hows that going to work...for example snookwizards complaint, what constitute's as enough bad language to ban a member or just boot them?

make me admin i'll sort em out

Obviously the Admins would have the power to also enforce the rules.. I'm not saying let all of the decisions fall on the moderators.
It's always going to be down to the individual to decide what punishment should be given..

There shouldn't even be a "boot". There should just be a ban.. If a member isn't abiding by the rules, they shouldn't just be removed from the game, but should be removed from the entire site for however long's necessary.

agree with that 100%.....booting for 24 hours is a joke.

and what if a complaint is sent to a moderator about a member who just happens to be that moderators " friend or playing partner" theres no chance that conplaint would be forwarded to admin, im not saying moderators have favourites!

tbh no matter what they do it wont work, cause most the idiots that go round shooting there mouths off acting like kids (some prob are kids) always get back on after been banned anyway.

sometimes i check thier profiles and im amazed to see that they are like 30 to 40 years old lol so funny

What if a complaint is sent to an admin regarding one of his friends? Would that person be punished suitably? You can have the same argument for both levels of staff.

Of course staff have their 'favourites' or their friends. Its human nature to help people you're friendly with. We need to have faith that despite this, all levels of staff will take suitable action no matter who the offender is.

We help everyone friend or not... and will still remove anyone who causes trouble even friends.

Correct.

i believe moderators should be given the opportunity to suspend a player until admin reach a decision on a ban

but i really do believe that the reporting player should be notified of the outcome and the reason for it

ie

thanks for your concerns - the player in question has been warned about his/her conduct and any future occourances could result in a ban from the site

that would make me feel that my complaint had been taken seriously

All those suggesting that more consistent decisions are needed need to bear in mind that all the moderators are different ages and from different backgrounds (countries, cultures, social groups) and so will never be uniform. Therefore the only way to make something like offensive language more consistent is to write a list of every term that could be deemed offensive and what the action taken should be. As is blatantly clear, this cannot possibly happen. Allow staff to be human, not robots please.

but if players can be robots (seb, damien, dest etc) why can't staff

Agree with you adam.

I think most of the problems would be solved with effective communication. As the person who brought this thread up showed, there is no acknowledgement that a complaint is received or being worked on.
Just send a little message back! There can be pre-prepared ones, I can even write them for you.
1 to notify that the complaint was read, 1 to notify that action was taken (or that no action was necessary).

I agree that a response that it was received would help communication, I'm unsure on the feedback on what has happened though. It could cause problems if people start discussing such information as it should really stay private to the person concerned.

That's fine too. A message saying that "the appropriate action was taken and the matter is now closed" would be enough as well. Anything to show that it was read and dealt with.

I disagree, I dont think you could write a list of profanity and next to it write out a punishment.

I have sent a few complaints before, but that was merely because I disliked them, not because I'm sad enough to be affected by someone swearing at me...

Yet I have deliberately avoided the filter when around friends, as to have they.

So if I were to call the people I know words that are deemed 'offensive' then the punishment should be the same as me arguing with someone and using the same words.

Also in the heat of the moment, you can easily type something offensive very out of character, so they deserve the same punishment as someone who is repeatidly going around abusing people?

Also with the message thing, how many times in my life have I recieved "Your message has been recieved"... which is an auto message. So what exactly is the point? The 'only' point of those emssages are to confirm that you sent the message correctly. Not to notify you they have read the message. So the auto message is silly.

Once the message is read then a message from whoever decides should then message the person back informing them. Simple.

Also what do people expect to happen when sending a complaint? Its only going to be a slap on the wrist unless is racist or ridiculosly harsh. Cant ban people for swearing at someone... grow up, accept it and get on with it. Just bloody ignore them and stop cryingggg

That's what I meant about allowing staff to be human. Let us see the situation in context and handle it accordingly. The worst thing about the discipline system on most sites is how rigid they are and don't take into account the fact that different things in different circumstances can be banter/funny/offensive etc. That is what they have got right here and it shouldn't be changed.

Adam you are correct on several points, but I have to disagree about consistency.

For example I do not like foul language in any way shape or form and (say for example) you aren't really that bothered so I give one warning and then boot, Whereas you give one warning and a room message - see the inconsistency but training would no matter social/cultural backgrounds different ages etc.

Whilst I agree that we should not take away the individual personality of moderators. Somehow the differences, which as you have pointed out could be many and vast, have to be made a less varied in my opinion.

As I made very clear at the beginning I am not trying to slate anyone person or group of people I think the moderators do a good job, however this doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to make the system better if we can. Hence why I think Mods should be able to boot for up to a week.

I also think the return messages (without disclosing personal information) would be a good and large step in the right direction.
People do get dissatisfied sometimes and if we are able to assuage that all the better I believe.

@Adam

I don't think anybody in this thread said that it should be changed? Not sure why the whole "allowing staff to be human" thing has even came up.. That's got nothing to do with any of the posts in this thread lol. If anything, that's what everyone here is agreeing with.

However... Although moderators need to come to their own conclusions, there does need to be a a set of guidelines put into place.
I'll use the last forum I moderated as an example..

If someone is being offensive/abusive/spamming or just generally being a pain, then issue them with a warning. (On this forum, we actually had a warning system which was done via percentages. So your warning level starts off at 0%, and if you were abusive for example, you'd get a 10% warning. If you reached 100% you would get a ban.)
I usually only issued a couple of warnings though. I'd go for 3 strikes and you're out..
Bans under a day in length would be given to members generally being annoying.
Bans from anywhere between 1 day to a week would be given to members who are abusive/offensive.
Bans from anywhere between a few weeks and a month would be given to either repeat offenders, or to members who are completely disrespectful and continue to be aggressive and abusive.
Bans from anywhere between a few months & a permanent, would be given to those who are just not welcome on the forum. Members who have done all of the above and more.

This is just a basic system but it works so well.

I couldn't disagree more. I honestly don't see why mods shouldn't be able to permanently ban members.. That's what they should be here for! They should be able to ban any member for as long as they see fit.. If the member in question feels the ban was too harsh, then they can contact an Admin and raise their concerns with them..

So anyway to sum up.. My suggestions:
- Remove booting, and allow moderators to ban.
- Implement an actual warning system.
- Implement an actual banning system for the moderators.
- Implement a proper real time report system, rather than just utilizing the current chat system for reports.
- Give the mods some basic training.