Staff Complaint - Garnascus

[AmoryBlaine]

I am acting on behalf of Bauser.

 

BYOND Key: Bauser

Staff BYOND Key: Garnascus

Reason for complaint: Garnascus improperly handled a staff complaint by making a ruling literally before even considering the subject of the complaint. In fact, he openly stated that the only reason he even bothered asking about the subject of the complaint was "for the sake of transparency," after he made his decision. In other words, it is a logical necessity that the facts of the complaint had literally no bearing on the outcome, which demonstrates an obvious failure to resolve the staff complaint - a system which, might I remind you, exists to protect users from staff members overreaching or misusing their authority.

Additionally, he allowed a lot of people to post in the complaint despite being unrelated to the topic. This allowed it to turn into a shit-flinging fest for everyone who doesn't like me to step forward and take a turn to tell me how much they hate me. That is toxicity, and it was enshrined by the complicity of the admins there.

Evidence/logs/etc: The complaint thread in question can be found here: https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/13575-staff-complaint-alberyk/

This is the post where Garn decided to leave me permabanned (primarily due to transgressions I've been punished for in the past): https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/13575-staff-complaint-alberyk/?tab=comments#comment-129882

And then, afterward, this is the first post where he asked about the subject of the complaint: https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/13575-staff-complaint-alberyk/?tab=comments#comment-129883

The order of these events proves that Garnascus' ruling was not based on the information about the complaint. The fact that Garn ruled on the complaint for reasons that don't address the complaint is completely irrefutable and bulletproof, and suggesting otherwise would be openly dishonest. He made the ruling about the validity of Alberyk's ban, and then he asked Alberyk to justify the ban.

Instead, it's clear that the ruling is a personal opinion gleaned solely from looking at a record of the times I was disciplined (a year ago or more, with only one note being more recent). He literally states his decision is just that he "doesn't want me to remain as a member of the community." It has nothing to do with the topic question, the question of whether or not I actually did anything to deserve getting banned, and it makes no attempt. He just decided "whatever gets rid of Bauser is what I'm going to do." In doing this, he openly forsook his responsibility of handling the complaint honestly.

What he didn't consider is, if the only things you look at are the times someone was accused of doing wrong (and a heavy helping of random people's hateful opinions), you're going to end up with a bad impression of them regardless of whether or not that impression paints a complete picture (and therefore a fair picture). However, I would like to reiterate, the fact that he decided the complaint based on some preliminary opinion of me instead of the actual substance of the complaint is wrong no matter who or what is in question.

Deciding the outcome of a complaint based on something other than the content of the complaint is wrong because it allows situations like this, where the question "did Alberyk properly investigate this ban request" can be answered with "here are all the stories of people who don't like you, and now I also don't like you." By allowing this to happen, Garn is letting Geeves (the original poster of my ban request) force admins to re-litigate past transgressions and continually renew all hostilities until it meets his desired level of punishment. Geeves' ban request was an open-and-shut weaponization of the ban request system, completely disregarding rules or any actual benefit of the community at large. Geeves did this because he knows that even if he stirs up conflict, it's another chance for him to get the outcome he wants.

Garn went along with it instead of controlling the situation, presumably because he was led to believe that this reactionary response was the moral thing to do. But since it circumvented his responsibilities and consequently failed to address the actual complaint, it was not the moral thing to do. Garn's mistake is especially blatant considering that the complaint in question was specifically about Alberyk also choosing not to investigate before making his ruling.

Additional remarks: As food for thought, I invite you to simultaneously consider the most recent ban request that was submitted, by the other member of the "anti-toxicity" duo which conspired to get me banned (as detailed in the staff complaint): https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/13681-ban-request-burgerbb/

Only, in that case, after days of heated arguing, the original poster admitted that it was personally motivated and had to retract the request. I didn't get that chance. Because for me, the ban request was open and shut within a literal hour, even though it was just as personally motivated, and the admin who "handled" the complaint didn't even look into it before deciding. Instead, he literally just decided the ban was good no matter what, then gave Alberyk the floor to come up with whatever explanation he wanted, because literally any answer was good enough for him. He made a decision and then asked the subject of the complaint to rationalize that decision for him.

Any level of sincere investigation would reveal that I've been playing the game peacefully, day-in, day-out, for months and months without real issue, and in even being a decidedly positive presence on the server while doing so. Only by purposefully looking for reasons to distrust me and excluding all else, could one arrive at the conclusion that I'm a negative influence on the community at all, much less a significant one. Unfortunately for me, that's what he did.

The evidence that the initial ban request was illegitimate remains extreme and obvious, as Geeves and Schev cooperatively worked to push me further out of the community in August 2019 ( https://i.imgur.com/tg3e87u.png ), and Schev admitted this was an example of him going around the rules to punish me ( https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/13575-staff-complaint-alberyk/?tab=comments#comment-129601 ). A couple people keep gunning for me no matter what, and have admitted to it. That level of sustained focus and determination to hurt someone you barely even interact with is what's really toxic.

The evidence that Alberyk's ban against me was personally motivated is similarly glaring, as he stated that he sided with Schev and Geeves in their earlier efforts to oust me ( https://i.imgur.com/feAtSRF.png ). I actually came to Alberyk to ask for help after those events, because I foolishly thought I deserved to be treated fairly, and he lied and said there was nothing that could be done. So let there be no ambiguity: Alberyk decided to ban me a long time ago, but only now was he given an opportunity to do it without everyone immediately seeing his bias. There was no "I'll be handling this request," there was literally no communication between Alberyk and either person who was actually involved in the event of the ban request- Because the only way anyone could think this is fair is if there was no opportunity to discuss it or show what really happened. So he made sure there was no opportunity. And then Garn chose to shut down the complaint without actually talking about the topic at all, but instead just talking about me. As in "because you're you, the rules don't apply- no matter what actually happened."

Choosing who gets protections under the rules based on who you like is wrong, because it elevates unpopularity to a crime. If the "don't be a dick" rule was actually enforced evenly and not just a blanket charge to get rid of people you don't like, some of you would have a high price to pay. But I don't care about that- life's too short. I just want to play a game without getting mercilessly hunted down over and over, literally over the span of years.

Garn, I'm not trying to avoid owning up to my bad behavior. I know I've done things wrong in the past. You think I'm "whitewashing," but it's literally as simple as "I didn't remember some crappy stuff that I did over a year ago," because I (apparently unlike them) wanted to move forward instead of hyperfixating on it and letting it fester forever. Remember, I'm the only one who didn't have the ability to actually go back and look at what happened, so I could only say what I remembered saying. And think about the circumstance I was put in: if I had to choose between being banned for agreeing (and therefore not defending myself), or being banned for disagreeing (and therefore not accepting any blame), what kind of choice is that? Don't set someone up to fail.

If I was defensive, it's only because I disagree that someone should be able to lord a past mistake over you indefinitely- at some point, them choosing to remain violently resentful is not my fault anymore. I've been peaceable and tried to make amends. You know why Goret had to jump in with that first message I sent him in 2018? Because I didn't have any other mean interactions with him. I said that one curse word to him in October 2018, and then a year later in September 2019 he said he would never consider helping me "because of my history." Now another 4 months later, again with literally no interaction, he's still compelled to jump in and shit-talk me. These people have ruthlessly fought to stop me from making amends because they don't want things to get better- they just want to get rid of me because it validates their hatred. (Here is the exchange with Goret, after a year of not interacting: https://i.imgur.com/trvo6ah.png ) Normal, good people have a capacity for letting things go, and I have no problem apologizing to help that happen- but they don't want that. That's why they don't ask; they're out for blood. That's toxicity.

You got on board with their goal of making the complaint a public crucifixion of me, so we never got to discuss whether or not this ban was actually valid at all. What you did sends a message to people that it's good to hold onto bitterness and hatred, because if you can stay hateful for long enough, eventually you'll be able to get revenge. It's the same way across the board, only Schev admitted it: They viewed my continued existence as "getting away with it." They viewed me trying to be a better person as "getting away with it." If I improved and avoided toxicity, to them, that would be unacceptable-- because then I "got away with it."

And yet, you were willing to go from not knowing me, to ignoring the complaint and deciding there's zero chance I could ever be part of this community, without actually asking me a single thing. Your newly formed opinion was so strong that you claimed it to be infallible ( https://i.imgur.com/JpvXUkI.png ). It's unfortunate that you positioned yourself as this ultimate arbiter of the moral character of the server (because the rules will take care of that, if you follow them), but it wouldn't have been so bad if you didn't use the position to endorse the bitterness of people foaming at the mouth and seething-- ironically about how bad I am. In the future, if you want to get to know someone so you can decide their fate, I recommend actually talking with them. If you don't want to do that, then please stick to the script so they actually get a fair chance and it's not just a performance to make it look like there are checks and balances in place.

P.S. Please keep posts on-topic, and don't post if you're not involved with this complaint. Hating me does not mean you're involved in this complaint. Posting in the previous thread does not mean you're involved in this complaint. Being mentioned in the "additional remarks" section does not mean you're involved in this complaint.

[Juani2400]

Hello.

Since you are arguing a decision on the highest level of the hierarchy, that has not only been reviewed already a few times, but has also involved discussions in the administration team as a whole, we will not be reviewing this complaint. The ban will be kept in place indefinitely.

Following discussions made some weeks ago, the ability to make appeals and complaints by proxy will be removed. Community-bans are already discussed widely among the modmin team and we feel that this process is enough to guarantee the fairness of the procedure since consensus needs to be reached.

Closing and archiving this complaint.