GMI Announces New Moderation Method
As some of you may be aware of; just the other day GMI updated to the latest version of the vBulletin forum software. Part of that upgrade is a new feature built into the software called
User Infractions. The staff is very excited about this feature because it answers several concerns that we, the staff, have had about moderation and some that you, the members, have had as well. Please carefully read about the new User Infractions feature below so that you are aware of what will be going on from this point on.
To explain this new feature in a nutshell, the forum software now has a button for all staff members to push on every post that is made on the site. That button, when pushed, takes the staff member to that poster's infraction history page. The staff member, if needed, can then add a new infraction to that user for violating a GMI rule. What is great is that the infractions are already in the software to correlate with our rules, so then the staff member just selects the infraction.
Part of this feature is that the staff member is FORCED to send a PM to that member when they add an infraction to your account! One concern I hear about from members all the time is that we don't contact them when they violate a policy; this feature MAKES us PM you when we add an infraction.
Another reason we are thrilled with this feature is because it makes moderation more "cut and dried" so to speak. There is very little room for favortism. Every infraction in the system has a set number of points (it can only be changed by myself, Branden, or Rex). The points will be explained in detial later.
Above is a chart showing all of the infractions currently set into the software. As you can see, we have correlated the amount of points they are worth with the severity of the infraction. After the set days (or months) of that infraction, it is taken off of your infraction record. The "YES" under the warning tab means that we are REQUIRED to PM you when we add an infraction. The "EXTEND" column is marked yes if the points of that infraction can be added to another infraction.
The Points, Automatic Ban
Now where the points come in. Points are a BAD thing with this feature. We currently have it set so that if any user hits
15+ points, the software will
automatically ban them for 10 days. It is also set that if any member gets
10+ infractions, they will
automatically be banned for 10 days. Once a member
surpasses 25 points, they are automatically banned for good.
Everyone please bear with us on this. We think this will work out very well for everyone. Moderation is more "by the books" and fair. If you have any questions, please contact me.