[Applied] A solution.

[Noob^]

Fellow gamers,

 

SG is undoubtedly not in a great place regarding forum/server activity. Activity on here has been as low as I have seen it in my time here. 
 

I would like to propose an idea that may seem crazy but may also revitalize SG. 
 

Unban all regulars on a one time last chance basis. This would bring in a lot of old members who were one time very active and may bring some life to the forums/servers. 
 

This idea seems a little crazy but in my opinion people change, and there ain’t going to be a community to ban from if things don’t change soon. 
 

There will of course be repeat offenders etc, but how hard is it to hit the ban button lol. 

Thoughts?

 

[20 scrolls]

Sounds like a good idea, but some people like doxxers and people on the never unban list should not be unbanned (insidious being one example).

[John]

5 minutes ago, 20 scrolls said:

Sounds like a good idea, but some people like doxxers and people on the never unban list should not be unbanned (insidious being one example).

Or (hear me out) unban insidious just to ban him again? That sounds fair to me.

[delirium]

Not a completely garbage take. Agree with scrolls that there are some people who do not deserve a second chance, but we should definitely unban Malibu.

[Black Rain]

We discussed this back in February and once prior a few months before that. So back in February, we did a some more research on the statistics for permed players for 10+ years. Turns out we had nearly 6200 banned with the top 3 reasons being a) cheating violation; b) rdm; and c) inappropriate language. 

 

As a result, we decided to unban those decade old ones and will continue to evaluate the bans between 2012 and now. We're not looking to do a full un-ban sweep, but we are looking to relieve a huge portion of permanent bans because of how old they are. Anything below 10 years hasn't been considered. 

 

I don't think we'll go so far to unban every regular right off the bat. It requires an extensive discussion of a case-by-case basis which is tedious enough as it is. A major unban wave is easier to deal with when it comes to the age of a ban instead. Also, it's way more easier to keep a repeated offender banned than having to deal with their shenanigans and knowing we're going to hit the ban button again real soon

[Noob^]

I understand your comments. I just want to give my two cents on a couple points you made.

 

Removing decade old bans isn’t going to bring anyone back, those people are long gone. I’d be surprised if you got more than 5 people from those very old bans to show up. 
 

I can understand the “not removing every ban”, there are some things that people have done that go to far which may include like real life matters and etc. As far as cheating/trolling/bad language goes, who REALLY honestly cares that much about something that happened 1-5 years ago that may have inconvenienced them for a game or few mins at most. It may be slightly annoying to deal with but I mean the terms could be like a last chance basis, if they cross the line easy to get rid of. 
 

IMO way to much politics/seriousness for a gaming community around here. Maybe not the right words here at the end but you get what I mean. 
 

@Black Rain

 

[Black Rain]

3 hours ago, Noob^ said:

Removing decade old bans isn’t going to bring anyone back, those people are long gone. I’d be surprised if you got more than 5 people from those very old bans to show up. 

True but it's a start 

 

3 hours ago, Noob^ said:

As far as cheating/trolling/bad language goes, who REALLY honestly cares that much about something that happened 1-5 years ago that may have inconvenienced them for a game or few mins at most. It may be slightly annoying to deal with but I mean the terms could be like a last chance basis, if they cross the line easy to get rid of. 

Right and that's why we adjusted the protocol to be more lenient towards those users if they were to appeal now. Unfortunately, not everyone will take the effort to make a ban appeal despite seeing the kicked message of "appeal on the forums." This is the first step in that direction to consider how we handle very old bans, so that's one of the reasons why we started with a decade old bans for clean-up. 

 

Thought I'd share this if anyone was wondering. These were the numbers 2 months ago for permed players that tried to connect to any of our servers.

Quote

0 in 2022 - must've changed by now since 2 months have passed

8 in 2021
24 in 2020
40 in 2019
20 in 2018
23 in 2017
25 in 2016
27 in 2015
850 between 2014-2010.

It's a mixture of long forgotten players and those that were causing grief by rejoining on multiple accounts. 

 

 

[sWz]

Yeah dalerjon should be unbanned I think

[duffy]

12 hours ago, Noob^ said:

IMO way to much politics/seriousness for a gaming community around here. Maybe not the right words here at the end but you get what I mean. 

I generally read forums posts and try to get a gist of what still goes on (forums and discord sides) since I still play the servers but I can confidently say that this has been our problem recently for the longest time. Personally, I feel like I can't even join the SG discord and make a few jokes without the fear of pissing someone off and they start talking to someone. But, I'm not saying that we should open the flood gates and allow everything. The 'fun' environment in SG is gone, and has been for awhile now. I checked in to the main discord tonight because I was trying to get people on scrim (please join more often guys) and I saw an argument between like 6 people over the dumbest things. We are like, totally gone and moving away from a welcoming and fun atmosphere. Motivation is, from what I have seen and assume, gone from half of our staff members which is probably correlated to all of the distaste between our staff and members. 80% of our staff/admins don't even attempt to get on the servers anymore. Nobody even tries anymore, it's like a wasteland. Some people try running this place like they get paid millions for it. You don't. It's a gaming community. Let loose a little bit. All of the people that used to be regulars here moved to their own discords, for understandable reasons. The main discord is probably the most distasteful place at times. We need to bring back our welcoming environment and be a 'gaming community'.

[kabLe]

8 hours ago, duffy said:

I generally read forums posts and try to get a gist of what still goes on (forums and discord sides) since I still play the servers but I can confidently say that this has been our problem recently for the longest time. Personally, I feel like I can't even join the SG discord and make a few jokes without the fear of pissing someone off and they start talking to someone. But, I'm not saying that we should open the flood gates and allow everything. The 'fun' environment in SG is gone, and has been for awhile now. I checked in to the main discord tonight because I was trying to get people on scrim (please join more often guys) and I saw an argument between like 6 people over the dumbest things. We are like, totally gone and moving away from a welcoming and fun atmosphere. Motivation is, from what I have seen and assume, gone from half of our staff members which is probably correlated to all of the distaste between our staff and members. 80% of our staff/admins don't even attempt to get on the servers anymore. Nobody even tries anymore, it's like a wasteland. Some people try running this place like they get paid millions for it. You don't. It's a gaming community. Let loose a little bit. All of the people that used to be regulars here moved to their own discords, for understandable reasons. The main discord is probably the most distasteful place at times. We need to bring back our welcoming environment and be a 'gaming community'.

I understand what you mean and have even advocated for it strongly in the past. The issue is I go into GFL and scroll up for days worth of their general chat and I don’t see a quarter of the bullshit we currently are allowing. We are probably still one of the most lenient communities out there in terms of how we have let everyone interact with each other. There are several members who are currently less than welcoming and when we do finally say something trust and believe it’s not the first time, first day, or first week someone has repeatedly acted in a way that garners our attention. 
 

Nobody on this end is acting like they make a paycheck for this trust me. We simply have seen how things have played out and are diverting efforts to course correction. When you let certain attitudes slide for so long and then actively pursue punishment on the offenders it can feel like we are taking things too seriously but I promise you we are not. You are not allowed to swear for the most part at Ego and they are doing fairly well and that’s how they have ALWAYS been. GFL, again I don’t see people treating each other in the same way I see people treat each other here. That used to be part of the charm for some people but it’s not easy to find a middle ground. We used to let things slide until someone was complaining that they were being harassed, telling them to grow thicker skin when it becomes an everyday thing is not applicable. If I had my buddies come in and annoy you every day for a month and when you complained you were told to grow thicker skin would you consider coming back? Maybe yes, maybe no, but we can’t just cater to people who are able to brush things off when it becomes a prolonged issue.