First, I would like to thank those who expressed concern for my well-being. I feel much better today and look forward to the recent changes I have made in my personal life.
Now, regarding OP’s post.
I have read through all comments up until this point and some good suggestions have been made, so I can’t imagine I have anything new to add to the “Warning System” part. I will say this:
One huge issue I see discussed in every thread about bans/suspensions is that clarification is lacking. I personally have not received a ban message but from what I understand it looks similar to this (bear with me):
Pending Connection Failure
Could not connect to server. User is banned from this server.
So, here we now have a player who is told they are banned during an attempted log in but the reason is unknown. The next step would be to go through the Zendesk Ban Appeal/Ban information (Why was I banned?) process to at least gather more information on the specifics of the ban.
The player checks their email and it is a standard copy-and-paste email saying something like:
Greetings Exile,
your account has been temporarily suspended from playing on official servers for 14 days as a warning due to claim spam and content block. Your suspension should end (given date).
So not only was a Zendesk report filed, acted upon, and closed, but another Zendesk ticket is opened just for clarification for the first ticket. I see wasted time for both the Zendesk backlog and for the banned player at this stage, but I will return to this point in just one moment.
At the Ban appeal/Ban information stage, I see players express frustration as the message is usually along the lines of “claim spam and content block”. The player at this stage either knows what this means in regards to their builds or they do not know.
I suggest that the process should look a bit more like this:
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Player submits a report (legitimate) with all evidence
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Admin receives the report, investigates, and upon taking action- a ban or wipe- the admin must provide a short specific description of the violation with at least 1 screenshot of the offense.
2.a). I am not suggesting the admin use a screenshot from the report part of this process, as using a player-sent screenshot may have identifiers that would cause problems for the reporters. I believe if someone is using the report system, they should be using in good faith and be anonymous from the one being reported to avoid harassment or targeted revenge. When I say the admin must provide a screenshot, it should be a new screenshot of the specific offending build or buildings, taken by the admin before wiping the build.
2.b) The admin should then provide a brief few sentences explaining what the photograph shows, the grid location of the offending build and the rule being broken- I suggest referring to the post by Umborls and citing one of the specific examples if it applies.
Will this take the admin more time? Yes, it will. Considering all of the back and forth already happening between players and admins in Zendesk trying to get information, perhaps the admins taking just a few minutes more to properly show and give a brief explanation will end up saving more time in the long run by reducing the Zndesk ticket numbers. I came to this conclusion because all the info would be provided the 1st time around and with clear visual and detailed information on the rules being broken, the player has no choice but to accept their ban and learn from their mistake or -better yet- we find that some or actions being taken are actually not warranted and might need to be overturned.
Apologies for the length of the comment, if you’re familiar with some of my posts you know I struggle to communicate effectively. Sorry OP for being off-topic.