Reformation of The TotalFreedom Ban System

[Alco_Rs11]

This proposal is an alternative to a suggestion to privatize and whitelist TotalFreedom. If the decision is made by the executives to keep the server public, this approach enables more efficient policing of troublesome behavior while keeping existing configurations and conduct policies intact. Ban Reformation streamlines how players are sanctioned, mainly concerning bans dealing with troublesome players who take pride in creating a toxic environment that is largely responsible for the demise of TotalFreedom in its current form.

A Need for A Change​

Currently and historically, TotalFreedom has operated under a policy of extensive transparency regarding many administrative matters, especially long-term and indefinite bans. This policy is a failure. Particularly in recent times, an overtly public ban process has led to players dogpiling or harassing staff over decisions to ban someone and the duration of that ban. With a possible restart of TF proposed by upper management, it is necessary to overhaul the current system, with greater emphasis on removing problematic individuals and ensuring there is little to no opportunity to harass or intimidate staff over decisions, or to foster a toxic community. In short, if you break the rules or are toxic, expect to be removed.

This Change will Not be Popular​

By no means will this reform be popular. People will complain and criticize such reformation efforts, likely calling it “draconian” and “unfair”. However, management has reached the consensus that the community, in its current state, is toxic and hostile, and thus reform is necessary. The community had too much say in executive matters, with extreme cases of community pushback following bans, leading players to attack the community or harass staff, or staff to end up truncating sanctions to keep the peace.

To get an idea of how hostile the community may be, in the case of the ban of ayunami2000 as a precaution, following gross mismanagement and child safety concerns in his own community, he was banned. At the same time, the server, by sheer luck, avoided discovery by highly aggressive regions of the internet due to his actions. Such a discovery could have potentially put the safety of staff and players in question, justifying the ban, and due to ayunami's status on the server as a notable player, public outrage ensued following the ban.

In another case, a well-known player, decyj145 (Declan), was banned following the impersonation of a staff member. Immediately after that, he would log in under multiple alternate accounts and threaten and harass staff while also pursuing ulterior motives, such as building trust within the community to gain personal advantage. The subsequent discovery (and banning) of the accounts would ultimately lead to more drama and his arguing and harassing staff about it. Under this new model of sanctioning, anyone who engages in such efforts to harass or intimidate others would be promptly banned with no afterthought, putting a stop to drama and harassment.

What may Change?​

The biggest change in this proposal is that ban requests and appeals will no longer be public. Other areas of change include increasing staff discretion in player sanctioning and implementing a Zero Tolerance Policy on toxicity and corrosive player attitudes. Overall, reforms will be in both public-facing and staff-specific areas.

Public-Facing Changes​

The Decision to Sanction Players​

There will be greater discretion in sanctioning misconduct. Admins are still expected to follow the conduct policy and use good faith when deciding to sanction someone (whether to ban, smite, mute, etc.), however, if a player is acting in a way where they are disrupting the community such as “protesting” fair decisions backed by evidence, dogpiling staff and engaging in targeted harassment, they will be sanctioned accordingly with no questions asked.

Ban Appeals​

Ban appeals will still be entertained. However, if you are banned for offenses that typically do not result in long-term sanctions, such as griefing, the ban will remain in place. If a ban is unappealable, unless you are pardoned by executive decision, you will not be able to appeal it. *However*, if you believe that you were banned wrongly or were a victim of staff misconduct, by all means appeal the ban and include any relevant evidence to support your case. If you think the ban is “unfair” and have no evidence or nothing to defend your case, it will not be entertained.

Ban Requests​

Ban requests will no longer be public. When a request is filed, staff will review it and all relevant evidence, and a decision will be made. The Ban Manager will ultimately decide on an appropriate sanction following recommendations by other executives to ensure fairness. Once a decision is made, in an appropriate section of the forum, whether a ban request was approved or not will be posted. The ban spreadsheet will remain public as well to keep some degree of transparency available.

Enaction of A Zero Tolerance Policy​

This will not apply to everything, but for player conduct, there will be zero tolerance for harassment and toxicity. In short, if you are an ass, you will be at a minimum muted, whether in-game or on Discord. Repeated offenders or those who commit serious offenses, such as threats, will be subject to permanent removal from the community.

Behind the Scenes Changes​

These changes affect staff and are not public-facing changes. These, unlike those changes, do not affect the player experience and only pertain to investigation necessity or ban procedures.

Better Documentation of Investigations​

Most cases do not require substantial follow-up investigations, as the average case is black-and-white regarding offenses committed however, when staff conduct thorough investigations (such as when a player is a co-conspirator in a larger group, a forum thread with relevant findings will be created in the staff section of the forum, if it is in the public interest for findings to be shared, an appropriate thread will be created to share key findings and ensure some degree of transparency.

The Decision to Thoroughly Investigate Players​

Only when necessary will extensive investigations into a player’s affiliated groups or organizations be conducted, as they often take time and use staff resources. Investigation decisions will continue the historic precedent, mainly that thorough investigations are far and few between. In cases where investigations were conducted, a player committed severe offenses and is suspected of being part of a greater, more organized effort. These cases are rare, and on average, 99% do not warrant a thorough investigation. Evidence obtained from the server (block logs, inventories, server chat history, etc.) is sufficient to ensure they are banned, since these are credible and unlikely to be fabricated.

Cutting Off Communication with Banned Players​

This change alleviates a problem that was experienced in Declan's situation: staff experiencing hostile messages following a ban and, in some cases, threats. When a player is banned, as part of a status announcement regarding their ban, will explanations and justification be provided? Under no circumstances will indefinitely or long-term banned players be allowed to message staff regarding their ban or be provided avenues to harass and intimidate them following a decision. In the event a player is banned from all platforms and has evidence that can exonerate them, an exception can be made, as it can enable a proper appeal to be filed on their behalf.

Implications of Ban Reform​

Ease of Policy Implementation​

This proposal is extremely easy to implement. No plugin configurations or server setup is necessary. All Ban Reform does is change *how* the rules are enforced without changing anything else, making the policy easy to implement and can be enacted almost immediately.

Burden on Staff​

This approach has one major limitation: the staff has to be proactive in removing troublesome players. Then again, that is the main purpose of an admin: to enforce rules and keep the peace. There is no additional demand or necessity for new staff; however, since TotalFreedom, as it currently stands, has sufficient staff available to manage common issues. Aside from higher discretionary authority on sanctions, nothing else aside from how bans are processed changes.

However, considering TotalFreedom was able to survive the Akefu Raids running on essentially a skeleton crew, as it stands, the server would likely be able to be managed with the current staff numbers. At the time, staff were also given heightened discretionary power to quash suspected raider bots as well, proving that enhanced levels of enforcement or discretion *can* work.

How the Community may Benefit?​

Ban Reform is inherently an unpopular decision. The biggest advantage is that troublesome players will be able to be dealt with more swiftly and with a higher degree of certainty. This approach also builds upon specific deterrence theory, which, through certain and rapid punishment, deters others from committing similar offenses, knowing they may meet a similar fate. By weeding out problematic players without giving them a voice, dogpiling and other targeted harassment may be more able to be effectively quashed without requiring a walled-garden approach that may draw people away from the server.

The biggest benefits: If you act up, you will be removed. The proposed Zero Tolerance Policy ensures that troublemakers can be weeded out before they become a bigger problem than they currently are. These policy changes also do not change any other element of the server or rewrite the conduct policy, keeping existing freedoms in place.

Final Remarks​

Ban Reform is an approach that could be considered in a potential revival of the server. This proposal will not be popular, but if the server is to be restarted in its current form, it is a necessary evil that ensures conditions that led to the server's demise do not happen again, while also preserving the sanity of staff who are often subject to abuse and harassment by a select minority of players. Another thing to note is that this proposal is also not definitive or concrete, as components may be changed following recommendations and discussion by the server executives.

 

[Luke]

Ban appeals will still be entertained. However, if you are banned for offenses that typically do not result in long-term sanctions, such as griefing, the ban will remain in place. If a ban is unappealable, unless you are pardoned by executive decision, you will not be able to appeal it. *However*, if you believe that you were banned wrongly or were a victim of staff misconduct, by all means appeal the ban and include any relevant evidence to support your case. If you think the ban is “unfair” and have no evidence or nothing to defend your case, it will not be entertained

i'm gonna push back on this part for the sole reason that it's not out of the question for a ban to be unfair. i've done it myself where i've been too trigger happy and i've had someone tell me 'luke youre being a cunt' because i was just acting on initial instinct rather than actual rulebreaking.

i sorta alluded to this in the exec chat but the way i think we need to move forward is having strict, but still fair guidelines. i appreciate in the past we haven't had much reason to, but if you have a group of people and constantly tell them 'we dont trust you, youre just gonna drive us nuts' then eventually they'll just behave in the way you expect them to. if we go into this saying 'ops are all prone to being twats, therefore we should take a harsh stance' then yeah, i honestly expect it'll make them be twats. course that philosophy has its own flaws, but thats my view.

i don't think the solution is necessarily to crack down and be *too* harsh on bans. because at the end of the day its still a community, and i feel like a big problem of the old tf (or at least for me) the point was to have a community with rules, not a community where the entire point was the disciplinary system. if we go too far in either direction (being too lax AND being too disciplinary) then we sorta lose the community feel we once had

what i did on the discord (and what i felt worked quite well) was replace the rules with guidelines and have the guidelines be subject to staff interpretation, not players. appeals would still work and function, and my say as the manager was final. i trusted my staff enough to enforce things properly and i think it genuinely worked quite well. i will admit i had the benefit of probably one of the best teams i've worked with, but still. i still had my fair share of shitstorms, but i felt because i had a system that was flexible enough to actually take into account context without being so rigid that it was unbearable for staff and users, it meant things just sort of worked.

course this is just my opinion. but i think one of the biggest failings of old tf was a complete break in trust between the community and the leadership. the community didnt trust the leaders to actually do the right thing (due to, in part, severe mismanagement from older leaders such as windows and seth) and the leaders didnt trust the community to behave. i think the way to move forward without repeating those mistakes is to figure out methods to rebuild that trust.

 

[Alco_Rs11]

i'm gonna push back on this part for the sole reason that it's not out of the question for a ban to be unfair. i've done it myself where i've been too trigger happy and i've had someone tell me 'luke youre being a cunt' because i was just acting on initial instinct rather than actual rulebreaking.

I think everyone at some point has been guilty of this, including myself. But, overall, people are going to complain about their ban, no matter what, but if there is a case where someone is sanctioned, and the decision was not entirely on rule-breaking, they should try to defend their case. The policy on appeals is mainly designed to put a stop to people saying they were banned, it's "unfair" but there is evidence that they broke the rules to support it.

i don't think the solution is necessarily to crack down and be *too* harsh on bans. because at the end of the day its still a community and i feel like a big problem of the old tf (or at least for me) the point was to have a community with rules, not a community where the entire point was the disciplinary system. if we go too far in either direction (being too lax AND being too disciplinary) then we sorta lose the community feel we once had

The overarching goal of reformation isn't just to be "too harsh" on bans, but in general, set the tone that if you're an ass, you will be sanctioned. It doesn't necessarily mean bans, but the days of entertaining every unsubstantiated complaint about an administrative decision or harassment that someone's friend was banned are going to stop.

This policy isn't in its final form, and more criticism and discussion are warranted to ensure it remains fair and that significant problem areas in it are addressed.

was replace the rules with guidelines and have the guidelines and have the guidelines be subject to staff interpretation

The Reformation plan does take this into account, and as of current, this iteration of TF does have a "community guidelines" and is not reflective of the conduct policy on the original TF. I'll probably update the post, but the "conduct policy" it is referring to is the current community guidelines I linked above.

The ability for staff to use discretion was also discussed in the Reformation post as well, specifically in the area discussing sanction discretion.

There will be greater discretion in sanctioning misconduct. Admins are still expected to follow the conduct policy and use good faith when deciding to sanction someone (whether to ban, smite, mute, etc.)

 

[videogamesm12]

What this thread draws my mind to (and Luke partially covered in his response) is the complexity of the TF/TFR hierarchy. Telesphoreo mostly covers this in the second thread you sent, but I have more thoughts.

I'm sure it's what Tele meant with "reimagining the ranks on TF", but the thing that always put me off with TF and even TFR, is how ridiculous the hierarchy was. I dont remember all the ranks and roles, but having things like "Senior Admin", or "Ban Manager" or "Executive" is, in my opinion, absurd.

I think TFRR could do well to take a leaf out of our book (at least in the initial imagining), with Mod/Admin/Owner roles. Since there's not really one Owner you could replace that with Executive and the relevant people all have it. I personally dislike the concept of Helper or Trial roles, though you could convert or treat Mod as something similar. The "Ban Manager" should really just be a title/sub-role/formality; I also think that for "Ban Requests", it should take a vote from X% of staff, and if a certain threshold of agreement is met, then any staff member may execute the ban, and all the "Ban Manager" does is make sure records are kept. The idea is to speed up the process, and cut out as much bloat as possible.

​

Better Documentation of Investigations​

This is another thing where it should primarily be the "Ban Manager"s job to collect, collate and record evidence and records. They should be like an Accountant, but for Bans.

Enaction of A Zero Tolerance Policy​

This is great on paper, but in practice I think you need a very well defined threshold of what a player must do to get banned under such a policy, and it must be evenly and equally enforced by all members of staff. If not, then you'll very quickly end up with the same drama, dogpiling and harassment, except this time it'll probably be at least somewhat warranted, because Player A gets banned for slightly offensive but very funny joke because Admin A is a whiny bitch, but Player B can say way worse shit and not get banned because Admin A doesn't see it as wrong. This is somewhat at odds with the suggestion that staff be allowed to interpret the rules themselves, but it must be noted, cus otherwise you're just recreating situation(s) from old TF from first principles.

 

[shdwo]

I think TFRR could do well to take a leaf out of our book (at least in the initial imagining), with Mod/Admin/Owner roles. Since there's not really one Owner you could replace that with Executive and the relevant people all have it. I personally dislike the concept of Helper or Trial roles, though you could convert or treat Mod as something similar. The "Ban Manager" should really just be a title/sub-role/formality; I also think that for "Ban Requests", it should take a vote from X% of staff, and if a certain threshold of agreement is met, then any staff member may execute the ban, and all the "Ban Manager" does is make sure records are kept. The idea is to speed up the process, and cut out as much bloat as possible.

I think the only difference in your example there is the naming and presentation of the hierarchy. Senior Admin in TFR had already become fairly obsolete by the end, since the additional privileges that came with the role were rarely, if ever, actually used in practice. It mostly served as recognition for older admins and as something for newer staff to work towards.

Likewise, the idea of multiple Executives instead of a singular Owner was already present in TFR, there was never really an owner structure. I also don't recall Helper or Trial roles ever existing during TFR's runtime?

I think the more important point is to simplify the structure and give clear cut examples of what each role means and is responsible for. The naming is the least of our worries.

 

[Kaddicus]

I think the only difference in your example there is the naming and presentation of the hierarchy. Senior Admin in TFR had already become fairly obsolete by the end, since the additional privileges that came with the role were rarely, if ever, actually used in practice. It mostly served as recognition for older admins and as something for newer staff to work towards.

Likewise, the idea of multiple Executives instead of a singular Owner was already present in TFR, there was never really an owner structure. I also don't recall Helper or Trial roles ever existing during TFR's runtime?

I think the more important point is to simplify the structure and give clear cut examples of what each role means and is responsible for. The naming is the least of our worries.

Well I hadn't intended to post directly here, but I might as well now since @videogamesm12 just straight up pasted my comments here.

I wasn't here for most of TFR, partially due to burn-out, and partially due to disputes, beef, and drama between me and several members of the community (many of whom I believe aren't around anymore), so I can't accurately speak to the hierarchy then, my apologies. It was less about the exact names, and more about cutting down the amount of different ranks.

>simplify the structure and give clear cut examples of what each role means and is responsible for
I completely agree with this, and was starting to get at that with my comments regarding the "Ban Manager"; Again I wasn't around for much of TFR, and I don't quite remember about TF, so it could be I'm just describing the existing Ban Manager role.

Looking over the Staff Members List for the forum, it looks like the hierarchy is pretty simple already; I would just go ahead and axe Sr. Admin.

As for what each role means/does, I really don't see any cause for confusion:
- Admins handle the day-to-day moderation, punishing rule-breakers according to the defined set of rules/punishments, and helping players
- Executives handle the sensitive/back-end tasks, and write major policy i.e. how rules should be enforced

This comes back to a point I brought up that video pasted here, regarding a "Zero Tolerance Policy"; I certainly am not the one to even suggest how that policy is written or enforced, but I will reiterate that if management does adopt a ZTP, they need to make sure it is very clear, with little or no room for "interpretation" by Admins.

Regarding Rules in general, I suspect it is (or rather was) like this by the end of TFR, but there should be a main set of "Rules" (or Guidelines, or whatever) that are extremely concise and to-the-point, outlining the major DOs and DONTs of TFRR. I'm talking 6 rules or less, barely a sentence each. If you can't condense it that much, then keep trying, because I can tell you from experience if I check the rules and see a fucking essay, I'm not going to read that, and I'll risk accidentally breaking a rule tyvm.
Then, have a much larger, longer, in-depth page that covers all the details, and I mean ALL the details. Whatever management decides regarding a ZTP and it's enforcement should be completely and explicitly detailed in there, alongside any other rules and guidelines that are actively being enforced.

The reason I say all this, is because what I currently see (just as a member of the Forum; I'm not in the Discord and have no desire to be) is the Community Guidelines page, which is closer to the latter half of what I said.

I also remember from my time on TF and my short time on TFR, that a good bit of the toxicity regarding punishments/enforcements staff made was due to how flexibly the rules were interpreted by different members of staff. From my perspective at least, it was less about "Staff member X is evil and wrong for punishing Player A who did nothing wrong" and more about "Staff member X punished Player A but didn't punish Player B (or let them off lighter) for something arguably worse", which at the end of the day stems from rules (and more specifically their enforcements) not being clear.

If anything I've said here was already the case on TFR, and I'm just redescribing/reinventing it, feel free to ignore it and/or tell me to stfu. I'm just sending my thoughts as an Admin/Dev on Odyssey Freedom, and former Owner/Co-Owner of some creative freebuild servers on Bedrock years ago.