Should appeals continue to be decided by the responsible administrator?

[BONERMASTER]

Bottom post of the previous page:

First of all, good day, I welcome you to this discussion!



As is currently policy, appeals of any kind are always made to the responsible administrator in question. In some circumstances, head administrators will overrule the decision that was made. A strict code of conduct is enforced, where parties not related to the case may only provide information (such as providing logs). As it is, the administrator issuing the punishment can fully approve or decline the appeal entirely on his own volition.

This system is by far not perfect. Administrators, particularly in highly emotional and stressful cases, are likely to have a very negative bias to the person that is appealing to them. In addition, there is no oversight in the entire process outside of head administrators intervening with their decision, which is known to take a substantial amount of time, specifically, several days to weeks. Outside of these interventions, which are arguably very sporadic, there is virtually no protective mechanism and legislative body that ensures that appeals are conducted in a fair manner to the person appealing.


I believe, these are concerns that warrant discussion for a new policy change.



This thread aims to discuss and answer the following points:


1. Is the tenet of neutrality upheld by administrators deciding their own appeals?


2. What role should administrators have in their own cases?


3. How would administrators be selected to stand in for these appeals?


4. Alternatively, should appeals be left in their current state, instead of introducing new structural changes, such as for example, a jury system?



Here, I would request everyone to please keep their tone civil and refrain from any insults and to provoke fights in this thread. I would like the points raised in the opening statement to be the central points guiding the discussion, and I am very much looking forward to your opinions and how this discussion will unfold!


With warm regards
-BONERMASTER

[CPTANT]

Isn't that literally standard at this point? I thought headmins review all rejected appeals (and accepted-but-only-softened appeals if the accused is still dissatisfied).

Not necessarily, non-headmins are free to move rejected appeals after a few days of resolution.

Can we just codify that people may have an headmin ruling on their ban request if they request so?

This is already how it works (assuming you mean ban appeals, not requests). Someone requested headmin appeal on one of my ban appeals after I presented the option, so I left it up and pinged head admins every so often to look at it.

If it is already the case you can just write it down right?

[Jimmius]

Isn't that literally standard at this point? I thought headmins review all rejected appeals (and accepted-but-only-softened appeals if the accused is still dissatisfied).

The way it works (or has worked for this term) is that if the person appealing requests a headmin review, or the appeal is a controversial or serious one that warrants a headmin ruling despite it not being requested, that's when all three of us have to sit down and discuss it.
For appeals that are denied and the person appealing makes no further comment after a few days to a week, I (or another headmin, I suppose) read it and resolve it, notifying the others so they can intervene if they both disagree with how it was resolved.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

if appeal has more than 1000 views it should have headmin review

[Arianya]

Isn't that literally standard at this point? I thought headmins review all rejected appeals (and accepted-but-only-softened appeals if the accused is still dissatisfied).

The way it works (or has worked for this term) is that if the person appealing requests a headmin review, or the appeal is a controversial or serious one that warrants a headmin ruling despite it not being requested, that's when all three of us have to sit down and discuss it.
For appeals that are denied and the person appealing makes no further comment after a few days to a week, I (or another headmin, I suppose) read it and resolve it, notifying the others so they can intervene if they both disagree with how it was resolved.

This is more or less accurate to my term - with the only addendum being that obviously headmins could look things over/intervene regardless of if anyone requested it (or if it looked controversial on the surface)

fyi you can literally google "tgstation logs" and the first result is our logging website lol

Before making my post, I had already considered this, and I came to the conclusion that without a doctor's degree or an addiction to coding, it is unreasonable to expect a new user that may be doing their first appeal to successfully navigate through the menus and find the correct log file AND also extract any meaningful information out of it. There are other log processing sites available (such as scrubby) that present easily accessible information to the user and offer them various filtering methods to further assist them in their search, however, they are not given exposure in any of the guideline threads that you would expect a newly arriving user to look to when they may be preparing their appeal.

Further, this discussion topic is not the focus of this thread, and after already having warned you for your condescending provocations and virtually no positive contribution to this discussion, I do want to express it very clearly that I do not want you to participate in this thread any longer.


With warm regards
-BONERMASTER

a) Its equally possible to say "I don't think that's accurate because [the clown was a ling/Ian was never alive to start with/etc]" and there are plenty of people who will take a look at logs, both admins and players - especially because its exempt peanut posting. If someone is unwilling to look at the logs AND present a reason why their ban does not accurately represent the events then there's a point at which we have to set a very very low bar of entry for appeals - this is ultimately a free game run by volunteers, it is not our job to compile a case for your appeal from start to finish.

b) You don't get to decide who can participate in the thread or not - if you have issues with a user's post, report it with an explanation of how it breaks the rules - shouting people down is frankly pointless and a derail, so avoid it in future.

[BONERMASTER]

I believe you have misunderstood my post. I was stating that it should be easier for players to access logs, not that admins should use them in their place instead.

This discussion has not moved very much since the initial start, and the majority of participants has made their stance clear in regards to this policy. I would like to reel this discussion back in for one last point which has been brought up here several times, that is the length of time that it takes for a headmin to intervene. This is particularly frustrating for very short bans in the 1-2 day range, as even if the ban is ultimately proven to be wrongly placed, the person is still subject to the full length of the ban with no compensation whatsoever.

The question arises:

1. Should there be an intermediate role between administrator and headmin that can intervene on their behalf on these appeals? (Gamemaster would lend themselves for that role, disagree?)
2. Should there be compensation for players that find themselves wrongfully banned and sitting out the full length of the ban?


With warm regards
-BONERMASTER

[Gigapuddi420]

Even if you assume ideal circumstances with dedicated appeal admins it would still be normal for the appeal to take more then a day to resolve. With a day ban you're basically appealing the ban note so it doesn't escalate into a stronger ban down the line.

1. Should there be a intermediary for speedy appeals? I don't think appeals need be immediately responded to, but some system to handle long delayed appeals would help. Maybe a option for headmins to pass the appeal on to another, or the banning admin to step back voluntarily if they lack the online time to give it due diligence. By 'long delayed' I'm talking over a week, a couple days is nothing in the scheme of things.

2. Other then a apology, not really. For short bans it doesn't really hurt much to sit out fuming for a day or two; the reward for a successful appeal is vindication. If the ban is egregious enough it could cost the admin their position, but usually it just adds to a record of poor decisions that might build up to going back on trial or getting deadminned in the worst case. I'm not keen on the idea of giving out antag tokens for successfully overturning a ban as I suspect it would encourage more appeals for the wrong reason; instead of seeking vindication people will be looking for that gamer reward.

[Agux909]

No to both, we just need fresher meat in the throne and these things will be considerably less prone to happen.

To the admins, if you see your fellow admins running for their third or fourth term, sometimes you gotta think about what's best for them even if it seems to go against their wishes. This goes for the player vote as well.

Spare them and everyone else the consequences of their inevitable burnout. Each election has multiple valid candidates, stop voting the same and you'll see how oiled the gears will get.

[Rohen_Tahir]

Definitely no to 2., that would encourage people to trick admins into making bad bans.

[Misdoubtful]

Hey who remembers Enron lmao

Also headmins exist for a reason tbh