasions to be not handled that “good”. Again, Marl is right that if you don’t blend in x community then move on to y community. Every community will have differences in approach and that is normal. It is an online social deduction game after all.
I hope that clears out some stuff from my end. I am sorry to anyone for bringing up that Helz thing, I simply didn’t wanted to bring up names or events that happened recently. I thought we could look beyond what they did to see the point I was trying to make. My bad everyone
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Alice being mentioned by name in a thread about a ban is no surprise.
oh I thought “Alice” was just an hypothetical case
didn’t realize it’s Alice
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Apparently, she tried to slip by using the Particleman alt in Wild West FM 2.
I thought I made her quit FM, didn’t realize she kept playing lol
Also why did that not surprise me hmmm
I know nothing about this.
I had a troublesome game with her years ago. I probably had multiple infractions from that game alone.
She claimed someone from our game was harassing her on discord during our game and tried to bully around the thread using that as an excuse(?)
I called her out and pushed back because the game was becoming unplayable for people. She left the game then and haven’t seen her in any game I played again
I wonder if i should talk about what actually happened since Achro’s story of events does not accurately portray what happened
Or how he and Phighter manipulated me and used me as a pawn and treated me like a tool instead of a human. How toxic both parties in this were with how they used me for their fight
Maybe i should also talk about how 3 people apologized to my girlfriend after the game for things they did to ME but not a single one of them had the balls to message me directly. Nope just send my girlfriend to deliver the message right?
Or how people had to come to me to tell me that my reaction to what happened to me because of you and phighter was reasonable because i practically got gaslit into thinking everything was fine. Or how multiple people told me they reported your behavior around me and somehow those were the people who apologized to me they were the ones who said we are sorry that you are treated this way to my face even though they in fact did nothing.
Your ban is for toxicity Achro and maybe what you are saying factors into it but let’s not pretend that the way i was treated wasn’t also a factor
And the fact everyone used Caitlin to apologize to me shows that I’m still not being treated or valued as a person.
And to be clear i actually have no idea what was said to my girlfriend in these messages she was supposed to deliver to me cause i told Caitlin to tell people to message me themselves instead because it’s meaningless if it’s not said to me directly.
Peace.
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To be clear I’m not defending MU moderation
I’ve got a warning for posting a gif of 2 girls kissing lol
But I’m actually kinda upset we are just washing away the treatment of me in this game.
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I have to back up Abbi here yea
I did talk with Achro postgame so we did resolve stuff there so I personally don’t have hard feelings at all anymore but I do know my girlfriend indeed does - and is justified to have them - and it’s also true that many people reported Achro postgame (I did not); so I assume MU also would be likely to act based on that if they see their whole report box overflowing with reports about Achro on that game
A month also isn’t long at all tbf. If it was longer it wouldn’t make sense but I think a month is ‘fine’ here (maybe a bit shorter but I think 1 month already is the shortest it can go?)
Looking forward to play again with you sometime tho Achro
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That warning was so bad lol ngl
It’s of the utmost importance that everyone feels heard and respected, on any site they choose to visit. Any standards that go below that aren’t very fair to tolerate.
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Oh hello caitlin. I think I remember you, previously you had Iris Hawthorne pic, right?