Doing away with Strikes

[crazedkangaroo]

Introduction

The management team has been looking to move away from the strike system for quite some time. This system suffers in a few ways.

 

Firstly, it is rather restrictive in how punishment is handed out. Because the only two options are warn and strike, there is little flexibility from situation to situation. Secondly, because of this, the system lacks consistency. It is difficult to say what situations warrant a warning, a strike, or even an early demotion without ever reaching three strikes. And thirdly, it lacks transparency because of this lack of consistency. Management is unable to clearly state what situations will warrant what punishment as the situations are always different. 

 

For these reasons, management has been working hard to develop a system that gives us the flexibility to adapt to every situation while staying consistent and being transparent about what kind of punishment a staff member can expect for different situations. 

 

Summary

To achieve this, we have developed a point based system, dubbed the Infraction System, in which every "infraction" an admin commits in a situation will incur a point value on their record.

 

Each infraction has been given a point range which is on average a range of 4 point values; more severe situations where the infraction occurs will receive a higher point value and less severe, a lower point value. The list of infractions and their ranges are shared below. Furthermore, repeating an infraction in a second, or third situation, will incur a point addition that is predetermined and applied after the decision within the point range for the infraction. 

 

Warnings have also been done away with. Because of the point ranges allowing for us to punish according to severity, warnings aren't needed. When an admin commits an infraction a point value will be put on their record following a discussion with the admin. However, if an admin handles a mistake with maturity and ownership, or it is a genuine mistake, they will avoid receiving and infraction. The point ranges and demotion threshold also support moving away from warnings as the ranges are lower than you would expect from a direct conversion of the strike system.

 

Finally, there is a point threshold which when reached, the staff member in question will be up for demotion. At this point a discussion will occur between the staff member and management where all infractions will be discussed, the time frame in which they occurred, and their severity, and it will be decided if that staff member should be demoted.

 

Details on the values and the overall process are below. 

 

Infractions

Below is the current list of all infractions and their point ranges. [12/11/2021]

Infraction List	Point Range	Point Range [SM]
False Slaying	1-4	3-7
Not Tagging Up	1-3	-
Banning an entire server (intentional)	4-8 (Demote)	6-10 (Demote)
Displaying behavior unbecoming of staff	1-4	3-7
Banning yourself	1-4	3-7
Not following Ban Protocol	3-7	5-9
False Banning	2-5	4-7
Kicking for an incorrect reason	2-5	4-7
Breaking server rules	2-10	4-12
Failure to deescalate a situation	1-4	3-7
Ignoring Rulebreaking	1-4	3-7
Misuse of admin powers	2-5	4-7
Ignoring warnings from higher ups	1-4	3-7
Falsely labeling ban reasons	1-4	3-7
Posting in a ban appeal they are not apart of	3-7	5-9
Punishing a fellow Admin	1-4	3-7
Encouraging players to break the rules	2-5	4-7
Disrespecting a fellow admin	1-4	3-7
Breaking the racism rule	1-4	3-7
Disrespecting Players	1-4	3-7
Impersonation of other admins	3-7	5-9
Lack of responsibility for own account	5-10	7-12
Going against a server Vote	2-6	4-8
Ban for longer than 3 days	2-6	4-8
Leaking	2-10	5-15
Inappropriate ban reason(s)	1-4	3-7
Targeting Players	1-4	3-7
2nd repeated infraction	+3	-
3rd repeated infraction	+7	-
1 Past Strike	5	-
2 Past Strikes	10	-
Accepting bribe	Demote	Demote
Giving out personal information	Demote	Demote

 

Right off the bat there are several things to note; 

 

It would be very difficult to fully explain every infraction but most are taken from situations in the past. Any questions should be brought to any IA+ member and they can elaborate if need be.

 

Point ranges for SMs are, on average, 2 points higher. SMs are leaders in the community, having moved up through the ranks and eventually running some of our servers. As such we expect more from them and making mistakes is punished more severely. 

 

If an infraction is repeated an addition of 3 points is added to the staff members record. If the same infraction is repeated a 3rd time, an addition of 7 points is made. These values are separate from the infraction range decision and repeated infractions DO NOT influence the range decision. The range is decided purely on a per situation basis.

 

Some infractions may appear like duplicates but this is purely to allow us to be flexible and specific in different situations. If two similar infractions apply to a situation, the more descriptive will be used. There will not be any double dipping of similar infractions. However, if two separate infractions apply to the same situation, then both infractions will be applied accordingly. ie:  Encouraging players to break the rules and False banning in the same situation/report.

 

Lastly, past strikes have been converted to the point system at a point value of 5 per strike. While this value may seem high in relation to many of the point ranges present, it was decided based on the doing away with warnings as well as the demotion threshold discussed earlier.  

 

A disclaimer; We reserve the right to go above these predefined point ranges if the situation calls for it. We will always try and work within the ranges however it is impossible to account for everything and significantly severe situations call for a more severe punishment than was ever expected.

Additionally, this list is not exhaustive, new situations may arise that call for a new addition to the list and we will act accordingly, updating the list as we go.

 

The Process

When management is informed of a staff member committing an infraction, whether its from a complaint or a private report, information will be collected and a conversation with the staff member in question will occur. This is no different from how the strike system is handled. It is then that the exact infraction(s) and point value will be decided. The staff member will then receive a message with the infraction(s), point value, and total points received so far. A conversation will occur with every situation and infractions are not handed out on an automatic basis.

 

The point value in which a staff member is at risk for demotion is 15 points. If a staff member reaches, or passes, this point another conversation will occur with the staff member. All the infractions the staff member incurred as well as the timeframe in which they happen will all be considered. If it is decided that they are unfit to be a staff member they will be demoted. Alternatively, the staff member may be allowed to continue on a last chance basis. 

 

If a staff member reaches or surpasses 20 total points they will be demoted.

 

Outro

This system was designed to be flexible in any situation while maintaining a level of transparency with the community. Regular discussion with our staff is important so that they can understand what went wrong. This system also allows us to keep track of risk factors in our staff and is more punishing against bad staff and less so against generally good staff. Months of discussion went into ironing this system out to make sure we are doing what is best for the community going forward. We will try and answer any and all questions anyone has about the system as it can be a lot to digest. Thank you for taking the time to read through all of this as it is important everyone fully understands how this system functions going forward.

 

Infraction Appeals

We are currently working on a system to allow staff members the opportunity to appeal their infraction and have it removed off the record, more details will be released when we finalize the system. 

 

TL;DR

• Warnings and Strikes are no longer a thing
• Staff members can avoid getting an infraction by being mature and owning up to a situation
• Points will be given for any staff that commits an infraction
• Multiple infractions can be applied for just one situation
• Exact point values will be decided after a discussion with the staff member
• Repeated infractions incur a set point increase separate from the decided range
• SMs are held to a higher standard, however they are no longer demoted on their first infraction
• Staff members will have the opportunity to appeal their infraction, more details soon.
• Demotion evaluation will occur at or above 15 points
• Demotion is guaranteed at 20 points
• Past strikes are converted at 5 points each
• Please read through the whole post to familiarize yourself with this change

 

[delirium]

I see the infraction points but where is the list that shows how to get the good boy stars?

[sWz]

12 minutes ago, crazedkangaroo said:

Misuse of admin powers

12 minutes ago, crazedkangaroo said:

Kicking for an incorrect reason

12 minutes ago, crazedkangaroo said:

Disrespecting a fellow admin

12 minutes ago, crazedkangaroo said:

Breaking the racism rule

Uh oh @the baconator, you're in jeopardy!

[Strayyz]

im a big fan of this one, les goooo

[BoM]

1 hour ago, delirium said:

I see the infraction points but where is the list that shows how to get the good boy stars?

https://signup.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/signup/redownload

[Kataoka]

3 minutes ago, BoM said:

https://signup.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/signup/redownload

This is begging for people to lose more brain cells.

[delirium]

22 minutes ago, BoM said:

https://signup.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/signup/redownload

Would require me to turn my computer on so for that reason I’m out.

[Starlegendgod]

This is a great move from the former admin punishment that I approve of with the new pt system.

 

" -Staff members can avoid getting an infraction by being mature and owning up to a situation"

 

This especially as it bring an more of an incentive to own up on  mistakes and improve from it in a clean way instead of escalating the matter than it need to be or ignoring an obvious mistake. 

[Ender]

These infraction points are going to kept to AO+ eyes only, right? Otherwise, it would become very easy for blackmail to be levered against admins.

[Infinityward]

6 minutes ago, Enderspine said:

These infraction points are going to kept to AO+ eyes only, right? Otherwise, it would become very easy for blackmail to be levered against admins.

They are public, same as strikes were. They're in this thread under the Admin Complaints section.