Vote Banning...

[Powerdrco 0]

Just a few minutes ago I was voted off a lotus clan server for "hacking". I never hacked in Tf2 or any valve games, I was apparently "Backstabbing from 6 feet a away" says one user. How in the world would I do that? The whole server voted yes when they didn't even know the reason for me getting banned. My friend told me that right after I get banned. This is ridiculous, I've been banned from lotus clan twice just for having high scores. The user who voted me off was a lagger, 300 ping + from his perspective, I would understand why he would see me backstabbing 6 feer away. I love lotus clan and I've been on their server for more than a year. This is just not fair...

[Ghost_Jor 583]

!votebans aren't permenant and should be cleared in half an hour. Votebans however require a large majority so a lot of people must of thought you were hacking.

[Powerdrco 0]

!votebans aren't permenant and should be cleared in half an hour. Votebans however require a large majority so a lot of people must of thought you were hacking.

They vote banned ALOT of people during the session and most of them just press "yes", i know it's 30 min but it's very annoying. It's my favorite server

[Ghost_Jor 583]

If they're abusing the ban system (especially if they're a donor) you can make a ban request to get the donor delt with. Abusing the ban system is a lot harder for non-donors as about 3 - 4 people need to initiate the thing first.

Your votebans will have actually expired by now, too.

[Possum 10,776]

Also you can use the !calladmin command in chat to call an admin to the server.

[Sphagnum Peat Moss 748]

@Lotus: I'm curious as to the reason the voting threshold was lowered so much? 85% made it rather difficult to get legit bans to pass, but 60%? It really opens up room for more donor abuse than legit bans in my experience. It is nice to be able to get legit bans to pass now, but I've been seeing a lot more successful kicks/bans that were obviously intended to be "all in good fun" and not pass, and it seems "joke" kicks/bans like that happen far more often now than the ban system is used for actual problems like hackers.

[Asjo 90]

I often vote no when I don't know why someone is to be kicked or votebanned. However, I must admit that sometimes I've votes yes. Maybe it's one of those days where I play TF2 mindless and go on the internet every time I die. So, I won't really have noticed why the vote was initiated. So, I don't want to be one of those few guys that vote "randomly" and make sure that the vote doesn't get the required 85%. I know how much of an effort it can be to get five people to voteban someone (which is needed if no VIPs are around). So, given that, 60% certainly does sounds very low.

Way too often, the servers are left unsupervised, so I realize that we need the voteban function when hackers plague the server. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason the guy in this thread was votebanned was because he was sniper (apart from him arguing, boasting "CS skills"). Any good sniper on 2Fort will piss everyone off, because they basically prevent play. If the sniper can headshot everyone before they ever start playing, it matters more that they make it impossible to play rather than whether they cheat (although those two things often coincide). So, I can see how that easily could get a voteban at 60%

By the way, in regards to votebanning the cheaters. Around half of the cheaters on the servers are namechangers as well. So, the first thing I do it to figure out the ID of the player and tell people about it. However, often people don't get it or the cheater simply rejoins the server and gets a new ID. So, I'm wondering if anyone knows of a way to write the voteban command to include the player ID. That would be a quick way to get people to initiate the voteban. I have yet been unable to find it. I figured it would go something along the lines of: voteban playerid 325

[Harlequin 2,975]

haz u tried voteban #666 before?

[IceSage 58]

The concept of a voteban is harder to pass because it's a harsher penalty and it has to be a reason so obvious that the whole server agrees with it. It 100% works when needed. If tossing up a ban for someone that doesn't deserve it, there's a good chance it will not pass. However, if there's a hacker or someone that really, truly deserves a ban, it will go through. I banned 2 NAMECHANGER hackers by putting up a ban vote and one of them went through 100%, the other 15 to 1. (I guess whoever or whatever was on the other end didn't even vote.)

Or did I misunderstand your question about voteban percentages?

[Mana 3,867]

The voting threshold will be increased again soon. This was just a test as some people claimed it was "impossible" to pass votebans.

It probably won't be back at 85 again. But it will be higher than what it is now.

[Sphagnum Peat Moss 748]

Yay! There really have been a lot more dumb kicks and bans lately than justified ones. Good to hear it'll be raised again. The ban threshold should definitely be higher.

[Skaruts 14]

!votebans aren't permenant and should be cleared in half an hour. Votebans however require a large majority so a lot of people must of thought you were hacking.

I didn't know about that. Thanks.

Now, it's good that I found this thread, because I recorded few demos yesterday about this. There were four players votebanning two others, for not apparent reason. One of them claimed they were being offensive in the voice chat, but from what he gave me as an example of it didn't seem all that severe... And the others became a bit offensive towards me in the text chat. So not only I found this to be a weak reason to do it, as they can always votemute, or mute in the menu or in the options, I also leaned towards believing they were bullying, and especially because they still, even though I called the muting options to their attention, they still kept trying to voteban and eventually succeed.

Many people are offensive all the time (even I am a pain in the ass sometimes ), as there's always trolls and the like all around, and I guess the best thing to do is to just ignore that or votemute, etc.

The problem is, I don't know if this is enough to justify a ban request.

I remember another situation where a few people were making a "party" in the sewers, and after a while they started ganging up with votebans against people who were trying to kill them. Their reasoning was "they are trying to ruin our party". This didn't seem fair, as I've told them, people aren't forced to conform to their wishes, as most aren't there to stand around in the sewers, and if anyone was at fault was them since such parties can ruin the game for the rest of the players.

I think I recorded that one too, but it was a while ago and I just let it go, so it may be kind of hard to find the stuff again. Anyway, I'm just seeking to know what exactly can I do in those situations and if they justify a ban request.

[Possum 10,776]

If you can find the demos, feel free to upload them, I'd be happy to have a look.

[Skaruts 14]

To be honest, I think we should let this one go. I've been reading the chat log and perhaps they were really trolling, although one of the votebanners was a bit of a twat too (LtSwaggerNaut). I still think voice stuff should be muted before banned, but considering votebans are only temporary I guess it's not a big deal. I also think this because I now remembered that I was also trying to see if they would voteban me as a result of my confrontation, which, I think, usually happens when people are actually abusing votes, but they didn't. After those two players were votebanned they stopped votebanning at once. So maybe it was legit.

Also, since I didn't think about swapping to their team and see what exactly was going on, I can't know for sure. And every time the alltalk was on I wasn't listening because I usually have voice chat off.

So, maybe this wasn't really a case of bullying and we should let it go. I'll feel bad if they're banned unjustly.

Anyway, I can give you what I have.

Here's the chat log (IDs and info are in the stripped version's header):

http://pastebin.com/5hXdR6iq (full chat - unchanged)

http://pastebin.com/k9Gw3cmt (stripped, dialogues + few server messages)

And the demos:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/4cpapxgjjbznvxc/votewar.rar

[Ruby 9,039]

To be honest, I think we should let this one go. I've been reading the chat log and perhaps they were really trolling, although one of the votebanners was a bit of a twat too (LtSwaggerNaut). I still think voice stuff should be muted before banned, but considering votebans are only temporary I guess it's not a big deal. I also think this because I now remembered that I was also trying to see if they would voteban me as a result of my confrontation, which, I think, usually happens when people are actually abusing votes, but they didn't. After those two players were votebanned they stopped votebanning at once. So maybe it was legit.

Also, since I didn't think about swapping to their team and see what exactly was going on, I can't know for sure. And every time the alltalk was on I wasn't listening because I usually have voice chat off.

So, maybe this wasn't really a case of bullying and we should let it go. I'll feel bad if they're banned unjustly.

Anyway, I can give you what I have.

Here's the chat log (IDs and info are in the stripped version's header):

http://pastebin.com/5hXdR6iq (full chat - unchanged)

http://pastebin.com/k9Gw3cmt (stripped, dialogues + few server messages)

And the demos:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/4cpapxgjjbznvxc/votewar.rar

I'd give them a day off our servers for trolling if I had witnessed it. If they are going to fight in chat they can find another server, and leave our for people who actually want to play the game.

If you think we should let this one go, then I won't consider it a ban request, so this above is just my opinion (no action taken). If they come back again with trolling, either use !calladmin or consider making a full-blown ban request, and the ban will be longer due to it not being their first offense.

Thanks for your time.

edit: i start way too many sentences with "if". sorry if it makes it unreadable. xD

Edited June 24, 2013 by Darwin the ParanoidAndroid

[Skaruts 14]

Yes, I think it's better to let them go with this one. I'm really not sure about what to conclude, and I don't like acting without being certain. Thanks.

But at least I know now what to do next time. Thanks for that too.

[that guy 0]

To be honest, I think we should let this one go. I've been reading the chat log and perhaps they were really trolling, although one of the votebanners was a bit of a twat too (LtSwaggerNaut). I still think voice stuff should be muted before banned, but considering votebans are only temporary I guess it's not a big deal. I also think this because I now remembered that I was also trying to see if they would voteban me as a result of my confrontation, which, I think, usually happens when people are actually abusing votes, but they didn't. After those two players were votebanned they stopped votebanning at once. So maybe it was legit.

Also, since I didn't think about swapping to their team and see what exactly was going on, I can't know for sure. And every time the alltalk was on I wasn't listening because I usually have voice chat off.

So, maybe this wasn't really a case of bullying and we should let it go. I'll feel bad if they're banned unjustly.

Anyway, I can give you what I have.

Here's the chat log (IDs and info are in the stripped version's header):

http://pastebin.com/5hXdR6iq (full chat - unchanged)

http://pastebin.com/k9Gw3cmt (stripped, dialogues + few server messages)

And the demos:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/4cpapxgjjbznvxc/votewar.rar

I agree.

And it's not a huge deal, like ghost said its only temporary.

[shimsa10 0]

Hey guys I am actually pretty new to Lotus and the website and everything. I had the same problem as Powerdrco. Was kicked because a guy was trolling or either really mad at me. So the result was me getting vote banned. I am really sorry for asking this by the way it seems a really simple and easy question . So !votebans in servers are for sure not permanent? I saw Ghost_Jor post above that it isn't earlier but when I see my server list the server isn't there anymore??? I also couldn't find it not only in my favorites but my internet server connect thing. Do I have to wait a certain amount of time to find and join the server again??? I can't really do anything about this injustice because I don't have a demo or anything or solid evidence. Just want to make sure that nothing is permanent in bans in Lotus servers??? Would I be able to play again on the Lotus server? It was my favorite harvest server as well Please reply sorry again. Thank you

Nvm everything is fine thanks. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Nano 7,892]

No problem. Glad it's all worked out if you have any more questions let us know.