Questionable Appeal / Ban Protocol

At the moment I don't see a point in having an appeal system in general seeing as how the staff give you no way of defending yourself.

If you're banned for hacking, there's little to no chance of you getting unbanned unless you were recording the incident. You can't screenshare staff to prove yourself, you're not allowed to see evidence so you can argue against it and prove how you weren't hacking in the video, screenshots aren't reliable in general yet they're accepted, so basically if you get banned for hacking you get f*cked.

And it's sort of bullsh*t on how they refuse to give evidence on something that happened in October. That should be a requirement. At times I can understand why staff wouldn't want to give evidence (might provoke harassment of person who submitted it) but if the incident happens before 1+ months ago, there should be no reason why evidence shouldn't be given. I definitely wouldn't remember a specific situation in which I might have been suspected for cheating one month ago, let alone 8.

Protecting privacy of the person who submitted the report can be important, but proving your innocence is a bit more important to be honest. Because the way things are handled in the present, you're given no chance at defending yourself.

 

@Roll0fSushii

 

What's your definition of proof? It can't be 100% proven unless the xrayer takes screenshots and posts them on the forums or somethin.

What proof did you provide that you didn't xray my bank that you randomly found last map? It's a wonder that none of you trackers that played before me on Brawl didn't realize that tracking was grossly inaccurate.

 

This post may be deleted and I may be demoted, however I feel like having transparency is very important. I don't think I'm breaking any staff rules by posting this however as I'm not mentioning who unbanned etc.

On my 2nd day as mod, I banned 0racle for x-ray. I had suspected him for a while and had told a couple of staff members about him but to no avail, so I checked his ores and it was very clear cut that he was x-raying. I subsequently banned him for x-ray of course. However as it was my first major ban of a somewhat known player, I got it double and triple checked by DeCasper and Eil respectively. They both agreed that it was x-ray so I banned him.

4 hours later, he gets unbanned for the reason of "Invalid" - I'm 100% sure the ban was not invalid. I was only a mod for 2 days and didn't want to get into an argument with an S-mod, so I questioned him/her and then left it. Quite fishy as you would call it, but that's how it went.

Jump to 14th June 2018 - I'm checking the bans that I've done in the past. No false-bans. However there is this one just labeled "Invalid" which makes it look like a false-ban. I want to maintain for 100% record for no false-bans so I review the evidence I've collected, and again am 100% sure that x-ray was used. I re-ban 0racle as only 4 hours was served, where a minimum of 1 month needs to be served if the ban is legitimate. (Unless an unban is purchased).

I then get in an argument with an admin who just happens to be 0racle's best friend on Brawl. (No name given). He tells me that 0racle actually had a 4 month punishment but it wasn't documented. Again, this sounds very fishy to me. I asked him/her to enlighten me on the situation but was told it was an admin+ issue.

Overall, I don't believe 0racle has served his punishment, but I got the feeling that if I was to pursue this further, I'd be the one serving the punishment. Also, as the new map has began, I can share with you a snippet of evidence which I managed to record before the map reset. Please note this isn't the only bit of evidence I have, and 2 other staff members also agreed it was x-ray, so this is in no way a personal vendetta or attack against you.

I hope this clears up any queries or questions you have, but I'll be more than happy to answer any others.


Proof:

I agree. I'm one of the only staff members that record (If I remember) every ban I do. It doesn't take up that much space, but of course it is tedious to do so. I didn't want to show evidence on this case until the map had reset.

 

Impressed you came forward admitting you baned him. Props to you wit evidence being provided. You didn't then right thing when it was hard

 

From now on I will be as transparent as possible without leaking or breaking any rules. I feel like I lost my roots but the community is what makes Brawl. Too many of us staff are too scared to say what's really on their mind. However I want to change this.

 

Even if they demote you always realize that you were demoted for doing the right thing. That's what matters most is doing whats right.

 

This entire situation was caused by a lack of communication/miscommunication between two staff members and misconceptions about the evidence required for bans. I personally talked to both and this should definitely not happen again.

It is indeed not protocol to re-ban someone for a rule violations they were already banned and unbanned for. Therefore, your most recent ban is invalid and has been lifted.

Regarding proof: Staff members are not obliged to get evidence before banning someone and likewise they are not obliged to provide evidence for a ban on appeals. This of course makes appeals rather hard, but it is simply too much of an effort for the staff members to collect extensive evidence for every single ban.

Because the only thing screensharing could prove is how good you are at hiding things.

You are definitely allowed to see evidence, but it is up to the discretion of the staff member to show it to you and very often it simply doesn't exist.

Screenshots aren't accepted for any major rule violations.

 

Taken to pms

 

IMO the evidence is pretty clear, but the point stands whether the ban was in a timely fashion or not - the appeal wasn't handled in anything near a good way, and this kind of thing mustn't happen again, no matter if it's Jake or someone else.

 

I'm always happy to show evidence as I record most of my bans. The first appeal was responded with a stock message as there are sometimes many appeals. However the cut-off message was a glitch where if you write too much then it cuts it off. After I was informed of said glitch, I rectified it.

I am sometimes uneasy to show proof of x-ray which is on the current map as players may get friends / alts to destroy the evidence as most evidence is just co-ordinates.

 

In my time playing WarZ me and several of my teammates (some of which were staff that will not be named) screenshared many people (with their permission ofc). All of them were found with cheats (some of them were hidden), all of them got banned.

This whole "screen sharing doesn't prove anything" idea that you and all of the higher ups seem to have is a large misconception. Sure there might be people who hide their hacks, screen sharing won't get every single person banned. It will however, get more people banned than they are currently.

If no evidence exists, how would you have gotten banned? Just because a mod happened to be spectating you and saw something sketchy? If a mod wasn't recording the incident, the player should not be banned unless it was 100% blatant that the player was hacking (bhopping, flying, etc.). You honestly cannot put faith in moderators to always be correct in their decisions, especially new moderators. Recording while looking for cheats should be a must, and if they are unable to record for whatever reason, they should watch said player and if it isn't blatant but still looks suspicious, pass it on to a moderator who can record.

And let's be honest, evidence is almost never given because of the fear of being harassed. But if you don't give evidence, how on earth do you expect the applicant in the appeal to defend him/herself?

Strange, I've been told by countless moderators and you yourself that screenshots are accepted as proof. Especially because I've been banned quite a few times for major rule violations off of screenshots.

From my memory, you told me that putty said that "if it doesn't look fake you can ban for it".

I never claimed that they could. What I'm saying is, at the moment, there are false bans that have occurred recently, and since that's the case, it's obvious that there is not accurate moderation taking place. I agree that I'd rather have less false bans, maybe you guys should work on that instead of having to deny innocent player's appeals which from my conversation with Roke sometimes doesn't even have any evidence.

What if you don't remember the incident you were banned for? I've had a major occasion in which I was banned for supposed no knock back and tracers. I had no memory of this happening, since I've never hacked before. I made an appeal in which I was denied evidence for no reason whatsoever so I couldn't even defend myself, and then they found out that somebody was framing me with a hacked client that replaced your skin and username with another player's. The ONLY reason I was unbanned was because that player in the video had an Optifine cape, something I do not own on my account. Something I could have pointed out MUCH SOONER but couldn't because I was refused evidence.

I'll copy paste what I said to Roke.

"In my time playing WarZ me and several of my teammates (some of which were staff that will not be named) screenshared many people (with their permission ofc). All of them were found with cheats (some of them were hidden), all of them got banned.

This whole "screen sharing doesn't prove anything" idea that you and all of the higher ups seem to have is a large misconception. Sure there might be people who hide their hacks, screen sharing won't get every single person banned. It will however, get more people banned than they are currently."

https://www.brawl.com/threads/72461/
"Oh it's not recent",
1) Why should it have to be recent? It still happened, he still hasn't seen evidence from my understanding (from a staff member at least), he's still banned today.
2) It's from late April so don't give me that crap

And another copy paste from the one and only Roke:

"Strange, I've been told by countless moderators and you yourself that screenshots are accepted as proof. Especially because I've been banned quite a few times for major rule violations off of screenshots.

From my memory, you told me that putty said that "if it doesn't look fake you can ban for it"."

Would you remember a specific incident in which you might have X-Rayed 8 months ago to the date? 9 months ago? A year ago? 2?
If you have no memory of you hacking and you aren't allowed to see evidence to help you remember and defend yourself, how would you defend yourself? Say "I don't have memory of this happening"? That's an instant denial.

And about the 0racle evidence thing, emphasis on the word "history". I understand you have quite the bad history yourself, and yet you're an SMOD. Although you've had a couple years to change your attitude, "how does the time-frame have anything to do with it?". 0racle still changed for the better just like you, whether it was only in a couple months rather than a couple years. He applied for staff, got denied, made an outro and didn't flame once while doing so. That's how I know he actually changed instead of putting on a fake personality to get staff which is what I thought he was doing in the first place.[/spoiler]

 

While I do support screensharing, it causes one major issue (disregarding new German/EU privacy laws which I have not read fully yet but I do think affect SS‘s) - cheats will start becoming better and better at being hidden. You can hide clients in music files, in mods, in separate USB drives, in BIOS folders that a cheat smasher isn‘t going to be able to read, or even on a completely separate computer. After a while, SS‘ing will only detect old clients, and new, creative, physically impossible to find per SS client userd will get away with **** again and again. As Marc Goodman once said,
„The criminal is the artist, the police officer only the critic.“ It‘s the same with GCs, although it‘s depressing how far people will go for a block game advantage.