You can get banned for wasting someone's time now?

[TasteChaos]

Soup Dumpling

It isn't? A user tells me that I have a chance to win an item, and doesn't up front say that the item may suddenly become unavailable, I put time in, and then quite suddenly the contest is over? Sounds like somebody trying to have a laugh out of somebody. Sounds like that item/gold was never available in the first place.

I'm not 100% sure how the contest was exactly since I never saw the original thread, but as far as I'm understanding once you've put in time, you have already rolled the dice and entered the contest. You haven't rolled the correct number, because nobody won the item in this contest. Therefore, you have already lost the contest. It shouldn't have to matter whether the contest is closed afterwards or not since you've already lost beforehand?

In general, I feel like this contest wouldn't get reported as much if it were about a smaller prize, therefore the user hosting the contest wouldn't get banned. It feels unfair that the size of the prize has anything to do with the punishment given.

[Badonkees]

I support you. That's ******** outrageous. /=

[Skagz the Almighty]

I guess the saying is true; no good deed goes unpunished.

[Badonkees]

Skagz the Almighty

I guess the saying is true; no good deed goes unpunished.

I'm sorry.

[Generic Breed]

I'll offer you my support, too. I saw people talking about this in other forums awhile back, and I looked at the original thread. If you didn't roll the number, you lost. Even if you'd rolled a number and lost 100 times, you're no closer to winning than if you had rolled once. So their time wasn't even wasted by you, they chose to waste it themselves.

I agree that you should have been more thorough in your terms and conditions, but, lesson learned now, eh? Though I doubt you'll be holding any more contests for awhile.

Goodluck.

[Lamiroir]

Hmm from what I'm reading it seems to me that you forgot to add more specifications to your contest. If you didn't write the contest was subject to modifications or cancellation if you deemed it appropriate, people could've taken advantage of that loop in your claims.

As for writing a time where your contest ends, I assume it's because that way people have an idea of their chances to win and to move onto new things in case the contest closes down or they don't win a prize.

Obviously you didn't know you'd get the silver medal because that was as equally as spontaneous as your thread, but you have to take into consideration that creating a thread that gives out that amount of gold or halos really can't be done at the spur of the moment, precisely because if you decide you can't keep up with it, people might get angry and report you out of spite.

I do not think it's fair of you to have gotten banned, though.

[Xx Alenia xX]

From what I have read in here OP, You forgot to be more specific with the contest rules and guidelines, plus you had HUGE prizes up for grabs, so what my opinion is alot of people got massively butt hurt because you closed the contest before anyone managed to win the Halo and gold, I just think that next time you should be more careful and be more specific, maybe use a mule for future contests and use smaller prizes then the desirable ones, I am not saying that I am siding on you or not, mainly because I don't know what actually happened, I just thought I would drop some pointers! ^^
[I do agree that being banned for wasting peoples time is a tad too extreme, alot of people waste others time on this site and they aren't banned for it, just seems unfair to me.....]

[Sir Messenger]

A contestant for the Price is Right is not entitled to any of the prizes if the wheel does not land on $1 or if their number is not the highest.

While ending a contest isn't in good taste, noone is entitled to another users items on a silver platter because someone is an entitled ********.

I don't agree with the mystery Mods judgement and I feel that they should be re-trained at the VERY least. Up and banning someone for this is out of line.

[Dark Portrait]

So you start a contest of indeterminate length

Offer up a large prize

Then, one day, spend said prize and immediately close the contest.


... and you are wondering why you were reported and why Gaia banned you?


You started a contest and didn't say when it would end. The assumption, then, is that the contest would last until a winner was found. You, however, decided "Meh, I wanna spend this stuff that I was offering up as prize money" and closed the contest with little/no warning. That's pretty scammy. Not so much in the "Oh hey, you're stealing crap from other people" sense, but in Gaia's "Breaches of contract = scam" sense.

Also, this bugs me:

Skags

a dice contest is completely random, rolling once or 100 times does not make a person’s odds any better, there’s no guarantee a person would have won whether I left it open for 1 month, 1 year or even 10 years, that’s just the nature of what “random” means!

Yes, the odds of winning do not increase with each roll. However, the odds of there being a winner do increase with each roll and those odds approach 1. Given enough rolls, if the random number generator is "fair," a winner will be found.

[Phoenix Sandra]

That is absolutely ridiculous. If no one won before the thread closed, no one was due any prizes. By closing the thread you ensured no one was scammed or tricked. Users chose to waste their OWN time by participating in something as tricky as a dice rolling game. You should not be expected to keep a thread open until someone wins.

[Sir Messenger]

Dark Portrait

So you start a contest of indeterminate length

Offer up a large prize

Then, one day, spend said prize and immediately close the contest.


... and you are wondering why you were reported and why Gaia banned you?


You started a contest and didn't say when it would end. The assumption, then, is that the contest would last until a winner was found. You, however, decided "Meh, I wanna spend this stuff that I was offering up as prize money" and closed the contest with little/no warning. That's pretty scammy. Not so much in the "Oh hey, you're stealing crap from other people" sense, but in Gaia's "Breaches of contract = scam" sense.

Also, this bugs me:

Skags

a dice contest is completely random, rolling once or 100 times does not make a person’s odds any better, there’s no guarantee a person would have won whether I left it open for 1 month, 1 year or even 10 years, that’s just the nature of what “random” means!

Yes, the odds of winning do not increase with each roll. However, the odds of there being a winner do increase with each roll and those odds approach 1. Given enough rolls, if the random number generator is "fair," a winner will be found.

Since there was no fee to enter, how was it a scam?

Noone won or rolled the right number.

I'm not understanding your view so I am sorry.

[Kronprinz Schwarzhaus]

After reading the responses and the original post, from an objective stand point, yes, the OP does look bad. It does look kind of sketchy; however, when has simply looking bad ever been he grounds to indict someone of a crime? As far as the information provided there goes, there was no proof that the OP did anything wrong.

The problem here is that those related to the contest erroneously assumed the information the moderators were given:

1) Wasting Time by Not Providing Specifics: Why the specifics for when the contest was going to end is needed is beyond me; what difference would that make? In both situations, OP would have been closing the contest early regardless -- both outcomes having no winner of the contest. The participants did not have to pay an entry fee to enter -- it was free. None of the participants ever rolled the winning number. Why should this be the OP's fault? The participants wasted their own time in participating in this completely free contest.

2) Never Intending to Give Out Prizes: OP closed the contest because he never intended on giving out the prizes. Was proof of this ever provided? Having a buying/selling/whatever thread in the Exchange means nothing. This is not proof that he never had intentions of providing the prizes if someone won. The winning number would have won a Halo and 250m in gold. OP had more than double of this. Since we're all just pulling assumptions out of the air as faulty proof to criminalize OP, how come he can't do the same? It's quite easy to set aside 250m in gold and a Halo. Maybe he was buying with his remaining gold only. Maybe he was going to sell that second Halo to provide more for the contest. Assumptions. This doesn't prove his innocence -- why does it prove his guilt?

3) Let's combine number 2 and number 1. Those two arguments against OP say that OP could have gotten away with never intending to give out the prizes and wasting time if he had provided an ending date for the contest. How in the world does this make sense? So if the contest had an ending date, he suddenly wasn't wasting anyone's time? That is not a logically sound argument. Had he provided an ending date, suddenly, it was okay for him to never intend to give out the prizes? That's not logically sound either. It sounds to me ... that the individuals who handled these reports did not actually think about the reports before coming to a logical conclusion or held some sort of bias. No proof was provided for any of the above. I'm assuming there were some mass reports due to impetuous rage -- a mass amount of reporting still does not make OP guilty. Everyone in Salem claimed a woman was a witch because she did something they didn't necessarily appreciate too much -- whoop dee ********' doo -- OOPS, she wasn't a witch anyways. Yet there, she has suffered from the consequences. Doesn't this sound familiar to what's going on here?

[Frozen Mist]

Dark Portrait

So you start a contest of indeterminate length

Offer up a large prize

Then, one day, spend said prize and immediately close the contest.


... and you are wondering why you were reported and why Gaia banned you?


You started a contest and didn't say when it would end. The assumption, then, is that the contest would last until a winner was found. You, however, decided "Meh, I wanna spend this stuff that I was offering up as prize money" and closed the contest with little/no warning. That's pretty scammy. Not so much in the "Oh hey, you're stealing crap from other people" sense, but in Gaia's "Breaches of contract = scam" sense.

Also, this bugs me:

Skags

a dice contest is completely random, rolling once or 100 times does not make a person’s odds any better, there’s no guarantee a person would have won whether I left it open for 1 month, 1 year or even 10 years, that’s just the nature of what “random” means!

Yes, the odds of winning do not increase with each roll. However, the odds of there being a winner do increase with each roll and those odds approach 1. Given enough rolls, if the random number generator is "fair," a winner will be found.

There wasn't a breach of contract. Even though he didn't state an end date, he didn't say the thread would stay open until someone won, either. If 1 doesn't apply simply because he didn't outright state it, the other shouldn't either. It's yet another double standard being used against him. He didn't state it would stay open until there was a winner, therefore people should not have assumed so. Even if he had kept it open there are a plethora of outside forces that could derail the thread (such as gaia itself shutting down, a server glitch eating the thread, him getting banned for a different offense, etcetc). If Gaia randomly shuts down one day can every single member sue them under the pretense that it didn't state there is a chance the site could go offline? No. A lawyer would laugh you right out of their office if you even tried.

The fact that there is nothing gaia can do to reimburse the contestants in any way shape or form validates that nothing was actually lost. When they ban someone for not paying for art, gaia grants the artist their money. Same with bump contests that get shut down without handing out the prize. Did gaia reopen his thread after banning him, and offer to fulfill the prize on his behalf? No, because there's no validity to the premise that anything was lost or hurt, other than feelings.

Also your last statement contradicts itself. And its worth noting gaia's dice/rng (dice especially) are pretty notorious for failing to produce numbers below a certain point. Part of being random means its entirely possible for a certain number to NEVER show up, with other numbers showing up in its place multiple times - which is pretty much how gaia's works. It can never reach 1, because when it's random 1 = infinity. Like you said yourself, 1 roll's results do not impact the results of another roll. I don't think anyone has ever rolled the numbers his prize required since gaia even released the dice system. And the tricky thing about programming is that a PERSON has to create these "random" odds based on a formula, which a computer then interprets, which can make the odds even lower than if it were truly random (which seems to be the case with gaia's rng and dice). Even if you try to use real dice for rolling, miniscule weight/mass variances can interfere with the true randomness.

Part of the whole fun of participating in dice and rng contests is that, even though you know you probably wont win, you get a thrill out of the possibility that you might hit it big each time. People may have been deprived of future attempts, but their time spent was not wasted because while it was open they got to experience that thrill of with each and every roll, even though they were ultimately losing rolls.

The absolute WORST thing he could be accused of, if you look at it the way the mod(s) have currently interpreted the situation, is TROLLING. Unless you're a repeat offender, the worst punishment for trolling is a temporary ban.

[Dalia Royce]

Bob Dobbs

A contestant for the Price is Right is not entitled to any of the prizes if the wheel does not land on $1 or if their number is not the highest.

While ending a contest isn't in good taste, noone is entitled to another users items on a silver platter because someone is an entitled ********.

I don't agree with the mystery Mods judgement and I feel that they should be re-trained at the VERY least. Up and banning someone for this is out of line.

I think the scary part is that this case has already been elevated to the highest authority since the OP did file a ticket. The admins were the ones deliberating and handing down the decision to keep the OP banned. I don't know who else can train the admins at their level. Maybe the COO can give them a nice lecture on the merits of Bannification (Substance P, Baby!) or maybe the CEO can give an official statement?

Mandatory emoticon. ninja

[Frozen Mist]

Dalia Royce

Bob Dobbs

A contestant for the Price is Right is not entitled to any of the prizes if the wheel does not land on $1 or if their number is not the highest.

While ending a contest isn't in good taste, noone is entitled to another users items on a silver platter because someone is an entitled ********.

I don't agree with the mystery Mods judgement and I feel that they should be re-trained at the VERY least. Up and banning someone for this is out of line.

I think the scary part is that this case has already been elevated to the highest authority since the OP did file a ticket. The admins were the ones deliberating and handing down the decision to keep the OP banned. I don't know who else can train the admins at their level. Maybe the COO can give them a nice lecture on the merits of Bannification (Substance P, Baby!) or maybe the CEO can give an official statement?

Mandatory emoticon. ninja

I've noticed that rather than looking at a situation from all angles, tickets are generally just a reiteration because they just assume the original footwork is valid and trust the judgement of their peers.

rainyclouds got a response in his ticket which said "if you confess to botting we might unban you" which was clearly unprofessional. And even though he was told multiple times, by multiple staff the decision would stick, it did ultimately end up getting reversed.

As users we have no way of knowing the full process, but it's pretty clear there is a complete lack checks and balances in place, which is why so many users rely on SF to make or break their cases.

Yes a lot of people fib about their innocence, but sooner or later there really will be someone who's innocent, or someone who's case is so gray the subjectivity is overabundant, and when it's just 1 person's judgement handling a case, and they are the person who originally made the decision - they are not going to acknowledge if there's any wiggle room or possible error since they are the one who made the original decision, and when a user tries to plee with them i imagine they just skim/dont want to hear it because they already made their decision and they will disregard new evidence as repetition, or fail to consider the situation from a different perspective. A staff member's pride shouldn't get in the way of a "fair trial"