staff complaint - eddymakaveli

[Rabid Animal]

BYOND Key: 50_n00b
Staff BYOND Key: eddymakaveli
Game ID: ctS-aSy7

Reason for complaint: 
Eddy made a captain character with the specific goal of baiting my RD into a confrontation with the express intent of making an IR, this is coming off of a recent character complaint regarding the same RD that Eddy personally handled. This feels like a meta grudge performed by a member of staff that was trusted to handle a complaint without bias.

I don’t think this is acceptable on any level for staff to be doing, at all, regardless of if their initial ruling was correct or not - using it as a means to attack a player is insane. 

 

Evidence/logs/etc:
The events of the round in question were extremely suspicious to begin with, but seeing as an IR was posted I started digging into my assumption that this was bait. I received confirmation from another staff member that eddy had told them ‘I’m going to make this character and bait sasha’
(Mel has been informed of who, and the exact quoting, as far as I’m aware)

 

The very stripped down round events are as follows;
>Captain late joins the second we start an away mission, then fires an inflammatory series of questioning as to why Sasha didn’t bring an officer
>Sasha gives his reasoning(pissed off), tells the captain he’s not budging on his decision not to bring the officer, and that they left already anyways
>This was made clear as to not be the desired answer, but they agreed to talk about it more after the mission    (  1   2  )
>Captain proceeds to spend the entire rest of the round building a case against Sasha, with the seemingly fixed decision that this was to result in an IR based on the questioning I received at the end of the round
>The second the antag reveals themselves, eddy logs off, no longer able to reasonably pursue this goal 

Beyond the frankly just, abysmal play from top to bottom, this is obviously oocly motivated. I do not see a world wherein a captain would reasonably immediately put every ounce of distrust into their own headstaff over a screening process done well before they even arrived - even if said headstaff said a few 'bad words' not even directly aimed at said captain to begin with.
 

Additional remarks:
Eddy, this is the punching down you told me to curb in the complaint. Take your own advice. If this is an attempt to drive me away, it's working. Thanks.

Edited May 26 by Rabid Animal

[Garnascus]

59 minutes ago, Rabid Animal said:

The events of the round in question were extremely suspicious to begin with, but seeing as an IR was posted I started digging into my assumption that this was bait. I received confirmation from another staff member that eddy had told them ‘I’m going to make this character and bait sasha’

Do you have proof of this or was it submitted privately? 

[Rabid Animal]

@La Villa Strangiato has the actual chat log, I asked her to comment.

This is what she told me;
 

 

[eddymakaveli]

Heya! A few things here to parse:

 

Quote

Eddy made a captain character with the specific goal of baiting my RD into a confrontation with the express intent of making an IR, this is coming off of a recent character complaint regarding the same RD that Eddy personally handled. This feels like a meta grudge performed by a member of staff that was trusted to handle a complaint without bias.

Morgan has been made for a little under two weeks now, actually a little before or after the player complaint against Sasha was made. Speaking of that complaint, Yonnimer can attest that I was exceptionally understanding and generous with Sasha and the punishment levied which amounted to a single note that read "Be nicer, please." If any staff or even players look at my playtimes, they are typically around the same time. past 10pm pst, to about 1:30/2am - and I saw that there was a lowpop round for me to play my captain. Even if that statement was completely true, I said in the first complaint I was going to monitor his (Sasha's) play. And this would've been a means to do it ICly.

My being staff has nothing to do with the IR or the round, because none of it had to do with my position as a moderator. All the actions taken were completely IC, and the only reason I didn't continue past when the antag broke the window of our meeting, was because it was late for me - not to mention my Captain didn't really have much they could contribute to Changeling interrogation.

 

Quote

The events of the round in question were extremely suspicious to begin with, but seeing as an IR was posted I started digging into my assumption that this was bait.

The funny thing is, there is no 'baiting'. As soon as I came up, someone brought concerns to my captain. When he asked Sasha why there was no ISD on this expedition, their job, the slightest bit of pushback got Sasha to claim he was "engaging a child's tantrum", or something to that affect. The interviews weren't to crucify Sasha, as you could see most of my questions weren't leading, they were what we call Due Diligence.

The only reason the IR was even filed, again, was because we weren't able to finish our meeting. The in-round punishment that would've been levied against Sasha was going to be a whopping violation of i110 - Verbal Harassment. Punishable by... 250 credits, max. Exceptionally grievous.
---

Some closing remarks from me: I do not dislike or hold ill-will against you. My character behaved as they rationally would, protecting the SCC from potential backlash in what could've been considered workplace harassment. Now for me personally? Sasha was a command member, who seemingly purposefully went and antagonized a crewman with a very severe dressing down, under the guise of giving them the carrot they wanted, which was to go on the expedition. This is nothing more than schoolyard bullying. The logs will show that the player in question even reached out to you in dsay previously to see if it could be remedied, as you wished the person who made a player complaint against you would've used ooc channels to do before resorting to a complaint, which you responded with: 'But I like the conflict' (round ID: ctP-aZFh).

Conflict in roleplay requires equity in which people can respond. A command member purposefully going after a crewman, with no other command to help, is not conflict - but the punching down I was talking about. There is close to zero recourse that said crewman could have against the command member, and it is neither fun nor nice.

[Garnascus]

@eddymakaveli What do you say in regard's to 50_noob's allegation you joked privately with a staff member that you would utilize your character to bait sasha into an IR? 

[eddymakaveli]

I vehemently deny it. I never said I wanted to bait Sasha into an IR. My joining the round and an IR coming from it isn't something that I am in control of. I am neither CCIA or anything adjacent. If I had that large of a bone to pick with Kaiser/50noob, I'd have pushed for a harsher punishment in the actual player complaint in which I had actual power over, it'd make no sense for me to purposefully make a character with the express intent to get Sasha into being IR'd - which again, is something I have no power over. I cannot control Sasha, and if you'd check the logs of the round, my actions weren't veiled antagonism to goad him into actions that'd bring my character into conflict with theirs.

[eddymakaveli]

To note: The only thing I asked Mel was if it was even worth it for me to make an IR to begin with or just let the situation be.

[Garnascus]

I will require some time to gather a timeline of events here. I will also need to confer with other administrators. 

[Rabid Animal]

21 minutes ago, eddymakaveli said:

The logs will show that the player in question even reached out to you in dsay previously to see if it could be remedied...

You're excluding the part of the conversation where the part they wanted reconned had very little to do with not being allowed on missions, which was clearly communicated within that same conversation. The part where I said I didn't want to ruin their fun, but the IC conflict  was good, something they agreed to in the context of it not preventing them from doing missions. I advised them to have tact, and committed to giving them a chance.

32 minutes ago, eddymakaveli said:

This is nothing more than schoolyard bullying.

The interaction with Levi was more or less Sasha checking to see if they could behave for five minutes. I see no world where when you are being given an opportunity and you speak to someone giving you that opportunity with such intense disrespect, that you actually get that opportunity. Even if Sasha wasn't a huge asshole, this would be the case. The very first words out of Levi's mouth was a sarcastic jab, which was gracefully ignored. They were told to correct anything Sasha said that was incorrect but not to 'talk back.' an extraordinarily simple request that was completely ignored. This wasn't Sasha dangling the carrot, and even if it was it shouldn't matter because it was part of a screening process for what could have been a dangerous mission.

 

I get that you don't know this IC, but you made little effort to even credit Sasha for trying to do well by his team here, just submitting to the officers victimhood wholesale.

35 minutes ago, eddymakaveli said:

The funny thing is, there is no 'baiting'.

Other than when given two extremely valid reasons as to why the officer couldn't go, (we are geared/prepared/trained and the officer can't be trusted for x y z) you saw fit try and force the officer along anyways, "we have a teleporter, I have the final say not you."

I literally cannot prove this but you late joining extremely conveniently during the 5 seconds we were in flight, well after the respawn period would have fired, doesn't instill a lot of confidence that you weren't watching this all anyways.

43 minutes ago, eddymakaveli said:

Morgan has been made for a little under two weeks now

Was it or was it not your first round playing them?

 

46 minutes ago, eddymakaveli said:

The in-round punishment that would've been levied against Sasha was going to be a whopping violation of i110 - Verbal Harassment. Punishable by... 250 credits, max. Exceptionally grievous.

Once again, you make it sound like your decision on that was final, as if it really didn't matter what I said it was going to happen no matter what.

18 minutes ago, eddymakaveli said:

I never said I wanted to bait Sasha into an IR.

I would have never made this complaint if I wasn't explicitly told otherwise, I cannot sit here and attack you with no evidence of ill will. I find it extremely odd that I was told, by Mel, that the IR was to be binned if there was no ooc issue here.

[eddymakaveli]

I don’t want to go too back and forth, but it’s easily checkable if I was observing the round as it was going on and had meta knowledge of what was said prior because of that. 
 

I had zero observation time and didn’t see your interaction with Levi, and if you look at my IR, I went around and asked multiple crew who would’ve known more than my captain.

[Nol4]

Heyo. I play Levi Kersaavi, who was named as the victim in the IR. I was asked to comment about my IC/OOC interactions with Kaiser and I can elaborate on anything as needed.

16 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

You're excluding the part of the conversation where the part they wanted reconned had very little to do with not being allowed on missions, which was clearly communicated within that same conversation. The part where I said I didn't want to ruin their fun, but the IC conflict  was good, something they agreed to in the context of it not preventing them from doing missions. I advised them to have tact, and committed to giving them a chance.

I specifically reached out to 50_n00b in deadchat after the round to ask about lightening up on exclusion from missions. They told me more or less that while they understood why it wasn't fun for me, they were enjoying it. I asked if the characters could spat in other ways that were less obstructive, and they said that 'next time' to be aware that Kaiser is a hardass and to act accordingly.

16 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

The interaction with Levi was more or less Sasha checking to see if they could behave for five minutes. I see no world where when you are being given an opportunity and you speak to someone giving you that opportunity with such intense disrespect, that you actually get that opportunity. Even if Sasha wasn't a huge asshole, this would be the case. The very first words out of Levi's mouth was a sarcastic jab, which was gracefully ignored. They were told to correct anything Sasha said that was incorrect but not to 'talk back.' an extraordinarily simple request that was completely ignored. This wasn't Sasha dangling the carrot, and even if it was it shouldn't matter because it was part of a screening process for what could have been a dangerous mission.

I'm going to collapse all of their IC interactions into a box here for reference, since I do think it matters for the context of the IR and the accusation that the Captain was unfounded in his concerns. I have logs for most of the second section, but not the first save the OOC conversation.

Quote

Levi's first ever interaction with Kaiser beyond passing words in the hallway was him walking in on Kaiser calling him a 'fucking idiot' to his department, and then, despite both of the members of the expedition specifically requesting his presence, vehemently denying him despite ample officers on shift. Levi at this point still has not spoken directly to Kaiser whatsoever.

Edit 1: in response to the below post which states Levi was 'demanding' to go- 'demanding' in this case is the act of walking over to science, which he'd been doing the previous few played shifts due to being in a rhythm with the other two scientists. He walked in on Kaiser insulting him, and left, mission banned, without having said a single word to Kaiser. He also was not the only officer, as two joined swiftly after roundstart.

Shortly thereafter Levi is talking to another member of the department in the R&D lab- Kaiser then insults him again and kicks him out. Levi moves to the hallway as directed where he has coffee across the counter with the scientist and a few other crew milling about. Having a gathering here was a bit of malicious compliance, but it amounted to crew, including the Captain, pleasantly chatting in the hallway without issue. Kaiser slams the shutters in his face and, per the scientist, then yells at the scientist about the whole thing. A second scientist texts Levi apologizing on Kaiser's behalf that he had to hear that. A geist murders half the ship (as one does), round ends with no further interaction.


At this point I reached out in OOC, see above. You advised me that Levi now knows Kaiser is a 'hardass', and to act accordingly if he wants to interact with science.

The next time they interacted, Kaiser again belittled/insulted both Levi and Tsi separately, including without prompting on the common radio. Levi volunteers to go with the expedition again out of general concern and the fact that, among others, an off-duty 20ish chef he's friendly with is going to Adhomai with them. Kaiser then ushered Levi over in view of several crew and started listing off perceived offenses -that Levi didn't respond to security calls(???), that he once used a hand teleporter and broke an ankle(guilty), and that he miscommed often(guilty, but an OOC mistake, obviously)- combined with more insults. The way forward to being unblocked from expeditions, per RA's comments in dsay and here so far, was to take that without objection. Levi snapped back that he thought Kaiser was holding petty grievances over the safety of his staff. Kaiser informed he that he'd stay banned and he could handle security concerns himself, and they separated. The mission then left behind 1-2 crewmembers (it was a little hard to follow), and when a Captain came up, Levi voiced his concern that Kaiser was holding grudge over sense. When interviewed, he also mentioned what he perceived as a deeply toxic workplace.

Their conversation also opened like this, in contrast to the stated above, though I'm very sympathetic to not remembering details without a log.

I'm collapsing my OOC thoughts here, to the extent that they're relevant.

Quote

Obviously, I prefer my characters not being mission-banned, given the shift in setting focus to away/offsites. In addition, there were players/characters who clearly wanted to interact with me/them, and Kaiser swooped in to stonewall it- Kaiser wasn't part of said mission, and they'd never spoken before.

RA said Kaiser is a hardass and to appeal to that to interact with the department, but Kaiser doesn't feel like a hardass- he feels like a jackass. A hardass boss holds someone to the letter of policy and deadlines at great expense. A jackass boss insults and demeans his employees and retaliates when they object. RA posted wondering why Levi would snap back when it was clearly in his interests not to- Kaiser frequently insults, berates, and intimidates someone they're close to (the aforementioned scientist) and the second Levi got into his orbit, Levi got the same treatment: Levi knows him not as a strict manager, he knows him as a workplace bully.

This isn't a particularly fun/engaging dynamic, where the only option to avoid stonewalling is to acquiesce to workplace harassment. We get paid for that usually. That said, that's the turf of a character complaint, not an IR- admins can decide how relevant it is.

Edited May 26 by Nol4
single word substituion

[Rabid Animal]

Levi and kaiser have interacted probably about a dozen times in the entire overlap of the two characters existence; a notable example recently was Levi using the hallway as a 'slip and slide' resulting in a dress down of both Levi and Tsi. Just because you do not remember these interactions does not mean they didn't happen. In what you claim as their 'first' meeting - you exclude the fact that you were in science demanding to go within the first five minutes of the round, something kaiser was talking to his team about. He didn't want you to go because you were a goober but likely would have let you anyways had you not acted entitled to it. You're also excluding that during the time you asked you were the ONLY officer on shift and there were safety concerns for the HORIZON if you went along. Obviously this changed as the round went on, but I cannot count on more people showing up just to enable you.

I didnt want to do the retcon because your character had done something impulsive and childish and you didn't want to pay the consequences of that. I kept the incident canon because even if we ignore that, Kaiser has other examples of Levi doing this kind of thing. Beyond that I didn't even use that interaction in the conversation they had to try and entertain this point.

You're missing the point of the hallway conversation, which was meant to have occured in the office but you're reluctance to even walk three steps over meant it happened where it did. Kaiser is the kind of person who holds people accountable for their actions, he was explaining to Levi why he didn't trust him to attend the expedition but was interrupted. When he tried to correct this and tell Levi to not interrupt, Levi responded 'I'm just providing relevant information,' thus denying accountability. Yes, Sasha is inflammatory, but you're poking a bear. Im not fond of the idea of breaking character just because you really want something, I gave you advice to navigate this and you ignored it. I gave you more of a chance than what would frankly be reasonable based on an ooc conversation.

 

I have toned Sasha down immensely as a result of that complaint, this is a cherry picked example that has had months of build up behind it. I'm not randomly flying off the handle or targeting you, and I'm frustrated it's being portrayed this way as a justification of mod bullying.

Edited May 26 by Rabid Animal
Added some context to first paragraph

[Garnascus]

Honestly, when i examine the entirety of events it does look all above board. I admit that the evidence presented does make Eddy look pretty bad here. It is true that this was his character's first round and it is also true he was the individual who handled, at least in part the character complaint on 50_noob's character. I am not making any judgements on the "wrongness" or "rightness" of any IC interactions as they relate to OOC rules but the premise of the original incident report seemed reasonable to me. It also does not seem to be the case that Eddy was observing the round before hand. It makes sense to me that a captain character upon joining would inquire as to the status of an active expedition and make suggestions or orders regarding it as is in their power to do so. 

The specific comment that Eddy made about making the character to "bait" 50_noob's character into an IR was allegedly said while in a voice chat. There is no proof that he made this comment so i have to analyze the events as is and determine if they are reasonable. 

While i am a bit uncomfortable with Eddy's comments here where he states.

On 26/05/2024 at 00:33, eddymakaveli said:

and I saw that there was a lowpop round for me to play my captain. Even if that statement was completely true, I said in the first complaint I was going to monitor his (Sasha's) play. And this would've been a means to do it ICly.

I do not believe it is acceptable to monitor someone IC with a higher ranking character due to the result of a character complaint. It feels a little weird to have any IC interactions be for the purpose of monitoring someones play as a result of a character complaint. 

[eddymakaveli]

In the future - I will refrain from making any passing comments or imply any IC action being influenced by a character complaint, etc. I can do better, and should.

[Garnascus]

Forgot to archive this.