I will entertain this thread as if this was a genuine interest in fairness rather than a specific interest in getting an individual unbanned (which it clearly is).
Others have already covered the visibility aspects of this. So I'll try to focus on the standardization.
I think you're right. There could be more transparancy regarding behaviour related bans. While we do have a
TOS to cover the very basics, it is rather vague (as these things tend to be).
With that said, I'd wager a guess you can't probably list many players that have seen behaviour related bans. Especially permanent ones. And that should go to show how seriously we take this responsibility.
But the problem is, you can't easily take these examples as a line in the sand because (most likely) you weren't there for all of the referenced behaviour. And hell, some of the behaviour may not even have been referenced publically. Perhaps that is part of the problem (I don't think so, but the community sentiment may differ).
There's a great saying where I come from: "
kus viga näed laita, seal tule ja aita". I suppose the rough translation being "
If you see a problem, help fix it"
We are a community after all. And community guidelines should reflect the values of the community. So if you think you've got the ability to help get things rolling, then please do so. If we keep the process of creating these guidelines open to the community, they're far more likely to actually voice the viewpoint of the community.
So I'd call upon anyone that's (actually) interested in the fairness of the action the Assist admin team takes to come forward and voice their opinion.Though do please do so in the following manner:
- Each separate point to address in the guidelines in a separate paragraph
- Each paragraph starts with a bolded phrase / sentence to summarise it
- Each paragraph continues a longer body of justification and description of the point
Topics that could be of interest:
- When does behaviour / speech become harassment?
- What metrics should be used to classify a message threatening?
- What metrics should be used to classify a message embarassing?
- Where is the line for untolerated hate speech?
- What is the level of offensive language that should be allowed?
Things to bare in mind while trying to answer these questions:
- 25Assist is not the US government. Whether you're from the US or elsewhere, we can take action on speech / behaviour that would be protected by the US' first amendment (which protects citizens' speech from being suppressed by the government)
- We have an international community. Different countries/cultures have different values. Yours is not more correct than someone else's
- The whole point of a community guidelines is to show the viewpoint of the community, not an individual
I find these questions incredibly hard to answer. But I'm sure others in the community are better suited for the task.