♥Princess of Lions♥ wrote:I would like to say a couple of things about the fear of staff issue that seems to be a big point of contention here.
I actually think an underlying issue beyond whether staff are perceived as rude or blunt is not knowing how close you are to a ban. I’ve seen some staff comment about warnings not having a big impact, but if players can’t tell how close they are to a ban, then receiving a warning can feel very scary, and as if you’re on thin ice about to be banned if you make another mistake. Plus, it’s not clear what differentiates more or less “serious/severe” rule breaking. I think this underlying fear could be what predisposes players to perceive staff language as harsh, intimidating, threatening, etc. because it could seem their “CS livelihood” is under threat.
Maybe I’m the only one who has had this issue, and maybe things are different now, but in the past I have had horrible interactions with CS staff that has made me fear and avoid them and keep all my chatter off site. Several years ago when I was very little, I had a different account on CS that was perma banned for breaking a rule that was unwritten/interpreted a specific way by staff different than how I interpreted it. I also happen to know that staff do treat people differently for whatever reason, because there is another user who had the same exact thing happen to them, and they are not banned.
To be clear and transparent, I’ll go into detail.
I loved CS and was inviting my friends to join and play with me. One of my friends did not like the website, so they quit and sent me all the (common and basically worthless) pets and items to me in a gift. Accepting that gift spelled out my doom, because three months later, two days after I purchased $60 USD worth of C$, I was perma banned out of nowhere for cheating. I emailed staff to dispute the ban. I explained I was not cheating, the account that sent me items was not mine, I offered for my friend to go in a Skype call with CS staff to prove their existence, I offered to have the trade reversed, and I offered to have all the pets and items I got deleted. CS staff replied with a message that was something like “since the account only benefitted you, we consider it cheating and are keeping you banned. You can make a new account though.” Cool, thanks for destroying years worth of progression over an unwritten interpretation of a rule that you don’t enforce equally for all people… (sorry for the salt, I don’t think I will ever come to terms with my ban)
I made this new account some time later. I tried to stay off CS because if I could be banned once for something I never meant to do, I had no assurance I couldn’t prevent it from happening again. But my friends convinced me to come back, so I made this account, and I primarily stick to offsite trading and communicate almost exclusively through the user owned CS discord because frankly I feel like that is much safer for me. I avoid staff at all costs with the hopes that it will keep me safer. Even just typing this out I feel really scared because this account I have now has come farther than my other one ever did, but since other people have spoken up and are still here, I’m sticking my neck out for this.
Somewhat unrelated but still relevant, I have autism, so the way I see things and how I respond to them have that factored in.
Just wanted to add some info to this. There isn't a specific amount of warnings that will automatically equal a ban so its hard to tell users how 'close' they are to a ban, but just in a general sense you aren't going to be in danger of a ban unless we see you consistently ignoring the rules or refusing to follow rules. If you aren't doing those things than there isn't really a specific 'danger' of being banned in the sense you are talking, there is no strike system. And generally we will take other steps before an outright ban, like a temp ban or temp post approvals. There are a few cases were a ban may be immediate but thats generally only in extreme cases like posting something extremely inappropriate for CS or cheating ie multiple accounts or funneling pets to one account. Per our rules, one account existing only to benefit another is against our rules and if the only thing your friend's account did was trade with you and send you stuff it will be interpreted as cheating. Though I think our current rules are more clear on this than they were in the past.
