Considering Self-Ban and Self-Ban Discussion

[Menalque]

Hi. I wanted to make this thread for two reasons, both related to myself but one of which is very narrowly focused on me and the other dealing with a more general discussion to be had:

(1) I'm considering self-banning. This would be need to be for a year due to site policy (see point 2). I've found a lot of my recent games to be deeply unenjoyable experiences, for a variety of reasons within the games themselves but which can probably be best traced in origin to personal factors such as getting overly emotionally involved in games.

I initially figured this was happening due to burnout or playing too many games in a row (as it wasn't so much of an issue when I first joined the site), but I still struggle with actually going on hiatus or taking a meaningful break. Even when I've tried to, I've often ended up /inning stuff on a secret alt if it's looked interesting or the PL has been good. If anyone has advice on how to stay active on site while resisting the urge to play, that would be welcomed, because I like the majority of the community here and would prefer not to be totally cut off. Alternatively, if people have any concrete advice – I'm aware threads like this have existed in the past, I've generally found the advice quite wishy-washy e.g. "try to enjoy playing scum more"; "remember it's just a game" – on how to play in a more detached way I would also be grateful for that.

(2) I wanted to have a discussion of how self-bans work and why they're as restrictive as they are. It's still official policy that self-bans may only be received for a minimum of a year and that they must be sitewide. I'm not sure why this is, and I'm curious if mods or players can weigh in on why they think this is better than being able to receive self-bans for shorter periods/in a more focused way (e.g. requesting a 6 month self-ban from playing in mafia games). Is the idea that there would be a huge upsurge in people requesting self-bans? Or that it would be significantly more work for the mods? Or that it cheapens the concept of self-banning as a Very Serious Endeavour. None of these really seem true to me, but I might be missing something. If, on the other hand, I'm not, then I hope that perhaps people voicing support here for a more flexible approach to self-bans might lead to a change in moderation policy

Thanks.

[Menalque]

I don't see how it can hurt, thank you MC.

[Menalque]

I'm planning to respond here more thoroughly soon, but I wanted to say for now that the suggestion of adding something to one's sig with how long you won't be playing for has been working wonderfully in keeping me accountable on my commitment to not play for a considerable period of time.

In the meantime (I think vaccine is starting to make me a little tired), thank you everyone for both the advice to me personally and the healthy discussion around self-bans more generally.