Staff Complaint - MattAtlas

[stobarico]

BYOND Key: Stobarico

Staff BYOND Key: MattAtlas

Game ID: chl-dnmW

Reason for complaint: The administrator in question was very disrespectful in a ticket, then proceeded to give me a warning, situation follows:

Someone begins complaining about my character not being black enough to be an Eridanian over LOOC, I assume they either proceed to ahelp it or the LOOC is noted by MattAtlas, who then proceeds to open my ticket. Eventually the administrator retracts their statement that the skin color must be changed but remains adamant that the name must be changed, I give him a surname that I looked up on the internet, Abakar, but they continue to ask for my character's first name to be changed, and eventually threaten to ban me for this whole affair.

What I found so disrespectful was the incredibly heavy racial connotation this ticket had, pretty much implying that Central/West Africans would never name their son Samuel and must follow strict naming rules otherwise they wouldn't be African enough.

Evidence/logs/etc: Logs attatched to the post.

Additional remarks: I am aware that I got aggrevated and I am sorry for that, however, the reason for such was that someone over LOOC was claiming my character was not "black enough" because to them a mixed person apparently is white, the whole situation which seemed insanely racist to me, a thing I would've never expected to see in Aurora of all places and this seemed to bother the player of Dredd Von Ortmeyer as well, and MattAtlas certainly not helping with passive-aggressive answers such as "I dont recall the name you giving me being 'jean' or 'adam' though? Like this is not a weird concept to wrap your head around."

SS13_Chat_Log_2022-05-01_191416.html

[Alberyk]

How was anyone in this situation being racist?

[stobarico]

First, the person on LOOC implying a character that isn't "black enough" cannot be part of the Central/West African continent, then MattAtlas as expressed in the part "[...] pretty much implying that Central/West Africans would never name their son Samuel and must follow strict naming rules otherwise they wouldn't be African enough."

[MattAtlas]

I'll address this one by one.

13 hours ago, stobarico said:

The administrator in question was very disrespectful in a ticket

I'm not sure on which grounds you can claim that I was "very disrespectful" in the ticket. Here are the full ticket logs:

Spoiler

[21:40:11] mattatlas -> stobarico: Hello, did you read the red text you get when you select the Eridanian origin?

[21:40:21] stobarico -> mattatlas: Yes

[21:41:04] mattatlas -> stobarico: In which case your name and skin complexion are both not appropriate.

[21:41:37] stobarico -> mattatlas: This has never been a problem, the skin complexion of mixed isn't allowed now all of the sudden?

[21:42:00] mattatlas -> stobarico: It has been a problem since that edit on the wiki was placed (about a year ago). So yes, you have to change your name and skin complexion.

[21:42:42] stobarico -> mattatlas: Neither of these have always been a problem, and I've played this character after said edit

[21:42:56] mattatlas -> stobarico: If you haven't been bwoinked about it before it does not give you immunity. The ruling stands.

[21:43:08] mattatlas -> stobarico: Things slip through the cracks sometimes. This is one of them.

[21:43:40] stobarico -> mattatlas: This is not a damn ruling, you're deleting my character because SOMEONE who is being an asshole in LOOC right now is saying that mixed skin is white

[21:43:49] stobarico -> mattatlas: Which is incredibly wrong and disrespectful

[21:44:17] mattatlas -> stobarico: I'm not deleting your character though, you just have to give me a new name and up the skin tone by a bit. The skin tone itself can honestly be fine if I'm being honest, but the name still needs to change

[21:48:25] stobarico -> mattatlas: Samuel Abakar (?) is fine then

[21:49:37] mattatlas -> stobarico: Gonna need the first name changed as well.

[21:50:03] stobarico -> mattatlas: so you're saying people of the central african area aren't allowed to name their sons whatever they wish?

[21:50:26] mattatlas -> stobarico: I dont recall saying that really, no.

[21:52:07] mattatlas -> stobarico: Human lore enforces characters to conform to certain cultures because a lot of planets/cultures were created by people from said cultures. It would be really weird if we let people play John (?) Smith the Eridanian, when Eridani is specifically said to have been colonized by West/Central African countries. The wiki outright states any human moving to the ECF would assimilate into the dominant cultures and ethnic groups of the federation". So yeah, gotta be consistent here.

[21:55:16] stobarico -> mattatlas: You guys literally utilize godamn race profiling on your origins and you can't even get your stuff straight? If someone was an Eridanian with the surname "Adam" or "Jean" i am sure you guys would want to look into it, even if you searched it up, those are common surnames in the central african republic, hell, I've just looked up common first names from this same area and there are so many names which you guys would also deny

[21:55:23] stobarico -> mattatlas: https://forebears.io/central-african-republic/forenames

[21:55:30] stobarico -> mattatlas: https://forebears.io/central-african-republic/surnames

[21:57:24] stobarico -> mattatlas: Hell, the most common angolan names are all derivatives of Portuguese because they were a colony of Portugal for so long, which deeply changed their culture

[21:58:26] mattatlas -> stobarico: I dont recall the name you giving me being 'jean' or 'adam' though? Like this is not a weird concept to wrap your head around.

[21:59:37] stobarico -> mattatlas: Please stop dodging the main thing dude, if I made an Eridanian named Pedro Jean you guys would instantly hop on top of it and you know that

[22:00:07] mattatlas -> stobarico: I am not really going to let you derail the ticket. If you do not give me a name then you will be banned.

[22:01:53] stobarico -> mattatlas: Christian (?) Abakar

[22:04:22] mattatlas -> stobarico: Sure. But do not think for a second that I am going to tolerate bad faith shit from you like accusing us of doing 'racial profiling', mixed with the terrible attitude you've shown. You are getting a warning for this. Do not do this again. Staff rulings are final and if you have issues you should take them to the staff complaints boards instead of trying to derail tickets and making very weird accusations.

I have not once in this ticket been "disrespectful" towards you, I believe your conduct here speaks for the rest. None of what I said is passive aggressive either - you intentionally tried to derail the ticket, you tried accusing us of "racial profiling" of all things, so yes after you do something like that I am going to get more curt with you. I am more than justified in telling you that if you don't comply with a ruling you'll be banned, since staff actions in-game are final.

13 hours ago, stobarico said:

the reason for such was that someone over LOOC was claiming my character was not "black enough" because to them a mixed person apparently is white

LOOC chatter was not related to the adminhelp at all. This is conjecture.

13 hours ago, stobarico said:

What I found so disrespectful was the incredibly heavy racial connotation this ticket had, pretty much implying that Central/West Africans would never name their son Samuel and must follow strict naming rules otherwise they wouldn't be African enough.

Let's look at what the wiki says.

Quote

Due to Epsilon Eridani being originally settled by colonists of West and Central African descent, human characters born in the Eridani Corporate Federation must have names and appearances consistent with the indigenous peoples of these regions as any human moving to the ECF would assimilate into the dominant cultures and ethnic groups of the federation.

If you extrapolate, and these are your own words, "implying that Central/West Africans would never name their son Samuel and must follow strict naming rules otherwise they wouldn't be African enough" for this, then I have never in my life seen a more bad faith argument. We do enforce naming rules for certain places (see Gadpathur, for example) because they're colonized by a certain area and we'd like to see that area represented. Our playerbase is 99% Western and thus naturally trends towards making Western characters. Of course this is not a problem, but it'd be a believability issue if you could have John Smith the Eridanian, as I mentioned in your ticket, when Eridani is colonized entirely by CAR/West Africa: thus, we enforce representation of these cultures (through naming/skin complexion).

It is possible for someone to theoretically name their child something completely incoherent with where they're from, but that's not what we want represented from that planet. That representation would be really shallow at that point, because everyone would be justified in naming their character "Sam Knight" or whatever other western name. So no, it's not allowed if it doesn't fit the established background of the planet's peoples on the wiki.

Edit: After being given some more information in DMs, I am willing to permit the usage of the name Samuel.

[stobarico]

Quote

 you intentionally tried to derail the ticket, you tried accusing us of "racial profiling" of all things

I do agree that was disrespectful of my part and as I've said I apologize for it, however, I never intended nor believe that I have derailed the ticket, considering I was simply reasoning and linking things of the current topic: naming in the West/Central Africa.

 

Quote

 so yes after you do something like that I am going to get more curt with you.

I do not believe the statement that follows shortly after: "I dont recall the name you giving me being 'jean' or 'adam' though? Like this is not a weird concept to wrap your head around." was curt, quite the contrary.

 

Quote

LOOC chatter was not related to the adminhelp at all. This is conjecture.

To you perhaps it is not, but to me who had someone screaming over LOOC that my character isn't black, he's in fact white, it definetively is.

 

Quote

Our playerbase is 99% Western

And that's what I see as the problem here, as a Western you'd likely believe a name like Samuel wouldn't be a thing on Central/West Africa, however a simple google search of "Samuel Nigeria" will show you in the first 3 results famous Nigerians named Samuel.
 

Quote

Edit: After being given some more information in DMs, I am willing to permit the usage of the name Samuel.

And I'll be honest, I didn't mention that at the ticket as I only looked it up after it was concluded (Samuel is a much more religiously related name than culturally, being part of the abrahamic religions). Which also made me agree that Nowak isn't fitting (A polish surname).

[MattAtlas]

1 hour ago, stobarico said:

I do not believe the statement that follows shortly after: "I dont recall the name you giving me being 'jean' or 'adam' though? Like this is not a weird concept to wrap your head around." was curt, quite the contrary.

You have absolutely no grounds to call me out on passive aggressiveness on a (not even charged, if I'm being honest) statement like that when you had just accused me of racially profiling you.

1 hour ago, stobarico said:

To you perhaps it is not, but to me who had someone screaming over LOOC that my character isn't black, he's in fact white, it definetively is.

I didn't even see this LOOC exchange because I was busy with playing the game, RPing with people and handling your ticket. I don't know what you want me to say about an exchange I literally did not know about.

1 hour ago, stobarico said:

I never intended nor believe that I have derailed the ticket

Quote

[21:59:37] stobarico -> mattatlas: Please stop dodging the main thing dude, if I made an Eridanian named Pedro Jean you guys would instantly hop on top of it and you know that

You made this statement. This is derailing and nothing more.

[Alberyk]

The only real issue here is people trying to moderate backseat in looc, which I will handle by talking to the player in question. I don't think what Matt did is against the rules or actionable in any way.

[Alberyk]

This should be solved. I will close this complaint in one day or so.