I've been putting the two and two together recently and after doing some thinking, I thought this may be worth writing about here. This is in fact about the way they ban users on the game and using three individual stories (and linking one to another), it may be crystal clear as to how unfair the banning is. Let's begin!
CASE STUDY 1: MONTY200
Yes, I begin with myself with a ban that occurred to me in fall 2014. This was a ban caused by me doing a particular exploit which allowed me to go into any weevil's nest I wanted. Now, you may be thinking, I broke the rules and so wouldn't it be normal to simply get banned for it? Indeed, that is correct but going into more detail, there were other factors influencing this exploit by which firstly, I used one of my alternative accounts and NOT my main 'monty200' weevil and so despite Bin Weevils being able to lift my IP address, they still couldn't prove if it was exactly me doing the hack as it could have easily been a friend or sibling and so rather than banning monty200, they should have banned the account I was actually doing the exploit on. Secondly, as revealed in the E-Mail they sent after banning my account, they admitted knowing that such exploits were given away in recent "YouTube videos uploaded by another player" which if you don't know, these Bin Weevils hackers known as Adrian and Pure at the time uploaded many YouTube tutorials showing you how to do certain hacks and exploits such as the one I was banned for. So, in addition to Bin Weevils having such knowledge, why would they ban me? Just consider this, what if a small, young child was on YouTube and followed one of these tutorials without realising the consequences? Now, I admit myself that I was aware you could get banned but hey, Bin Weevils didn't know that so they should not have banned me like that! If I myself saw in-game hacks being performed due to tutorials from third-party sources, I'd simply give the players who were following these tutorials a warning stating the guidelines and rules and stating how you should not follow particular things and then I would probably ban them for 24-48 hours to give a small taster of what sort of consequence you could get when performing one of these exploits.
So to summarise, Bin Weevils with knowledge of YouTube tutorials banned me with little knowledge as to who was actually using the computer and with little knowledge of the person's understanding of the consequences given for following these tutorials. And with that in hand, how is that fair? They should have given me a warning as a maximum rather than permanently terminating my account.
CASE STUDY 2: CALLUM390
Well, not the weevil 'callum390' himself but rather one of his alternative accounts, which got banned due to something the owner didn't actually do on the account himself. Basically, someone who wasn't him had went on his account and had performed a few hacks and exploits which immediately resulted in the account getting banned forever altogether. So after being banned, Callum went ahead and contacted 55Pixels about what had happened and said that "He was hacked" and explaining how it wasn't him who did the things that caused the ban. But, when 55Pixels replied, they treated it like a circumstance where the owner (Callum) did the hacks and exploits himself and demanded that he'd get a parent/guardian to phone up. Now, the problem with asking for a parent/guardian over a situation where a ban wasn't caused by the owner is simply that the parent/guardian will simply know just as much the owner does with being hacked and what not etc. Moreover, Callum was 17 at the time by which he continuously highlighted his age to 55Pixels in many future E-Mails but every time he got a reply, 55Pixels kept on being childish and awkward as they kept on requesting a parent/guardian like the context was different.
I then got a bit angry myself at how 55Pixels dealt with the circumstance and so I complained to them myself about how they have been acting and also explaining why the use of a parent/guardian would be useless in this situation and here is the reply they gave me:
So to summarise, one of Callum's accounts gets banned due to a hack done by someone else, Callum tries to discuss it with 55Pixels but 55Pixels treat it like he had done it and then constantly keeps telling him to get a parent/guardian; 55Pixels then tell me their banning guidelines which contradict with Callum's age. So this clearly shows their banning has several holes and flaws in which is extremely unfair to Callum since he wasn't "those under the age of 16" and 55Pixels knew that.
CASE STUDY 3: KENNY
I think almost everyone can recall the time when Kenny's weevil 'itskenny' was banned. He had to start all over and had to use his new account for his future YouTube videos. But then one day, his original weevil was unbanned and life went on. However, when being confronted on Twitter as to how he got his account back, Kenny replied and I quote that he simply "E-Mailed them about it" and got his account unbanned. So far, you could make the assumption that he was banned for something that wasn't his fault or banned for something 55Pixels made a mistake on but fortunately, in Kenny's same reply, he ended it stating how he was "lucky" to get his account unbanned which instantly shows he was banned for breaking the rules.
But hold on, let's link this to Case Study 2 shall we?
Now, why would Kenny get better treatment? Well, the only conclusion I can come up with in the thought route is simply that Kenny at the time was the most popular Bin Weevils YouTuber and had attracted loads of attention to Bin Weevils via his videos and his parties that he used to hold and so unbanning his account would simply please Kenny and would likely bring more attention to Bin Weevils which 55Pixels can't be bothered to do themselves. And if that were to be the case, this suggests banning on Bin Weevils is extremely biased and is very self-centred and possibly even illegal!
To summarise, Kenny breaks a rule and gets banned, Kenny E-Mails 55Pixels without use of a parent/guardian and gets his account unbanned and 55Pixels may have broken the law in doing so.
And so with use of the three case studies and one link, we can really paint a picture as to how unfair banning can be on Bin Weevils. From limited knowledge to running from the law, 55Pixels's judgement and analysis is that of a biased view and I really hope this can somehow spread around the small community (with avoiding the Bin Weevils fanboys on the way).
The punishments themselves are quite unfair in terms of terminations and chat suspensions since if you think about it, if you were to go on and bully/harass someone and hurt their feelings, the most your going to get for that is a permanent chat ban which pretty much allows you to still wander and play the game chatless and also still allows you to harass people via in-game weevil actions (which I really don't want to have to go into again about how you can use them) and although a player could simply escape via going to a different area or server, the idea that the scum of the Earth gets more access to the game than someone changing a line of code to go to anyone's nest or to modify their hat colour for a bit of fun really makes you think. I mean, when you bully someone, you could really affect them deep down and give them a horrific depression whilst when you perform a little exploit, the least your doing is making the company a little but angry and with that in hand, the ones that technically do more harm to a real life person pretty much get a weaker punishment than to those who aren't intentionally trying to hurt people's feelings but are simply trying to enjoy themselves. Now, I'm not saying that people who perform hacks and exploits should not get punished at all but rather that they get a less stricter punishment than the ones who go on and cause harm to people's feelings and emotions.
And just to add one more tiny rant, I would like to also mention the strict rules in chat suspensions. I mean, the things you can get your chat blocked for are insane. One time in 2012/2013, someone in my family quoted the Beatles song lyric "I am the walrus" on my account and accidentally got the weevil's chat banned for 10 minutes just for saying it. It doesn't even make sense! I've a many time got a warning about what I have been saying on the game and I have had no idea what I could have said that would really be rule breaking.
And there I end my long winded rant! I reckon I ought to put this on the 'Current Issues' page so it's always out in the open.
That's it for this post!