An honest review

[qlip]

Servers aren't bad per se, it's just that I've seen better, IMO.

You'll occasionally meet fairly unfriendly people but it's a problem that all community servers share

A lot of the bans I've seen people get are honestly very extreme.E.g instant perma guardban for not having mic on BLU (seriously, just give them a warning and swap them, THEN ban them if they return to BLU, but not permanently).

Other servers I've been on that have a rule against mic spam usually give a little leeway if you micspam some kind of short audio clip for comedic effect, however here you can basically get a week's mute for playing a tf2 voice clip. I understand this is a clearly specified rule, but I just felt like bringing it up as most servers would only go as far as giving a 10 minute mute or something. Point is that a lot of the sanctions are much longer than they need to be.

It does cut down on rule breakers, but in a way it does act as somewhat of a deterrent from playing on the servers (even if most of them are almost always full with players)

The game modes aren't amazing but they're at the very least enjoyable, work fine and there's a large variety, so that's a pretty big plus.

I'd give it a 7.8/10 - Too much administration (le funni xd)

Not that having a lot of administration is bad (if anything, it's a positive), it's just that the very second that someone breaks a rule, they WILL get banned, muted, gagged, etc.

There is no perfect community server out there, in fact, this one of the more tame communities, I just think there's some room for improvement.

 

[Jim]

.E.g instant perma guardban for not having mic on BLU (seriously, just give them a warning and swap them, THEN ban them if they return to BLU, but not permanently).

If a guard doesn't have a mic why leave them? If I switch them then have to leave they'll just join blue again. If they have no mic they won't ever be able to be guard. When they do get a mic they can get unbanned. The alternative is having even more no mic people on blue 24/7. I don't agree with most of your punishment points, your feedback however.

 

[Buster]

It is an honest review and I appreciate that. I don't agree with all the points, but it is true that playing music / obnoxious sounds usually results in a day of mute which then can only scale upwards if the person repeats the act. That's why you probably saw someone getting muted for a week (just my speculation, I wasn't there of course).

I also find it amazing that you said we administrate too much So far we only ever got that we don't have enough admins so I'm glad that at least on jailbreak someone has the opposite opinion.

 

[DasMalzbier| Lazy Panda]

I also do appreciate your honest review.

I can see why someone would see our punishments as very harsh, but it does help to keep the servers clean.

I use the following time stack for comm blocks:

30 - 60 - 120 - 240 - 1440 - 2880 - 10080 - 20160 - perm

Sometimes I go even below 30, when it's something really minor.

But I do think that those lengths are fair.

Also, be aware, that besides reports, we usually warn people before we give out punishments. It is slightly different with repeated rulebreakers, but we warn them nevertheless.

The first time is like a slight slap on the wrist. It prevents the person from using chat/mic for the rest of the map.

The next one is double the time, because they chose to break the rules twice, even after being punished once. They won't be able to speak for 2 maps.

The third and fourth is the same. Doubles the time. Double the maps.

Now, as for the fifth, I go straight to a day. The reason for that is because muting this person a few hours does not seem to work. So I give them a day to think about what they did wrong and why they deserve it.

Again, the sixth doubles the time. Maybe now they get that for every more time they break the rule, the time they will get comm blocked doubles.

If they still have not learned their lesson, I mute them for a week. That usually has an impact to the person. A week is nothing to simply shrug off.

The same for two weeks. Now they need to wait a considerably long time to be able to talk again. Yet, if they still choose to abuse that freedom...

They get a permanent gag/mute/silence. At this point, it is clear for me that this person has no intention of following the "no spam" rule. They just spam for the gag and lulz. I do not want to have such people on our servers.

Of course there are also reports. People usually get punished for a day, unless it's something minor or their previous comm blocks are at/exceed a day. Then their punishment will be longer. The reason for that is (from my perspective) the following: For one, giving that person anything less than a day may as well be useless. The person might not even be online at the time the report is done. Also, the reported person annoyed some so much that this annoyed person went out of his way to record a demo and make a proper report. There might be more reasons, but those are the one's I can list from the top my head.

Bans on the other hand, especially team bans, are different. Though I will only talk about general bans, since I do not play jailbreak.

We only give out for bans "bigger" issues, like using exploits, freekilling etc.

I rarely need to ban a person, but my time stack would look like this:

1440 - 2880 - 5760 - 10080 - 20160 - 40320 - 80640 - perm

I start at a day, because it already leaves a big impression on that person. A day is plenty of time to think if breaking the rules was really worth it.

This time, I double the time twice. Because I already start at a day, I give them one more "chance" before going for a week.

After the 2 weeks ban, I give them 2 final chances. 1 month and 2 months. They did not learn from their mistakes until now, so they will have to wait a whole month (or two) to get back to our servers. That is 1/12 (or 1/6) of a year.

After that, it's over. Permanent ban. This very rarely happens. The only kind of people who get an instant permanent ban are hackers.

Sidenote: The intensity of the case also matters. If, for example, someone was spamming very loud and unpleasant music for a whole round, they will get punished harder than normally. Same goes for bans.

There are 3 more things to remember:

First, every admin has a different judgement. While some may only go with a simple raise of time, other will see that case as something more serious and give out a harsher punishment than other would. Also, the point of when something is considered spam, disrespect etc. is different for every admin.

And second, some admins forget to check previous comm blocks, or simply give out inappropriate/unfair punishments. The first case it may hurt the fellow players, as the rulebreaker got a lighter punishment then they should, meaning they can (potentially) break the rules again much earlier than normally. The second case hurts the player himself, since he either got falsely punished or a way harder punishment then deserved. That also will hurt them for future comm blocks/bans, as previous punishments are not always thoroughly checked. We try our best, but we are also only humans. We make mistakes. We are not perfect. That is why it is so important for people to point out our mistakes so we can learn from them.

Lastly, ever ban can be appealed, with the exception of hackers. If they properly apologize for their actions and accept that they made a mistake, we shorten the time of their comm block/gags. Of course, there are again cases where the comm block/gag will be irreversible. On that note, an appeal will not get accepted if the appealing person blames anyone but themselves for breaking the rules. A common example is the "My sibling used my pc". I always laugh at that one.

I hope I could give you some insight how I (and maybe other admins) give out punishments.

Edit: Changed some "we"s to "I"s, added a few sentences, made myself more clear here and there.