[Q] What is the point of a final appeal?

[Thousand Branches]

I ask this out of genuine curiosity. I know the OSRS says it should be used in the case of “major injustices”, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen a situation that would actually fall privy to that? Has a final appeal ever actually gone in favor of the appealee? And since the process is so time consuming anyway, what situations would it ever be needed? I can only assume that if some major moderation situation happened, the other moderators would be the first ones to know anyway. If ya know someone has one trolling and a mod says “month forum ban!”, it’s pretty dang likely another moderator is gonna see that and fix it before the process of a final appeal ever went through. That’s ignoring the fact that such an obvious problem would be fixed by a first appeal anyway. I’m just unsure of what situations such a process would ever actually be necessary in.

[Sedgistan]

Yes, Final Appeals are granted from time to time. Most the ones we get are time-wasting ones (e.g. "you shouldn't have banned all my WA nations"), but some have genuine points to consider. The mod team isn't a hivemind, and we have a range of different opinions within it; occasionally a Final Appeal is valid and is used to help ensure greater consistency in our approach to a partiuclar policy.

[Wymondham]

#NotaMod
(EDIT: Sedge best me to it, forgot we have mods on European timezones)
Speaking from my own, personal, experience with the final appeal procedure, it can be invaluable where the contention is around what the rules do and don't say, or even what that should say. For context, following UCR con about 2 years back I was issued a very stern warning with a promise of much harsher punishment if I did it again, for what was seen as a violation of the commercialism rules. The initial appealed was denied, I sought a final appeal on the basis that the ruleset as it stood was unclear about what was, and wasn't allowed, among some other grounds. The final appeal panel occurred and after a fair bit of discussion amended the commercialism rules and granted my appeal under the revised ruleset. So, from my experience, the final appeal system can be invaluable in cases where the appeal is on the basis that the ruleset doesn't say what the moderator making the call may have read it as saying, where the rules are unclear or perhaps even when the rules need to be changed.

[Thousand Branches]

Hmm, alright. I suppose that makes sense, thank you.