Equality and Fairness

Over the amount of time here I have been noticing, increasingly no less, that the implementation of the rules have actually been applied in some what of an unjust way, speaking from that of a just way at that. I noticed in the rules that it said it was all up to the Moderator or Administrator that the rules be implemented which leads to many of the rules not followed and many to get away with bloody murder as I have seen.
I've actually been looking and noticed the set of rules in which my High School had implemented, some as an example:
1) No fights will be tolerated, and all offending parties shall receive a phone call home and a suspension.
This one rule above, may some of it be inapplicable to many here, these parts of it actually are applicable, and actually changed to fit the use on this forum.
1) No fights will be tolerated, and all offending parties will receive a temporary ban.
This rule not only useful for the Chatbox, but also for the forum as well, which is why I propose this rule be added to the forum and Chatbox to reduce and sort or type of biasness found, as well as the ban be reported or shared among the rest of the Staff/Mods/Admin so that it be deemed fair among them as well, as a sort of checks and balances system that make it fully fair to everyone. Its actually useful and it makes a process easy and if any part of the ban be deemed unfair then it may be removed, which brings me to the part of the "Both parties shall receive a ban" or a boot to the lesser extent. Fights are known to be two sided, as all fights are, and removing both parties from both sides of the fight means that both sides of the problem shall be eliminated, or at least taken care of, but should one side be left to remain while the other side be banned it leaves a lot to be doubted for as the side removed will think unfairness, as it actually is unfair being the being, why should one side be removed when both sides are involved in said incident, such as a fight. That leaves the door open for said bias to be suspected. Also it does even the fairness of the playing field as such users will both be taught a lesson, or at least be contacted by said group of Mods/Admins to evaluate their case and give both parties a strict punishment, or warning. This also would lead to the users knowing what was done wrong as well as not to do it again.
Which brings me to another point. If someone is banned, they must be given a reason to be banned. Just giving one warning in an onslaught of words is not giving a warning, its waiting for the situation to escalate, should the said users not be able to see the warning, in which case, multiple warnings should be given, text enlarged so it lessens the chance of it not being seen, and it actually lets the users know that it is a warning if it is bigger than the paragraphs of test being thrown around.

In a short summary though, rules that would make the system here go a lot easier and possibly even make it fairer:
1) During fights, all parties involved shall be removed.
2) Warnings should not be given out lightly during fights, the text should be big so as the fighters can see it.
3) Bans should be evaluated by the rest of the Staff to see if it was fairly applied.
4) Users who have been banned should be told by the Admin that banned them or Moderator in many cases, why they have been banned and not withhold this information from them.
Full implementation of these rules or even half implementation of these rules would make it easier for the Mods and Users to have problems resolved.
~Chewya

... which leads to many of the rules not followed and many to get away with bloody murder as I have seen.

I've only seen this once or twice, and only involving one person. Not saying any names, though!

... as well as the ban be reported or shared among the rest of the Staff/Mods/Admin ... Its actually useful and it makes a process easy and if any part of the ban be deemed unfair then it may be removed.

There's already a reports system in place; this is already in use!

but should one side be left to remain while the other side be banned it leaves a lot to be doubted for as the side removed will think unfairness, as it actually is unfair being the being, why should one side be removed when both sides are involved in said incident, such as a fight.

One of the people involved in the fight might be a first time offender, and the other may have broken the rules several times before; that's one valid reason as to why one may get a ban and the other only a kick. Also, another valid reason; maybe one is arguing and being civil about it, but the other is being a lot less civil?

If someone is banned, they must be given a reason to be banned.

This is pretty much common sense, and I agree with you here.

...multiple warnings should be given, text enlarged so it lessens the chance of it not being seen...

I haven't been on the chatbox recently, but when I have been on, I have seen this happening already!

1) During fights, all parties involved shall be removed.

...Only if they both have broken the rules enough to warrant a removal.

2) Warnings should not be given out lightly during fights, the text should be big so as the fighters can see it.

This already happens!

3) Bans should be evaluated by the rest of the Staff to see if it was fairly applied.

This already happens with the reports system!

4) Users who have been banned should be told by the Admin that banned them or Moderator in many cases, why they have been banned and not withhold this information from them.

This is common sense and SHOULD be happening. I don't know if it does, but I'm just going to assume that it is!

Full implementation of these rules or even half implementation of these rules would make it easier for the Mods and Users to have problems resolved.

Half of these are already implemented.

Yeah, but not all of them are, but those that are, not many of them are used correctly, or have an easy use, which is why implementing changes to these, would make life a bit easier and possibly make it a bit fairer...

There's one flaw with your argument: chatrooms and forums, at least for a while, keep this little thing called an archive. Now, allow me to explain the significance of the archive in this context.

The general rule with IRL fights is that "Okay, everybody involved is in trouble." This is because every time you have somebody saying "He started it!" there's always that chance... that very, very high chance... that they're only doing it because they don't want to get in trouble. So, the only safe thing to do is to punish both of the people involved.

Here on the internet, however, people can look back and see exactly what was happening. They don't need to take the combatants' respective words on who it was that started the conflict; they can just scroll up a few posts in the forum, activate the chatbox archive, et cetera, and take a look and see for themselves.

Simply put: IRL fights get both people in trouble because, generally, there's no sufficient proof as far as who started the fight.

Online, the person at fault gets in trouble because all the staff members can take a quick look at the archive and see exactly what happened, how it happened, when it went wrong, and who was actually misbehaving.

Or, to put it in yet another way: IRL, you can't really take either person's word for it; so punishing both is reasonable; online, you can go look at exactly who started it, so punishing both is unfair to the person who -didn't- start it.

Yes but an argument is two sided, and letting one get off scott-free is just...a tad unfair but even so, if you were involved, you should get the same treatment....it makes some sense ant it also serves as a warning as well...

Mmhm... but if only one side is actually -fighting-, and the other side is defending themselves... then what's that, hm? It takes two to tango, as they say... but that won't stop some people from dragging others into the dance, as it were.

Yes, but even so, when two do the tango, regardless of which side it is, they are still involved. Just because its the internet doesnt mean that policies that can be useful IRL as well as the internet not be used. Why not just try to see if it actually works.

Ahem... let's take the extreme example here. Let's say you've got Prima and Segunda on the chat here. Prima's just kinda lurking, minding his own business, and Segunda just decides to start badmouthing him. "Prima's a jerk and a loser!" says Segunda. "Prima RPs like a monkey high on five flavors of narcotics and has a stupid species and bad preferences! Prima smells funny and doesn't even know how to operate Photoshop!" Meanwhile, Prima does his best to ignore it. Maybe he's just lurking, or maybe he's trying to carry on a conversation with some other person. Heck, maybe he's RPing. Meanwhile, any present moderator continues telling Segunda, in no uncertain terms, to cease and desist the behavior, and is completely ignored.

Finally, after this keeps up for a while, Prima just snaps, yells at Segunda to shut up, berates him for being obnoxious, rude, and a general unpleasant jerk. The two go at it for a while, until the fight is finally broken up by the aforementioned mod. Technically, they were both involved in the fight. So, should Prima get in trouble for snapping, when Segunda was sitting there shamelessly badmouthing him while completely ignoring numerous warnings that he should leave Prima alone.

And if you're gonna say "No, they were both involved so both should be punished" again... put yourself in Prima's position for a sec. You sit there getting abused, then when you finally snap, you're the one that gets in trouble. That -hurts-, even if Segunda also gets in trouble, anyway.

So, in short... if one person is explicitly hostile toward another person, and the other person only responds -because- he's being attacked... it's the antagonist who should get in trouble, not his victim.

Yes, but still, think about Prima. He could have ignored Segunda, and also, the mod too, could have kicked Segunda for attempting to start something. In your what-if scenario the mod, who was just talking, telling Segunda to stop could have also kicked him, then if Segunda comes back, then give him a warning. The mod could have even told Prima to ignore Segunda. The variable in your whole scenario turns out to be the mod who could have shut down the situation, but didnt. But even so, Prima could still end up getting in trouble because he could have resisted temptation, what would and would happen be told, then it would be possible for disaster to be averted. It all depends on what goes on, the variable being the mod, and how Prima decides to handle the situation.

I did say Prima -was- ignoring Segunda, didn't I? Everybody has a breaking point, y'know. We aren't all Buddha, the grand master of patience, love and humility. And some -mods- are more patient than others, too; that is, some are willing to let it slide a while before they crack down. Maybe it's a minor issue, maybe it starts off looking like a civil debate, whatever.

Also... telling Prima to ignore Segunda is, by personal experience, a horrible, horrible idea. I grew up with pretty severe stress problems. If someone was picking on me, and I was told to ignore them instead of them being told to stop, I got really mad. >.>

Fact is, Segunda directly insulting Prima is the extreme example; the vast majority of the time, arguments don't look quite as clear-cut as that. This is why mods aren't necessarily going to crack down on it; it can look like a simple debate.

Say Prima states that he likes Electric types, and Segunda disagrees and says Rock types are better. If it's something like "No, you stupid moron, Electric types suck and Rock types can smash them any day!" then it's obviously offensive. But it's almost -never- gonna be that obvious. It's perfectly possible to have somebody picking on someone, and it won't look like it until the victim finally blows up.

The converse: maybe the mod shuts down the situation by banning both people involved. And it turns out that it was, in fact, just a discussion. And what looks like fighting turns out to just be friendly teasing. Then, both users are banned for no reason, and have to wait for an admin to unban them.

When it comes down to it, though... it doesn't matter how Prima responds, unless his response is particularly out of line. Why? Because anyone who takes a look at the archives can see, quite easily, that Segunda had been provoking him. The rules in real life that you're referring to exist because it isn't always clear who the person is who started the fight, and the testimony of the people involved isn't reliable. Online, there's no NEED for that, because you can go right over and look at what happened, and see exactly who started the issue, and punish them.

Ko made a good point earlier, too... you can have one person who is a repeat offender, regularly antagonizes pretty much anyone around, and is basically an annoyance to everyone, mods or otherwise. If this person gets in a fight with someone who has a clean record, or someone who just joined the forum a few days ago... they're naturally going to get in more trouble, by virtue of things. They already had their warning.

Worst case scenario in that sort of fight: Segunda is deliberately trying to get Prima to fight back in order to get Prima in trouble. In this case, the troll WINS if both people are punished.

Best case scenario: Segunda is vitriolic and rude, and thus comes off to Prima as being harsh and combative. Even in this case, some punishment could teach Segunda not to fight with people, and it would not be fair to punish Prima for misinterpreting a lack of manners as an attempt to pick a fight.

Yes true, but flying off the handle, isnt that one to try to be avioded, and yes even if you are a stressful person, which I'm not going to lie, many people are, but still things only get to you if you allow it, and as I said before, it all depends on how the situation is handled, if its blantently offensive, why not nip it in the bud, but if its a discussion that turns into a heated debate, you dont have to immediately ban either of them, I mean even a kick is ok, due to the fact that you'll understand it, and often, it should end off with a kick, most people understand a kick, but then to immediately after the situation is clean and done, there is, or must be a problem for a situation done over, not to be brought back up gets pulled back from its grave and then dealt with...I have a better scenario. Say Person X states something and Person Z doesnt belive its true. Person X then scour for the information and there is information on said subject but its not enough to prove to Person Z that said event existed, and then Person Z keeps antagonizing the Person X about his knowledge, even then making comments about how much Person X even knows, would it be ok if Person X flipped off the handle that Person Z ripped on something that was very close to Person X and then Person X was kicked because Person X was seen over the start of the Problem when Person Z can be seen as the trigger too, and it all started as a discussion on what X and Z belived to be true. Should Person X be rremoved because Person Z is making sneerish comments about something of Person X that is one of thier life values? Take a think about that. If both Person X and Person Z are both clearly in the wrong, one for flipping of the handle for defending what he thought was right and Person Z for pushing Person X to scour the world just to prove that Person X has no idea what he is talking about?

heh, Chewya, your not even making any sense. What your saying is that it's ok to pretty much ban everyone who gets involved in some sort of argument at anytime. That obviously wouldn't work since quite a few people would be banned very fast.

Also, break up your paragraphs man, that's insanely hard to read

Sorry >.> Its kinda hard to break it up and still make sense but I'll try.
No what I am saying this would kinda apply to severe arguments, and maybe heated debates that would kill everything.

still, it's usually only one person who makes the argument go that far, and as silver says, it's very easy to see who turned it from a debate to an argument here on the net