Why is it that a staff member who bans you, is also able to have the power to decide whether or not to appeal said ban? Shouldn't that be left to a third, and unbiased party to decide whether or not a ban stays? Like, if I was a mod and I banned someone who I thought did something wrong, and then they appeal and I go back, I'm literally just going to say "No, you did x wrong, and I am not going to appeal this ban because in my opinion you've broken the rules" Appealing a ban is completely pointless by allowing the staff member responsible for banning you be the judge on your appeal, that's literally like sweeping dust from one side of a room into another side.
sure but the staff member on at the time knows better than their admin about what happened. Even with logs provided, they still weren't there. Anyway, if someone thinks the ruling is biased or unfair, they can always make a report and get that third party involved.
I'm saying a third party should be involved by default, instead of putting that on the person being banned to have to get a third party involved in their appeal. That's like sending someone to court without a lawyer against the person who charged them with a crime / it's basically opinion vs opinion but the staff member will always be "right" in the case of appeals because they have the power to close it and then you have to go report them straight up. A third party requirement for appeals would nullify those extra loops to jump through.
Hello, I want to direct your attention to this suggestion where some of our previous staff members summed up everything quite well. -MT
sure but that third party wasn't there and doesn't have as good of an idea of the situation. Most of the time they're limited to screenshots and word of mouth. Now I'm not saying the third party is a bad idea, just that it's rarely needed. Most of the time the staff member will actually handle it fairly on their own, and a third party is a waste of time. And it isn't simply, "you are guilty of breaking the rules, no." A lot of the time people who are guilty get accepted appeals anyway.
Staff members handling appeals where they banned the person have always worked fine. Involving a third party would just be an unnecessary step to a relatively easy process. This is just one of those things that works fine and doesn't need to be changed. If you think they did something wrong then report them to their superior. If you think that doesn't work then take it to to a lead.
Staff members, mods included, have a lot of leeway in handling appeals. The reason people handle it themselves, is that they have the most complete sense of the situation. A lot of people, staff and regulars both, look over appeals and discuss the outcome in some cases. Whether there's faulty evidence or other improper handling. Staff are also given guidelines on how to handle appeals and when they should be harsh or lenient respectively.
The others above me already answered the main question. But to give a general sense of how we handle appeals, let's see some numbers. We currently have about 7.000 appeals in the TTT section. About 3.500 of which have been marked as denied. On about 3.000, the appeal was accepted and the punishment removed entirely or lowered. (This doesn't quite add up, because most appeals before March 2014 weren't tagged as approved/denied and my calculation doesn't factor in any appeals that were marked as being a duplicate.) The 3.500 denied appeals also contain duplicate appeals, which were marked as denied before we introduced the 'duplicate' tag instead. If you consider the fact that we never deny appeals without a reason or proper evidence, this doesn't look so bad anymore, does it? Add to that the fact that most denied appeals are denied due to the severity of the offense, for example hacking, ban evasion, etc. or due to a player's extensive history, you'll see that you still have a good chance of your appeal being accepted. Minor or first offenses, honest mistakes, confusion about a rule or ban appeals for non-deliberately committed offense are usually accepted. We don't deny appeals simply because a player is guilty. If that was the objective, we wouldn't let the appeal the ban in the first place. Appeals give players who are guilty a chance to redeem themselves. It all depends on the player. Staff won't just deny appeals because they can. We always have good reasons to do so. Letting the person who issued the ban handle the appeal is the best option. Should someone mishandle appeals, other staff members will notice. Most of us - and many regulars and ex-staff in fact - read all appeals, regardless of their involvement. If are still under the impression that someone mishandled an appeal, approach their superior or another staff member. ~ Teroxa
