Important: What to do if you are banned

Introduction
With so many different players and games people are getting banned all the time. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding regarding these bans and everybody seems to react to them in their own way so that's why I'm trying to explain it a bit here: what to do if you get banned and perhaps more important, what you shouldn't be doing.

This guide should be useful for both admins and players.

Help I'm banned!
Stay calm this happens to the best of us, even admins sometimes.
Go to sourcebans first (https://mgftw.com/sourcebans) to look up your ban and verify the reason why you were banned. Next, figure out for yourself if you think the ban was justified or not. Remember, if you broke a rule it's always justified. You may not agree with the rules but they are written in stone and not open to discussion.

The ban was justified
If you think the ban was justified then there's nothing you can do. Just wait until it expires which will be a couple of hours in most situations.

The ban was justified, but I don't agree with the ban period
If you think the ban length is too long just PM the admin that banned you, tell him you understand why he banned you and that it won't happen again and I'm sure that 9 out of 10 times he will shorten it unless he thinks you really deserved the ban.

Alternatively you can request the same thing here: https://mgftw.com/sourcebans/index.php?p=protest

Note: These requests usually take several hours to process so you might want to re-consider doing this if your ban is less than a day.

The ban was unjustified
If you think your ban was unjustified it's important that you contact the admin that banned you through the forum PM function, or file a protest here:

https://mgftw.com/sourcebans/index.php?p=protest

The reason why this is important is because your ban is now on file. This means that any future bans will only add up and might lead to a permanent ban later on. By the time this happens it's probably too late to protest against earlier bans, no matter if they were justified or not.

Remember: If you don't protest against a ban we'll just consider it valid later on.

The ban was unjustified, the admin agrees
If you can convince the admin your ban was unjustified (or he gives you the benefit of the doubt) he will most likely unban you, however your ban will still be 'on file' only now with a new status 'unbanned'. This status means we don't see it as a valid ban any longer and it won't add up to your total number of bans.

Feel free to ask the same admin to wipe the ban from the database as some people may see it as a negative thing to be listed in Sourcebans even with status 'unbanned' (Note: Trial admins may not have permission to do this, in that case just create a forum topic with the same request or ask the admin to forward your request to someone that does).

The ban was unjustified, the admin disagrees
First of all, it's important that you keep calm and reasonable should this happen. It's perfectly normal when two persons don't agree and we'll always try to solve situations like this as adults.

If you start swearing, screaming or show other offensive behavior you're not helping your case. In fact you only prove why your ban was valid and we'll just close your case. Depending on your behavior we might even add more time or give your ban a more permanent nature. So before you do any of that, contact the admin and let him explain in detail why he banned you. It may enlighten things for you. Some people just behave bad without even knowing it.

Important note: If you're a repeated offender and your ban is really obvious then you're probably wasting your time here

I hit a brick wall with my ban
It's perfectly possible that you can't work it out with the admin that banned you when you both disagree on the facts. In that case try to meet in the middle first. Perhaps he can decrease your ban time, or soften the reason. Anything you can think of that's acceptable for the both of you.

Escalation
In the rare situation and only if you followed all above steps and still can't get to an agreement on your ban you are allowed to escalate it by posting a topic on the forum where other admins and players can form their opinion about you and your ban. The discussion will continue there and if it again stays without result a head/root admin will have the final decision on your ban.

When you do make a forum post make sure to include as much information as possible which you should have acquired from the instructions above. Cry topics that just say 'oh my ban is so unfair and the admin sucks' will be closed without warning and your ban will instantly become valid!



Other frequently asked questions


I'm a donor and I still got banned how is that possible?
Donors have votekick protection from other players but they still have to respect the rules. This means admins have every right to ban donors when they don't follow the rules, just like any other player.

In fact if you're are repeated offender and you don't like rules please don't donate and go play somewhere else. A good atmosphere is more important to us than money.

I'll just take a shortcut and contact a head/root admin directly.
This happens a lot! We get a lot of PMs from players that think they don't deserve their ban and they just start mailing the person that they think has the highest authority here.

Well, this doesn't work and won't get you anywhere. We won't respond at all to PMs like that and you'll just be ignored. A lot of these players will then say oh MG staff is so arrogant they don't even reply to my PMs but think of it from our perspective.

We get a lot of PMs like that all day long and we have more stuff to do like paying server bills, maintaining the servers or having a personal life. We're not sitting at our computer 24/7 waiting for you to PM us with your personal story how unfair life is so don't do that it will only work against you.

It wasn't me playing that got banned. Can you unban me?
This is of no concern to us. It's still your account and you are responsible for anything that happens to it. It doesn't matter to us or our players who's using your account, you or someone else. If it's abused it gets banned and being hacked is just one of many excuses we get all the time. Same as 'My brother was playing' so please don't bother. Trust me you're better of by just telling the truth. We're doing this waaay too long to fall for that.


That's it! I hope this helps and I hope nobody feels offended by this. It's just to make life more easy for both players and admins

Happy gaming!