A Message regarding Unibot and the Future

[Hileville]

Tonight I reached the decision to move forward with banning the member Unibot from this community. As the owner of these forums I strive to protect the community from threats to the best of my ability.


A little background..

Last year around this time Unibot had moderation action taken against him for abusive behavior. This was not the first or last time this had happened. Shortly after the admin team was advised of recruitment through the forums PM system and in game TGs by Unibot to new and promising members of the community. An extensive discussion took place on his status. A determination had been made to ban him. Unibot was not banned as he retired from GP.


When he returned to NS and TSP the same behavior that had developed into moderation action came with him. This led to a blanket wanting being issued by the admin team that he will face banning from the region if it did not cease. While slight improvement was shown Unibot continued to insert a wedge into this community by demeaning comments and blatant lies about admins and moderation.


I do not take the banning of members from this community lightly and ultimately feel I had no choice bit to take this serious action. This decision is my own as owner of these boards. Anyone who is displeased with this action needs to express their displeasure directly at me.


Further, I have alerted the Admins to possible changes on the admin team and will be making announcements when a final decision is made. I also plan on meeting with Escade, Kris, and Farengeto this upcoming week to discuss judicial reform and the role of forum administration moving forward.


Thank you,

Hileville

[Belschaft]

As the member of the Admin team who initiated the most recent discussion of Unibot's presence on these forums, I welcome this action on Hileville's part. At the time I and others argued that his behavior warranted an administrative ban from these forums, but other members of the moderation team believed that he should be given a final chance. He was given this chance, and failed to make use of it.

 

I have no doubt that some in NationStates - most prominently Unibot - will describe this as a political action, and cast him as a silenced victim of political repression. This is not the case. At no point in the discussions regarding Unibot were his political views or criticisms of TSP's government policy mentioned; instead, there was an extensive discussion of his behavior, use of language and general attitude to others on these forums, with especial emphasis on his attitude towards forum moderation and inability to accept warnings when issued. Assuming there is no objection from the other participants, I am prepared to release the conversation in question if necessary.

 

A community can only function if its members treat each other with respect. This is something Unibot refused to do, and as a result his continued presence was fundamentally unhealthy. I anticipate that TSP, and especially Hileville, will have a rough few days as Unibot and his friends attack us and him. I cannot in good conscience allow Hileville to take this upon himself; his was the unfortunate duty to take this action for the good of our community. As such, I am endorsing this course of action. It was necessary, deserved and long overdue.

 

- Belschaft

[Phoenix King]

As a TEPer, I do not feel banning a member of the Magisterium was a wise move for the success of the TEP-TSP treaty, which already is facing an uphill battle in TEP, as Hile, Kring and Bel saw today when they were reading the thread. 

 

Furthermore, since TSP is a feeder, I do not see how recruiting is against the rules. 


Finally, from my brief glance of y'all's charter, I'd like to question the legality of this bannishment. In Article 2, line 2 y'all's Bill of Right states 

<p style="margin:0px;"> 

<p style="margin:0px;">The freedom to voice their opinions on all matter of their interest, including the peaceful criticism of the Coalition and its government, on both the Forum and the Regional Message Board, subject to reasonable restrictions established by the Assembly that do not violate the spirit of the Charter.

<p style="margin:0px;"> 

<p style="margin:0px;">Now, Unibot may have been critical of the Southern Pacific government, but the Charter permits it, since he does have a nation inside TSP. 

<p style="margin:0px;"> 

<p style="margin:0px;">Let us now examine  line 6 which states

<p style="margin:0px;"> 

<p style="margin:0px;">

<p style="margin:0px;">The freedom to reside in the region of The South Pacific, and the right to not be ejected or banned without reasonable cause and due process of law.

<p style="margin:0px;"> 

<p style="margin:0px;">Considering no trial was held, I firmly believe due process of law was violated. 

<p style="margin:0px;"> 

<p style="margin:0px;">I hope we can get something worked out for the sake of relations between our two regions.

[Phoenix King]

Assuming there is no objection from the other participants, I am prepared to release the conversation in question if necessary.

 
 

I'd like to request this conversation.

[Belschaft]

This was an administrative ban, not a judicial one Prussia. It has nothing to do with the courts or the Charter.

 

Further, and with all due respect, you are not a citizen of TSP. This is an internal matter relating to the moderation of our forums.

[Phoenix King]

 

Further, and with all due respect, you are not a citizen of TSP. This is an internal matter relating to the moderation of our forums.

Alright. I am interested in the logs to see if Unibot is somehow a threat to The Confederated East Pacific. If he has the audacity to pull something here, he might try it in TCEP. Seeing as we are currently working on a Mutual Defense Pact between our two regions, I feel this could just be an early use of this pact. 

 

EDIT: Mixed past tense with present tense.

[Kris Kringle]

If we are thinking of the same conversation, I'd be ok with it being released. Without further elaboration, what I understand is this ban isn't about Unibot criticizing the government, but rather about the inflammatory way in which he did it. Besides, the Charter protects against government action, but forum administration has its own set of rules. I'm neither endorsing nor opposing Unibot's ban, only saying how I'm understanding this turn of events.

[Belschaft]

 

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Belschaft" data-cid="116950" data-time="1392520989">
<div>
 

Further, and with all due respect, you are not a citizen of TSP. This is an internal matter relating to the moderation of our forums.

Alright. I am interested in the logs to see if Unibot is somehow a threat to The Confederated East Pacific. If he has the audacity to pull something here, he might try it in TCEP. Seeing as we are currently working on a Mutual Defense Pact between our two regions, I feel this could just be an early use of this pact. 

 

EDIT: Mixed past tense with present tense.

 

</div>
</blockquote>
Unibot's behavior was highly disruptive here, but I would not say he is a threat to TEP, in that his behavior there appears to be much better. He does not seem to, for example, habitually flame forum administrators and then refuse to accept subsequent moderator warnings.

[Commonwealth of Callistaire]

Unibot goes about his criticism in an inflammatory, immature & disrespectful manner. You just need to look at the post he made yesterday about declaring citizens of TSP hostile to see that he does things in the wrong way.

[Phoenix King]

 Would you mind enumerating on the ways that Unibot is highly disruptive? That is, besides "flaming". I'd appreciate specifics.

[Tim]

As a Citizen, I'd like to see these logs.

 

No comment on the ban, as I am still formulating my opinion.

[Geomania]

I can't say that I am surprised by this ban, and I think it's fair to say that some kind of discipline was warranted. Unibot and I find ourselves on the same side of many debates, but his hostility crosses the line of civility.

 

Having said that, I would strongly urge the moderating team to make this a temporary ban. Unibot still has a lot to offer to our region, and I am a strong believer in progressive discipline. Unibot is surely mature enough to see that his behavior was unreasonable and uncalled for and will work to correct it.

 

I am also weary of the implications of this ban because Unibot has essentially been stripped of his ability to take part in the debate in our government, and this was stripped from him without any sort of judicial hearing. This is more a comment about the way our current system is set up than Hile's action, and it's probably a conversation for another thread.

[Belschaft]

Having said that, I would strongly urge the moderating team to make this a temporary ban. Unibot still has a lot to offer to our region, and I am a strong believer in progressive discipline. Unibot is surely mature enough to see that his behavior was unreasonable and uncalled for and will work to correct it.

When you've spent as much time dealing with him as some of us have, you'll find that the idea of Unibot admitting that his behavior was unreasonable, never mind changing it, is absurd.

[Kris Kringle]

Like I've said to some people already, I want to know what changed in Unibot's situation that deserved a ban now. The statement only refers to past offenses, but if those we the only ones considered, and no new offense was committed, then why was he banned now and not then? As far as I know, the moderation team had agreed to give Unibot one last chance.


I am also concerned about the effects of this on Unibot's rights under the Charter. Whether we like it or not he is still a citizen, and his ban conflicts with his right to free speech. I'm not saying his ban should be lifted, or that his actions shouldn't have consequences, rather I'm saying that this is a grey area we need to clarify.

[Hileville]

As I said to you on IRC I made the decision after a review of a little over a year of his posts.  There was little improvement in his behavior after the moderation team issued him a blanket warning that he would face banning if his behavior does not improve.  Administration action for the protection and betterment of the community continues to be above any RP law we as a community make.  It is my job to ensure a safe and friendly environment is available to all users of this forum.  After my review I felt there was no other choice but to bite the bullet and make the difficult decision to impose a forum ban.

 

I completely understand that this may not be a popular decision and that I will be no doubt be called undesirable things across the NS GP forum and other regions.  In order for me to carry out my duties I cannot allow those things to stop me from making the difficult decisions.

 

EDIT:  As of now this banning is for an indefinite period of time.  Forum administration will discuss the banning and the length it will be over the next few days.

 

I will also add this isn't the thread for discussion of legislative changes.  Please keep discussion here about the banning of Unibot.

[Kris Kringle]

Yes, you did explain this to me on IRC. I also wanted it to be said here for the record. I also want to know, what specific rule and where did Unibot violate, in terms of moderation policies? After the blanket warning I mean. I think it's important to point out what his specific actions were, instead of just mentioning a lack of improvement in his behaviour. We all have different definitions of what that could mean.


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[Vibrant Coconuts]

I don't really understand the point of having loads of complex laws and charters and whatever if the main decisions still come down to administrative fiat.

[Lord Ravenclaw]

I'd like to see everything surrounding this, particularly the conversation mentioned above.

 

Administrative bans are always a turbulent issue.

[Punk D]

I'd like a few more specifics related to this comment.

 

 

This led to a blanket wanting being issued by the admin team that he will face banning from the region if it did not cease. While slight improvement was shown Unibot continued to insert a wedge into this community by demeaning comments and blatant lies about admins and moderation.

 

If there is a conversation log out there that would be good to see. Also, do we have warning levels? I didn't realize Unibot was close to being banned and I'm not sure how close anyone else is to being banned. The point being, I am reading through this thread and I'm unsure of what forum rules Unibot broke. He has relentlessly attacked people on these boards using personal insults and whatnot but that more hurts his own arguments than does any real damage, imo. It's like he's in a constant state of shooting himself in the foot. But if he's PM'ing people on these boards and recruiting them I'm not sure what forum rule that breaks. So, I'd like to request from the admin team more information.

[Phoenix King]

I have very similar concerns to the ones Kris has. Bel was able to indulge a little bit last night, but I'm still curious why it was yesterday he got banned and not the month before. I noticed that Hile, Bel, and Rebel were reading the thread in the Magisterium regarding the TCEP-TSP treaty about a half hour prior to Unibot being banned. Did his posts there some how affect his status here?

[Escade]

I'd love for the discussion that was mentioned to be posted here asap. 

 

This ban comes out of the blue and I don't understand it since the discussion mentioned seemed to work on establishing a system for bans that would be agreed upon by the moderation team and the government.  The same issues are raised up again which are a citizen's rights. A forum ban effectively prohibits a citizen from voting and otherwise exercising their rights. 

 

This coupled with the recent thread on criminal regions and organizations discussion does not bode well. 

[Yakonkweh Ohneka]

-snip-

[UnitedSolarRepublic]

I am not sure what to think of this. While I do agree he has shown inflammatory behavior previously, and that does deserve some moderation action, I am forced to share the curiosity of why this has not been done earlier, and also have to wonder if this does not violate his right to free speech. Can somebody post the discussion in question? I feel it could clear up a bit here.

[Sandaoguo]

I think, perhaps, we need to make better use of IP.Board's internal warning system. I'm sure there's an IP.Board plugin out there that can display a user's warning level to everybody, if that's not already possible in the stock software. We do have a formal warning system, and it's not unimaginable that Unibot earned 15 points under it. However, it's also possible that our warnings policy is not being instituted fairly and consistently. For instance, warnings for the kind of behavior Unibot was banned for are only supposed to last for 6 months, but Hileville has said that the administration team considered all of his posts over 1 year. I also don't believe Unibot was ever given a 1 day ban, which is supposed to happen when a user earns 5 points (which happens to be the minimum point value for "abusive behavior").

[Cormac]

I basically trust forum administration on this matter, but I wouldn't mind seeing further justification for this ban either.

 

Meanwhile, I personally would very much like it if Prussia would either apply for citizenship or step out of this thread as none of this concerns him. Preferably the latter.