I've noticed a couple recurring questions with no answer regarding ban processes. I'm sure Keita will also reply later, and to the other questions also, but as a GM who has left relatively recently, I'd like to shed some light on these ones.
Hi @Ishan2020
There are typically 3 "kinds" of ban reason - Attempted, Successful and Investigation. Attempted and Successful ban reasons have enough supporting evidence for Moderation to make a call without any dependency on further investigation from the player.
The Investigation ban reason is usually given for 1 of 2 reasons (or both in some cases):
1. To remove an immediate threat from the account/game.
A TMOD example of this is if an account is suspected to have been hacked, it will be banned immediately for investigation and to create a line of contact with account owner (if they weren't already aware of the risk) to ensure they reset the password before continuing to play. This also protects the account from any more damage, if there was any, and the risk of irreversible damage.
2. Not all evidence/details can be found without speaking to the player directly. This means the investigation/evidence at the time of banning is not complete.
In some cases, you will need to speak to the player directly to confirm aspects of the story. This is especially common in Rank Boosting and Scams, so I'll give examples of those.
To give a couple examples in relation to Rank Boosting - if an account is shared and it is unclear if the infraction was made by the account owner or another player whilst using the account, or multiple players play from the same internet connection, etc. This may also happen in Boosting where a player chooses to accept a battle from a player on the same IP (not against the rules but recommended against because it will be investigated), a guildie, or seems to be boosting/boosted by a specific player - given the data Staff use to investigate, it is very hard to concretely determine the intent of these matchups, and often has to be clarified verbally with all involved players.
An example of where this would happen in a Scam case, quite often players don't agree all aspects of the trade agreement upfront (this is why there was new trade rules added, and existing trade rules were given extra details). An extremely common example is when the duration of a lend hasn't been specified, from the reported evidence, it's clear that both players understand that it is a lend, but maybe the lendee has now had it for 2 weeks and the lender feels that is excessive and they want it back. The lendee will be banned for investigation, to determine whether they were just keeping the Pokemon for an extended amount of time, were too busy to return it, just plainly forgot etc, or if their intention was to steal and keep the Pokemon for good - this would not be possible without a line of communication to the player.
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Hi @8294ayush
For your questions 1 and 2 - firstly, I apologise if you have ever felt that your appeal process has taken longer than necessary, especially if it was as excessive as 25 days.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but there are 3 big ones that I will share with you.
The first being that the ban issued was an Investigation ban - more detail on this is in my response to Ishan2020 above - but in short, if there is adequate evidence to suggest an immediate risk to an account or the game, the bulk of the investigation will take place after the ban, since in a high risk case the priority is to reduce the amount of damage and to prevent as much irreversible damage as possible.
Depending on the case, the amount of time this takes varies - I have personally worked on Account Hack or RMT cases that have taken over a week (where a huge number of accounts were involved), meaning that all of my other work backs up too in the meantime. Which leads me onto the second reason: that there is something higher priority going on, again, this happens in cases where there is an immediate risk or threat to an account or the game. Staff workloads aren't publicly available for the community to see, but to put it clearly, if I am made aware that there is a mass account hack happening, I will drop everything I am working on to remove any immediate risks, then I will pick up my normal workload again after.
Quite simply, sometimes there is just something more important and demands the time and attention, and I wish there was enough time or number of hands to prevent it having a huge knock on effect, which leads me onto my third reason: is that sometimes there just isn't enough hours in the day, or enough staff members to do the job. Prior to Jhizen joining the team, and Qeight returning, for a good deal of time the GM team consisted of just me and Senrosia. I'm sure you may roll your eyes when you read this, but this reason is given often because it's true: all staff members volunteer, they're not paid, staff do this outside of real life commitments, and real life will come first. Despite knowingly signing up for this work, the amount can be too much for the size of the Moderation team.
I'll use myself as an example here to explain more clearly. Outside of PRO, I work a full-time job. There are some days I would only have had 1-2 hours available to spend on PRO, so I would spend this time doing the higher priority things first, which means that the number of cases I had but also the amount of time since I had last dealt with a particular case both increase, at one point I had 120+ active (by active I mean current and waiting on reply) cases - even if I had given each 10 minutes a day (which often isn't enough), that was a minimum of 20 hours worth of work, and it's not like once you've spent those 10 minutes that it's done for good and off your plate, the player replies, you investigate their reply, etc, it's a cycle until the case is closed, and if I only have 1-2 hours each day from Monday-Friday, that's an impossible workload to manage that is fair to everyone, and that's just appeals alone. Now I understand this is an extreme example, coming from a former GM who at the time was part of a team of two people - but the reality I want to share is that if the staff member has the time, they will give you the time, if they don't, they won't have it to give.
The only real fix for these problems is to have more staff members, but this is not as easy as it sounds. You must find people who are skilled, willing and are doing it for the right reasons. The right reasons are important because being staff is stressful, and if you aren't motivated by the right things, you won't last more than a couple months. The number of good applications that fit this criteria is low. You must then train these individuals, and during this period this is often where Staff will find that maybe the Apprentice isn't suitable, or maybe the Apprentice decides that this isn't actually for them.
It is a known problem, however I would like to point out that the number of appeals that go more than a couple days without response are low, and it's usually GM/Admin cases that take the longest since those groups also have the most diverse roles with the most work to do, but are also the smallest teams because of the criteria to be promoted into one of these roles. I understand the frustration, but for the times response rates are an issue, there isn't a simple or quick fix.
For question 3, again I apologise if you feel that this has happened to you. If you feel that a member of Moderation is being rude or unfair to you in your appeal, you can make a Complaint, where a Team Lead or Admin will review the behaviour of the mod and act accordingly. There is a line between being firm in order to find out the facts in a clear and concise way, and being rude. You absolutely shouldn't have to put up with the latter, even if you have broken the rules.
I hope that this helps both of you and others with the same questions, but if it is unclear, or you have further questions you are more than welcome to ask.
Edit: @ShadowDanny - I have just seen you have mentioned a couple of the points I have addressed above. I hope that this also helps you too, same goes for you if you have any questions you want to ask.