As for bman, if he did break the rules, he was not wrongly banned - hopefully he has learned who and who not to trust the opinions of. As for Ozombie - I am not sure why this is such a concern to you, however, given his history, I feel he has no right to complain (or you for him) about waiting to hear about a status on the appeal. Even a few weeks would not be unreasonable in my opinion.
I prefer the current sistem because staff have more time to decide what to do, as Kmaxwell said in cases of severe scamming or similar you need to think about it before making that guy return on the server. And smods+ don't handle only ban appeals, the handle lots of other forum and ingame stuff. Also staff have their projects like all of us, make money, towns...... I really don't see how after breaking the rules and get banned you also expect that your ban appeal is proceeded in 3hrs or so. And if you don't want to go through all of this don't get banned it's actually quite simple, just don't do anything stupid.
Why should the Super Moderators and above go out of their way to get rule breakers back onto the server? Its completely stupid. It should not be a rushed process at all. If someone is silly enough to get themselves banned, it should be a lengthy process.
I do think we are getting off track from the original suggestion - changing the way bans are handled back to the way they were. I still disagree with this but do still feel changes would help. Guidelines would be helpful, just like the other applications state on them. This section in particular: Certain Staff handle appeals once every 1-7 days. (Meaning once a week) Asking constantly about your appeal in the forums or shoutbox will only increase the time for the process. We very well can see there are outstanding appeals and handle them every few days. Do you understand this: Yes
Don't get banned. Just like everyone else has said. It really is that simple. However, Staff shows a lack of professionalism by letting appeals sit and wait. Yes, I agree that rule breakers should have to wait. But that waiting can be done by giving temp bans. The appeal was simple, they get unbanned guaranteed, but you handle it within the first hour or two? Make it a couple hour temp ban. That is called professionalism. It is literally the same thing as letting an appeal sit for six hours, except you are being professional about it and treating someone as a human. (As much as we dislike rule breakers, we can't stigmatize them or make them into a minority. Read some history books and look at present-day issues.) Letting an appeal sit because "they deserve being banned and deserve waiting" is highly unprofessional - especially when personal biases or sudden "everyone/I dislike this person" comes in (which, over 6 months ago, was a thing). Complicated appeal? Once someone has a moment, they can spend two minutes writing a brief statement saying that their appeal will be look into soon, is being investigated, or whatever fits for the case. That way Staff is being professional, but the rule breaker has to wait, and the Staff have made it clear that the case isn't easy-peasy-123. Honestly, this task can be done by blue Mods. And if there is a general knowledge or thread outlining which higher-ranked Staff members are best with certain cases, then those blue Mods can tag (perhaps after discussion in a Staff channel) whoever would be best suited to handle the appeal, whoever has time, or whoever needs a learning experience. The only issue I see is a lack of professionalism. I'm all for making people wait because they broke rules, but it could at least be handled professionally. Staff are working half-shifts (~20 hours a week) - and should have more than enough time to be professional with appeals. I'm pretty sure that with the Staff size (20 hours * 20+ Staff = 400+ hours per week) there should be no issue spending 3 minutes to let someone know that their appeal isn't being ignored. Honestly, a lot of the reason that new people leave isn't because their appeal took two days - it is because there was little to no presence of professionalism, humanizing, or care to do work.
There is one moderator out there that truly is professional with appeal handling and gets the job done well. You know who you are.
Not being funny but isn't this done by tagging the appropriate staff members for higher up appeals? The original suggestion was saying that he doesn't like that, yet that is acknowledging the banned user that the staff is dealing with their appeal and it's been seen?
I think he wants, "Thank you for appealing. Your appeal is being discussed and will be handled by 'x, y or z'. Please wait for their decision". Something of that nature is what he is looking for.
I agree that it would be nice to engage with the user when saying there complaint is being handled while tagging correct staff to deal with the appeal. But you must admit that tagging the other staff would lead you to assume that your appeal is being looked into if a staff member comes in and tags other staff?
I think the engaging in the conversation helps to ensure this. It could be very easily interpreted as pushing the work off moot another staff ,enter and it being ignored.
My entire post is supporting the original post of this suggestion though... I apologize if I'm not understanding your response, but the original poster DOES want there to be responses on appeals, and even tagging other Staff (if someone else handles it). I'm confused by your question. ;-; EDIT: Also, if people assume it will be handled soon with someone being tagged, they are just too excited or mildly lost. Of course it wouldn't be handled instantly. That's up to the Staff posting to make that clear.
Again i completely agree and when tagging other staffers, i try to always do this. Also, just to mention, Sometimes you cannot win as a a Staff Member, im sure if we post what you said: "Thank you for appealing. Your appeal is being discussed and will be handled by 'x, y or z'. Please wait for their decision" we will be excused of being too nice to Banned Users. (http://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/suggestion-stop-the-please.116931/). Im not saying this is suddenly being too polite, but i do believe that the current system is a happy medium to dealing with the situations. The Ban Appeals that take quite a long to deal with and sit there for awhile usually have a reason for this. They are not being ignored or low priority, but they are being dealt with by someone, even if it isn't being tagged. Most ban appeals are at least tagged and dealth with in a quick manner or they are tagged for another staff member to handle. If other staff members are tagged, chances are its a specialised scenario in which it will take slightly longer because a individual is looking into it. But i do agree that it would be nice to have a little engagement towards the Appealer.
