Bans

[Slomosapien]

Just wondering if there is a set formula for how long a ban is in place for any given infraction or if it's loosey-goosey and at the discretion of the mod involved.

[Arii]

@Slomosapien
Moderators have a recommended ban duration for certain violations, but in most cases, it is generally at the discretion of the mod reviewing the case.

[HazarDous]

To add to what Arii said, moderators may sometime go over or below the guidelines under specific situation(s). i.e, someone who commits a repeated offense will be banned above the recommended guidelines.

Does that answer your question?

[Slomosapien]

Yeah sort of. Is this information (the ban durations) public and/or debateable?

@HazarDous

[HazarDous]

This information is not public for the very reason that ban durations are only guidelines. The ban lenght you, hypothetically, receive for team killing may not be the same duration I will get for TK. We do not have static ban durations as we trust our moderators to be qualified to judge ban requests on a case by case basis - mainly according to intention and impact on the game of broken rules -. We prefer this to applying the same ban duration for every same broken rule because each case has its specificities and we cannot anticipate them.

Furthermore, making these guidelines public would only encourage people to cry every time X or Y ban lenght does not exactly meet the recommende duration. If you believe you have been banned for too long, you may post an appeal, and ask for another moderator than the one who banned you to deal with it.

What offense(s)' duration would you like to debate and why?

[Slomosapien]

In that scenario, the verdict doesn't make clear sense to me. Why should you get a different ban than me? Why not have standardized ban durations? If there's a repeat in a short time, the make another echelon of ban (like double to time if there's a repeat in s short time). Then people don't have to petition to be unbanned from a mod who wasn't in a good mood at that day. That way there's no "crying" at x or y, just the rules, which are clearly stated and uniform.

What sparked this was the one-year bans (which I've seen a few of lately). Safe to say that person is never coming back to this DotA. It might as well be forever. A one-year ban for maphack seems sortof reasonable, since you're shutting out a person who would overtly and consciously cheat. But, a one-year ban for dodging a small ban (router reset or making an account on another server), seems pretty severe. I don't know that it's fair to 'permanently' ban someone for circumventing the "authority" of ENT agents in the same way as someone who is cheating. I mean that person is not going to learn a lesson of any kind.. they are going to go to a different game and the small DotA community becomes even smaller.
There are likely other examples, but this was the most recent one I came across..

[Hatedmaru]

@Slomosapien Regarding ban duration, you can't properly "standardize" it: Sure you can have basic guidelines/durations, but impact, repeated offenses, intentions will differ the duration itself.

Dodging a ban (may it be an autoban, a teamkill, maphack ban, etc) is not something you should take "lightly": Someone who decides to dodge a ban, instead of appealing it, simply shows that besides not caring/respecting rules at all, is willing to go as far as dodging his bans, to continue playing, and usually doesn't take long until you find them, again, breaking the initial rule which lead to his ban (speaking by personal experience).

Also all bans are appealable, and generally, all the moderators are quite flexible if people cooperate, and show that they learned their lesson, and promise to try doing different in the future (Sometimes it works, others it doens't, but that's how it is: You either take the gamble, and believe the person learned, and reduce his ban/unban him, or you simply keep him banned ^^)

[wTc[JediMaster]]

@Arii @Hyo @HazarDous What is the longest time for an autoban? from what Ive seen it's around 1-4h mostly aslo waiting for it to pass works "just as fast" as asking ENT to unban if it was unfair or you feel like leaveing them of the hook.

not really as fast if it's passed quickly but just playing 1-2 other games while waiting mostly solves the problem

[Hatedmaru]

Hmm there's no "longest" defined, but if i had to call by memory, i've seen autobans lasting for at least 5 days, back in the days

Autoban is calculated with a series of variables, including stay %, amount of autobans you got in the last days, for how long the game lasted vs when you disconnected, etc , so you won't necessarily have a standard autoban duration

[aRt)Y]

Why should you get a different ban than me?

Circumstances.

If he tks you at the end, the impact might be way lower than at the beginning when it might ruin your entire start. Thus, ENT judges the reports based on multiple criteria to enforce reasonable and fair bans. However, mhing and dodging crosses a line we do not tolerate. But as mentioned, we are open for talks (aka appeals).