Let’s talk about blacklists

[Ircher]

I think the current system is fine. If a moderator wants to enforce their own blacklist, they can do so through wisdom of the moderator; being blacklisted seems a reasonable enough reason to get rejected by WOTM. (Now if the rejection is challenged, the moderator in question should provide a reasonable reason for the blacklisting, but most people will respect WOTM rejections without raising a fuss.) Similarly, wisdom of the crowd can enforce player blacklists.

As for replacements, I'm of the opinion that beggars cannot be choosers. Finding replacements tends to be a big enough ordeal as-is. Arbitrarily rejecting replacements (or worse allowing them then replacing them) because they are blacklisted just disincentivizes people from replacing in. The only reasonable rejections for replacements (in this context) is if the player in question was WOTC'd during signups or is on the moderator's blacklist as these are the only really enforceable ones.

I think having the site moderation not take a more explicitly supportive stance with regards to blacklisting is reasonable for a few reasons. First, it will generate a lot of administrative overhead. List moderators have enough duties as-is and trying to enforce blacklists on a wider scale (when other options already exist--see the first paragraph) does not seem like a good use of their time. In addition, Blair brings up a good point about abusing it. You may argue that this would not be a problem, but that rarely is a case in practice. People like to bend and stretch the rules as much as they can, and unless the moderation team is very clear on what kind of blacklists are reasonable/unreasonable, people will point to the established guidelines and argue that what they're trying isn't illegal. (New mods in the normal queue are a good example of this.) Lastly, as Blair points out as well, blacklists tend to be made for reasons that fall short of ban-worthy behavior. If the behavior is so egregious that the site moderation should get involved, then it is likely worth a ban.

[Ircher]

i think its stupid that toxic players have the power to make a player who doesnt want to play with them replace out by replacing in, and i'd rather that decision not be left to individual mods since usually the response is "im not going to let you WOT1, sorry"

If they are intentionally doing that, that can be considered harassment, which can get the player banned. In addition, as I pointed out in my previous post, mods shouldn't be picky about replacements because they are hard to come by as-is.

[Ircher]

I think another problem with blacklists is the fact that people change. Most of the people who won't change their behavior after banned will end up getting banned again and again all the way up to an indefinite ban. The others will curb their unpleasant behavior because they genuinely want to be a respected part of the community. The issue with blacklists is that it isn't necessarily fair to the toxic player if they get blacklisted forever and never given a second chance to make amends with the player that blacklisted them. Maybe the person was young and immature and didn't realize the harm they caused. Maybe the person is trying to improve but sometimes relapses. Maybe the person was going through a hard time in life and ended up taking their frustration out in the thread/on another player. Do these reasons excuse the action? No, but it's also not worthy of forever holding a grudge. If we end up having a formal blacklist system, I think it should be time limited. Maybe the blacklist should be valid three times longer than whatever the ban period or one year, whichever is shorter. (In the case of warnings, let's say the blacklist only lasts for two weeks.)