[Resolved] Trial Moderator Complaint: Pikl

[JKJudgeX]

BYOND Key: JKJudgeX

Staff BYOND Key: Pikl

Game ID: bO9-dcnz

Reason for complaint: Punitive action taken under questionable circumstances

Evidence/logs/etc:

It was a ninja round, the ninja was playing very out in the open. I was captain. We allowed him to be escorted around the station to "collect parts for his broken ship" etc etc. Things were fine. Security complaints involving ninja started coming in (used his net on someone to "teach them a lesson"), there was no HoS. I came to brig to talk to him again and ensure that he was going to comply (log follows), he agreed to and then immediately threatened me with an emote and drawing a blade:

"Nathan Corvo"If I get another security concern out of you today, Dragon, I am going to sterilize your whole situation without another question. Are we clear?"

Nathan Corvo"Are. We. Clear?"

Dragon"" Very clear.

Nathan Corvo"Good. You're welcome to gather tools and repair your craft."

Nathan Corvo"But I've got no time or interest in putting my crew at risk on your behalf

Dragon"My culture is bound by honor."

Dragon"As yours are bound by laws."

Nathan Corvo"Not here it isn't."

Nathan Corvo"Here is NT."

Dragon"They are one and the same. I didn't realize that."

Nathan Corvo"Your culture exists outside the walls of this station and away from this asteroid. I'll let my guys help you get back to that, until then, our corporate regulations will supplant your 'honor'."

LOOC:

Dragon:Mromi. I'm about to do something dumb

Dragon releases an energy sowrd from his arm, placing the blade agains the Captain's suit..

2 things can be seen here:

1) He was explicitly told that his NEXT security concern would result in his situation being shut down.

2) He was given ample freedom to return to what he was doing if he was just cool about it.

After this I ordered him arrested, security could not arrest him because cuffs don't work/he can't be disarmed because ninja. I am told by security that his suit prevents anything like that and he can cloak and teleport (which he had also told us earlier in the round and demonstrated). I, having honestly never fought a ninja for more than 10 seconds before, figure that an EMP grenade would be the way to disable this guy long enough to get the message across, so, I go and get one, after warning a couple of security guys and the HoP that it was what I was doing. I exclaimed for everyone to get back while I was holding the EMP grenade in my hand, a few times, ordered the warden out of the room (exposing myself for at least a minute to a ninja in the room, who I was hoping would take this opportunity to make a break for it and start, y'know, doing ninja stuff)

We stand off, I present the grenade, and here I give him a great deal of time to teleport away or otherwise escape, or attack me (I wasn't trying to end this guy's round). He stealths so I toss the grenade... lots of people are EMPed (no one died, I didn't know the EMP grenade was quite THAT big), and the ninja is attempting to run after he reappears. I baton his legs to put him down and try to remove his gear. None of that works, so, I retreat from the room, intending to leave the rest of the job to security, and order him detained again.

He decides to self destruct.

I am bwoinked by Pikl. I explain the situation and receive a week long command ban. I explain how much we tried to work with the guy, the amount of time we gave him, and why the EMP was deployed. The ban is applied and stays, along with a note.

I appeal and ask that the ban and note be removed. Ban is lowered to 3 days and the note stays.

I am writing this complaint because I asked Pikl for advice on how I SHOULD have handled the situation, and he did not provide an adequate alternate solution of how I should have handled it. I believe that if you are going to punish someone for something, you should be able to tell them exactly what they SHOULD have done, instead of the wrong thing that they did. I promise that VERY FEW NINJAS are ever given the amount of freedom, tolerance, and gentle handling as this ninja got.

Further, I guarantee that very rarely is someone given a command ban for actions that did not have much larger ramifications for the round than this. Being EMPed as Ninja doesn't have to end your round, especially when the crew has agreed to help you and they didn't shoot you all the way dead when you pulled a blade on the captain in a glass room.

I did everything in my power as captain to bring this guy under some semblance of control, after repeated briggable offenses and in a way that would result in zero deaths. I still do not agree with this ban, even reduced, and believe that it was handled in a strangely biased and poorly explained way, where Pikl was focusing on asking me if I knew what the problem with discharging an EMP grenade in security was (which I said yes, I didn't know it was quite that large). Nobody died who didn't kill themselves, the ninja and others were free to continue their RP and the round.

Additional remarks:

I would understand this ban if there had been a HoS and the captain was stepping in and taking control of a situation out from under a competent fellow command member. I could understand this situation if it was meta (which in the appeal thread, btw, Pikl essentially claimed it was, despite the ample RP and conversation in-round that indicated that it wasn't, and the ample opportunity to escape it, and not being murdered after its use, etc).

I'd also understand the ban and note had I outright murdered the antag in this scenario, but, like I said, he was given an awfully long time and stern warnings before any actions were taken against him.

I feel like what may have happened here is that Pikl openly accepted a very derisive and one-sided account of my actions as taken by the person or people who admin-helped, and assumed that I had run into this situation intent on being a hero or valid-hunting, when that wasn't the case.

I've played here a long time and work pretty hard to run fairly good command positions - facilitating crew and RP and helping slow rounds along with events and so on and so forth - and working command is a nightmare half the time, but if we're going to get punished for situations like this, it really sucks all the fun out of it. It would have been nice to feel like Pikl really understood the situation before handing out the ban, and that he had an understanding of working understaffed command in this kind of scenario, but none of this came across...

All this out-in-the-open ninja had to do in order to not be EMPed was comply as he said he would do after he was warned, or, use his ninja skills with any level of competence to avoid the situation after he decided to go bad-antag mode.

My wrongdoing was discharging an EMP that was a little bigger than I expected, which I'm sorry about, but more of a "oh, sorry guys, won't do that again" level of sorry, not a "ban me from command and note my account" level of sorry, thus the complaint.

I'd like to see the actual RULE that I broke here.

Also: Didn't the ninja break a rule by suicide for no discernible reason?

[pickled_tomato]

Here's the ban-appeal that lead to this complaint being made: https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=8377

I will restate the points as to why I initially banned you. You threw an EMP in the brig's processing room at a singular ninja while being surrounded by security. When questioned, you seemed unwilling to admit that you might have faulted, and proceeded to do nothing but defend your actions. You showed no signs of reformation. You only continued to argue. While your arguments are fine, and the context is good to know, it didn't change my view of what you did. You responded to the ninja attempting to drive the round with you by throwing EMP grenades at him.

At this point, a week ban on playing command was placed. I had hoped that you would take the time to sit out of command roles, and think about your actions. Instead, you created an unban request so quickly, the round hadn't yet finished. In this unban request you state something that suggests that you understand that your actions were a little excessive, and that you did not know that EMPs were that large. Because of this, I shortened the ban time from 7 days to 3 days. I will admit, the initial ban was excessive, given your records. As such, I have/had no issue in the idea of a three day ban.

I don't believe I am misunderstanding what went on. You're saying the same things in different ways and implying that my inexperience and lack of knowledge is why I cannot comprehend what you did. I believe that I understand what happened. The ninja put its blade to your chest, said in LOOC "I'm about to do something dumb", and you took the chance to toss an EMP, and beat the ninja with your telescopic baton. All while surrounded by members of security, because you believe they couldn't do their jobs. You disregarded your own pain, the pain of everyone around you, and the overall overboard nature of throwing an EMP.

You choose to ignore the reality that you simply should not have thrown the EMP. You have passive aggressively stated about three times that you have asked me what you should have done, and I have not given you answers. I have given you answers. Don't throw the EMP, use non-lethal methods. Use something in your armory that does not involve friendly firing the entirety of security, including yourself. Use rubber rounds, a taser, or a stunbaton. You could done absolutely anything aside from the obvious "Do not use lethals in lethal doses." I have said this at least three times, including in my PMs with you. I expect you to be able to piece together that EMPing was not the right answer, and that you have an infinite amount of other options, including the fact that you were surrounded by security, IN security, on a station owned by your company. You could have even let the ninja continue, as they seemed more than willing to RP out the conflict without you chucking an EMP grenade.

Even with all of this. JKJudgeX, it's a three day ban on command staff roles. At the time this complaint was made, you had one day left in the ban. The fact that this is a permanent note on your record should not matter to you, if you plan on following the rules in the future.

I'll give you a list of rules that you grazed upon, or broke.

Don't be a dick. We're all here to have fun, not fight and argue with assholes. Don't ruin the game for everyone else, and use common sense. This includes anything from attacking other people, starting arguments over nothing, etcetera. Note that this rule applies primarily to OOC, LOOC, AHELP, and DEADSAY.

No powergaming. Roleplay takes precedence over objectives - do not engage in behavior which would be unrealistic for your character in an attempt to win the round. For example: building weaponry, such as stungloves, without any IC reason for them. (Building something ‘pre-emptively’ is not a valid IC reason.) See the glossary for further explanation.

Characters must be believable, and well-rounded. No insane or psychotic characters. No Mary Sues. (Over the top characters, characters who know too much, have no weaknesses, etcetera.)

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.

Only escalate conflict in a realistic manner - some characters might overreact, but you would not realistically go berserk or attempt to kill someone if they stole your prized pen, for instance. Again, your character must be motivated enough to commit to more drastic action, as they undertake it.

No ganking. While antags will sometimes kill, it is expected for you to provide interesting roleplay to your targets first, if your goal is assassination. This does not mean that you need to monologue your opponent before killing them: roleplay leading up to a murder can take place over the course of the entire round, for example, leaving the murder scene itself to be “wordlessâ€. Collateral damage is acceptable within reason, but this means you must use common sense, and avoid creating scenarios with a lot of potential for collateral (setting bombs in high-traffic areas, etc.)

----------------------------------

 

We stand off, I present the grenade, and here I give him a great deal of time to teleport away or otherwise escape, or attack me (I wasn't trying to end this guy's round). He stealths so I toss the grenade... lots of people are EMPed (no one died, I didn't know the EMP grenade was quite THAT big), and the ninja is attempting to run after he reappears. I baton his legs to put him down and try to remove his gear. None of that works, so, I retreat from the room, intending to leave the rest of the job to security, and order him detained again.

 

If you would like a quick summary of why you were command banned, this is it. (no one died) is not an acceptable justification for tossing an EMP grenade, a weapon that you were apparently not familiar with, into a crowd of people who did not intend/have enough time to move out of the way. These people had prosthetics, and may have had prosthetic hearts. Your decision was a poor one, and you were command banned for it. For seven days, shortened to three days. I believe you have a muddled perception as to what the command ban is meant to do. You can still play. As I've said, I wanted for you to think upon what happened. I would consider a command ban to be of relatively low severity. The fact that you mostly only play characters who are in command roles is not my issue.

I would like to end my post by asking you, JKJudgeX, what are you still angry or unsatisfied with? What would you like me to further do for you? I have already shortened your ban. We do not remove notes, ever. I'm curious as to where this goes from here.

[JKJudgeX]

I'm not angry, I just had a complaint because I think your handling of the situation was poor, and I wanted to voice it so that it would be known, since you are a trial moderator, to act as record for anyone else who might think that your management of other situations are also poor.

Also, you told me twice to give you a staff complaint if I was unhappy with the way that you handled it, and, I did find your method of handling the situation to be lacking the finesse that most of the other moderators and admins show with this kind of situation.

I'm pretty sure your explanation of why what I did was a bad move and my subsequent admission that I didn't know the EMP grenade was quite that large would have adequately sufficed to prevent me from doing it again. It was an honest mistake, and one that I should have never been pushed into had the antag A) held to his RP'd words, B) Played smarter leading up to the situation, or C) reacted to prevent the discharging of the EMP in a more competent way.

Myself, the rest of command, and security had been more than accommodating to this guy for over an hour, and we openly participated in his gimmick. Being told you will be shut down if you make another security problem and then being let completely off the hook (as he was) and then IMMEDIATELY provoking a response is poor play, and you should have, in my opinion, recognized that. We also had the option of responding with completely lethal force the instant he pulled a blade on myself and security, which, in my opinion, would have been the bad play... instead, walking away from him for a couple minutes, and giving him a ridiculously long time to react to the EMP grenade's presence by either teleporting out or de-escalating the situation with words (both things I *thought* he would attempt), he did not.

Given my lack of knowledge of the ridiculous size of the EMP grenade, our prior attempts to shut him down, and his actions, I felt I didn't have much else of a choice, and even after the admittedly not best choice was made, the round COULD have gone on, if he hadn't made ANOTHER bad choice and committed suicide for absolutely non-existent RP reasons (no one was threatening his life, he had made no clear indication of an assassination target, and it killed no one but him).

Like I've said, in many other situations, the raw action of rolling up on a ninja and randomly throwing an EMP grenade to lolvalid, yeah, I get it... but again, no one had to die here even after my actions and your verbal reprimand would have clearly sufficed to prevent me from taking further actions... especially given that you can see I had no other command violations after holding a whitelist for what? Well over a year and a half now, even playing a Research Director that is widely known to be a cold and brutal antagonist, never have I "abused" command.

I DID think about what happened, and the more I remember the stupidity of that situation and the antag's actions, the less I find your decision to have had any wisdom in it. Most antags in that situation would have been outright killed with little to no reaction time, and no bans of any sort would have likely been given out - and this one was being cooperated with instead... so...

There is one thing I'd like from you actually... which rule did I break? I get it that you weren't a fan of how I played the situation, but, honestly, if there's an actual role ban, even for 5 minutes, there should be a rule cited that was broken, so, please, which rule?

And thank you for your time, please don't imply that I'm angry. I wouldn't have posted this if you hadn't asked me to do it twice and if you had removed the note from my record. A note for a note seems fair to me in this kind of situation.

[pickled_tomato]

There is one thing I'd like from you actually... which rule did I break? I get it that you weren't a fan of how I played the situation, but, honestly, if there's an actual role ban, even for 5 minutes, there should be a rule cited that was broken, so, please, which rule?

I'll give you a list of rules that you grazed upon, or broke.

Don't be a dick. We're all here to have fun, not fight and argue with assholes. Don't ruin the game for everyone else, and use common sense. This includes anything from attacking other people, starting arguments over nothing, etcetera. Note that this rule applies primarily to OOC, LOOC, AHELP, and DEADSAY.

No powergaming. Roleplay takes precedence over objectives - do not engage in behavior which would be unrealistic for your character in an attempt to win the round. For example: building weaponry, such as stungloves, without any IC reason for them. (Building something ‘pre-emptively’ is not a valid IC reason.) See the glossary for further explanation.

Characters must be believable, and well-rounded. No insane or psychotic characters. No Mary Sues. (Over the top characters, characters who know too much, have no weaknesses, etcetera.)

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.

Only escalate conflict in a realistic manner - some characters might overreact, but you would not realistically go berserk or attempt to kill someone if they stole your prized pen, for instance. Again, your character must be motivated enough to commit to more drastic action, as they undertake it.

No ganking. While antags will sometimes kill, it is expected for you to provide interesting roleplay to your targets first, if your goal is assassination. This does not mean that you need to monologue your opponent before killing them: roleplay leading up to a murder can take place over the course of the entire round, for example, leaving the murder scene itself to be “wordlessâ€. Collateral damage is acceptable within reason, but this means you must use common sense, and avoid creating scenarios with a lot of potential for collateral (setting bombs in high-traffic areas, etc.)

I wouldn't have posted this if you hadn't asked me to do it twice and if you had removed the note from my record.

We do not remove notes, ever.

I'm unsure as to what else I can do for you.

[JKJudgeX]

There is one thing I'd like from you actually... which rule did I break? I get it that you weren't a fan of how I played the situation, but, honestly, if there's an actual role ban, even for 5 minutes, there should be a rule cited that was broken, so, please, which rule?

I'll give you a list of rules that you grazed upon, or broke.

Don't be a dick. We're all here to have fun, not fight and argue with assholes. Don't ruin the game for everyone else, and use common sense. This includes anything from attacking other people, starting arguments over nothing, etcetera. Note that this rule applies primarily to OOC, LOOC, AHELP, and DEADSAY.

No powergaming. Roleplay takes precedence over objectives - do not engage in behavior which would be unrealistic for your character in an attempt to win the round. For example: building weaponry, such as stungloves, without any IC reason for them. (Building something ‘pre-emptively’ is not a valid IC reason.) See the glossary for further explanation.

Characters must be believable, and well-rounded. No insane or psychotic characters. No Mary Sues. (Over the top characters, characters who know too much, have no weaknesses, etcetera.)

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.

Only escalate conflict in a realistic manner - some characters might overreact, but you would not realistically go berserk or attempt to kill someone if they stole your prized pen, for instance. Again, your character must be motivated enough to commit to more drastic action, as they undertake it.

No ganking. While antags will sometimes kill, it is expected for you to provide interesting roleplay to your targets first, if your goal is assassination. This does not mean that you need to monologue your opponent before killing them: roleplay leading up to a murder can take place over the course of the entire round, for example, leaving the murder scene itself to be “wordlessâ€. Collateral damage is acceptable within reason, but this means you must use common sense, and avoid creating scenarios with a lot of potential for collateral (setting bombs in high-traffic areas, etc.)

I wouldn't have posted this if you hadn't asked me to do it twice and if you had removed the note from my record.

We do not remove notes, ever.

I'm unsure as to what else I can do for you.

 

First of all "grazed upon"? You could use that kind of language at your whim, anytime, let's be a bit more realistic.

*sigh* okay, let's do this one by one...

1) Thanks for implying that I was ever a dick in dealing with you on this issue via AHELP OOC or whatever. I certainly was NOT a dick in-game, re-read what I've posted and my log for proof of that. Strike 1.

2) Power-gaming? There was no power-gaming here, at all. If this use of the EMP on a ninja was powergaming, then I contest that ANY AND ALL uses of the EMP on a ninja would be powergaming. The tools at play were openly discussed, all other non-lethal options had been exhausted first, and NO SURPRISE or PRE-EMPTIVE acquisition of the tools occurred. At all. In any way. Also, I was called into this situation because there was no HoS, and it's being treated as though I was on some kind of mission to ruin this antag's round - I was trying to do other stuff away from the ninja. So, strike 2.

3) Nothing unbelievable happened here from me, myself and my character did not know the exact range of an EMP grenade. Lessons were learned by accident here. All other actions were clearly explained and justified to multiple other characters, and fit with the narrative of the ninja being told to not cause any more security issues and then immediately, inexplicably doing so. You might want to consider that action by the antag to be unbelievable, or his suicide with no rationale... but nothing that I did was irrational at all. I clearly stated multiple times that I was trying to disarm the situation diplomatically and with no dead bodies. I did so until he committed suicide. He walked free from note and ban though, so, again, that's why you're getting this complaint because you aren't addressing the mistakes that others made that contributed to this or acknowledging primary fault where it belongs . You are blaming ME for "grazing upon" these rules that were actually BROKEN to cause my "grazing" (which I reject entirely). So, strike 3.

4) 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 if you read what I've said, there was plenty of consideration to this. Also, I was told that the kind of cybernetics I had were immune to EMP in OOC shortly beforehand when I asked, and that turned out to be inaccurate or I had chosen the wrong ones or misunderstood something there, not that my character would "avoid pain" (especially rather small pain) in a situation dealing with a lawbreaking character who had JUST demonstrated a willingness to harm crew violently. So, strike 4.

5) Escalation of conflict here was slow, in at least 5 stages, and did not even escalate to "trying to kill someone" as is the example in said rule. Strike 5.

6) Ganking traditionally refers to killing someone, especially without reason or role-play beforehand. No one was killed. No one was ganked. No one died. This was done with warning and a bunch of quoted RP beforehand, and with ample time for the antagonist to react and save himself. So, strike 6.

So, I get it, you wanted to "throw the book" at me here, but I think to any reasonable observer of the actual situation or avid reader of this back and forth as well as my ban appeal it's pretty clear that I had no harmful intent, and at WORST misused an EMP grenade that I didn't understand. No actual rules were broken, or even close to broken...

Honestly, the fact that you would TRY to throw that many rules into the mix indicates poor judgement in this kind of scenario.

SS13 is a complicated game. I get it, but you really should be able to point to a rule I actually broke, or some horrible lapse of judgement outside of a single underestimation of the blast radius of a piece of equipment or ACTUALLY ganky behavior or something before you throw a ban.

Lastly, about the note, if you're going to play with absolutism and things that are literally 100% permanent, you should be much, much, much more selective and careful of when you opt to place them. You've essentially given me a tattoo that will be looked at, even by wise, veteran mods and administrators, and wielded against me for the remainder of the time that I play on this server, and my next encounter with someone equally unseasoned could very well result in a permanent ban. I've had way, way worse, way more meta, way more ganky, clear breakings of the rules against me that I've adminhelped in the past and not a single note or punishment was given, so, yeah, I got pretty upset by having the rulebook thrown at me over something this light, unintentional, and very carefully executed and decided. It's really unfortunate that you can't understand that and are a moderator who will doubtlessly be faced with hundreds more situations like this.

It's pretty clear that you can't nail a rule to any of this, so, I'll leave it at that.

Thanks for participating and reading what I had to say, thank you for your time, and I hope we can continue to play together on mended terms and with a clearer disposition in the future.

[pickled_tomato]

I appreciate the feedback. While I respectfully disagree with you over the rules, I believe you have a good point with the impact of a note. (Though, every time we have to talk to someone over something, we note it.) The job of a moderator is not one that should be taken lightly. I apologize if I have not been as clear as I could have been when it came to this whole ordeal. I'm glad to see you ended on such a nice note. Thank you for that.

[Garnascus]

The original week ban from command roles was pretty silly but i think the three day here was valid. Over the past few months you have a few notes which basically boil down to egregious lapses in judgement. This situation is another such incident and one that could have been avoided had you let your security staff deal with him or even used an ion rifle instead. Its overall incredibly bizarre and given your notes and how long you've played here its kind of your responsibility to know the effect of the weapon you're choosing to use. I could understand if you where a new player. you are not a new player. No i do not expect you to know absolutely everything.

Our server rules create a contract, a manifesto of the type of behavior we expect of people. When people make bad decisions IC that cause too much of a problem we like to steer them a more appropriate direction. things like "hey maybe its not such a good idea to try to turn the bar into a slime ranch by yourself.... maybe get some help? " You where playing as a command character so the standard of judgement is higher im afraid.

[JKJudgeX]

The original week ban from command roles was pretty silly but i think the three day here was valid. Over the past few months you have a few notes which basically boil down to egregious lapses in judgement. This situation is another such incident and one that could have been avoided had you let your security staff deal with him or even used an ion rifle instead. Its overall incredibly bizarre and given your notes and how long you've played here its kind of your responsibility to know the effect of the weapon you're choosing to use. I could understand if you where a new player. you are not a new player. No i do not expect you to know absolutely everything.

Our server rules create a contract, a manifesto of the type of behavior we expect of people. When people make bad decisions IC that cause too much of a problem we like to steer them a more appropriate direction. things like "hey maybe its not such a good idea to try to turn the bar into a slime ranch by yourself.... maybe get some help? " You where playing as a command character so the standard of judgement is higher im afraid.

 

I get that. It was a very hectic situation altogether, and, probably wouldn't have happened had there been a HoS or someone else around who had any idea of what to do with a ninja. I certainly don't know how you are "supposed" to handle them. I really thought I gave this antag more than adequate opportunities to escape the situation either 100% peacefully or by using his abilities. If you know anything about how I play it's that I tend to prefer being the antagonist and usually have a soft-spot for them and try to let them do their thing unless they are straight up murderboning people. I'm much less of a valid-hunter, I can PROMISE YOU, than some existing staff, but, I won't go into that or name names.

Would I have been in equal trouble had I just said, "security, shoot this guy!"? They'd already told me tasers weren't working so they'd have probably used lethals. I feel like that's what would have happened to me if I were the ninja and I did that same thing.

The reason I feel bad about this decision is because there was little else to be done and it keeps being presented over and over as though we hadn't explored the other options of subduing this ninja. They asking him nicely, tasers, cuffs, etc, and had I not been told that his suit was the source of his power, I'd have not used EMP weapons. At a certain point it gets very, very difficult to justify the use of an EMP grenade, EVER, if this particular incident is taken as precedent. I certainly can't dream up a situation besides mALF AI in which an EMP (being larger than a screen) could ever be justifiably thrown without running the risk of harming someone's cybernetics.

The reason I made this complaint and am sticking to it is also because the nature of Pikl's complaint against me shifted from essentially calling me a validhunter, that I was using meta knowledge (even though I clearly explained that we'd discussed IC all of this and reasoned out the use of EMP), to "putting people in danger with an EMP" which is the true one that I admit to with my own ignorance, and then if you look above I even got called on breaking the "don't be a dick" rule even though I'm pretty sure I've been 100% cordial about this whole matter, and so on.

So, yeah, the "shifting sands" strategy of sentencing someone, and not being able to really nail a rule to what I did, plus my honest explanations for why everything went the way it was (with logs), in my mind, add up to this should have never been more than a warning. It's pretty hard not to take it personally, but, I don't have any evidence that Pikl would have a reason to dislike me, or I'd go there.

Also, as a side note, ninjas suck and it's probably the literal worst gamemode still played.

[Garnascus]

All of the points you make are pretty good to be honest. You're correct that pikl flopped around a lot. I will chalk that particular strategy up to his inexperience. Its my job to guide him. I really should have caught this entire issue a lot sooner. I spoke with tishinastalker and we both feel that this issue was a kerfuffle limited to IC. It shouldn't even have been given a warning. I am going to expunge the ban from your record. its very clear that their wasn't any ill intent here.

[pickled_tomato]

I will say that this was the first time I've dealt with something this large. If the same situation repeated itself in the future, I would definitely be more likely to give a warning, or even a note, given your notes up to this point. I've learned a lot from this whole experience, so in an odd way, I must thank you for making this complaint. It has given me experience that I did not have before, and I hope I can make better decisions in the future because of it.

I apologize for any trouble you've gone through, JKJudgeX. I'm happy to hear that the ban was removed, given the hindsight that I now have. It surprises me that the ban was able to be removed, as this rarely happens, but I'm glad it did this time.

[JKJudgeX]

Thanks, garn, tishina, and pikl, I know being a mod/admin is tough business, mad respect.

Sorry to make this such a big thing, but you guys are awesome for actually reading it and discussing it. I did quietly rage-quit at first but when I thought about it I figured I should at least say something just to get it out there. I think this kind of thing is actually good for the server and says a lot about the mod and admin team. This is why I've been here for so long now, and part of why I hope to keep sticking around. I've definitely been in the wrong before, here, and taken my licks and even been a bit of a butthole a couple of times and you guys have been cool and forgiven that, so, even more props for having cool heads.

I think it was honestly just all a misunderstanding and since we all sort of agree, I'd like to withdraw my moderator complaint if that's possible, Pikl maintained professional candor throughout and wasn't dismissive or rude at all and to me that speaks well of his future here.

Thanks again.