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

[Ceroria]

I haven't really said what I think on here, but before I start I have a question.

Why is this a permanent offense? I have asked staff and all they do is give me reasons why it's bannable. I know this is a bannable offense, and I don't disagree with that at all, but I haven't gotten a straight answer as to why its permanent. There are so many reasons as to why this shouldn't be permanent, and that's what I want to dig in to.

First off, a lot of staff like to fall back onto 'it's adding more hackers into the system.' That's simply not true, there were the same amount of hackers before and after the initial report. If anything, the 'hacker' probably would have learned their lesson after, say, 3 days of being banned, but since the evidence was deleted they got off early. They still would have had the experience of being banned and most likely stop. If they didn't stop, then they would just get banned permanently

Something I firmly believe in, relating to the first thing I said, is having the ban tier the same as the hacking ban tier for evidence deletion. It only makes sense.. Hacking is a much worse offense than deleting a hackers evidence. If it's even worth a ban, it should definitely not be permanent for deleting evidence. There's so much that could make it invalid. For example, someone getting all of their friends to flag the video down, YouTube shutting down the channel, or just general annoyance of having a video file left around from months ago serving no purpose. It's all too finicky in my opinion. It's all based on circumstantial evidence and opinions.

You guys really like to use analogies, but the one about murder is so far off it makes me cringe. An analogy that would actually make some sort of sense to this situation is as follows:

You go to an amusement park, and you see someone tampering with a part of a ride or something like that and there's no staff around to see it, so you take a picture with your phone. In a realistic standpoint you would sent the picture over to the staff of the park to get the people out of the part for breaking the rules, but in MCSG's logic of how this would work, you would have to keep the picture on your phone and keep showing the park's staff it over and over until the caught the people, then keep it unless they got the wrong person. If the person where to delete the photo, the staff of the park would ban you from it, to never come back. You could have just let the trouble makers be, and wouldn't have been banished from the park, which is against the whole common courtesy thing of telling staff that those people where breaking the law.

You can see why that would be a problem, many people feel threatened to even report hackers. A way to fix that would be to have the mods download the evidence like they used to be required to do. I don't know much about internet caps, but from how I see it, how can you be a mod if you have an internet cap? Because, correct me if i'm wrong, it would also tap into the amount of data you can use when you upload a hacker video of your own. Besides, i'm sure there are plenty of mods that do not have internet caps, and the files are relatively small if they're 2 mins long on average. Honestly, the person reporting the hacker is going out of their way to do the moderator's job for them, the least they can do is keep the evidence safe.

To sum it all up in a TL;DR sort of way, I think deleting evidence should have the same ban tier as normal hacking bans. First offense, 7 days. Second offense, perm. I honestly have no idea why this wasn't the case initially. Hopefully this gets changed, because I have absolutely no idea why it would be bad to change the rule. Thanks for reading <3


(waits for scott to reply)

The like button only lets you like posts once ;-;

That makes me very sad

 

[WilloWizard]

I don't think we really needed another one of these threads, but personally, I feel the rule should be more strictly enforced now

 

[Scott]

I haven't really said what I think on here, but before I start I have a question.

Why is this a permanent offense? I have asked staff and all they do is give me reasons why it's bannable. I know this is a bannable offense, and I don't disagree with that at all, but I haven't gotten a straight answer as to why its permanent. There are so many reasons as to why this shouldn't be permanent, and that's what I want to dig in to.

First off, a lot of staff like to fall back onto 'it's adding more hackers into the system.' That's simply not true, there were the same amount of hackers before and after the initial report. If anything, the 'hacker' probably would have learned their lesson after, say, 3 days of being banned, but since the evidence was deleted they got off early. They still would have had the experience of being banned and most likely stop. If they didn't stop, then they would just get banned permanently

Something I firmly believe in, relating to the first thing I said, is having the ban tier the same as the hacking ban tier for evidence deletion. It only makes sense.. Hacking is a much worse offense than deleting a hackers evidence. If it's even worth a ban, it should definitely not be permanent for deleting evidence. There's so much that could make it invalid. For example, someone getting all of their friends to flag the video down, YouTube shutting down the channel, or just general annoyance of having a video file left around from months ago serving no purpose. It's all too finicky in my opinion. It's all based on circumstantial evidence and opinions.

You guys really like to use analogies, but the one about murder is so far off it makes me cringe. An analogy that would actually make some sort of sense to this situation is as follows:

You go to an amusement park, and you see someone tampering with a part of a ride or something like that and there's no staff around to see it, so you take a picture with your phone. In a realistic standpoint you would sent the picture over to the staff of the park to get the people out of the part for breaking the rules, but in MCSG's logic of how this would work, you would have to keep the picture on your phone and keep showing the park's staff it over and over until the caught the people, then keep it unless they got the wrong person. If the person where to delete the photo, the staff of the park would ban you from it, to never come back. You could have just let the trouble makers be, and wouldn't have been banished from the park, which is against the whole common courtesy thing of telling staff that those people where breaking the law.

You can see why that would be a problem, many people feel threatened to even report hackers. A way to fix that would be to have the mods download the evidence like they used to be required to do. I don't know much about internet caps, but from how I see it, how can you be a mod if you have an internet cap? Because, correct me if i'm wrong, it would also tap into the amount of data you can use when you upload a hacker video of your own. Besides, i'm sure there are plenty of mods that do not have internet caps, and the files are relatively small if they're 2 mins long on average. Honestly, the person reporting the hacker is going out of their way to do the moderator's job for them, the least they can do is keep the evidence safe.

To sum it all up in a TL;DR sort of way, I think deleting evidence should have the same ban tier as normal hacking bans. First offense, 7 days. Second offense, perm. I honestly have no idea why this wasn't the case initially. Hopefully this gets changed, because I have absolutely no idea why it would be bad to change the rule. Thanks for reading <3


(waits for scott to reply)

I don't make the ban times, however, I deal them out and, to be honest, completely agree with them. Let's say that a moderator was playing with hacker, and knew they were hacking. That moderator would be in a lot of trouble. Anyone less than a VIP is not under any agreement or obligation to catch and report hackers, although we appreciate it. When the user uploads evidence and reports them, we are very thankful for that. After they open the report, we ban the hacker for the appropriate time. Later, Sr. Staff run into a dispute involving the hacker. They go to look up the evidence, and it's not there. Whether the evidence is sufficient enough or not, the Sr. Staff member cannot see it. After looking into it, they realize that the evidence was removed. The original favor turns into a disfavor.

Not all moderators can reupload evidence just like that. In addition, it would take forever to sit there, reupload the evidence, and complete the report. Currently, reports take about 1-3 minutes to complete. If we had to physically reupload the evidence every time, the reports would take 8-10 minutes. Yesterday, there were approximately 150 report abuses filed. If it took ten minutes to complete every one of those, there would an overflow of report abuses that didn't get completed in an appropriate time.

I completely see your proposal on the same ban times as hacking, but as of now it isn't within my permission, nor any moderators permission to change the rules. And, in addition, users that have already been banned for deleting evidence would not get a shorter punishment if the rule was changed, as they would have broken our rules when the policy was in place.

 

[cscoop]

And, in addition, users that have already been banned for deleting evidence would not get a shorter punishment if the rule was changed, as they would have broken our rules when the policy was in place.

I dont follow. I didn't say you get a shorter ban for a second offense. I said for a second offense you would get a permban, as with hacking.

 

[Scott]

I dont follow. I didn't say you get a shorter ban for a second offense. I said for a second offense you would get a permban, as with hacking.

Basically, what I am saying is that users that are banned now for deleting evidence would not get a shorter ban if the policy for first offense was changed.

 

[cscoop]

Basically, what I am saying is that users that are banned now for deleting evidence would not get a shorter ban if the policy for first offense was changed.

Scratch that.. next time you comment, can you do your research? Thanks. That's not how it works.

 

[Scott]

Scratch that.. next time you comment, can you do your research? Thanks. That's not how it works.

Yes, that is exactly how it works. Unless the banned user disputed it, and it was accepted, the Sr. Staff wouldn't go around and pardon every ban for 'Deleting Evidence' and reban them for a shorter time.

 

[cscoop]

Yes, that is exactly how it works. Unless the banned user disputed it, and it was accepted, the Sr. Staff wouldn't go around and pardon every ban for 'Deleting Evidence' and reban them for a shorter time.

... that was so misleading. You could have just said that once the rule is changed you can post a dispute and get it shortened. lol. You made it sound like people who where banned before it was changed couldn't get a lesser ban if they disputed it, but people who got banned after the rule was changed would get a lesser one. >.>

 

[Scott]

... that was so misleading. You could have just said that once the rule is changed you can post a dispute and get it shortened. lol. You made it sound like people who where banned before it was changed couldn't get a lesser ban if they disputed it, but people who got banned after the rule was changed would get a lesser one. >.>

Oh, sorry.