Staff Complaint - ReadThisNamePlz

[Comrade_Watermelon]

BYOND Key: Comrade_Watermelon
Staff BYOND Key: ReadThisNamePlz
Game ID: cnS-aR9k/cnN-aufB
Reason for complaint: Permanent ban for relatively minor offense
Evidence/logs/etc:

1. Circumstances of first offense.

During round cnS-aR9k I played a vampire gimmick where my character became obsessed with another and pursued them throughout the ship. This round lasted for nearly four hours and was extended multiple times. Several admins were online for the whole or part of the round. At no point did I do anything which was unprecedented or explicit - I had seen other players refer to biting as kissing in every other vampire round I had been in and had seen in the rules that romantic attraction was also allowed. The thing I did which was most explicit is allude to "special techniques" which OOC everyone knew was thralling. Without context and without me being an antagonist during this round whose powers incentivize ambushes and bringing players over to your side I can see how this could make players uncomfortable. However, with context I think it was very clear that this was part of my gimmick and did not allude to assault or any other uncomfortable topics. If admins believed I was leaning in that direction it was totally unintentional for me to do so and I do not think anyone in the round interpreted it that way. The player who this was targeted at made no complaints whatsoever about it and even went out of their way to engage with my character and my gimmick.

I contested the warning about this because I do not think it was justified considering the circumstances. It came after the offense had committed and only because a player who enjoyed the round posted a screenshot in the discord. I asked two people during the round if they found my gimmick entertaining and they said they did. If I had received a warning as I started the gimmick or because someone had made a ticket against me I would understand the justification for a warning that blamed me for stepping over a line, but as it is I do not think a severe warning or much less a ban is justified for this offense considering the circumstances and also considering that my offense was rather light and did not arouse any complaints or admin action at the time. Furthermore, at the time I believed that my gimmick was permitted by the rules and that my references to "liking it" or "special techniques" were unambiguously references to vampire powers. The accusation that what I did constituted ERP assault I do not think is accurate considering I only used vampire powers and everything else I implied was part of the vampire powers. Without context it would probably be a rule break or very close to it, but with context everything I said was a reference to something a vampire does as part of their game mechanics. The maximum I think I should receive a warning for doing actions that without context may have been rule violations and to be more careful in the future. With context however I do not think it can be said that I violated any rules, made the round worse for anyone, or otherwise caused harm to anyone with this gimmick when it seems everyone I interacted with understood the gimmick and found it funny rather than offensive or strange.

 

2. Circumstances of second offense.

I received a ban for "anti-semitism" because I had imitated conspiracy theory rhetoric during a round. At the time I was not well read on part of the lore and after the incident I interacted with an admin who explained to me that the SRF was basically space ISIS and openly genocidal. Based only on the wiki entry I had not understood what the group was supposed to be and the admin was very understanding about my mistake. After that I immediately ended the gimmick and made an effort to deescalate it with the player who IC had come to beat me up about it and would later complain against me. I use this situation to demonstrate that if I had been pmed by admins at the time that I was making them uncomfortable or doing something that broke a rule I would have stopped the gimmick at once. The admin who pmed me was no doubt aware of what gimmick I was going for in my interactions with the player who complained against me and they told me I was making a mistake about the lore rather than having broken any rules with the gimmick. Even the player who complained against me does not believe I am an antisemite because I worked out our misunderstanding on discord. I did not get the chance to defend myself in the complaint thread because it was ended before the 24 hour mark and the ban was applied everywhere. I had to pm ReadThisNamePlz on discord to have posting power at all.

Apart from that, this is a totally isolated incident from the first one and I as someone with Jewish ancestry am most certainly not antisemitic. At most I should have received a warning for the specific use of language I used which looking back I admit was in bad taste and my intentions iin using it could easily be misinterpreted. The player who complained against me I think could have been convinced to totally drop the complaint if I had been able to post in their thread.

I do not think it can be argued that my intention was to be anti-semitic. When an admin pmed me about lore errors in my gimmick I stopped it rather than change the target and continue. When I went further into the gimmick into territory which got me the complaint I did so because that player had pursued mine and attempted to beat me up IC, which I thought meant they found what I was doing interesting and wanted to engage with it. Regardless, at most for this I think I should receive a warning for the phrases I used.

 

3. Interactions with staff.

My most severe offense apart from this is a note for rage quitting as a ninja (I eventually returned to the round after a short break) after stabbing a man in the face repeatedly and him still walking around, and a note form 2018 about nearly plasma flooding as a cultist which I stopped trying to do when I was told not to. In my interaction with staff during the round a complaint was being leveled against me what I was going for seemed to be understood by the admin sending me messages and I immediately ended my gimmick when they told me I had made a mistake about the lore. This is not the interaction that someone who is interested in breaking rules usually has with staff of any server.

I am trying to prove to you that I acted in good faith for all my interactions with staff and have shown an effort to comply with rules. The most important commonality both offenses have is that they were the subject of action after they had already occurred and when I was offline. If an admin had sent me a message warning be about going into either of these situations then I would have immediately stopped what I was doing. I understand that on any large server it is a given that players will appeal bans that were justifiably given and admins must subject every ban appeal or complaint against them to scrutiny, but I also think that in my case it is unambiguous that I am not acting in bad faith and made no attempt to ruin the game for other people or knowingly break the rules.

 

4. If I am to be banned anyways.

Lastly, if you discuss what I did and decide that despite the context or other factors that it is worthy of a ban anyways I do not think it should be a permanent ban. This is my first ban on this server and it is for two isolated incidents that do not reflect a pattern of behavior. Being against totally different players and different rules they would only make a pattern if I was making an effort to break more rules. If despite my argument I'm going to be banned anyways then at least reduce it to a temporary ban. Other players have received multiple warnings about conduct in the past before a temporary ban for continuing to break a specific rule . I have received a total of two warnings recently, one of which was a more minor one for a rage quit and the other was for the vampire round. The vampire warning was applied long after the round had ended, and this ban was applied long after the round it was about had ended as well.

I have already not been able to play the game for about five days now and made clear in my unban request thread, which I was told to turn into a staff complaint, that I would be much more careful in the future. Because both of these incidents were isolated, against different rules, and in the case of the second a social misunderstanding more than anything else the punishment if it is necessary should be light to reflect that. I understand that it is better for admins to apply the rules too much than too little, but I also think that considering the circumstances a permanent ban is far too much of a punishment for a player who has not griefed, not broken the same rule many times, and had received a warning and ban both after both of those rounds had ended.

[Peppermint]

Posted about my complaint so assuming I'm somewhat involved. All this is is you once again not taking responsibility for the choices you made (including thinking non-consensual romance pushed by antag mechanics is wanted here if I'm not misunderstanding...?) and pushing it off onto other people and how they should be the ones to tell you not to do something. None of this takes personal responsibility, and none of this really seems to explain why you think these incidents were acceptable.

That you're saying you were banned for a minor offence here is beyond me across this and the rhetoric issue.

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Peppermint

[Comrade_Watermelon]

27 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

Posted about my complaint so assuming I'm somewhat involved. All this is is you once again not taking responsibility for the choices you made (including thinking non-consensual romance pushed by antag mechanics is wanted here if I'm not misunderstanding...?) and pushing it off onto other people and how they should be the ones to tell you not to do something. None of this takes personal responsibility, and none of this really seems to explain why you think these incidents were acceptable.

That you're saying you were banned for a minor offence here is beyond me across this and the rhetoric issue.

 

I said "relatively minor", as in relative to the punishment.

That 'non-consensual' romance is non-consensual insofar as it is IC and reliant on antag mechanics. There was no OOC lack of consent - the target player went out of their way to talk with my character even when it wasn't necessary for them to do so. I'm not pushing anything I did off to other people, I'm stating my view about the circumstances of my ban and warning. It take full responsibility for everything I did in the vampire round and am pushing nothing I did or said off to anyone else. The only thing I have done is explain the context of the situation from my point of view. I think in both incidents I acted carelessly but not with bad intent. With the vampire incident I said that I thought it was acceptable because I was an antagonist that relies on ambushing people and bringing them over to my side without IC consent. They give OOC consent to sometimes being thralled, killed, and so on by antags by playing the game. If anyone was uncomfortable with my gimmick, which not a single person ahelped about to my knowledge, they could have alerted me and I would have immediately stopped as I did when i was pmed by an admin in the other round about a lore error I made. If I was targeted by the same vampire gimmick I would have thought it was funny, especially because every reference that without context could be interpreted as sexual in nature was towards a vampire mechanic. My claim about context is that with it a lot of what I did is less severe than it is without context. In the thread I made about your warning the reason why i was complaining about' consistency' was because I don't think a lot of the terms I used (pecking for biting, 'special techniques' for thralling) were unique or without precedent. I never said "actually this is other people's fault", I said that I didn't think I should be warned for calling biting what everyone up to that point had assumed biting was in every vampire round I had ever been in.

The second incident I have already admitted I used bad language and said I think a warning would be correct and acceptable. The player who complained against me I do not think believes I am an antisemite, at this stage they maybe think I was careless (something I have admitted). If you need them to comment then we can ping them in this thread. We can also ping the person I targeted in the vampire round to see if they were at any point uncomfortable during it, but I don't know their forum name or ckey. I never obligated anyone to show any IC feelings towards me and the one person I thralled during that round I only instructed to say that I had not done anything bad to them which I think is a very fair thing to tell them to do. I did not use antag mechanics as an excuse to ERP (something which I did not do) if that is what you are accusing me of.

 

I take absolute responsibility for everything I did because I have nothing to shove off to other people, hide, or otherwise obfuscate. I am giving you my point of view as clearly as I can. In context to both situations I don't think I did something that warranted a permanent ban - that's my argument.

If you think I deserve a ban, consider making it a temporary one and give me a period of probation or something if it is needed. If I really am a creep and antisemite surely I'd break the rules again in a similar way. If I'm not though then I will be much more careful and will not be banned or warned again. I am trying to prove to you that I'm not either of those things as well as I can.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Comrade_Watermelon

[Comrade_Watermelon]

deleted

Edited May 27, 2023 by Comrade_Watermelon
meant to edit previous post rather than make new one

[MattAtlas]

I'll have a ruling on this within the next few days.

[MattAtlas]

On 27/05/2023 at 17:57, Comrade_Watermelon said:

I contested the warning about this because I do not think it was justified considering the circumstances. It came after the offense had committed and only because a player who enjoyed the round posted a screenshot in the discord. I asked two people during the round if they found my gimmick entertaining and they said they did. If I had received a warning as I started the gimmick or because someone had made a ticket against me I would understand the justification for a warning that blamed me for stepping over a line, but as it is I do not think a severe warning or much less a ban is justified for this offense considering the circumstances and also considering that my offense was rather light and did not arouse any complaints or admin action at the time.

The core reason why you will never be unbanned is that you never think you did anything wrong. At no point in this complaint or the other complaint do you ever take ownership of what you did. Not once do you admit that you messed up: you twist and twist and try to lay the fault to someone else. If it's a ban, it should have been a warning, and if it wasn't a warning, it was unjustified because of X or Y.

Something "not being ahelped" does not make it worse or better. It has no bearing on the severity of the situation: if it's a rulebreak, it's handled in the same way regardless of it was adminhelped or not. If I break into your house with a bunch of friends and we all enjoy it, does that make it not a crime because the people there didn't care to report it to the cops?

Lastly, a ban is absolutely justified for something that should be the most common of common sense.

I would like to remind you of what exactly you wrote on your first complaint:

Quote

If romantic attraction between characters requires consent I would ask you to add that to the rules and also explicitly forbid the use of antag mechanics to induce that consent.

This line alone means that you cannot be trusted. You, as a person, have a RESPONSIBILITY to not think like this. It is not ON OTHERS to tell you to not do these things. Just because it is not in the rules does not mean you can even come close to thinking something like this - and this is not up for debate.

Your second point:

On 27/05/2023 at 17:57, Comrade_Watermelon said:

At most I should have received a warning for the specific use of language I used which looking back I admit was in bad taste and my intentions iin using it could easily be misinterpreted.

I think this is once again an incredible evasion of what you actually did (use SPECIFICALLY anti-semitic language). You said "I'm not dying for the Nanotrasen Occupied Government." while playing an antagonist affiliated with the space nazi faction, and you somehow manage to reduce this to a "specific use of language which could easily be misinterpreted". Misinterpreted how, exactly? This is nothing more than a deflection.

Other than that, this is pretty clear usage of antisemitic references - and people who make these are not welcome here.

The ban will stay and this complaint will be closed, as nothing of value will come from further discussion.