[Resolved] Complaint - Bokaza

BYOND Key: Jackboot

Game ID: It's on discord.

Player Byond Key: Bokaza

Staff involved: Garn, the first time.

Reason for complaint: He repeatedly violates Rule 2 of our player discord - Don't be a dick.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? I brought logs of Bokaza acting this way to garn in June, right after I blocked Bokaza. Bokaza I think was spoken to, because he apologized, then immediately went right back at it. Even since originally blocking him in July, despite me not uttering a peep to him since then, he slings insults my way and about me. It's been FIVE MONTHS and he is still nursing some sort of nasty grudge. He even admits openly that he isn't doing this to be constructive - he just doesn't like me.

Approximate Date/Time: July was when this behavior got really bad, and resulted in me blocking him because he was really wearing me down.

All of these logs are just from me searching 'jackboot' in the player discord and slapping them together.

Alright, we should probably get this stuff sorted out and perhaps get a chance to finally close it. Funnily enough, someone suggested I make a staff complaint on Jackboot yesterday, so I may have my doubts as to what really sparked this complaint.

So, let me start with actually covering my somewhat long history with Jackboot. I've had interactions with Jackboot before I joined the loreteam. Sporadic, mostly in game and civil. My initial opinion was that he did not like me nor I him. Pulling concrete examples would be tiresome and hard by now, so you can chalk it up fully to my subjective feelings, besides, the complaint is not about Jackboot, it's about me trying to justify my poor behavior. Regardless, the initial opinion is more often than not a lasting one. Eventually, I got involved in lore discussions and lore app writing, which culminated in me asking to join the loreteam. I decided to bury any hard feelings I've had under a pseudo manager-underling relationship simply because it was a proper thing to do and at that point there were irrelevant anyway.

After my introduction to the team, I started working on wikis an' stuff. Some issues started to pop up that bothered me, not linked with Jackboot's performance directly. Restrictive Dev team oversight, massive lore inconsistencies, lack of an ordered lore subforum, all of which I did believe back then and now stood as a direct obstacle towards making the lore great again. So I started to try and suggest some changes, voice my concerns and help facilitate improvements. I was generally met with indifference, disagreement or simply quiet. It's been a really long time and my memory is faulty, but people are welcome to voice their own coversions. I do believe I did not try and get them around Jackboot, but through, which is how I showed respect to the 'office' of Loremaster. However, if or not the hierarchy was ever actually there is irrelevant. I do believe that having a strong, focused lead is paramount to a proper creative process. I may have harped on before that Jackboot lacked vision, but I cannot know that without reading his mind. Whatever it was, I never saw it. We burned through several loredevs who I've always believed mirrored my own feelings towards the entire affair. Directionless, I started lose willpower myself, making myself busy with minor projects. It wasn't all awful, I think it was just awful overall. In the end, I think his biggest failure was communication, which anyone with any sort of authority, however small, must do.

I have to admit that the final straw was a bit more selfish in nature than the actual care for the lore. I will omit details for sake of not involving them, but basically, a question of writing something was raised. I expressed several times I wished to work on it, outlining my ideas and getting very little if any feedback as usual. I did believe everyone was writing whatever the fuck they wanted during my entire tenure on the team. So, when Jackboot proceeded to uplift someone who's been on the server barely a month to do the job. Any respect I've had for Jackboot was gone at that moment. From there, my eventual decline into a feathered hateboner started. Later, Hive, who later admitted he lived with Jackboot, convinced me to leave the loreteam. After that, I was still salty yet conscious about it and attempts to bridge the disagreement were made on both side, especially Jackboot's. However, since then, my behavior concerning Jackboot has become basically a meme. In fact, for the longest of time my behavior prompted no punitive action at all and I my escapades had active co-participants. As such, I did not actually feel I was breaching any code of conduct.

Now, my memory is faulty, but I do believe I was either warned or realized I was going to far eventually, which should be the fifth screencap. Ironically enough, I don't actually believe Jackboot's writing is bad. I've read his short story and even though I told him it was shit and uncreative, it was actually pretty good. My sentences are just a result of kind of vitriol talking to Jackboot and lore brings forth from me, there is no forethought or reason to them. This is what I mean by personal history. From that point onward, though, 26th of June, I was actually adamant at avoiding lore entirely, even hiding the lore discussion channel, for the sake of my own mental health. However, months later, someone mentioned plasma physics in general chat (something I like to talk about) and I started trying to hammer down the physics of plasma, warp drives, hyperdrives with Hayden (someone I like to chat with) in the lore chat (a topic it was made for). I viewed it as more of a mental exercise than actual lore writing. Middle way through the discussion, Jackboot started detracting from the argument with throwaway phrases such as "It's just a game.", "It doesn't matter.", "This is a fantasy universe.". Mind you, I don't remember him ever actually contributing constructive to the conversation and I don't know his reasons for trying to detract from a simple discussion. I broke the discussion to stop myself from engaging further. I do believe I mostly did stick to it, since there are no real outbursts I remember since then. Although if anyone can provide screens I can help clear what happened.

Eventually, Jackboot informed me that he had effectively blocked me, which annoyed me considering we were participating in a conversation under political. I, maybe mistakenly, considered it a slight "Fuck you." and interpreted it as Jackboot's wish to not actually see anything I write, because that's what a block is, essentially. As such, I continued memeing the horrendous "Jackboot sucks" meme despite being aware it was not wise. Yes, it is in poor taste. Yes, I was warned. But as human psychology goes, the longer you do something unpunished the harder it is to stop. Maybe, if Wrath of God was immediate, Christians wouldn't be collective hypocrites, ehh?

But yes, I don't know what else to add. In the grand scheme of things if or not I am right about Jackboot doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things, the vitriol he gets from me is not justified and I do feel a slight sense of shame for being a sperg. I may add more information later, but I don't have anything else to say in my defense and any apology is pointless at this point. I give the apology anyway, however insincere it may seem.

I should probably note that I had this discussion with Bokaza in the past over this very same issue during my tenure as a staff member during the course of July when I issued a discord strike over this behavior on the 28th. I was convinced off from permanently removing you from the discord for harassing other staff members over a long period of time before that.

If this is still an issue almost 5 months later then I don't know what's going on with Bokaza especially since he doesn't even play on the server in any dedicated capacity, just looks like he's around to shitpost and troll.

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Context: These screenshots are from July 28th to provide context for how bad this got some time ago. You're a fool if you take it out of that context, read the entire post.

While one thing that certainly hasn't changed is JB's lack of tact since then, and often JB creates these issues on his own by simply not being smart with how he communicates with criticism whether snide or not, it doesn't warrant any further harassment from Bokaza. It's surprising to say the least that Bokaza is still doing this, but I already know how this story ends.

Saying the lore is bad, retarded, shit should not be bannable. I agree with Bokaza in a few areas. There are parts of the lore that make no sense and does not give players on server anything to interact with in game, time would be much better spent focusing on game-affecting lore, rather than silly fluff six systems away.

Saying you are a shit manager that needs to be replaced, is also not something to complain about. People are allowed to dislike you, people are allowed to hate you, and yes - even go so far as saying that your conduct as a staff member is shit.

Skull himself has called me a 'fucking idiot' many times, in OOC, in DSAY, and perhaps even in discord once or twice - in a serious manner.

People would be less inclined to insult you if you stopped blocking them and listened to their concerns about the lore they don't like, instead of thinking your lore is perfect.

I'll also point out you can go through my entire conversation history with Jackboot, and only recently have I outright called him a bad lore person, and in our PMs, our conversations have always been mostly cordial, as far back as I have read.

Here are some random examples of Jackboot refusing to have lore (or his own character) questioned:

http://puu.sh/yqLHl/0f222b6a62.png

http://puu.sh/yqLPh/548a42a2c5.png

http://puu.sh/yqLPj/566f7bb37f.png

http://puu.sh/yqLRD/2d40c2c34d.png

People would be less inclined to insult you if you stopped blocking them and listened to their concerns about the lore they don't like, instead of thinking your lore is perfect.

This is why you are blocked on Discord. You do this all the time. I'm not obligated to deal with it. You can still communicate and provide feedback and lore suggestions here on the forum, where I don't block people due to my position.

I'll also point out you can go through my entire conversation history with Jackboot, and only recently have I outright called him a bad lore person, and in our PMs, our conversations have always been mostly cordial, as far back as I have read.

Here are some random examples of Jackboot refusing to have lore (or his own character) questioned:

http://puu.sh/yqLHl/0f222b6a62.png

http://puu.sh/yqLPh/548a42a2c5.png

http://puu.sh/yqLPj/566f7bb37f.png

http://puu.sh/yqLRD/2d40c2c34d.png

File a separate complaint. This is about Bokaza.

I do believe I have curbed my behavior since then, I haven't done nearily as much shitposting between then and now as you seem to or want to believe. But I can't blame you for not knowing that, Delta. Instead, I will actually ask another member of the staff who's not clearly emotionally involved to attest to that fact that I didn't have any escapades against Jackboot that were actually strikeworthy. I have been actively avoiding any contact with him for sake of peace as I have previously explained.

But perhaps that is not what you want to hear. Then, I'll say it. I am sorry my own autistic obsession over the lore has ruined Jackboot's, yours or anyone else's creative experience. I am honestly sorry. There is nothing to call it but pure uncut autism fueled by anger and disappointment. I have even in the outlined posts explained that I've given up on any point concerning the quality of the lore or lore itself. You can see that in the last sentence of the last post, "Does rose-petals around it make it sound more reasonable than it actually is."

What I've been doing by shitting on Jackboot are mostly theatrics that people seem to like participating in and I am honestly disappointing that Jackboot, and you, seem have failed to understand this. In words of the internet "It's just a meme, bro."

I'll also add, the assertion that I mainly lurk on discord to shitpost is untrue. I lurk because I like talking to people from Aurora. I do it so often I sometimes do it while emotionally distraught so I come out as an asshole. These times only seem like a majority if one tries and keep track of it.

You haven't curbed anything.. It's five months later and you're still calling me garbage, a retard, and saying you don't like me for personal reasons.

I didn't mean stop, I meant reduced the frequency. The intensity was also reduced. And it's not against the rules to not like you, Jackboot.

What I've been doing by shitting on Jackboot are mostly theatrics that people seem to like participating in and I am honestly disappointing that Jackboot, and you, seem have failed to understand this. In words of the internet "It's just a meme, bro."

Memes are meant to be funny. It's not funny.

I'm just going to post here to establish a few things.

Firstly, I have no intention of punishing someone for things that have happened months ago, though I'll mostly be dealing with the recent incidents. There's a clear time gap between the logs, with most of these logs between JB and Bokaza date back to an incident 5-6 months away, there are a few logs for the last 2 days which will be our focus. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, it's how they present it that makes the difference. Jokes are inclusive, I shouldn't be pointing out that making fun of someone in a medium where they too can see it isn't right and a violation of our rules on the discord. So Bokaza isn't completely excused, it's just I won't be doing any administrative actions to ancient incidents unless they're extreme, which this isn't.

Secondly, when looking at this, I don't think Bokaza is the only issue. Jackboot can act really condescending to people, which leads to these things in the first place. You can't really expect to drop the last word, block them and then expect that'll be the end of the issue in question. You also shouldn't be letting these things sit.

Now, I think Bokaza beyond this dispute between the two of you as a decent person, you just need to learn the difference between constructive criticism and just insulting someone. There's a difference between calling a person "retarded" and commenting why you believe the work is bad.

So as of now. I won't strike you [mention]Bokaza[/mention] , because if you do decide to go on a rant in the same vain devoid of anything constructive beyond insulting, ad-hominen, or just for the sake of being a dick. I'm going to apply a ban. Banter and humor is inclusive, it shouldn't be done on the expense of a person that is as much a member of the community as you are.

As for [mention]Senpai Jackboot[/mention], I said this before, but you can't just expect you can block people after being condescending or passive aggressive to them to be the end of it. You're part of the blame here.

As for the rest of you, and future posters. If you're going to post, it's to bring new points or evidence to light. I don't want back and forth arguments without any substance as I will just delete them. I'm going to leave this open for another 48 hours unless new things are brought to light.