Community Discussion: What should the policy be for deleting evidence?

[Scott]

Hello Tributes! Lately, there have been many threads regarding deleting evidence and what the policy should be. Many of those threads have been locked for flame and other things. I decided to make one thread, that should be flameless, to discuss the matter at hand. In this thread, I am going to discuss many different sides to the current policy and many of the alternatives that people have been recommending.

Deleting Evidence Should Be A Bannable Offense​

• If a user is banned for hacking, and the evidence is removed, the ban gets pardoned in most cases. If the hacker gets away with it due to someone else's ignorance and disregard for the rules, then a permanent ban seems fair and just for them.
• For example: If someone is going to jail for murder, and the evidence is destroyed by a friend of the criminal, then the criminal is going to be in a lot of trouble. Destroying or removing evidence is an extremely big deal.
• We don't exactly perm ban someone without talking to them. We ask them to upload the evidence once more, and if they refuse, we take action. The policy isn't a 100% your getting perm banned type of deal like many people thought. We warn the user first.
• When filing a repost abuse, the user making the report abuse is supposed to sign saying that they agree to the terms and conditions and that they wont remove the evidence. Unless the person filing the report abuse didn't read, then they should have known not to remove the evidence without informing the staff. With a clear warning before the report is even finished, punishments to the current extent seem just.

Deleting Evidence Should Not Be A Bannable Offense​

• Many times evidence can be lost and deleted on accident. Banning someone permanently could be a little excessive.
• If someone has a video on their own channel, and the video is taken down because it was reported by the hacker and all of his friends, then the user might be falsely banned.
• For example: If someone is going to jail for murder, and a friend destroys the evidence, the friend will be in a lot of trouble. Although the friend will be in a lot of trouble, they most likely wont spend life in prison. Maybe a permanent ban is a little excessive.

Spoiler: My Opinion

I personally think that there is plenty of warning, so a permanent ban is completely fair and just.

Rules for a Friendly Discussion​

• Obey the rules. Be nice.

• Flaming, Trolling, and other hostility will be removed.

• Please be considerate with your arguments. Aggression only weakens your credibility, so please be courteous.

• Please consider everyone's perspective as much as you'd like yours.

• If things get too out of hand, this thread will be locked, please don’t waste the opportunity.

(Col_Star's Rules)

​

 

[Joel/MadDawg]

Let me just say straight out that I am in full support of this not being a bannable offense. Here I am going to list the points you have made for banning evidence deleters and how I disagree with them.

Points Supporting Bans for Deleted Evidence (and What I think About Them).

• If a user is banned for hacking, and the evidence is removed, the ban gets pardoned in most cases. If the hacker gets away with it due to someone else's ignorance and disregard for the rules, then a permanent ban seems fair and just for them.

First off, lets make it clear that the person in this situation who is "ignorant and disregards the rules" is the hacker being reported, NOT the person who reports him. Let me remind you that the person who files a report abuse is doing mcsg a favor; catching a hacker that mods had not yet. I repeat, the hacker was caught because of the community, not because of mcsg mods. Therefore, the hacker would be "getting away with it" if no one reported him in the first place, because mods had proven unable to catch the hacker before without a community-made report.

For example: If someone is going to jail for murder, and the evidence is destroyed by a friend of the criminal, then the criminal is going to be in a lot of trouble. Destroying or removing evidence is an extremely big deal.

Please stop with the murder comparisons. They are in now way, shape, or form at all like someone hacking on a block game on computers. Besides, the person that reports a hacker clearly isn't friends with them, so the comparison between a friend of the murderer and a person who reports a hacker deleting evidence in invalid. Who would go through the trouble to report a friend of theirs for hacking, just to delete the evidence to try and get them off the hook?

We don't exactly perm ban someone without talking to them. We ask them to upload the evidence once more, and if they refuse, we take action. The policy isn't a 100% your getting perm banned type of deal like many people thought. We warn the user first.

From my knowledge, Cscoop wasn't warned along with many other people. While I wish this was true, I don't think many people who have been banned for deleted evidence were warned properly first.

When filing a repost abuse, the user making the report abuse is supposed to sign saying that they agree to the terms and conditions and that they wont remove the evidence. Unless the person filing the report abuse didn't read, then they should have known not to remove the evidence without informing the staff. With a clear warning before the report is even finished, punishments to the current extent seem just.

Do you read the terms and conditions before agreeing to download something? Do you read every single line of the apple license before agreeing to an itunes update? Didn't think so. My point is that it isn't really fair to punish people for not reading something when you know it is unlikely they will read it at all.

Why Deleting Evidence Should not Be Bannable
Simply put, deleting evidence does nothing to increase the amount of hackers on mcsg. A community member reporting a hacker means that mods had missed the hacker or not yet found him, plain and simple. So if the hacker wasn't reported by the community, it's fair to assume that he would still go undetected by the mods who had proven unable to catch him before (no offense intended to mod's abilities, they just have a ton of work on their hands and some will obviously slip through the cracks). Therefore, a hacker who gets unbanned because of deleted evidence isn't increasing the amount if hackers on mcsg, it's just bringing the level of rulebreakers back to where it was before the user was banned.

This is kinda hard to explain (the last paragraph), but once you understand my logic I honestly believe there is no fault in it.

 

[arsenal]

Isn't the discussion for this already over? From what I have seen it has been fixed. You now have to agree that you won't delete evidence when you post a report, and it also says so in red font below the template. In addition, it says you can contact staff if you want to clear up space. I think this discussion is over. An agreement has been reached and it has been fixed.

 

[MyrkrBrandr]

With your 1 week ban, the hacker also gets away with hacking by coming back the next week to hack...

 

[Scott]

Let me just say straight out that I am in full support of this not being a bannable offense. Here I am going to list the points you have made for banning evidence deleters and how I disagree with them.

Points Supporting Bans for Deleted Evidence (and What I think About Them).

First off, lets make it clear that the person in this situation who is "ignorant and disregards the rules" is the hacker being reported, NOT the person who reports him. Let me remind you that the person who files a report abuse is doing mcsg a favor; catching a hacker that mods had not yet. I repeat, the hacker was caught because of the community, not because of mcsg mods. Therefore, the hacker would be "getting away with it" if no one reported him in the first place, because mods had proven unable to catch the hacker before without a community-made report.

Please stop with the murder comparisons. They are in now way, shape, or form at all like someone hacking on a block game on computers. Besides, the person that reports a hacker clearly isn't friends with them, so the comparison between a friend of the murderer and a person who reports a hacker deleting evidence in invalid. Who would go through the trouble to report a friend of theirs for hacking, just to delete the evidence to try and get them off the hook?

From my knowledge, Cscoop wasn't warned along with many other people. While I wish this was true, I don't think many people who have been banned for deleted evidence were warned properly first.

Do you read the terms and conditions before agreeing to download something? Do you read every single line of the apple license before agreeing to an itunes update? Didn't think so. My point is that it isn't really fair to punish people for not reading something when you know it is unlikely they will read it at all.

Why Deleting Evidence Should not Be Bannable
Simply put, deleting evidence does nothing to increase the amount of hackers on mcsg. A community member reporting a hacker means that mods had missed the hacker or not yet found him, plain and simple. So if the hacker wasn't reported by the community, it's fair to assume that he would still go undetected by the mods who had proven unable to catch him before (no offense intended to mod's abilities, they just have a ton of work on their hands and some will obviously slip through the cracks). Therefore, a hacker who gets unbanned because of deleted evidence isn't increasing the amount if hackers on mcsg, it's just bringing the level of rulebreakers back to where it was before the user was banned.

This is kinda hard to explain (the last paragraph), but once you understand my logic I honestly believe there is no fault in it.

Let me put it this way: If I am doing someone a favor by getting them something, and then taking that something for myself, is that a favor? Making the report abuse helps, but then taking the evidence back is like taking that item back. It isn't a favor.

Murder comparisons, although extreme, get the point across. Even if the crime was something as simple as a drug case, the destruction of the evidence will not go unpunished.

If they weren't warned, then it was most likely VERY clear that they removed the evidence with malicious intent.

If you don't read the terms and conditions, then that is your fault, not ours. If you don't have the time to recognize our rules and conditions, then consequences are most likely going to take place. We cannot help someone else reading the conditions.

 

[Ceroria]

Okay here is my pitch. I'm tired so I'll keep it short, but I do believe this should be a bannable offense. However, every single other offense on the MCGamer network (that doesn't break federal law) gives you a second chance.

Let's say you report a user for hacking and they get banned for a week. You then remove the evidence, either by accident (most likely) or maybe to get said hacker unbanned (highly unlikely). Either way, they are now going to get either unbanned when their ban expires or if they dispute it earlier and you are permanently, yes forever, banned from MCSG because you tried to help out the community. It should be a bannable offense, but there should be a second chance in place if there is a second chance for blatantly disobeying the rules with malicious intent.

I think it should be a one or two week ban off of a first offense and a permanent ban if you do it again, because you were warned and this time most likely broke the rules maliciously.

 

[Joel/MadDawg]

If they weren't warned, then it was most likely VERY clear that they removed the evidence with malicious intent.

Have you ever watched any of cscoop's videos? Have you ever talked to him or been on a server with him? From all I have seen about him he is a great guy, someone who I extremely doubt would delete evidence for bad reasons. He has said that he was deleting old youtube videos on his account (completely unaware of the rule), and that he got banned with no warning. Honestly, I trust his side of the story more than I trust the idea that he deleted evidence for bad reasons.

Also, couldn't help but notice that you didn't respond to the final part of my post

 

[Scott]

Have you ever watched any of cscoop's videos? Have you ever talked to him or been on a server with him? From all I have seen about him he is a great guy, someone who I extremely doubt would delete evidence for bad reasons. He has said that he was deleting old youtube videos on his account (completely unaware of the rule), and that he got banned with no warning. Honestly, I trust his side of the story more than I trust the idea that he deleted evidence for bad reasons.

Also, couldn't help but notice that you didn't respond to the final part of my post

It's late here and I don't really want to type. Sorry.

 

[cscoop]

• "For example: If someone is going to jail for murder, and the evidence is destroyed by a friend of the criminal, then the criminal is going to be in a lot of trouble. Destroying or removing evidence is an extremely big deal."

As I explained on the petition thread, there is an insane amount of investigation and preservation of evidence by authorities in a murder case, and in MCGamer's scenario there's no investigation and no preservation of evidence. Also, you're comparing murder to a Minecraft server. These things are so different in so many ways it's hard to count them all.

• "We don't exactly perm ban someone without talking to them. We ask them to upload the evidence once more, and if they refuse, we take action. The policy isn't a 100% your getting perm banned type of deal like many people thought. We warn the user first."

Um.... I wasn't talked to nor was I warned. I don't think anyone in their right mind would refuse to re-upload evidence to save their butts from a perm-ban, it's quite a different situation for those convicted such as Twee and I. We both no longer possess the evidence because of how long ago it was deleted, and videos take up a lot of space. You cant just keep those lying around, especially if you have an active YouTube channel. In twee's case he deleted the evidence before the rule was even instated, there was no way he could have gotten a warning. :l

 

[Harris|DareDevilMan1]

Let me just say straight out that I am in full support of this not being a bannable offense. Here I am going to list the points you have made for banning evidence deleters and how I disagree with them.

Points Supporting Bans for Deleted Evidence (and What I think About Them).

First off, lets make it clear that the person in this situation who is "ignorant and disregards the rules" is the hacker being reported, NOT the person who reports him. Let me remind you that the person who files a report abuse is doing mcsg a favor; catching a hacker that mods had not yet. I repeat, the hacker was caught because of the community, not because of mcsg mods. Therefore, the hacker would be "getting away with it" if no one reported him in the first place, because mods had proven unable to catch the hacker before without a community-made report.

Please stop with the murder comparisons. They are in now way, shape, or form at all like someone hacking on a block game on computers. Besides, the person that reports a hacker clearly isn't friends with them, so the comparison between a friend of the murderer and a person who reports a hacker deleting evidence in invalid. Who would go through the trouble to report a friend of theirs for hacking, just to delete the evidence to try and get them off the hook?

From my knowledge, Cscoop wasn't warned along with many other people. While I wish this was true, I don't think many people who have been banned for deleted evidence were warned properly first.

Do you read the terms and conditions before agreeing to download something? Do you read every single line of the apple license before agreeing to an itunes update? Didn't think so. My point is that it isn't really fair to punish people for not reading something when you know it is unlikely they will read it at all.

Why Deleting Evidence Should not Be Bannable
Simply put, deleting evidence does nothing to increase the amount of hackers on mcsg. A community member reporting a hacker means that mods had missed the hacker or not yet found him, plain and simple. So if the hacker wasn't reported by the community, it's fair to assume that he would still go undetected by the mods who had proven unable to catch him before (no offense intended to mod's abilities, they just have a ton of work on their hands and some will obviously slip through the cracks). Therefore, a hacker who gets unbanned because of deleted evidence isn't increasing the amount if hackers on mcsg, it's just bringing the level of rulebreakers back to where it was before the user was banned.

This is kinda hard to explain (the last paragraph), but once you understand my logic I honestly believe there is no fault in it.

^ This pretty much sums up what I would say too. You don't really find a solution to this. You just say with more detail, that this should be bannable, but most of your points, don't fit anywhere and the rules that you said aren't followed by the mods.
We do MCGamer a favor while we spend some time still in the game we have died to report a hacker, which mainly may be not even perma-banned, and only 3 day/1 week banned, but if WE delete the evidence, we get perma-banned with not even a warning. All of the people I've seen that were perma-banned for deleting evidence, didn't even have a warning, they were just banned instantly.
Now, someone that deletes evidence should be only 1 week temp-banned and after that maybe 2 week. A hacker in the other hand, should be perma-banned, if they were using something more than full-bright/xray.

 

[Damien // Teepwn]

Murder comparisons, although extreme, get the point across. Even if the crime was something as simple as a drug case, the destruction of the evidence will not go unpunished.

If we're sticking with the real-life comparisons...
When someone hacks and abuses people they get banned for a week and get given a second chance.
So I guess that's like someone assaults/murders, and abuses someone but they're given a six-month detention and let off the hook after that to kill more people.

 

[Scott]

• "For example: If someone is going to jail for murder, and the evidence is destroyed by a friend of the criminal, then the criminal is going to be in a lot of trouble. Destroying or removing evidence is an extremely big deal."

As I explained on the petition thread, there is an insane amount of investigation and preservation of evidence by authorities in a murder case, and in MCGamer's scenario there's no investigation and no preservation of evidence. Also, you're comparing murder to a Minecraft server. These things are so different in so many ways it's hard to count them all.

• "We don't exactly perm ban someone without talking to them. We ask them to upload the evidence once more, and if they refuse, we take action. The policy isn't a 100% your getting perm banned type of deal like many people thought. We warn the user first."

Um.... I wasn't talked to nor was I warned. I don't think anyone in their right mind would refuse to re-upload evidence to save their butts from a perm-ban, it's quite a different situation for those convicted such as Twee and I. We both no longer possess the evidence because of how long ago it was deleted, and videos take up a lot of space. You cant just keep those lying around, especially if you have an active YouTube channel. In twee's case he deleted the evidence before the rule was even instated, there was no way he could have gotten a warning. :l

So, you don't have the evidence anywhere, right?

^ This pretty much sums up what I would say too. You don't really find a solution to this. You just say with more detail, that this should be bannable, but most of your points, don't fit anywhere and the rules that you said aren't followed by the mods.
We do MCGamer a favor while we spend some time still in the game we have died to report a hacker, which mainly may be not even perma-banned, and only 3 day/1 week banned, but if WE delete the evidence, we get perma-banned with not even a warning. All of the people I've seen that were perma-banned for deleting evidence, didn't even have a warning, they were just banned instantly.
Now, someone that deletes evidence should be only 1 week temp-banned and after that maybe 2 week. A hacker in the other hand, should be perma-banned, if they were using something more than full-bright/xray.

The reason the hackers don't have a automatic perm ban is because some of them do use their opportunity to stop hacking. Many of our users have been banned for hacking and came back without hacks. Hence the reason we don't instant perm ban. On the other hand, many of them do come back and hack.

Regarding an instant perm ban for deleting evidence: Maybe an instant perm ban was harsh (before the agreement was added at the bottom of report abuses), but as of now I think all they can do is dispute it.

Please do not take this as my switching sides as I am still for users who delete evidence getting punished.