Staff Complaint

[Resilynn]

BYOND Key: Resilynn

Staff BYOND Key: Laaaancer?  I'm not sure if this is actually his byond key.

Game ID: Not applicable- though the investigation will have been archived recently.

Reason for complaint: Severe punishment over IC actions with OOC consequences.

Evidence/logs/etc:

This will be a long one, I am so sorry.  I've thought for a long while, very carefully, about how I'd word this, and it never came out short.  I'll do my best to be concise.  I also know that by posting this, I will open myself up to a lot of criticism, so it's my intention to not respond unless asked a question by the handling staff member.

This was the decision following my most recent IR on Fernando Gonzales.  I had no intention of disputing it ICly- in my interview the character accepted full responsibility for his actions.  I am not contesting a demotion, I have served the suspension without complaint.

I am, however, contesting the wording of the demotion.  Permanent and unappealable.  I will go more into detail about each of my points here, but in summary- this is a severe punishment for a relatively (key word) minor incident, my history of actual, recorded offenses does not support a lead up to this decision, and the nature of CCIA is not meant to be OOC in punishment, but this has OOC consequences. 

 

First, I am the first to admit I have a long character history with CCIA.  This was always intentional, the character was meant to be severe, flawed, but ultimately well intentioned, which is reflected in the record.  The character has been reported countless times at this point.  However, the character has been found at fault very few times.  

This is my first of two CCIA reprimands preceding the demotion.

This reprimand was not even the result of an IR.  It was a result of the Odin Murder Arc, after which Synnono combed through PDA and radio records to assist in making a lasting impact with some of the events that transpired during the arc.  Moreover, though it is officially a reprimand, the actual message I received from Syn at the time specified that the actions I was reprimanded for were justified, as they resulted in the capture of the Odin Killer.  That message reads as follows-

The second reprimand in my entire, what, four year history of the most rounds played on server as any single character, reads as-

Yes, it does say additional reprimands will result in demotion.  However, this was two years ago now.  Two years with no reprimands, and this was my only reprimand as a result of an IR, ever, in over one thousand rounds played.

For the sake of transparency, there are additional notes on the character, which were not formal reprimands.  The full record is as follows-

So we have, all two years ago, a report with no investigation, a reprimand from no IR, the single reprimand from an IR on my record, and a fine because I OOCly didn't catch all of command radio during a huge halloween party event about whether I could wear a sexy bunny costume or not.

This is hardly an extensive history.  This is one, single IR with a reprimand ever, two years ago.

I do not see how a single reprimand from a single IR, two years ago, is too many chances, unless we are counting reports that did not result in official reprimands, which would be silly.

 

Second, this incident was severe, but it was far from our most severe in Aurora history.  We have had literal deaths from horrific malpractice which resulted in temporary demotions, we have had command members fail utterly and get plural members of the crew killed by warforms as they argued over the radio, which resulted in temporary demotions.  

My character punched a guy.  No bones were broken, there were no serious lasting injuries.  My character even got punched back.  None of the witnesses in the IR were there for half of the incident.  In the real world, sure, that would get you fired.  But this is a game, and we have precedent for these kinds of fights happening literally every day in the bar.  Security got involved in round and handed both of us battery charges with 50 credit fines.  I actually ended up being the one convincing the interim head of CCIA during Lancer's break to let the incident get processed- this was while Bear was standing in, he wanted to drop it because it was handled in round.

I wanted there to be consequences.  I wanted to build and improve my character, I argued to keep the IR up.  I did not imagine there would be an unappealable action when my last reprimand was two years ago and was the only one as a result of an IR.

 

Finally, the OOC.  I enjoy this character.  I believe I still hold the record for most rounds played as a character on this server.  I enjoy this character in the role of CMO.  And I excel at playing this character in that role.  It's stupid to cite the player awards, but I wouldn't get so many damn votes as a solid character if I was playing a character poorly- it has always been my OOC goal to involve as many people as possible, to give medical things to do on extended, to drive character stories around me- and this incident was no exception to that.  I played a grumpy asshole, yes, but I played a grumpy asshole well, in a way that involved a lot of people.

I am a solid player.  I contribute to staff wherever possible.  I have never been banned.  My warnings are largely for sassing people who did, eventually get banned because my mouth is literally just too large.

I would be more than willing, as I explained to Lancer, to play our a redemption arc.  I would be more than willing, as I argued with Bear, to be demoted for awhile.  I want character growth.  Facilitating character growth is why I joined CCIA.  This action does not facilitate growth, this reads as a punishment for being reported so many times.  I don't even want the demotion revoked, I just want the word unappealable taken off so I can go play a month or so of getting my shit together, character growth and development, and end up continuing to be a solid command character.  I've spent years on it.  I am invested in this server, in its story, and in this particular character's place in that story.

I want this action to be appealable.  There is very little reason it shouldn't be- the incident wasn't very severe, there is not an extensive history of reprimands.  CCIA does not exist to punish people for being reported many times.  I have been a solid player of this character, in that role, for years.

Additional remarks:

I don't have evidence to back this up, because there have literally just been weird whisperings from members of higher administration and then a lengthy, but productive, conversation with Matt, but I suspect this was also, in part, motivated by some deleted security records.  I have not faced administrative action from deleting them- I deleted them before knowing you had to ahelp to delete them, and I did not delete any without extensive work put in ICly to justify their removal- authorized by Captains.  There were no rules in place at the time that said this wasn't okay, and it hasn't happened in a long time.  If this was the motivation, and of course, I don't have evidence, it is also not CCIA's responsibility to put punishments in place for an OOC issue like that.  We are, after all, expected to try to handle things in round, which is what was done.

 

Side note, again, I am SO sorry this is so long.

[Resilynn]

Additional note: This is not okay.

[Garnascus]

I will start looking this over when I get home from class. 

[Alberyk]

7 hours ago, Resilynn said:

Additional note: This is not okay.

You can't just drop this without context or more evidence than a discord message.

[Resilynn]

2 hours ago, Alberyk said:

You can't just drop this without context or more evidence than a discord message.

I’ll provide context in DMs. 

[Garnascus]

I am going to go point by point in order of potential problems i see. 

10 hours ago, Resilynn said:

and the nature of CCIA is not meant to be OOC in punishment, but this has OOC consequences. 

What do you mean by this? Your character can no longer be a CMO due to actions it committed IC. I do not see how this is OOC at all.

10 hours ago, Resilynn said:

Moreover, though it is officially a reprimand, the actual message I received from Syn at the time specified that the actions I was reprimanded for were justified, as they resulted in the capture of the Odin Killer

The message you posted from syn has a lot of charged phrasing in it. "lucky" "Extremely fortunate" "Do not attempt something so stupid again". This looks very clearly like a "You're lucky to have not been fired do not do this again" kind of thing. 

10 hours ago, Resilynn said:

For the sake of transparency, there are additional notes on the character, which were not formal reprimands.

It seems reasonable to me your other notes would be taken into account. It does show a pretty clear pattern of behavior. Your character has lied to CCIA, obstructed an investigation, threatened crew, attempted to bribe an NT employee and all of this culminates in you getting into some sort of drunken brawl with a crew member and abusing medicine. I promise i am not trying to be rude because this is probably the point of your character but that is an INSANE record. 

11 hours ago, Resilynn said:

Second, this incident was severe, but it was far from our most severe in Aurora history.  We have had literal deaths from horrific malpractice which resulted in temporary demotions, we have had command members fail utterly and get plural members of the crew killed by warforms as they argued over the radio, which resulted in temporary demotions.

We are talking specifically about you and your character's actions. It is entirely possible there is specific information in those cases that renders them less severe than what you did and it is entirely possible they just fell through the cracks in our staff team. 

11 hours ago, Resilynn said:

My character punched a guy.  No bones were broken, there were no serious lasting injuries.  My character even got punched back.  None of the witnesses in the IR were there for half of the incident.  In the real world, sure, that would get you fired.  But this is a game, and we have precedent for these kinds of fights happening literally every day in the bar.

You're a member of command and you drunkenly assaulted a crew member. That is absurdly severe. Your character has a pretty bad track record for being a liability to NT in a command position. Is this complaint to get lancer to allow you to appeal the removal? 

[Resilynn]

To address the questions, specifically-

I interpret the inability for me, the player, to play a character/role that I’ve spent years invested in as an OOC consequence. I’ll be honest- I just miss it. 
 

I am really frustrated that this lying to ccia thing keeps coming up. It was a Halloween event with like 75 players. The text was scrolling insanely fast. There was a party going on in that room. I was handling messages from staff. I, the player, was not able to keep up with messages and said, in a ccia interview, that not all of staff voted on something *because I didn’t see them vote on the radio*, and this keeps getting brought up as some nefarious crime- and is clearly being considered as valid note against the character.  On top of all of this, the vote was about a bunny costume. I mean, come on. 

The threat was perceived as a joke at the time, hence no investigation opened. I’ve made the joke many times since. But otherwise, yes, the character is intended to have a record. 
 

All of this aside, yes. I don’t intend to immediately appeal, I intend to take 6 months or so of character work as a doctor/surgeon with a clean record, building relationships with command, etc.  It has never been my opinion that the character shouldn’t be punished, or even demoted, but I am interested and invested in the story of this character slowly improving- hence the 2 years of no wrongdoings. This is why I argued to keep the IR up- I wanted to play out consequences that would foster development. 
 

All I would like is the word unappealable to be removed, or, alternatively, for it to say ‘unappealable for [x] months.’  I just want progress in the story development of this character, as a member of command, to continue. 
 

And I still feel that given no one was seriously injured, and given that only one IR has ever resulted in a reprimand, this is a reasonable amount of leniency to request- I’ve proven, as a player, that I can be trusted to play out these sorts of things in a responsible, reasonably realistic way. A 6 month or even indefinite-but-not-permanent demotion could be hella rad, but I want assurances that progress and development are possible. 

[Garnascus]

@The lancer Can you explain your thought process here as to why you made this unapeallable? 

[The lancer]

The CCIA record, Gonzales being on his last chance, the arrest history and the current incident of being drunk and assaulting a subordinate/visitor at the time. This is all behaviour very much not fit for a head of staff. I thus judged that the demotion should be unappealable.

[Garnascus]

On 14/03/2020 at 19:09, The lancer said:

The CCIA record, Gonzales being on his last chance, the arrest history and the current incident of being drunk and assaulting a subordinate/visitor at the time. This is all behaviour very much not fit for a head of staff. I thus judged that the demotion should be unappealable.

Well to be fair i do see almost two years in between his latest demotion here and the last time he was in trouble. Seems kinda weird to make it un-appealable.

[The lancer]

I rest my case.

[Garnascus]

TLDR Just let them appeal in like six months. This is not me saying that you need to ACCEPT the appeal or that further CCIA action/arrests will not prohibit fernando from allowing this to be appealed. 

[Garnascus]

@Resilynn @The lancer Is there anything else i need to address here?

[Resilynn]

I don’t think so. 

[The lancer]

no

[Garnascus]

So, in summary a potentially successful appeal would contain the following. 

1. Clean sec record

2. Clean IR record

3. Letters of recommendation from other CMOs

Lancer has stipulated number 3 after discussing this on discord. 

@Resilynn @The lancer Sorry guys this is the last mention i promise. 

 

[Resilynn]

On 24/03/2020 at 01:19, Garnascus said:

So, in summary a potentially successful appeal would contain the following. 

1. Clean sec record

2. Clean IR record

3. Letters of recommendation from other CMOs

Lancer has stipulated number 3 after discussing this on discord. 

@Resilynn @The lancer Sorry guys this is the last mention i promise. 

 

This seems fair.  In the event we don't have regular CMO characters when I start up playing again, will Captains work as a substitute?

[Garnascus]

You will have to ask lancer. I reckon no because we are talking about specifically CMO conduct. So it makes sense you would need other CMOs to vouch for you.