Moderation's Unloved Stepchild (GP Moderation Bias)

[Valrifell]

(With apologies to Cormac for title) Lately, there's been some mumblings in Gameplay about the unfairness of Moderation rulings in the subforum, which I have taken it upon myself to dub Moderation Brutality. A term, that will likely never catch on. Anyway, someone suggested this thread be created in Moderation to further discussion on the matter. I think such a topic warrants discussion, thus, here we are.

From the DEN thread:

Yes. I forgot. Indeed. Only promotion I object 100%. Bad attitude miserable grunt to GS? I smell your foul trail 94. You're not fit, Not-proven-anyway-dude.

add: Every one can RP badass, rare are those who can proof their RPs in practice. Old veteran status is irrelevant if only RP you can do is pissing upon newcomers shoes. 94.

Nothing personal.

A couple of days late, but...

No. Saying "Nothing personal" doesn't change the fact that this is pretty much nothing but an attack on another player, without even a flimsy veil of being psuedo-IC to try and pass it off as "just GP snark." *** Warned for flaming. ***

I suspect moderation has let "just GP snark" go unattended for too long, because the increased toxicity all around is becoming quite the concern. I think that the team is overdue a discussion in the sekrit lair regarding our enforcement standards for Gameplay.


~Evil Forum Empress Rep Prod the Ninja Mod
~She who wields the Banhammer; master of the mighty moderation no-dachi Kiritateru Teikoku

(important part bolded)

I don't follow NSG closely enough to compare it to Gameplay, but this forum has been getting more toxic of late. This isn't "roleplayer mods who don't understand gameplay wanting to shut you guys down" or anything like that. It's been too nasty here recently, to the extent that for a lot of people, this isn't a fun forum to participate in. That needs to change.

To an extent I agree, but my point is that if the mods are going to crack down on toxicity here, I fully expect to see the same policies enacted site wide. You hand out 3 day bans for saying "can confirm" in Gameplay while people in General shit all over each other without so much as a wrist slap. I understand that isn't your domain, Sedge, but this site has bigger issues than some game players being a little rude at each other every few days.

I don't follow NSG closely enough to compare it to Gameplay, but this forum has been getting more toxic of late. This isn't "roleplayer mods who don't understand gameplay wanting to shut you guys down" or anything like that. It's been too nasty here recently, to the extent that for a lot of people, this isn't a fun forum to participate in. That needs to change.

If by "lately" you mean it's exactly the same as it was when I started playing almost four years ago, then I suppose that's true. This is not even to mention how toxic were the interactions between defenders and raiders back when they were destroying each other's forums, or the interactions between the NPO and the ADN back when the NPO was publishing satirical news pieces using Pope Hope's real life pictures and she was threatening to file real life lawsuits.

Am I saying that gameplay has always been like this? Yep, I am, and in fact it's been far worse than this. Am I saying mods shouldn't do anything about it? Nope, I'm not, but what I am saying is that however you enforce rules in this forum won't matter. The so-called "toxicity" -- which is actually just gameplay politics as they've always been -- will just continue off-site if people feel too stifled here, and this forum won't be much used. But from a Moderation perspective that may be better? I don't know. Regardless, nothing is going to change nearly fourteen years of how gameplay has been done, anytime soon.

I also agree with Koth that enforcement here is already too harsh compared to General, which in my view reflects a Moderation bias against gameplay. You have moderators saying worse things in General than the things people get banned for in Gameplay. There generally needs to be more consistency in your enforcement policies, whether that be in how you treat gameplay vs. general or in how you treat some types of gameplay vs. others (fascist/anti-fascist vs. mainstream R/D, for example), and gameplay needs to stop being treated like Moderation's unloved stepchild.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Things are a bit more toxic atm because there's drama playing out elsewhere on topics that would be outright not allowed to be discussed on the Gameplay board (i.e. physical and mental health of individual players), which means that the only option people have on this board to fight over it is to be snarky jerks about every other thing. Frankly, it's a minor issue, and it'll fade eventually.

[Consular]

I'd broadly agree with Cormac's thoughts -- namely that gameplay to me doesn't seem significantly more "toxic" than it always has been. People throw the word toxic around too easily these days, arguments and disagreements and such are perfectly healthy, and I think most people in the gameplay forum are perfectly capable of dealing with it.

[Valrifell]

I'd broadly agree with Cormac's thoughts -- namely that gameplay to me doesn't seem significantly more "toxic" than it always has been. People throw the word toxic around too easily these days, arguments and disagreements and such are perfectly healthy, and I think most people in the gameplay forum are perfectly capable of dealing with it.

I don't think "this is how it's been" is a particularly good defense for the quick resort to personal attacks that most Gameplayers seem to jump to. While comparisons to General are valid and confusing as to why they don't get a snaller amount of punishments that GP gets, it doesn't mean we're absolved.

[RiderSyl]

To quote Reploid Productions on this matter:

The only time NSG wasn't controversial was the Dark Ages before the addition of mods in early/mid 2003.
Because people weren't posting there.

and an Antiquity Generalite:

If there ever was this hypothetical period of non-controversy, it died screaming real fast. It must not have been pretty.

But when the drama llama starts kicking too hard in Gameplay, that's when it gets serious and we need to reduce the 'toxicity'.

[Luna Amore]

I'm just going to interject here and say if your main argument is 'But NSG gets away with so much worse!*', then this conversation is going to end quick.

If there's some post you think needs attention, report it. Vaguely passing the buck to another subforum does not absolve GP of its own problems.


*I might be biased, but that is a outright lie. NSG is not some unmoderated wasteland.

[RiderSyl]

No-one here is "passing the buck to another subforum" to "absolve GP of its own problems". GP has problems. Any gameplayer will admit to that. However, then-moderator DLN and current admin Reploid Productions have posted lengthy comments in Gameplay about how "toxic" we are in the forum, to the point of Reppy saying 'the team is overdue a discussion regarding enforcement standards for Gameplay'.

Well, we are overdue a discussion with how unsatisfactory Gameplayers are with moderation.

There have been severe, overzealous punishments in Gameplay and horribly handled cases. The comment "Can confirm." receiving a 3-day ban has become a meme on the subforum, while the comment "Fuck you, [mod name]" received the same exact punishment and made moderation look more ridiculous. On the other hand, a death threat wasn't acted on because the threat was deemed "biologically impossible", and almost a dozen people were warned for 'baiting' in the same thread for essentially nothing when then-moderator DLN wanted to make an example out of them.

I'm not saying Gameplay is entirely mismanaged, I'm just describing some of the low-lights, so maybe you'll understand where the reactions are coming from.

Sedgistan is the only moderator I can say with confidence that has done a great job a majority of the time in Gameplay. Luna, you've been doing alright with Gameplay-related reports since you started taking more of this on, and Farnhamia, you're alright when you get stuck with a Gameplay-related report. But the rest of the mods? [Those are you who aren't inactive] When you tackle Gameplay, y'all end up more often than not being out of your element, and it shows. Badly.

If/when the discussion on enforcement standards takes place, please, put something in there about better familiarizing yourselves with what you're enforcing.

[Luna Amore]

There have been severe, overzealous punishments in Gameplay and horribly handled cases. The comment "Can confirm." receiving a 3-day ban has become a meme on the subforum, while the comment "Fuck you, [mod name]" received the same exact punishment and made moderation look more ridiculous. On the other hand, a death threat wasn't acted on because the threat was deemed "biologically impossible", and almost a dozen people were warned for 'baiting' in the same thread for essentially nothing when then-moderator DLN wanted to make an example out of them.

If you could link these cases, it'd be helpful.

What I could find:

1 day for 'Can Confirm: viewtopic.php?p=25434844#p25434844
3 day for "Fuck you" towards Euro: viewtopic.php?p=26115360#p26115360
Hmm, guessing the 'death threat' is Unibot's 'Hold your breath comment' : viewtopic.php?f=16&t=318779&p=22306668

The rules lawyering in the Unibot example is a big reason why I personally hate dealing with GP. Three mods say it ain't actionable, accept it and move on. Rules lawyering obviously isn't unique to GP, but I do feel like it is more prevalent there.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I feel like the issue is one of "what's actionable" in most cases, and more a feeling of escalation not happening quite the right way. There seems to be a consensus among many that certain people out there have been getting minor warning and bans for the same misbehavior for years, while showing no obvious change in behavior, while others speak their mind once (usually expecting to get whacked for it) and end up with the same, or sometimes greater, action taken. I don't spend a lot of time in NSG, but from what I've seen, the escalation there is fairly straightforward. If the same behavior keeps up, punishment increases, to DEATs and DOS's in a fairly obvious manner. Granted, much of that happens in a shorter time frame than in GP, which may be part of the issue - problem people go away for a bit, or just stay off the forums for the most part for a bit, and then don;t get in trouble for a while. For example, this year alone Cora has gotten (no guarantee I found them all) in order: 3 Days for flaming, one day for threadjacking, one day for flaming and baiting, three days for flaming, a warning for flaming, and an unofficial warning for flaming (later modified to a two week ban). Before that modification, there was a bit of an uproar in the community - from the outside, at least, it looks a lot like the same user being warned for the same thing again and again, with no clear patter of escalation. Looking at flaming offenses alone, that's at least five this year I found in two minutes, with a pattern of 3-day, one day, 3-day, warning, unofficial (upgraded to 2-week), which, when the player shows little sign of actually cutting down the flaming and baiting, creates a certain shortage of confidence that moderation will act to the point that behavior actually changes. While I'm sure you have your reasonings for each length, depending of course on history, distance between offences, severity, etc, if just feels inconsistent - which leads people to feel like they have to call people on things themselves, even if they get warned for it, and then a general feeling of distrust when people end up as something of a maytr, getting warned for saying something we're all thinking about people we're doing our best remove for atrocious behavior.

I'd also postulate that, as much discussed, part of the issue is the offsite nature of GP. Besides that fact that the majority of baiting and flames taking place here are just the tip of the iceberg compared to things said offsite, I think there can be a difference in view created by the lack of context, where a lot of us see something as a bait or flame in the context of offsite actions, but moderation (lacking that context) see it as not or minimally actionable. To use cora as an example again, stuff like the on-again off-again inclusions of something along the lines of "1%er" or "DEN outcast 1%er" is him taking a low jab based on his massive offsite rants which tl;dr to everyone "else is a moderate traitor and you rather raid my way or you're an <expletive string> moderate" and "ermahgawd you banned me from everything because I tag not because I insulted a ton of people for weeks." To moderation, not even close to anything actionable, but to us, little things like that are part of a constant stream of some players taking little snipes and baits nonstop in a context both under your radar and seemingly way too petty to report - because really, any one is, but the combined mass creates a serious underlying tension and contributes to the feeling of Moderation not seeing what the players are seeing here.

If any of that makes any sense?

[Luna Amore]

For example, this year alone Cora has gotten (no guarantee I found them all) in order: 3 Days for flaming, one day for threadjacking, one day for flaming and baiting, three days for flaming, a warning for flaming, and an unofficial warning for flaming (later modified to a two week ban). Before that modification, there was a bit of an uproar in the community - from the outside, at least, it looks a lot like the same user being warned for the same thing again and again, with no clear patter of escalation.

Looking over Cora's history, there is a clear escalation with two anomalies. The two anomalies are Reppy's warning and my 2-week-ban. The warning could be seen as too weak given the last note was a 3 day; the 2 week could be seen as too strong as the last ban was a 3 day. Other than that it's been a steady work up from Warning -> Short bans -> Long Bans. Cora is on thin ice. This should come as a surprise to no one.

which leads people to feel like they have to call people on things themselves, even if they get warned for it,

Frustrated or not, another player's behavior doesn't excuse rule breaking. The ignore features work wonders on this site.

I'd also postulate that, as much discussed, part of the issue is the offsite nature of GP.

Very likely and unfortunately out of our hands. It's up to you guys to cultivate a better environment offsite.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I'm not saying that of it it is necessarily anyone's fault - just trying to explain some of the perspective I hear expressed .... in a more polite manner than they are sometimes expressed in. Whether or not it's really that way, that's the sentiment, and while it's no surprise to hear that several people are on thin ice, the sentiment is that few people seem ever to break if fully in Gp in recent years unless they're trying to go out (excusing the blatant case of DOS collaboration, though at least in Halc's case that statement still holds).

Of course it doesn't excuse it, not saying it should. As I said, I'm just attempting to explain my thoughts on where some of these perceived mishandlings come from. Also, The ignore feature exists, sure, but for GP using it is impractical - unlike debating in general, where it minimally impacts your ability to continue your style of play, part of GP is reliant on information, on listening, on knowing who's doing what, where, when - and in that sense, all of us putting certain active people on ignore would be like shooting ourselves in the foot information-wise.

Of course. That said, there's only so much we can do. We can kick people out, we can block them, we can report them to skype (which has yet to ever show results), and yet we'll still wake up to find they've found someone to add us back to some stupid chat, or created a new account to post with. In TBH, I'd say it's actually harder for a known GP'er to join than a newb, because even if you don;t have the far too common history of offsite harassment and shit, we've adopted a sort of habit of even looking into personality conflicts, to make sure a new addition isn't going to cause any trouble with someone else there. The fact remains, that between us trying to handle things offsite and y'all trying to handle it onsite, stuff isn;t working. People are still getting hurt. People we know hurt other people are still doing it, offsite where it's out of both our reach and yours, thanks to connections they make here. I'm not sure if there is a fix, or anything we can do to worked together more as moderators and admins of our own places offsite with the moderators/admins here, but if there's any ideas, I think they'd be worth exploring, because somewhere between "those activities belong offsite, not on the NS forums" and "we can;t handle it, it's offsite," problems are happening, and no one really seems to have the authority to do anything about them.

[The Blaatschapen]

One of the things, that offsite could do is to de-politicize forum adminship. I've seen/read quite some 'trials' where the accused was guilty of harassment.

That's just silly on part of the offsite communities in question. When a player harasses someone else, a trial is not needed, a swift boot from the community by the forum (or IRC, etc.) admin is needed. Let the various courts, etc. deal with treason and other political gameplay. And the admins should take care of the overall environment for having gameplay at all.

This, naturally, does not apply to all offsite forums, some handle it well, some let the personal be a part of the political, which often leads
to disaster. It's there where it rubs the wrong way.

I am not sure how we (NS mods in this case since I also handle 1 small offsite forum ) can help here. Especially keeping in mind our jurisdiction.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Unfortunately, the issue seems to be in large that, somewhere between being ostracized by a region offsite and behaving on site, individuals are either managing to contact people when they shouldn't be, or are finding new people that neither our orgs nor this staff can deal with, especially when it spreads across several different mediums in a fragmented manner, such as that no individual service finds anything to be evidence enough, since none of them gets to rule on the full picture.


Us neither, that's the issue eh?

See, I think again part of the issue is context. The community looks as stuff like this warning and sees it as someone finally doing what we've waited for, slipping up and saying a fraction of what they do offsite where it can be acted on, especially since in some cases peoples actually *have* had their IRL info exposed. Then, when y'all presumably look at it and presumably fall somewhere around "he has a relatively clean history, it's not actually gonna happen, and we have little actual proof of other things said about him" and just give a warning, the community has a hard time understanding how, when it actually happens where it's actionable, minimal action is taken.

Hopping back to your fist bit, I've seen orgs have the same kind of issue regarding where stuff happens at times as well. Someone comes to them with logs of being harassed by another org member, the accused usually pulls out either "they're fake" or "it was a mutual conversation, and <subject> has selectively snipped up and pasted together the parts that make me look bad out of context since <subject> changed how they felt the next week/when sober/whatever." The orgs get caught in an "a said b said" case, with conflicting info, and sometimes just end up giving some form of a knock it off/demotion and not removing anyone. Then you're left with these two in the same chat, and even if you block someone on skype you still see them in group chats, and it can easily drive the subject to either more harm or quitting the region because of it. Is there a solution? Hell if I know. I just wish there was some way for all these different authorities to actually collaborate instead of it always being someone else's problem.

[Consular]

One of the things, that offsite could do is to de-politicize forum adminship. I've seen/read quite some 'trials' where the accused was guilty of harassment.

That's just silly on part of the offsite communities in question. When a player harasses someone else, a trial is not needed, a swift boot from the community by the forum (or IRC, etc.) admin is needed. Let the various courts, etc. deal with treason and other political gameplay. And the admins should take care of the overall environment for having gameplay at all.

This, naturally, does not apply to all offsite forums, some handle it well, some let the personal be a part of the political, which often leads
to disaster. It's there where it rubs the wrong way.

I am not sure how we (NS mods in this case since I also handle 1 small offsite forum ) can help here. Especially keeping in mind our jurisdiction.

I'm honestly not sure why some regions and communities feel the need to bring what I consider OOC issues, like board security and harassment of players etc, into the framework of some weird IC institutions. In the regions I'm in administrators can and would ban players that do bad things in those areas. Whatever the IC framework of a place, it is just RP really -- ultimately admins accept the responsibility for the safety and comfort of those in their community, and should take measures to ensure such.

[Ambroscus Koth]

I cast Thread Resurrection! Critical hit!

Luna Amore said earlier in this thread that it is up to us to cultivate a better environment for Gameplay offsite. It has gotten to the point where I'm stepping back and wondering "why do we even go on the forum anymore, then?"

Let me make this perfectly clear: the moderators don't care in the least about toxicity in NationStates Gameplay. Not in the least. What they DO care about is having that toxicity surface on their forum. Until this dynamic changes, the onus is on us as the players to moderate ourselves.

Cormac Stark was warned by moderator Crazy Girl for promoting the vilification of the player behind Unibot III, who has a history of sexual harassment that he is intelligent enough to keep off site. Meanwhile, Unibot gets an open forum here, ensuring that no matter how much he is despised, only those who oppose his behavior get consequences for attempting to remove him for good from our community.

You can't have it both ways.

You tell us to handle our flaming and hate and all that fun stuff offsite, pretty much straight up. No matter how much your team does its song and dance about how toxic you think Gameplay is, let it be made clear: you directly contribute to it by enabling it to happen.

Inconsistent ruling is the icing on the cake here. The player behind Riftey, who has a warning record as extensive as the word count on an average Onder post, can straight up call people "dickhead" and get let off without even redtext. I don't need to list all the posts with much lighter language that have gotten far harsher rulings, especially to posters with better warning records.

Does Moderation really want to see less toxicity in Gameplay? Actually contribute to this discussion instead of ignoring it like you ignore the culture you cultivate offsite.

[Flanderlion]

I cast Thread Resurrection! Critical hit!

Luna Amore said earlier in this thread that it is up to us to cultivate a better environment for Gameplay offsite. It has gotten to the point where I'm stepping back and wondering "why do we even go on the forum anymore, then?"

Let me make this perfectly clear: the moderators don't care in the least about toxicity in NationStates Gameplay. Not in the least. What they DO care about is having that toxicity surface on their forum. Until this dynamic changes, the onus is on us as the players to moderate ourselves.

Cormac Stark was warned by moderator Crazy Girl for promoting the vilification of the player behind Unibot III, who has a history of sexual harassment that he is intelligent enough to keep off site. Meanwhile, Unibot gets an open forum here, ensuring that no matter how much he is despised, only those who oppose his behavior get consequences for attempting to remove him for good from our community.

You can't have it both ways.

You tell us to handle our flaming and hate and all that fun stuff offsite, pretty much straight up. No matter how much your team does its song and dance about how toxic you think Gameplay is, let it be made clear: you directly contribute to it by enabling it to happen.

Inconsistent ruling is the icing on the cake here. The player behind Riftey, who has a warning record as extensive as the word count on an average Onder post, can straight up call people "dickhead" and get let off without even redtext. I don't need to list all the posts with much lighter language that have gotten far harsher rulings, especially to posters with better warning records.

Does Moderation really want to see less toxicity in Gameplay? Actually contribute to this discussion instead of ignoring it like you ignore the culture you cultivate offsite.

Over in NZ and Aussie, swearing at each other jokingly is fairly normal greeting or way of getting someones attention. It is how it is said, as opposed to the language itself, that tells someone the meaning. I've had to explain it to people on NS offsite previously as well, so I get that certain cultures find words more offensive than others. I think the ruling was correct in regards to Riftey, and I can't exactly say I'm particularly friendly towards him due to my first, and hopefully final interaction with him being less than stellar.

In regards to Unibot, I'm staying out of that sh*t storm.

[Enfaru]

NS Moderators are not responsible for what happens off-site, they are only responsible for what happens on this site, they make that quite clear in Legal, FAQ and the OSRS.

You cannot expect the Moderators to exclude someone from NS who has done nothing wrong on NS. That's unjustifiable. If you believe they have done something wrong on these forums or anywhere on this site, then you should file a report or a GHR. The moderators will (usually) enforce the rules of the site.

Furthermore, I think it's actually against the rules to harass someone here because of their behaviour elsewhere but I could be mistaken about that. This would mean that anyone trying to discredit them or exclude them or whatever for offsite actions would not be conducive to the public good of Nationstates.

Now.

The Gameplay Forums are not supposed to be your own private Raiding/Defending playground, they are there to discuss Nationstates, not your own little in-groups. (I'm stating this from prior experience of having threads locked/moved from Gameplay and from trying to interpret the words of various mods).

In conclusion what you think you're seeing as bias seems to be because you are under the impression that Mods have any responsibility for your group. You have responsibility for your group, not the NS staff.

[Xoriet]

NS Moderators are not responsible for what happens off-site, they are only responsible for what happens on this site, they make that quite clear in Legal, FAQ and the OSRS.

You cannot expect the Moderators to exclude someone from NS who has done nothing wrong on NS. That's unjustifiable. If you believe they have done something wrong on these forums or anywhere on this site, then you should file a report or a GHR. The moderators will (usually) enforce the rules of the site.

The closest thing Unibot's done to what he's accused of offsite is have RP characters whose actions verge into the realms of extremely inappropriate behavior. That was also in 2010. That is not actionable in quite a few ways. People get away with the behavior that disgusts other players exactly because they know there is nothing the Mods can do to them if they keep it offsite. So many completely toxic people have been able to remain unscathed that way. And all of them have some sort of support group here that will condone just about anything offsite. They could harass someone into leaving the game without once bringing it onto the site, and nothing can be done here to offer definitive protection from this harassment.

There is no way to get rid of them completely, and NS main is the one place they can't be banned from when they use strategies that prevent anything the Mods could do to deal with the problem. If you know how to manipulate the rules and get around onsite action through keeping it offsite, people can't ever get rid of you. The only possible way is for them to be removed onsite, and that is rendered impossible by an easy method to get around any action here.

It sucks, but if someone knows what to do to get away with anything and everything, the Mods can't help you here.

[Sedgistan]

All offsite forums/channels/chats have people in an equivalent position of authority to NS moderators. If problems are happening offsite, contact the relevant offsite forum admin/IRC channel op/whatever, and get them to address it. They are the ones who have will the evidence to make a decision on the matter, as well as the tools to address it. If they do that, and we enforce our rules on NationStates, then people who exhibit problem behaviour offsite get banned offsite; onsite, they either behave (in which case they are not a problem), or they don't behave and end up getting banned from NS too.

The evidence point is an important one. Everything NS mods do is logged, and based on evidence recorded on the site. That means that the decisions we make, and actions we take, can be reviewed by other staff members to ensure they were proper. Gameplay more than any other NS community is vulnerable to abuse from moderators - and it happened in the past. If we open ourselves up to using offsite evidence - which we can never truly verify - you make it far easier to get away with. That occasion when it happened in the past led to the moderation team going almost five years without any gameplay representation, with all the associated problems you'd expect from that. I don't want us to be in a situation again where gameplayers can't be trusted to be on the team.

Gameplayers themselves have also been known to fake evidence for a whole range of reasons. If anyone has a practical suggestion for how NationStates moderation can know that certain behaviour happened offsite, I'm all ears. If it uses the words "screenshots", "logs" or "trust", then you're wasting my time.

Even if it were possible to accurately act based on offsite behaviour (which it isn't), I'd question whether we should be doing so. It's up to other offsite communities to determine how they wish to run themselves. I'll note that The West Pacific has long considered Tweedy a part of their offsite community, despite him having a years-long record of harassing players on NS that earned him a DOS. Similarly, Cromarty - also DOS - continues to participate in TNP's offsite. Neither seems to have a problem with that situation. Should we start insisting that NS-related offsites enforce our bans too? That's the flip-side to that argument.

Regarding Riftey, I'm also of the view that the punishment wasn't strict enough given his record, and had already brought it up for discussion behind the scenes.

[Ambroscus Koth]

Thank you for your input on the subject, Sedge. I hope that I wasn't coming off like everything was all your team's fault, because it isn't. It's just that I hate this issue with a passion and sometimes it makes this otherwise awesome part of the game really infuriating. I'll formulate a better response when I'm not busy, but I just want you to know that all I really want is some way we can figure this out together.

[Leppikania]

What about people who were unjustly deleted and given a DOS because of a bias moderator?

Doesn't a DoS require a mod consensus to implement?

[Frenline Delpha]

What about people who were unjustly deleted and given a DOS because of a bias moderator?

Doesn't a DoS require a mod consensus to implement?

Yes. I can't quote exactly, but it was said somewhat recently.

[Xoriet]

Doesn't a DoS require a mod consensus to implement?

Yes. I can't quote exactly, but it was said somewhat recently.

One Mod doesn't decide on a DoS. They discuss it as a team before a DoS is implemented. That makes sense, considering a DoS is the end of the line for the player in question.

You can find it in the recent Cora threads, for one.

[Sedgistan]

As per the OSRS:

Delete-on-Sight (DoS or DOS): Any player who has so worn out his welcome with rule-breaking behavior over a variety of nations may be declared DoS by the moderation staff. Any new nations created by this player can and will be deleted when spotted, and any threads they started or posts they contributed will be removed without warning. This is reserved for the most egregious violators, and is never unilaterally declared by a single moderator, but is agreed upon by a majority of active Mods and Admins. The list of DoS nations will not be made public, so don't ask.

"NationStates Users Demanding Change" was one such example of a DOS player.

Further questions about DOS status, please take to a new thread.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Is there a solution? Hell if I know. I just wish there was some way for all these different authorities to actually collaborate instead of it always being someone else's problem.

Snip from my convo with Blaat above. tl;dr - This line is everyone's. Almost no one out there, on or offsite, will take anything they haven't got definitive proof of under their own eyes as evidence enough to remove someone when they haven;t done anything wrong there.....yet. This creates a situation where some of the same people have and in some cases continue to find new victims through common communities (including onsite and offsite areas where they "behave"), where they basically get people to come into areas they control and misbehave where they know they'll get away with it, or very minimal action will be taken. Though Cormac's post was perhaps not worded quite as you'd like it, I see it as a strong attempt to combat the issue we're left with - that various people we know full well have...issues maintain a clean record in certain areas, leading to what we described above. I understand fully that stuff like that, especially in an area out of context to most people, appears to be excessively hostile. What is your suggestion as to how to combat this then? How can we, as people who manage offsite areas and have in various cases gathered evidence we've considered enough to remove users over, collaborate with you, as staff here, and the admins of other groups connected by the common core of this site, in a way that prevents these things from continuing to occur?