My Ban Request - Please Read

[Heli-Donger]

BYOND Key: HelicopterCock

Yeah, it's pretty terrible, hence why I didn't stick it in the Subject, but please, don't judge a book by its cover. I had made like two accounts because we played Byond on and off, and kept forgetting them, so I was mad that none of my favorite account names were usable, hence why I put something so silly. Only after did I see that this name is used in OOC and all the time, and makes me look terrible.

Total Ban Length: 3 Days, about maybe two left? And potentially a permanent job-ban.

There's a 3-day for the server, and a job-ban for Genetics.

Banning staff member's Key: Japak121? I honestly don't remember, it was late last night and I had to wait for my account to be activated, so I lost the logs I was going to paste and forgot the name.

Reason of Ban: EoR Grief

Reason for Appeal: (State your reason for why you think you should be unbanned)

Before reading, understand that I am a writer and I am theatrical when I type, and even more-so when it's emotional.

Let me begin by saying, I have read the rules a handful of times and after the ban is lifted, I'm going to be tip-toeing around all of them to avoid this happening again.

That being said, it's going to hurt my ability to have fun, and I don't mean that breaking rules is fun, they pretty much all make sense. It's not the rules, its the interpretation of them. I am all for Vague Rules so that situations can be dealt with, after all, this isn't some place where you go to court and waste time and money disputing loop-holes, and it shouldn't be. However, Vague Rules only work well if every admin on the team deals with things logically, and with a level of compassion and understanding. It really hurts the community when the assumed truth about all the players is that they're psychotic animals constantly trying to get away with breaking rules and ruining the server. Granted this is an exaggeration, but it's how it feels when every admin you deal with smacks you with a warning or ban first, and asks questions later.

Don't get me wrong, the admins are not bad people I'm sure, that's not the issue. It's the perspective you take when dealing with people that can affect people's view of you.

I have to say, that the team of admins is quite professional in dealing with things. The fact they don't listen to the person in question's pleas for help or forgiveness gives them a certain level of presence. Makes you scared and worried to break the rules. But while that might be good for Police Officers or Prison Guards, I dislike using that method in a place meant for fun and enjoyment.

To explain what happened and give some context, my first two warning were back to back. Me and a friend whom play together often got a little goofy at the end of the round and attacked each other at the end of the round. The reason I did it in character was because his character attempted to drug me and because of the whole situation we both missed our shuttle off the station at the end of the round. We were asked about it and after some very one-sided conversation, we both received warnings for EoR Grief. But, my friend mentioned we were in a Skype call as part of his pleas to make the admin understand that we were being goofy and we were sorry I guess. Somehow this meant to the admin that we must be using this skype call to communicate in-game and thus Meta was taking place.

THAT IS NOT THE CASE.

Me and my friends like to hang out and talk, we send each other youtube stuff for music and hang out. We all met on a Roleplaying Server for Garrysmod, a game we used to play religiously. At one point there were almost twenty of us in total that would chill together and roleplay. Not to mention my background in Table-Top Roleplaying, but that's beside the point. My main argument here is that I despise Meta. I have more than one good friend that I met very shortly after a huge conflict with one another in character and we respected the other's ability to roleplay and became good friends despite the anger and emotion in the roleplay.

I accept the EoR Grief charge, I was doing that for my first warning. It was my fault for not reading the rules and making the assumption it would be like the server we played on in the past where that happened all the time.

Then comes the instance that I was actually banned for. Me and the same friend were playing Genetics together because we recently had it all explained and it's really a blast to do. Lots of interested roleplay occurred, including me and my friend using our powers to save the station. All quite fun. Near the end we kept a few injections of different things on us because our characters wanted to save our research when we left the station. At least that's the reason we had discussed. What I didn't know, was my friend was the Antag, and had been using our research for very nefarious things. Anyway, we carried our syringes and notes onto the shuttle and left the station.

A small note: At this point I had read the rules briefly because I wanted to be familiar with them but didn't have the time or need to memorize them word for word. During my initial warning about EoR Grief it was explained to me that I was not supposed to act out of character just because it's the end of the round and that even if nobody is around you cant mess things up.

So we enter the shuttle and arrive at Central. Once there we walk around and wait for the end, but suddenly our friend the Surgeon pulls out the Head of Personnel's decapitated head and flaunted her victory. Having some experience with helping security, in the same round even, I pull out a Monkey Syringe and dive at her during the last half-second of the round to be the dashing hero that took her down. After a good laugh because the message popped up but the action froze and never even went through I get a message from a Trial Mod.

We discuss why I did it, and I explain that I wanted to give Security a hand. The admin explained a few interesting things to me. Firstly, even though on more than one occasion I have been thanked by Security for assisting, the admin flat out told me I was wrong using the words, "Not every sec would thank you for helping" or something along those lines, again, lost my logs. Secondly, I-as a Bio-engineer was suspicious for having a serum to turn someone into a monkey. I'll say, it's not exactly the norm, but my antag friend brought up the idea of carrying them (I don't know he's antag so I say why not). The third thing, was a incredibly strange wording in the rules. No combat at all can take place on the Central. I had no clue, I was again baffled by rules as I had been before. I explain I didn't understand that was a rule, and try to tell them that it was a mistake, not to mention the action didn't even go through. Nothing happened.

Instantly banned. Gone. Disconnected. A three-day ban with a suggested Job-Ban for genetics. To say to the least I was frustrated, confused, and most of all lost. What do I even do? The admin disposed of me, a member of the community, like I was trash. No time to talk about it, even though it was between rounds. I have been an Admin, actually, I earned it from complete strangers on the server I met my closest friends on. I have seen good and bad admins. But in most of my time spent on quality servers, I had rarely ever seen an admin ban someone with no discussion unless they were a troll with the words "Fuck you" written in their description. I understand how annoying and frustrating it can be to play a game and be an admin where you deal with people that make mistakes and people that are intentionally taking apart a server for fun. But I always sat and listened, because I'd rather suffer for five minutes of being insulted or begged by a troll, than to ban someone who made an innocent mistake. A server is it's community, not it's admins. I learned that lesson when my community drifted apart and all that was left was four of us, admins, trying to save our favorite server from falling through the cracks. Death comes when people stop playing. So a good admin cherishes every player they can, and digs through the muck to find the gems that make a sparkling community.

I could leave now, I could have left before. Part of me wants too, there's not that much special about the server compared to others. I like it, and I have grown to enjoy it's layout and some of the players. But there's nothing tying me down other than my own will to stay.

Please, even if I am ignored and have to "suffer", for three days. Change this, spend time with the newer admins at least and talk about proper ways to handle things. Not getting emotional and having forgiveness and understanding. If an admin cannot take the time to talk to players they are going to boot from the community, then they have no right to the ability that lets them do that.

I hold no personal vendetta against Japak or the admin team, nor do I hate any of the other admins I have dealt with. I just want to see this sort of treatment end. Have some trust for the community to not be trolls and bad people.

As a last note, I will admit I have never tried running a server through Byond, my history in being an admin on a Roleplay server is solely to Gmod, and the people that play that could be very different from the people that play SS13. Maybe I've got no idea what I'm talking about, and this is the only proven effective way to handle the playerbase of this game. If so, forgive me, I don't have your knowledge.

[Japak121]

I was, in fact, the banning staff member on this.

First, yes, I did say that and stand by it. (It's also still a terrible reason. You are a geneticist, not the hero the station deserves. Odin is a heavily secure area and security was right there.)

Second, we did not dispose of you as trash. The short ban is to reinforce the fact that we will not tolerate such actions. You were warned before about EoR according to your notes and the standard procedure is a short-ban. Please do not take this personally. It was a related incident in a short period of time (3 days before this incident) and that's what was called for. Furthermore, if you recall (and you do based on all that you typed up about the incident before this), there WAS a discussion about what you had done. I asked you at the very beginning of the following round and by the time the ban was implemented the round had started and you were already aboard as a geneticist.

Third, I'd like to also point out that at the time of our discussion, I was also speaking with the Head Admin, a Secondary Admin, and a Head Developer about the incident. Being a trial mod, you can rest assured that I am doing my very best to learn what is expected of me and do all I can to help players on our server. As an admin, I would imagine you would understand what this entails and that there is a great deal of trust between staff. If I see a note from three days ago that you had been talked to about EoR, then I take that at face value alongside everything you say, and then add in what the senior staff are telling me before committing to an action.

Lastly, I have played Gmod RP and so have a few others in the staff. I can't speak for them, but I can say that based on my own experience a Heavy RP server on SS13 is a bit more strict than in Gmod.

Suggestion: You have about a day left on the ban, check out our Guides forum section and maybe browse the Player Complaints and Incident Reports sections. The NanoTrasen Personnel Database and Whitelist Apps sections may also be of interest to you, so you can better understand what the community is like in-game.

[Heli-Donger]

Anyone can play hero if they want. I don't normally because I'm not a special snow-flake, and plus it's not that realistic to play hero all the time.

As I stated at the start, I type very theatrically, saying something like "Disposed of as trash" simply expresses how I felt about the ban. I know we had what you may consider a "Discussion" before the ban occurred but that's not what I am talking about. Discussing a problem and interrogation are two different things.

I never insisted you were a bad admin, simply that I felt it was handled improperly. As a matter of fact, the blame was not placed on you at all. If you were speaking with other admins while it happened, and they told you how to handle it, then they are the ones I was referring to when I mentioned I'd like for them to handle it another way.

As far as strictness goes from Space Station to Garrysmod, I see little reason that Space Station needs to be more tightly controlled. In my own opinion, Garrysmod, especially recently, is a larger target for trolls and minges than space station. Space station has trolls and plenty of them, but it's less widely known and also not as focused around game-play, rather text. If I were a minge, I'd focus something where I get to beat people down with fists and other things over something that requires actual know-how to troll in. But that's just me.

As far as your suggestion, I understand the community a decent bit. I'll be quite honest in saying that I encounter a lot of edgy, special individual people. I'm not the only person that feels that way. But it's not the entire community, not even a majority, they simply make a big enough impact with their annoying bullshit that it outshines the quiet players that play along more often than intentionally going against the grain.

[Doomberg]

End-round grief is punishable by an automatic 3-day ban. The moment the shuttle docks with the station, all conflict is expected to end in and around the shuttle boarding area. (Escape and adjacent corridor). No conflict is allowed on Central Command, after shuttle arrival.

 

This rule is (at least, I hope) crystal clear. You violated it twice within a span of three days. The fact that you were not banned on the first offense was a show of leniency, since, as you can see, "end-round grief is punishable by an automatic 3-day ban". I don't understand what exactly you feel is unclear or unjust here?

[Japak121]

I think I see the misunderstanding here.

 

As far as strictness goes from Space Station to Garrysmod, I see little reason that Space Station needs to be more tightly controlled. In my own opinion, Garrysmod, especially recently, is a larger target for trolls and minges than space station. Space station has trolls and plenty of them, but it's less widely known and also not as focused around game-play, rather text. If I were a minge, I'd focus something where I get to beat people down with fists and other things over something that requires actual know-how to troll in. But that's just me.

 

This is your belief and you have every right to it, but that simply isn't how things are here. The fact is, many of us enjoy having more rules because we WANT a much more realistic experience. Also, unlike in Gmod where the worst that could happen is an admin has to delete items or revive someone, here a troll can cause an extreme issue and even the round to end with just a single bomb. Also, no one can ignore the troll here and so as admins we cannot retconn whatever the troll did. We occasionally heal parties that were affected, but the cleanup is largely left to the crew on the station and can mess up alot of what was going on. A better correlation between Gmod RP and SS13 RP might be a medium RP server, where things are a bit more relaxed and this exact incident may be overlooked/ignored by admins, I'm not sure since I don't really play medium RP.

[Heli-Donger]

End-round grief is punishable by an automatic 3-day ban. The moment the shuttle docks with the station, all conflict is expected to end in and around the shuttle boarding area. (Escape and adjacent corridor). No conflict is allowed on Central Command, after shuttle arrival.

 

This rule is (at least, I hope) crystal clear. You violated it twice within a span of three days. The fact that you were not banned on the first offense was a show of leniency, since, as you can see, "end-round grief is punishable by an automatic 3-day ban". I don't understand what exactly you feel is unclear or unjust here?

 

Your input serves no purpose. If all you want to say is that I am wrong about an opinion, then either don't say it, or discuss it with PM's to me so we can discuss it one-on-one and I can maybe give you a better understanding of how I feel and why.

Also Japak, I understand what you're talking about. I really do. That was something I hadn't considered when I put together my thoughts on the subject. It would be nice if there were more admin functions to deal with these issues.

That said, I still feel that a stern look would have made more sense considering the incident.

The rule about End of Round Grief is logical in the sense that you want to avoid players acting out of character in order to troll because the round is ending and there is no consequence. However, extending this rule to override IC actions that are completely realistic is silly to me. Hence why I still did what I did after the first warning. The first warning was because I was fucking around and deserved to be told that is not okay. But to me all that said, was no messing around at the end of the server. I skimmed the rules and saw the EoR one and barely read it because it had already been explained in detail to me by the admin over the course of the warning. So when I attacked the person at the end of the round that was responsible for killing our Head of Personnel that was something realistic. What would you do in real life if someone approached you after you shuttle back to command and they admitted to you they had murdered someone important on the station and likely caused other problems? I had the solution in my pocket, it made sense to me to try and stop them. If we're speaking about realism and a realistic experience, what's more real than someone taking action and considering consequence later? Sure the Security might have not been happy, but what would they really do? Arrest me for helping take down someone of that caliber?

If the rule is going to exist that between rounds (EoR) no combat or attack or anything of that sort can happen. Then I'd move to put a second rule in place. Nobody can do anything that would result in conflict. If that rule doesn't exist, what am I to do about people spitting on me, or flaunting that they were in fact the one who killed a close friend of mine? Both of those things would end in conflict without them specifically attack or breaking the rule.

Rule being broken by following the EoR Grief Rule:

Rule: You must maintain character at ALL TIMES. No suiciding to leave the round (ghost or use cryogenic storage), and no random grief at round end.

Reason: It specifies all times in capital lettering.

Rule: Do not break the atmosphere of the game. Also known as "breaking immersion". For example, using slag terms for antagonists IC "traitor", "rev", "cultist", "syndie", "wizard", "changeling", etc. Use of OOC game slang IC, "robust", "shitcurity", "emag", "esword".

Reason: It breaks my immersion that I would not do something given my character personality. But even more, it breaks my immersion that any traitor would announce their victory because the round ended. Do they not know that they are in Central? A place with its own security force, not to mention the security that came along from the station.

Rules siding against my case:

Rule: Avoid pain. A sane, well-rounded character would not engage in actions that are overly painful, or put themselves in harm's way without consideration (e.g. going EVA without a suit, stabbing themselves repeatedly, or continue to run at someone after being shot multiple times.) Suicide is generally a NO, unless you have believable reason for it and do it in a realistic way (ODin on chemicals as a chemist is realistic, but cutting off your head isn't), you can contact the admins to clear situations like that.

Reason: My character may have avoided doing this because he could be hurt in the process, but her hands were full with the Head's Head (har har) so I didn't feel this applied.

Rule: Generally, avoid playing hero. There are certain opportunities every character can seize to overthrow an antagonist, but going rambo on syndicate ops as a frail, unarmed medical doctor constitutes a failure to roleplay and will likely end with you getting shot. Also, if you are unarmed, and being held at gunpoint, it is generally expected for you to comply with your captor, or risk suffering the consequences.

Reason: I didn't actually know this rule was around at the time if I'm being honest. I usually follow it regardless, because playing hero gets old really fast, when I'd rather play more realistically.

(Keep in mind that there are only two rules under each category even though the second one looks bigger.)

[Doomberg]

Your input serves no purpose. If all you want to say is that I am wrong about an opinion, then either don't say it, or discuss it with PM's to me so we can discuss it one-on-one and I can maybe give you a better understanding of how I feel and why.

 

The entire point of this sort of appeal is either A) Establishing whether your actions were in violation of the rules or not and lifting an unjust ban (staff complaints can serve this purpose as well), or B) Shortening a justified ban by acknowledging that you were in the wrong and demonstrating some degree of understanding. If you want to discuss the rules and how they work, unban appeals are not the place for it. Your conduct was in clear violation of an existing rule and you were given a warning on first offense plus the standard punishment on the second. B) is not the case, and I've already explained why the punishment is justified. With that, I'm going to have to deny this.