Halo's Unban Appeal

[halorocks22]

WARNING

GREAT WORD WALL OF HALO BELOW

---

---

BYOND Key: Halorocks22

Total Ban Length: Three days.

Banning staff member's Key: Josh1133

Reason of Ban: Multiple complaints against them, OOC attitude, chuckle fucking characters, finally gank.

Reason for Appeal: Ooookay. First things first. I have a whole lot to explain here, don't I?

I'd like to start off by saying that the real, main reason for why I was banned was because in what was Josh's words, I "ganked". I'll explain what happened to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, I did not save any logs to better further explain myself because I'm retarded but an admin can step in after I finish writing this post to post the logs below. I don't play much, but I joined a typical nuke round where I played as the dank agent halo. Yes, that was my name. At the very beginning of the round, I agreed with my teammates that I would act as the chauffeur of the squad as we had the full six members and there weren't enough suits to go around. I drove the ship around to wherever the team needed to go and the round progressed as any nuke round went. The details are kind of irrelevant, really.

As the round progressed, the team eventually lost three of its six members to attrition until only me, some ligger named Lemonsnout and some random dude whose name I can't remember survived. Slightly before this happened, Lemonsnout had captured the Chief Engineer (Aquila) and brought her to the shuttle as a hostage. I patched up the dents that Aquila had acquired during her capture and much to her dismay, cuffed her to a chair to keep her from doing something stupid. The three of us along with Aquila were on the spec ops shuttle when the round was winding down to a close. Now this is when it gets interesting. When nobody was paying attention, Aquila had somehow slipped her cuffs (whether someone uncuffed her or she resisted I don't know) and made a mad dash to the airlock chamber to get away. I was the only one to notice and react. Knowing that conventional weaponry does pip-diddly-squat against IPCs, I grabbed the ion rifle (which I didn't know was instakill, btw) and took a potshot at her when she was in the airlock chamber, about to close the airlock on my face and say adieu.

Well, she exploded. Spectacularly. I exhaled forcefully through my nostrils and watched with immediate regret as LOOC instantly overflowed with NaCl.

LOOC: randomscrub1: OMG GaNk!!!!1111

LOOC: randomscrub2: U KILED Her!!11one!!11

LOOC: randomscrub3: WhY?!! Oh TEh HUMENAITIEZ!!1one!11eleven

Yes, yes. I know, I know. I killed her. And the dear, loyal comrades who were with me whom I had saved on numerous occasions (such as when I had fished them out of space from the cold clutches of an angry sec-borg) killed me in retaliation, naturally. For killing a member of the enemy crew. Yes. But if you just keep on reading, I can explain why I killed her. Really. Like I had said before.. I acted so hastily and shot to kill with a heart as cold as arctic ice because, well, I was the only one who noticed she was escaping and had the ability to react. Because of this, I couldn't notify my team because I had to , again, react. I also couldn't yell "Stop!" because Aquila was already in the airlock chamber by the time I was moving my character. Aiming didn't really make any sense either because, again, she was in the airlock chamber, ready to close the door and run off and escape to god-knows-what-and-where (probably the station). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also believe that you can't shoot ion rifles through windows. You sure as hell can't shoot SMGs through windows. And with all this in mind, I had very little options. Sure, I could've let Aquila run off to the station. And you know, risk letting her compromise the mission for the team. No, I instead chose what seemed logical at the time. I'd like to show an excerpt from Doomberg's post on gank: (http://aurorastation.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2193&p=21410#p21410)

 

Neutralizing another character without roleplay is allowed /only/ under the following circumstances:

The character in question is a physical threat to you (he is armed or can be reasonably expected to be armed) and catches you in an illegal or otherwise compromising act.

The character in question fails to comply with your demands (for example, he yells for security over his headset despite being aimed at and told to remain silent).

 

I believe that what I did (killing Aquila) was NOT gank because I believe it coincided with the "fails to comply with demands". How so? Well, it's true that I did not ever verbally tell the Chief Engineer to stay put. But, remember that I did handcuff her to a chair. Does that not imply that I want her to NOT try escaping? Before you call that outlandish, I'd like for you to know that the Constitution of the United States (the world's only current superpower) has enumerated (written down) and IMPLIED powers. The most important document of the most powerful country in existence doesn't have everything written down. Some things are implied. Right? Okay.

I had tried to explain most, if not all, of this to Sleepy Wolf and later Josh, after he decided that trial mods couldn't make their own decisions. It was futile. Repeatedly they ignored my attempts to communicate and instead insisted that what I did was lacking in roleplay (which it was, to be fair, but for good reason) and also pointed to a myriad of great sins I had supposedly committed while playing on this server as an additional reason to ban me. Oh, right, that. We'll get to that in just a second.

Actually, let's get to it now. Where to begin?

Ah. "Multiple complaints against them". I'm sorry, I really don't mean to be rude but I can't help but snort at this. I've been on Aurora since slightly after it had split from Apollo and it had become its own thing. Probably weeks after, a month at most. This means that I've been here for longer than, let's say, +90% of the population. During all the time I've spent playing on this server, I've really only had two complaints against me. One was made by Iceni, a player that was later permanently banned for being extremely toxic. The other was made by, surprisingly enough, Meowykins, when I stole his janicart a long long time ago. That was when I was not well-known and Meowykins had not yet warmed up to my.. unique playstyle. We're friends now, of course. But yes, you get the message. "Multiple complaints against them". Sigh. Where are all the player complaints against me? There are none and there haven't been any except for the ones I just described. Of course, after I say this I'm going to jinx everything and complaints are going to crop up left and right but whatever. I truly don't understand where Josh even got this from, to be honest. In my opinion, again, not trying to be rude, it seems like to me that he pulled it straight out of his rear. Perhaps I'm being too damning. Perhaps Josh had meant that he and the staff had received complaints through PM. Ah, that makes sense now, doesn't it? Well, it doesn't matter. I was never notified of anybody having a complaint against me by anyone. Ever. Only when it was convenient (i.e. when mins want to ban me). And always, it would be "there's been complaints against you" and "there's been complaints against you". Never any specifics, even though I ask. And I do ask politely, I assure you. And again, nobody's made a player complaint against me. So why should I believe whatever the staff says? They won't give evidence, and there is none. Period. The opinion of random people who don't even know who I am yet supposedly always complain about me holds more weight than what I have to say . Of course.

Moving on, then. "OOC attitude". This is quite possibly my favorite accusation against me. As you know, friends, I'm known for being an unpleasant person who constantly ruins the state of OOC with my profanity and other undesirables. That was sarcasm. I kind of don't know what they mean by "OOC attitude". Which is, again, because nobody ever explains anything to me even when I ask . If they mean literal attitude, I don't believe that I have an attitude. I mean, I never speak to anyone in a demeaning way. At least, I hope not. I have made every effort to be as polite and pleasant as possible (OOCly, at least) while I have frequented this server and I hope that some people can vouch for me on this. So, I doubt that it's being used in the literal meaning. Then what? Being toxic? I doubt it for the aforementioned reason. Ah, wait, wait, wait. Maybe it's because they think I spam. Of course, that's probably it. Yes, I'll admit it. I do certainly inject some caveman-level shit into OOC at times when I think it's even remotely amusing. But, uh, who doesn't? It's OOC and everyone's seen what it can be like at times. I'd say the stuff I type in is outright mild compared to the stuff that can crop up in OOC. I know nobody knows this and I'm going to say it because it's relevant, not to expose anyone. I recently received a warning from a certain admin whom I shall refrain from naming (he/she can choose to reveal themselves if they wish) for "OOC spam". Do you know what I did to deserve this warning? I typed "MEMES LAD" into OOC an exact three times. Because it was funny. Was it spam? Yes. Was the warning justified? In my opinion, yes and no. I'm a little disappointed at the fact that an active, heated discussion on cat penises can occur in OOC without anyone batting an eye yet something as minor as "MEMES LAD" said THREE times can receive a warning. But yes, it was technically spam. Sigh. Again. What can I say? Nothing, really. And I'm sure that this little incident played a role in the mod's decision.

Finally. "Chuckle fucking characters". This actually holds a little bit of weight. Just a little bit. I'll admit that I'm not the most serious player around. And that's probably an understatement. A big one. But do I truly have to be? I don't think that anyone ever actually gets harmed by the fact that sometimes I get too dank for my own good. Maybe they actually do, I dunno. But anyways, I'll admit that I am silly. Really silly. I do like to think, however, that I am tastefully silly. What does this mean? It means that regardless of whether or not I act silly, I only do things that are justifiable and actually roleplay. Yes, contrary to popular opinion, I do roleplay. On the surface, it may not seem like it, but I do interact with people in a more-or-less realistic way and do my job. This is important. For example, in the nuke round we were talking about earlier, I named myself halo and put my assignment on my ID card as dank agent. That's silly, yes. halo was an obvious reference to my ckey (Halorocks22 for the amnesiac) and dank agent was obviously just... silly. No other way to describe it. I also played in my characteristic silly manner. But once again, I'd like to point out that not everything has to be 100% serious. Which is something you may not personally believe in. My nuke op's behavior was still easily justifiable by the fact that everyone is unique and thus not 100% serious. Oh, look. A connection. Ah, in the real world, not everyone's serious too! The more you know. If you'd like to get into specifics about how I acted as a nuke op, feel free to inquire below. But I still don't think something as harmless as saying "salty" is breaking the fourth wall or anything and I'm otherwise going to continue. I still did my job while I was playing silly nuke op. I still shuttled my teammates around to locations and I still saved their asses on numerous occasions. Why is being silly a crime? I don't chuckle fuck, at least not to the extent to which I did in the past. I'd like to point out that I've never had an admin or mod tell me what specific rule I broke when I was "chuckle fucking". I challenge the staff, if they wish to do so, to find a rule I truly broke when I was "chuckle fucking" and tell me. And give examples and evidence. Please. This is extra, but, "Chuckle fucking characters" was an interesting way to word "chuckle fucking". It tells me that I've created dedicated characters for the sole purpose of chuckle fucking. Which I haven't. All the characters I play as are from empty slots, meaning I always play as randomly generated 30 year old bald grey assistants. I actually even have to turn on antag prefs whenever I want to play a round. Why do I play like this? Because it's more enjoyable to me to play as a baldie. Doesn't mean that I chuckle fuck as one. Anyway, if Josh literally meant that I was making "chuckle fucking characters", he's sorely mistaken. Which is the reason for why I gave him the benefit of the doubt and chose to think that he meant that I was chuckle fucking instead. I hope that's the case because otherwise I'm going to have to rewrite the whole paragraph. All my characters are, once again, randomly generated. Not purposely created.

For the reasons I have laboriously laid out, I believe that I was banned unfairly. It's not often that I come out of my NEET cave to write a monster post like this. The fact that I did so, which is a herculean task for someone like me, shows that I actually believe that something went wrong. I request that I be unbanned. I also, more than anything, would like for the staff to be more aware and attentive to people. This was botched, it really was. As shocking as it may sound, I used to be a moderator for this server and I have something to say. Listen to what people have to say and put aside your own personal bias. Never form an opinion on anybody until you actually encounter them. The thing I liked the least about this incident is that when I was speaking with Josh, he cut me off when I was trying to explain myself and simply said "Appeal at the forums". Other members of the staff have done this similarly. Remember that nobody is ever always right.

dindu

[josh1133]

You have no idea how hard I was laughing when I saw this, because its the first post you have ever taken seriously on the forums in quite some time. I don't even know where to start, though I admit I'm a bit surprised as it's usually Ffrances defending you, so I was shocked to see she didn't make this unban appeal for you. But Ill share my side of things.

For quite a period of time, you and FFrances have been a rather big pain in staff's side. It use to be the occasional shift where you would both jump on as bald characters, cause some sort of problem and then get talked too. It was rare enough though that we would do just that, a warning. But as of recent, you have decided to log on every day but continue to play the way you always have, and staff simply decided it was best you actually be punished instead of getting another talk to. I'm not going to waste a huge time defending my choices, because it comes down to this.

Both me and Sleepy explained to you in pms exactly what you did wrong, you ignored us and kept asking us to tell you what its wrong. So Im going to make a list here again, and this will be the final time:

-The nation of Funk

-Playing stereotypical/borderline racist characters

-Chuckle fucking

-OOC attitude: I believe other staff members are going to post the logs, but the one that stands out in my mind would be:

You happened to get in a debate with Tish after spamming OOC, and your first message after being told to drop the subject was that? Sure, you could have found it funny, but how strange that you posted that right after being yelled at by Tish.

The final straw was not you shooting Aquila, I understood that at times you have to do what you had to do. But the reason I was so harsh on you, the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak, was the fact that you kept writing in LOOC and IC "Why you so salty". Clearly, you don't take this seriously, and while I dont want this server to be "WORK STATION 5000, NO FUN ALLOWED", were suppose to be a heavy roleplay server.

I had Sleepy talk to you, and you decided to keep arguing with them and caused them to ask me to take over. I informed you of staff choice, you kept arguing, I told you to appeal on the forums. That is all I have to say about the matter.

You have shown me and other members of staff you seem to struggle with the concept of heavy roleplay. So we dealt with it.

[halorocks22]

You have no idea how hard I was laughing when I saw this, because its the first post you have ever taken seriously on the forums in quite some time. I don't even know where to start, though I admit I'm a bit surprised as it's usually Ffrances defending you, so I was shocked to see she didn't make this unban appeal for you.

 

Start the reply off with an insult. Good choice, Josh.

 

For quite a period of time, you and FFrances have been a rather big pain in staff's side. It use to be the occasional shift where you would both jump on as bald characters, cause some sort of problem and then get talked too. It was rare enough though that we would do just that, a warning. But as of recent, you have decided to log on every day but continue to play the way you always have, and staff simply decided it was best you actually be punished instead of getting another talk to.

 

Playing as a bald character by myself is wrong? Okay. I see now that it's perfectly acceptable for players to play as characters that always make crude, constant sexual remarks, for example, and are toxic but hey. It's wrong to be bald. "The staff simply decided it was best you actually be punished instead of getting another talk to". Ah, okay. I can understand your logic there. So, basically, from my understanding, this is what the staff did: Had a bone to pick with me. Thought I was doing something wrong. Sat by silently as I continued to do whatever infuriated them as I never knew the staff disapproved of me. Never actually contacted me or made a player complaint against me, just suddenly out-of-the-blue decided to punish me because the staff thought that would be better than letting me know what I was doing wrong. Oh, wait. On second thought, I can't understand your logic. And, of course, you're going to say something along the lines of "I knew better". Except I don't. Not because I don't know the rules, but because I don't know which and what rules I broke. Because, still, throughout all this time, nobody's ever told me what rules I actually broke while I was "chuckle fucking". The challenge still stands.

 

Both me and Sleepy explained to you in pms exactly what you did wrong, you ignored us and kept asking us to tell you what its wrong.

 

I refuse to believe that at even one point I ignored what the either of you had to say. I tried to discuss all the accusations you and Sleepy made against me yet neither of you were willing to talk about it and hear my explanation. Instead, you chose to cut me off because you believed, of course, that you were right and I was wrong. So, in essence, wasn't it you who ignored me? I kept asking you and Sleepy what I did wrong because I wanted you to elaborate more on what I did wrong. It wasn't as black-and-white as you thought it was. I wanted to talk to you about it, don't you see? Obviously, you didn't grant me the luxury.

 

-The nation of Funk

-Playing stereotypical/borderline racist characters

-Chuckle fucking

-OOC attitude: I believe other staff members are going to post the logs, but the one that stands out in my mind would be:

You happened to get in a debate with Tish after spamming OOC, and your first message after being told to drop the subject was that? Sure, you could have found it funny, but how strange that you posted that right after being yelled at by Tish.

 

The nation of funk. Okay. Forgive me for playing as a nation lacking in roleplay in an event lacking in roleplay. Because, you know, the scenario of nations make perfect sense and is all 100% serious. Right, no. I don't understand why everyone likes to get their panties twisted up on the nation of funk. It was a silly nation inside of a silly event. If you still want some sort of roleplay justification, here's one: Due to the stress and anxiety that occurred after Centcomm announced that the station Aurora was to become its own entity, Tyreese Lenoir and his friend Ray Brown decided to create the nation of funk as a satire of the new nations that arose to ease the tension that was occurring throughout the station and to calm things down. There. Feel better now? Let's move on. Playing stereotypical/borderline racist characters. This, I feel, was really misguided. I don't play a racist caricature of black people. Plain and simple. Tyreese Lenoir, the black character I played during the nations round, is actually a proper character. Why do you think it's racist for me to play as him? Is it because he has a "black" name? If it is, I'm sorry to have named my black character in a black way. I should've named him John or something. Maybe instead I should've played an Asian character, where I wouldn't have gotten in trouble for naming him or her (ze for the gender intolerant) Dong Dong Kong. Is it because I acted "black"? Well, I apologize for implementing parts of black culture into a black character. I promise that I didn't try to make him seem like a nigger or whatever you think I did. Yet, some people still seem to think that I'm trying to portray Tyreese as an ape or something. You people do realize that I don't even change my playstyle while playing as Tyreese, right? On my all other, white, randomly-generated characters, I don't shy around using words like "fam" and "yo", etc. I play Tyreese in a realistic and respectful way. Please stop looking at me like I'm the grandmaster of the Ku Klux Klan. I'm actually black irl, lmao. Chuckle fucking, I've already gone over this on my OP (if you took the time to read it) so I'm going to skip it unless you to talk about it further. OOC attitude. Ah, I see now what you truly meant. Well, the fact that I posted that link wasn't strange at all. I was being a smartass to put it bluntly. But, hold on a minute. Are you saying that one little link ruined your impression on me and caused you to think that I have an attitude? Woah. I thought you had a little more respect for me than that . Oh well. Yes, it was wrong for me to post that link. I'll admit it. I don't, however, believe that you were right in using it to factor in to your decision to ban me. It was one little link. Besides, I don't think that anybody should factor in attitude into decisions. Remember what happened last time when the staff decided to ban somebody on "attitude"? Right.

 

The final straw was not you shooting Aquila, I understood that at times you have to do what you had to do. But the reason I was so harsh on you, the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak, was the fact that you kept writing in LOOC and IC "Why you so salty". Clearly, you don't take this seriously, and while I dont want this server to be "WORK STATION 5000, NO FUN ALLOWED", were suppose to be a heavy roleplay server.

 

I asked my teammates ICly exactly once why they were so salty about me killing a part of the enemy crew because they were about to kill me over it (which they did). I never once wrote it in LOOC (in fact I think the only thing I said in LOOC the whole round was "i have aids") and I most certainly didn't spam "salty". I do take this seriously, which you would know if by perchance you took the time to read my OP. Saying "salty" isn't wrong. I chose to use the word over something like angry because it was more entertaining. They both serve the same purpose, no? The fact that it aligns with popular culture shouldn't change anything. The unique usage of "salty" might even become a part of the Oxford Dictionary one day, who knows.

 

I had Sleepy talk to you, and you decided to keep arguing with them and caused them to ask me to take over. I informed you of staff choice, you kept arguing, I told you to appeal on the forums. That is all I have to say about the matter.

 

Josh, I'm very sorry for trying to talk about a matter that was about to get me removed from the server. Uh, nevermind. I'm not and I shouldn't have to be. I didn't even really "keep arguing". I asked both you and Sleepy to elaborate so that we could talk about it. You told me to appeal at the forums at the very end of our discussion, right before you were about to ban me. I just guess you would much rather have this discussion in front of the public rather than in a private setting. Be my guest.

 

You have shown me and other members of staff you seem to struggle with the concept of heavy roleplay. So we dealt with it.

 

Gold star for you.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Guest

[Frances]

Reason of Ban: Multiple complaints against them, OOC attitude, chuckle fucking characters, finally gank.

 

The final straw was not you shooting Aquila, I understood that at times you have to do what you had to do.

 

[halorocks22]

And, uh, on a side note, I find it hilarious that, as it has been shown, the staff decided to ban me on completely unrelated behaviors when they had initially contacted me to talk about the hostage kill in an intimidating way (the kill wasn't something I did wrong, again). I guess they really wanted that ban.

[Guest]

It's a 3 day ban, but I have to agree on the side of Halo here.

 

And, uh, on a side note, I find it hilarious that, as it has been shown, the staff decided to ban me on completely unrelated behaviors when they had initially contacted me to talk about the hostage kill in an intimidating way (the kill wasn't something I did wrong, again). I guess they really wanted that ban.

 

This part is particularly damning for the side of the handling moderator.

Yes, I have seen Halo act like a complete idiot on the server and all, and I was observing that nuke round. I spent a good deal of time just outright laughing, though. Just because Halo acts like a dummy on the server, it doesn't mean he's doing it to grief or chucklefuck or whatever. In his own way, he's doing it for fun. I'm pretty sure he puts other players above himself, too, because otherwise he'd be banned for legitimate reasons.

If you wanted to ban him for his conduct as a dummy instead of this particular incident in which a certain someone cried gank after being killed for valid reasons (for the second time in one day, it seems), you really should've had a discussion about it with some of the staff and then gotten an admin to talk to Halo to clear up the issues. If nothing useful surfaces from that, then bye-bye, whatever. Business as usual.

I do not, however, condone the disrespectful attitude that Josh had shown dealing with Halo. It also shows a great deal of overwhelming bias that might have corrupted his judgement in this. This is pretty much akin to my Fucknugget Chronicles, and it's sickening to see it repeat again.

I'd honestly say lift the ban.

[josh1133]

I didn't make one thing clear, which Frances pointed out so I feel like I should, as I owe you that much.

I understood why you shot, but its still gank, bad choice in a situation and we all make those. But like I told you last night, had it not been for previous incidents and your IC/LOOC attitude after, it would have been a simple warning. But things add up, which resulted in your ban.

[halorocks22]

I didn't make one thing clear, which Frances pointed out so I feel like I should, as I owe you that much.

I understood why you shot, but its still gank, bad choice in a situation and we all make those. But like I told you last night, had it not been for previous incidents and your IC/LOOC attitude after, it would have been a simple warning. But things add up, which resulted in your ban.

 

Okay, Josh. Even though I already discussed all this with you, it seems like you're having difficulty understanding. I'm going to focus on one thing at a time and rehash this with you. I'd like to get it perfectly clear that what I did was NOT a gank or a bad choice. I've already quoted Doomberg's definition of gank in the OP and according to his post, it's pretty obvious that what I did was NOT gank. Tell me, Josh, if you were in my situation, what would you have done? What would you rather have had me do rather than shoot to kill? Please entertain me.

[Skull132]

There is one damning thing about all of this. And I mean, from the viewpoint of resolving this effectively. The round took place in the date rollover timeframe, which means: no logs. Which really sucks.

The reason basically breaks down into 50/50 gank/OOC. We discussed the gank bit, and since the hostage had the choice to leave or not and they chose to leave, it's not gank. Simple as that. And because we lack the logs to check up on what was said over OOC, and how much was said, we're going to lift the ban and run a few quick checks with the people that were reportedly involved. I would love to see the logs myself, but, yeah. Investigating this will literally take as long as the ban duration, which is why the ban is kind of egh.

So yeah. Done. Deal. Let's party.