Staff Complaint - NiennaB

[Carpe Venenum]

BYOND Key: Carpe Venenum
Staff BYOND Key: NiennaB
Game ID: Not applicable
Reason for complaint: Continued extremely stubborn behavior and refusal to answer questions or suggestions in a meaningful manner. I don't find this acceptable for a loredev of a race that is supposed to be one of the more open-ended ones, encompassing a concept as broad as "megacorp-made bipedal sentient robot." As well as an attempt to harass me via a player complaint over a personal issue.
Evidence/logs/etc:
I want to preface this by saying that my behavior is absolutely not perfect, as stated both by NiennaB in her player complaint against me, by feedback on my Skrell deputy application, and many others both since my return to the server and before in general. This staff complaint is not me trying to somehow absolve myself of all wrongdoings. However, my behavior against Nienna specifically is not completely unfounded, and while - again - it is wrong for me to behave this way, my patience is very thin when it comes to interacting with them.

February 16th
I came on the Synth lore discord channel to inquire why Baseline IPCs can't pick the Silversun accent. 

Spoiler

 

I have attempted to state my point several times over and over, however Nienna has refused to really acknowledge any of my arguments earnestly and repeatedly continued making points that I have already refuted. I have gotten rude in that conversation, yes, but I don't know how one wouldn't get rude after answering the same questions, over and over again, to the same person, in different phrasings, in the same conversation. During this conversation, and after it, I have got DMs from other players (whom I will not name) saying that they do understand what I'm saying and think that Nienna is being overly stubborn. Nienna is also referring to some "confusion" that I have about the IPC lore where there really isn't any - I have expressed my point, in my opinion, very clearly. This is not the first time Nienna was just talking down to me.

July 27th
I went to Nienna's DMs to ask a few questions about the IPC lore and education. Throughout our conversation, Nienna was very dismissive to my points and talking down to me like I am a new player, which I do not find friendly at all, which loredevs are supposed to be. The areas which we have discussed have since never been expanded upon on the wiki, or in IPC lore, which I find symptomatic of a larger issue with IPC lore - a lot of info on how characters should be made hinges on arbitrary decisions that are made in DMs and change from loredev to loredev, or even what loredev you ask in a particular dev team (which is also reflected in this conversation).
 

Spoiler

I have honestly went away from that conversation very drained. Not only did I not really get any help with creating a backstory for my character, instead just getting the list of arbitrary restrictions of Nienna, I felt like, again, I was talked down to - as if I haven't read the rules and didn't know what jobhopping was. My response to it was very snippy because I do not appreciate that tone at all. Since then, despite promises that databases would be outlined on the wiki, a search for the term on the wiki brings up no results relevant to IPC lore, again exacerbating the issue of IPC lore being decided in DMs with loredevs.

March 1st
I have went to Nienna's DMs to offer to code a new feature for the IPC lore. I went specifically to DMs because I did not want my words treated by the wider community as a promise, since I am not a part of the dev team and it would be my first large coding project for Aurora. We disagreed about the implementation.

Spoiler

The same pattern repeats - I disagree with Nienna and make my point in perhaps a less respectful tone than I ideally could. I immediately apologized for my harsh tone. Nienna continues to ask me the same questions over and over again without making any counterarguments to what I just said despite me, in my opinion, laying out my point very clearly. They point out a mistake I made, which I accept, and then proceeds to block me for "talking to them with attitude". I pointed features I liked about the proposal and I pointed the features I did not like about the proposal with explanations why, but all I got is just "the devs didn't object to it" and "I don't follow", followed by getting blocked, without any actual discussion. 

This kind of attitude makes me neither want to contribute to IPC lore, nor really play the species. I study AI systems in real life and I absolutely love playing synthetic characters outside Aurora - but this behavior from loredevs, with arbitrary restrictions that can change at any moment and cannot be budged at all, make me seriously question whether it's worth it to play them here. I have talked to other players and I am not the only person who thinks this way. 

Nienna then proceeded to make a player complaint on me. What they omitted from the player complaint is that in all of the cases they brought up, I have apologized, in some cases repeatedly, to the people I was being rude to, including Nienna themselves. The apology has been accepted by them as well, but they proceeded to make a public player complaint. Originally, I intended to make this complaint in private to Mofo, but Nienna brought it all into public, which I can only interpret as an attempt to have the public bash on me, like in all complaints of the "don't be a dick" nature. 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Carpe Venenum

[Mofo1995]

Just posting in to make clear that this complaint is still being investigated, however, I would like if @niennabcould respond in their own defense, as this complaint is being investigated separately from the other. 

[niennab]

I am uncertain what offenses are being levied against me however if I understand right, there is the implication I am intentionally ignoring arguments or weaponizing a player complaint. Ultimately neither of these are true.

In all of the above logs, I have clearly tried to understand the points VT is raising and offer discourse, however my questions were either not addressed or met with hostility (see below thread). I didn't 'talk down' to VT, I didn't treat them with any disrespect. Once the argument turned outwardly hostile in my DMs (implying I am trying to deceive developers), I opted to cut VT out from messaging me privately for my own mental health. They are however more than welcome to continue to ask questions and engage in public channels. The idea that I am harassing them with a player complaint is equally unfounded and the details of which can be read here:

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by niennab
added words

[Mofo1995]

I've given this a good read and a good think, and I don't think Nienna has committed any misconduct here, at least based on my reading of these screenshots. While it is true that you had intended to file a complaint privately before Nienna filed their own publicly (evidenced by messaging me intending to before all these complaints were filed), it's worth noting Nienna had no private avenue to file a complaint about you, as community member conduct is outside of my jurisdiction.  I'm not the best in the world at picking up subtleties, but I don't see much of anything that constitutes antagonism or a violation of the DBAD rule here. 

I'll give this 24 hours before I lock and archive it if anyone would like to say anything.

[Mofo1995]

Locking and archiving.