Ban Evasion Prohibition

There's been some talk lately about whether or not our law permits our BC officers to extend bans to puppets of players who had their original nation banned. For the most part this only happens when a problematic player shows up under a new name and continues to be a problematic player, but it may not always be so. To make this crystal clear, and to avoid the possibility of improper bans, I propose the following:

Ban Evasion Prohibition:

Section 7.3 of the Legal Code will be amended to:

Section 7.3 Onsite Authority:

11. Violators of NationStates rules, or residents banned offsite by forum administration, may be subject to summary ejection or banning.
12. Residents banned on the basis of forum bans imposed by forum administration may not be banned for longer than the length of the ban imposed by forum administration.
13. Nations recruiting for other regions may be subject to summary ejection or banning.
14. Nations controlled by the same individuals whose nations were previously banned for any of the preceding reasons may be subject to summary ejection or banning, provided the time for that ban has not already expired.
15. Nations for which the Court has issued an indictment permitting it may be ejected or banned.
16. Nations that have been so sentenced by the Court will be ejected or banned.
17. The official performing an ejection or ban will promptly inform the region and Government.
18. The Serving Delegate may regulate the Regional Message Board as they see fit.
19. Such regulations may not prohibit speech which is in the context of TNP politics.
20. All actions of the WA Delegate, the Serving Delegate, or of their appointed Regional Officers related to this section will be subject to judicial review.

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Bad players making puppets and returning usually leads to an easy subsequent ban, as these players typically cannot restrain themselves and fall into the same bad habits. There are cases, though, where smarter, devious players will learn from the original ban and sow their seeds of discord in nefarious and careful ways, avoiding the easy ban and only being felled by the ban evasion option. Right now, they can still be taken care of, but with this cloud of uncertainty. This change would remove the cloud and allow us the opportunity to take the logical, common sense approach to making sure punishment applies to bad players no matter how many names they come back with.

I know there's a lot of people who feel that we need to give room for banned players to turn over a new leaf and with their other nations behave better and contribute. This is still possible - note that the banning is entirely discretionary. This change would simply explicitly include "ban evasion" as one of the criteria for discretionary bans. It is not adding something, it is formalizing what is already being done.

I am not sure of my stance on this. I can appreciate the need to safeguard against players that persistently break the rules, but it seems to me that players who do so could (and presumably are) currently banned under the provisions that allowed for their original ban. Where a player changes their behaviour and stops doing things that would ordinarily lead to a ban, I do not think they should continue to be subject to the threat of one hanging over them. Even if those players engage in more subtle troublemaking, I am not sure that they should be subject to punishment for something that would not follow for other players. Perhaps persistent rule-breakers simply don’t deserve the same leeway, but even so it concerns me that they would be effectively held to a standard determined by officials rather than law.

I also think the wording might perhaps be flawed in applying to all reasons for the original ban equally.

If a nation is ejected with the approval of the Court, it is because that nation poses a security risk, but I do not think it would follow that all nations controlled by the same player would be a risk. A nation might only pose a risk because of its high influence and endorsement count, if the same player moved another nation into region it would lack that influence and, initially at least, endorsement count.

In relation to nations banned due to a forum ban or sentence of the Court, those are ordinarily time limited. The proposed wording, however, seems to suggest that once a ban has been implemented under those provisions (or the provision relating to Court approved bans), the player will have their nations forever subject to a discretionary ban, even when the reasons for the original ban were time limited and have long expired. I think, in relation to those bans that are originally time limited, it should be made clear the discretion lasts only for that time.

Continuing in relation to bans for those sentenced by the Court, the original ban is mandatory. I would think that should also be the case in relation to evasion of it, I can’t see a good reason why there should be a discretion in that respect.

You make a good point @Zyvetskistaahn. I have amended my draft to avoid the court considerations entirely. The clause now only applies to everything above the court ban provisions. Furthermore, I have carved out an exception for timed bans so that if a ban has expired, this provision could not be used to ban the individual again. I hope this addresses the bulk of your concerns.

As for whether or not the banned player should have a ban hanging over them, I would again reiterate that it is common practice now to apply bans to those continuing the same behavior and being more lenient with those who are not. Our goal is first and foremost to formalize the existing status quo, and to have a remedy for borderline cases who don't repeatedly break rules but who are not being positive members of the community either and relying on a potential technicality to escape punishment.

I take issue with summary ejection. What this proposal needs is some way to ensure that nations are not randomly ejected for being puppets when they are not. I feel that summary ejection here is not the solution, and that there should be a proceeding, be it by the Security Council it by the court, to prove that a nation is a puppet. If it is in absentia, so be it, as long as there is some degree of protection.

These acts are subject to judicial review. I should also point out that problem players, whether puppets of formerly banned players or not, will be subject to punishment. This law is intended to respond to a very specific type of situation. A suspected puppet of someone who was banned is typically not decided by random finger pointing, but I will grant you there is the possibility a mistake may be made.

I think it would be more difficult to frontload the judicial review, though like I said it would probably be moot as a problem player will typically give people plenty of reasons to take action without their being a puppet being the primary one. I suppose if we want to deal with a banned player who is keeping their nose clean when using a new nation, a bit of court action to ensure their identity before that action is taken isn’t necessarily that bad an idea. I’m not sure how I would frame it though, maybe saying the judicial review has to happen first? And it has to be prompted by the official who wishes to ban whether the player engages or not? This seems like it could have other issues to me though, but if you or someone else has an idea for it, by all means, let me know.

Pallaith:

These acts are subject to judicial review. I should also point out that problem players, whether puppets of formerly banned players or not, will be subject to punishment. This law is intended to respond to a very specific type of situation. A suspected puppet of someone who was banned is typically not decided by random finger pointing, but I will grant you there is the possibility a mistake may be made.

I think it would be more difficult to frontload the judicial review, though like I said it would probably be moot as a problem player will typically give people plenty of reasons to take action without their being a puppet being the primary one. I suppose if we want to deal with a banned player who is keeping their nose clean when using a new nation, a bit of court action to ensure their identity before that action is taken isn’t necessarily that bad an idea. I’m not sure how I would frame it though, maybe saying the judicial review has to happen first? And it has to be prompted by the official who wishes to ban whether the player engages or not? This seems like it could have other issues to me though, but if you or someone else has an idea for it, by all means, let me know.

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It seems to me that this bill is redundant.

Comfed:

It seems to me that this bill is redundant.

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Would you care to elaborate further and explain your reasoning for why it seems that way to you?

I feel strongly that this is a step in the wrong direction and potentially violates the "equal and fair treatment" provision of the Bill of Rights.

Too many nations are getting ejected. Lately, the Speaker's Office has run into the issue that the scripts underlying the citizen registry do not capture whether a citizen has been elected from the region or left under their own recognizance. That must now be manually checked, because it was not contemplated when those scripts we created that citizens would be occasionally ejected from the region because an unelected official has unilaterally determined that they violated NS rules (or are controlled by a player who has) and summarily ejected them. The clause for ejection for NS rules violations were meant to cover the most extreme forms of rule-breaking content. It was not supposed to be used to routinely kick out folks making meaningless posts or random insults. Those cases should simply be reported by GHR and taken care of by the moderators. The power to ban rulebreakers should only be used when the content is so extreme that it needs to be dealt with immediately and cannot wait for the mods to come by and deat the nation. It needs to be unambiguously against the rules, because Nessie is not the arbiter of NS rules, the mods are. Many of the recently banned nations haven't been deleted. I'd be willing to bet that many of their posts were not even considered serious enough to report. How do we actually know they broke the rules? One person's spam is another's RP, and the government is not empowered to police the quality of the RMB, only the legality.

What's more, banning nations for ban evasion could be interpreted as subjecting them to unfair or unequal treatment based on who controls them. If two nations comport themselves the exact same way on the RMB, and one stays and the other goes (for "ban evasion") then it's possible the BoR has been violated. This is laying aside the fact that gameside, any determination that two nations are controlled by the same player is a guess at best.

Robespierre:

Would you care to elaborate further and explain your reasoning for why it seems that way to you?

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Well, if we can just get rid of troublemaking nations anyway, the only problem I can think of is that the legal system could get a bit tied up; summary banjection puts innocent new nations at risk. Imagine you are a new player, and you suddenly are ejected and banned before you really even understand what ejection and banning are.

My point is that this only allows for more ejection, but does not present a coherent way to solve the problem that this addresses.