Regarding Personal Information and Ban Appeals

[I have a tissue]

Katulain

Whitneys Miltank

Nice emote there. Being cute now huh? Welcome to ignore. smile

Yay, we both did it at the same time! heart heart sweatdrop

It's so unfortunate that people feel the need to score points by throwing each other into the mud for no reason. Like, it might be one thing if we like... did something to him? But spewing hatred? Nah. First person on my ignore list.

I can still see your s**t, you know.

If you're going to ignore someone don't make it obvious that you're willing to be an a** about it.

[HighClass Badass]

I feel really bad for anyone that came to this thread due to the actual topic at hand, and decided against posting due to the entire thread being monopolized.

[Whitneys Miltank]

Katulain

Whitneys Miltank

Nice emote there. Being cute now huh? Welcome to ignore. smile

Yay, we both did it at the same time! heart heart sweatdrop

It's so unfortunate that people feel the need to score points by throwing each other into the mud for no reason. Like, it might be one thing if we like... did something to him? But spewing hatred? Nah. First person on my ignore list.

I'm sorry but he really tested my patience far enough. I have a very, very high tolerance when it comes to behavior like that, I really do. But with him? He's just gonna hijack unfair/unjust/harsh ban threads and discussions and continue to antagonize and stir the pot. Dare I say that that's a very veiled version of trolling. Getting players like us to respond in an overly emotional or negative manner... and impeding on our enjoyment of Gaia Online, which is clearly a part of the trolling clause in his precious ToS that he's zealously defending, for whatever reasons. I don't know what he's getting out of this.

[Whitneys Miltank]

Katulain

HighClass Badass

I feel really bad for anyone that came to this thread due to the actual topic at hand, and decided against posting due to the entire thread being monopolized.

In general, most users in the banned community express reluctance to post in threads like these because they feel they'll be shot down by the community before getting the chance to make an appeal. Not necessarily because they feel like their case will be ignored.

The reason why most of the bandwidth of the thread is dedicated toward only a few users' situations is because it takes so much energy to get beyond the contrarians and... jerks who want to derail and make illegitimate, the vast majority of appeals. And once users do that, it's very difficult to simultaneously support others in the banned community while defending yourself.

Really there is an unfortunate battle of attrition that occurs in these types of threads. Not necessarily because banned users don't have something to say. But because there's a running commentary from everyone who has never been banned but wants to say something negative about those who were.

Not only that, but I have to bring up one of the post yours made in this thread's infancy. You made a critical assessment toward Zero about the introduction of this "mass banning reform", for the lack of a better term. I have to say it still applies. I mean I genuinely thought people like myself who've been more than detailed, have been exhausting in their approach to appeal their case, would receive actual dialogue, compassion, empathy, and plainly trying to see if there are instances from both their end and the accused that there is reasonable doubt.

I'll admit some progress has been made in regards to your accounts, your sister's, and 2 previous others, but progress has still be extremely slow and nothing has really been started in regards to bans coming from poorly-worded and subjective ToS clauses and gray areas. Other than a mod in the beginning referring posters with these types of bans to write an email to some address that was still akin to dealing with the broken and slug-paced Ticket Center--if that can even be considered progress--when will there actually be context awareness when it comes to bans and appeals?

[Zero Omega]

As the time to appeal bans has passed, I have locked the thread. If anyone wishes to appeal their ban further, I encourage them to file a ticket at our Help Center.

Sanguine Iridescence

Impulsive Button Pusher

(I'd like to say that given my previous record on the site, having been on the site for eight years prior with zero issues, and the simplicity of my comment, I'd like to request some leniency. Thank you)

Hello Sanguine Iridescence,

My apologies for the delay in getting back to you about your account. Your account was banned for making the following comment:

Impulsive Button Pusher

When do I get Gary Schofield's head on a platter?

While a seemingly innocent comment now, it's a similar situation to the one we had with Ven Loraine/Ven Loki detailed here where we were on high alert given the amount of legitimate death threats we were receiving. Such comments then were unacceptable, and even now, to a degree, are still unacceptable. However given that we do want to be more lenient with situations like this and we do believe this wasn't meant to be taken seriously, we're going to go ahead and unban the account.

Official decision: Scenario 2 as described in the first post. We believe the offensive comment was made in jest, but it was made at a time where we were receiving very serious and credible threats, and as a result, had to take it seriously. As a result, we believe the ban was placed fairly for the policy at the time, but we are taking leniency on it now. The account is now unbanned.

Kenodori

Hello. This is Kendansa. I made this new account so that I could come onto this forum and request that my original account be reactivated. It was banned in 2013 because it shared the same IP address as my brother's many accounts, and thus was mistaken for another of his mules. I have no interest in site politics (or any politics for that matter), I only play to make friends and RP. If administrators examine my account, they will see that I have no record and that I have not, as far as I am aware, ever broken terms of service on it.

I kindly request that administrators review my ban and reverse it. Thank you,


~Kendansa


Proof of who I am as recorded by my brother.

We are reviewing your case and plan to have an answer for you on Monday, March 13, 2017.

[Zero Omega]

Kenodori

Hello. This is Kendansa. I made this new account so that I could come onto this forum and request that my original account be reactivated. It was banned in 2013 because it shared the same IP address as my brother's many accounts, and thus was mistaken for another of his mules. I have no interest in site politics (or any politics for that matter), I only play to make friends and RP. If administrators examine my account, they will see that I have no record and that I have not, as far as I am aware, ever broken terms of service on it.

I kindly request that administrators review my ban and reverse it. Thank you,


~Kendansa


Proof of who I am as recorded by my brother.

I'd like to apologize for the delay in getting back to you regarding this, I set a deadline and missed it because of other things going on. I do have an update for you regarding this case though.

This case is interesting and caused a lot of discussion amongst the team, not necessarily because of the ban itself, after reviewing the new evidence we have from Katulain, yourself, and reviewing the ban we immediately knew what we should do. What the discussion surrounded around was whether or not this case should be addressed publicly and if it fits the criteria of what this thread is supposed to be for, that is, users who were banned for posting previous management's name and information. There are many, many Gaians we have told in this thread that they have to file a ticket about their ban because it didn't fit the criteria for this thread, some of these Gaians I looked at and knew what we had to do with, whether the account should stay banned or be unbanned. However, this thread isn't for general cases, it is specifically for cases about what I outlined above and in the first post.

After looking at the timing of the bans, the content that was posted that led to the initial round of bans which led to this account being banned, we've decided that this ban case does not fit the criteria of this thread and it would be unfair to each and every other user we asked to file a ticket if we reviewed this ban in this thread. The Katulain account was banned for posting the personal information of previous management and trolling. Prior to that ban was a round of bans that got the Kendansa account banned. Those bans were for trolling/abuse, but not related to the posting of personal information of previous management. It wasn't until after this round of bans that we started seeing the behavior turn from general trolling, to actions specifically against previous management.

For this reason, we are going to ask that Kenodori file a ticket, ideally on the same IP that she made this post on, regarding the ban appeal of Kendansa. As many know, a ticket can be filed at out Help Center. Once again, I need to stress that the reason we are asking for a ticket to be filed in because the ban on Kendansa is not related to the posting of personal information of previous management and as we have turned away nearly everyone else in this thread and asked them to file a ticket, it is only fair to the entire community that we do the same here.

I completely, and absolutely, understand that this is not the response that you were hoping for, however I hope that you can understand that we are asking this because we have asked everyone else to. The intent of the thread is to appeal bans related to posting personal information of previous management, this is not what got this account banned.

With that said, we are officially retiring this thread and will be making the follow up thread with statistics next week.