Newbie
Uncharitable Spy
Dear skial!
This isn't a suggestion, this is just discussion and my opinion, let's keep this thread civil. In my opinion hackers should be granted their second chance. Before you start an argument, read carefully what I have to say, m'kay?
Skial has a very simple set of rules. While the rules have remained unchanged, the way they are being enforced has changed quite a bit.
Skial had standard length punishments. 1d, 3d, 1w, 1m, perma. This means that even if you had screwed up 4 times 2 years ago, the 5th offense would land you a permaban.
Nowadays the 5th offense can be from anywhere from 1m to permanent ban and if your 4th offense happened long time ago the admin that banned you might be lenient enough to reduce the time you have to sit out. Of course you still shouldn't be breaking the rules. Skial's way of enforcing rules has become a lot less strict and that's good, because someone who might be genuinely breaking a rule by accident for the 5th time might not receive a permaban. Good example would be jailbreak servers, which have their own set of rules.
Also with the hacking cases there was a time if a sibling or any relative had used cheating software they'd make a donation to charity and have the hacker hold a sign that says I am this and this person, however this method of confirming identities was discarded, because it became a farce quickly.
Now, let's talk about few cases where the staff has had a good reason for permaban/silence and 2 cases where mercy was given.
The first case that caught my attention came from a user called sushipaste. This person was toxic to the core according to the staff and few users. This person had stacked up a lot of votesilences and staff had to constantly intervene to save the community the trouble of constantly silencing him. He also spammed the forums with appeals and thus landed a ban on the forums aswell. However the staff was lenient towards him and it took a lot of offenses from sushipaste to rack up the permaban.
The second case is the case of g00sy. Someone used cheating software while on his IP and the cheater's account and g00sy's accounts were permabanned, however an admin unbanned g00sy's account and his ip after the admin confirmed that the accounts weren't similiar. Skial's policy is to keep all the tainted IPs banned, so this was a pretty interesting case.
The 3rd case was similiar. An admin made a deal with a user that had a tainted IP to unban the IP and if they saw any activity from the user that had hacked the ban would be reinstated, however this ban was quickly reinstated because the steam ID that originally cheated was still active.
I'd like to add that because tf2 became f2p, it also played a role in this strict policy, despite them trying to do the best for those who genuinely said sorry and those who got caught in the crossfire.
Let's talk about the safety of these servers. Between a cheater and the skial's servers are 3 layers of protection: VAC, SMAC and the admins. What doesn't get caught by VAC and SMAC is caught by the admins.
Way to earn the unban. I know of the two dead programs that have been rendered useless, so these types of cheaters could be given a second chance, because I'm sure they wouldn't risk the second time. Cheaters that make the more sophisticated programs and either use themselves or sell them to people looking for the programs are a bigger issue. In order to get a second chance, I'd say that making a deal with the cheater to give up the cheating program and giving them a temporary ban would be far more beneficial than permabanning them with no chance to appeal. It'd be highely unlikely that someone would find a way to get away with cheating the second time, because few lines of code play in very unnatural way.
For those who use the 2 programs giving them a chance to appeal at a later time in the future and expecting grade A appeal would be fair.
I mean people who use the infamous bind, then get perma'd and then come to the forums and say "Soz I saw the rule about advertising hacks, yet I made a jokebind advertising dem hacks" are unbanned.
I'd like to say that our identity is just a jumble of numbers and these are the thoughts I have been having. Sucks that someone who genuinely was curious about cheating and went about it the wrong way gets perma'd and anyone who didn't cheat also gets banned on that IP, while the trolls who clearly see the very first lines about advertising do it anyways and get a chance.
Advertising cheats is much worse than cheating in my opinion, because youngsters are the people most likely to try them out and this curiosity costs them. People shouldn't do neither of those things, but they do just to test the waters.
The reason for saying that there was a change in enforcing the rules was because there could be a way to be strict towards these kinds of people, but also let them have another chance. I'm sure other people would get the message if the ban was long, but there was a date to look forward to, after a really good appeal.
These are just my thoughts and I'd love everyone's input.
This isn't a suggestion, this is just discussion and my opinion, let's keep this thread civil. In my opinion hackers should be granted their second chance. Before you start an argument, read carefully what I have to say, m'kay?
Skial has a very simple set of rules. While the rules have remained unchanged, the way they are being enforced has changed quite a bit.
Skial had standard length punishments. 1d, 3d, 1w, 1m, perma. This means that even if you had screwed up 4 times 2 years ago, the 5th offense would land you a permaban.
Nowadays the 5th offense can be from anywhere from 1m to permanent ban and if your 4th offense happened long time ago the admin that banned you might be lenient enough to reduce the time you have to sit out. Of course you still shouldn't be breaking the rules. Skial's way of enforcing rules has become a lot less strict and that's good, because someone who might be genuinely breaking a rule by accident for the 5th time might not receive a permaban. Good example would be jailbreak servers, which have their own set of rules.
Also with the hacking cases there was a time if a sibling or any relative had used cheating software they'd make a donation to charity and have the hacker hold a sign that says I am this and this person, however this method of confirming identities was discarded, because it became a farce quickly.
Now, let's talk about few cases where the staff has had a good reason for permaban/silence and 2 cases where mercy was given.
The first case that caught my attention came from a user called sushipaste. This person was toxic to the core according to the staff and few users. This person had stacked up a lot of votesilences and staff had to constantly intervene to save the community the trouble of constantly silencing him. He also spammed the forums with appeals and thus landed a ban on the forums aswell. However the staff was lenient towards him and it took a lot of offenses from sushipaste to rack up the permaban.
The second case is the case of g00sy. Someone used cheating software while on his IP and the cheater's account and g00sy's accounts were permabanned, however an admin unbanned g00sy's account and his ip after the admin confirmed that the accounts weren't similiar. Skial's policy is to keep all the tainted IPs banned, so this was a pretty interesting case.
The 3rd case was similiar. An admin made a deal with a user that had a tainted IP to unban the IP and if they saw any activity from the user that had hacked the ban would be reinstated, however this ban was quickly reinstated because the steam ID that originally cheated was still active.
I'd like to add that because tf2 became f2p, it also played a role in this strict policy, despite them trying to do the best for those who genuinely said sorry and those who got caught in the crossfire.
Let's talk about the safety of these servers. Between a cheater and the skial's servers are 3 layers of protection: VAC, SMAC and the admins. What doesn't get caught by VAC and SMAC is caught by the admins.
Way to earn the unban. I know of the two dead programs that have been rendered useless, so these types of cheaters could be given a second chance, because I'm sure they wouldn't risk the second time. Cheaters that make the more sophisticated programs and either use themselves or sell them to people looking for the programs are a bigger issue. In order to get a second chance, I'd say that making a deal with the cheater to give up the cheating program and giving them a temporary ban would be far more beneficial than permabanning them with no chance to appeal. It'd be highely unlikely that someone would find a way to get away with cheating the second time, because few lines of code play in very unnatural way.
For those who use the 2 programs giving them a chance to appeal at a later time in the future and expecting grade A appeal would be fair.
I mean people who use the infamous bind, then get perma'd and then come to the forums and say "Soz I saw the rule about advertising hacks, yet I made a jokebind advertising dem hacks" are unbanned.
I'd like to say that our identity is just a jumble of numbers and these are the thoughts I have been having. Sucks that someone who genuinely was curious about cheating and went about it the wrong way gets perma'd and anyone who didn't cheat also gets banned on that IP, while the trolls who clearly see the very first lines about advertising do it anyways and get a chance.
Advertising cheats is much worse than cheating in my opinion, because youngsters are the people most likely to try them out and this curiosity costs them. People shouldn't do neither of those things, but they do just to test the waters.
The reason for saying that there was a change in enforcing the rules was because there could be a way to be strict towards these kinds of people, but also let them have another chance. I'm sure other people would get the message if the ban was long, but there was a date to look forward to, after a really good appeal.
These are just my thoughts and I'd love everyone's input.
