[Resolved] Staff complaint: Sharp, Datamatt (Special Discord Edition)

Discord discriminator: Bauser#2332

BYOND key: Bauser

Staff BYOND Key: Aboshehab, and I don't know Datamatt's (not that BYOND keys are terribly relevant to this complaint)

Reason for complaint: Just a fundamental disagreement of priorities that led to my being banned from the Aurora Discord and then (temporarily) the Aurora forum. It is my (abbreviated) interpretation of events that I was banned from the Discord for using inflammatory language in response to other users' material that I believed to be damaging to the community character. As most of you reading this know, I am guilty of employing this language. However, I contend that the severity of that misconduct is insignificant next to the severity of the offenses I hoped to abate by enacting it and that, in total, I have always maintained the best interest of Aurora Station. Therefore, I believe the outward contempt I have expressed at times was justified, and the administration has disagreed. My goals in making this complaint are only to convince the administration of my good will and (ideally) reverse the decision that was recently made in my appeal.

In detail,

Point proven. Extending appeal limitation to 24th of July and applying a 3 day forum ban.

By creating the conditions that warrant hostility and then demonizing that hostility, you have proven nothing but the fact that this entire episode is an overblown farce by a few people who would happily sweep any substantive problem under the rug as long as they can maintain a guise of cordiality. But no, as soon as someone says some mean words, you'll pull up your big-boy panties and hand out bans so you can remind everyone not to start any fuss and all go back to pretending everything's peachy. It's just avoidance, and while that would be offensive enough to me on its own, I've enjoyed the unique privilege of taking the fall for it, too.

I understand your reasoning here - you don't want your community to be contentious, because you want it to be attractive to lots of people. So you enact an orderly injustice that is palatable to everybody by not having any actual ideology or sentiment. I get it. I'm just telling you that it's wrong, on the grounds that plenty of things are worth getting worked up over. This way, everyone can make an informed decision about what is more important to them. I don't remember the details of everything I argued about on the Discord, but I can say with complete certainty that I only did it because I believed it would help correct some critical failure for the end goal of a better server. It goes like this: Calling people bad names is mean, but telling people they shouldn't feed the homeless is evil. I did the former to combat the latter. Literally. That was an argument I had, because it was an argument that needed to be had, and if I didn't do it, no one was going to.

Then, I wait a month for things to cool down, and ask to be readmitted. My thought process is that we could all start over, since all that trouble was ancient history (or so I thought). Then I see you're gonna refuse to engage with the subject matter of my appeal, you're gonna close it in a day, you're going to tell me I can't talk about it for another month, then yeah, I'm gonna tell you to go fuck yourselves. No, it's not nice. It's not supposed to be nice. What it's supposed to be is an appropriate reaction to realizing I was talking to a brick wall and muted (like usual) before I'm done making my case (like usual). Your actions demonstrated that, in your minds, there was no correct response except complete prostration. That approach works when you're telling griefers why they can't murder whoever they want in-game, but it's not appropriate when the rules themselves are what's in question. It's what got me banned from the Discord, and it's what got me banned from the forum: just a popularity contest. And I hardly doubt it's coincidence that the three people who handled my appeal were exactly the three people who wanted me banned (Schev), decided I should be banned (Matt), and actually banned me (Sharp).

I'm not an unreasonable person. Not by a long shot. Basically everybody I've been playing the game with for the last four months could substantiate that. Basically every other interaction I've had on the forum could substantiate that. But everyone involved in this charade has let me down at every step in the process. The reason I got banned from the Discord is that I care enough to confront people who drag us down, and yet, I am told that I insulted people "for no reason." If you just want to keep me out because I'm not pleasant to be around, great, OK, I know I don't get invited to parties - but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone think you're doing it because it's the right thing to do.

Evidence/logs/etc: In the absence of the Discord, I am unable to furnish logs which I could use to help explain my reasoning. At anyone's behest, if I am provided with a record of my messages and their context, I will gladly answer for each and every thing I said.

Additional remarks: I am quite sure I would like to be unbanned more than any of you would like me to stay banned, for whatever that's worth. I always valued the opportunity to interact with people amicably on the Discord, and I made that reality known even at the time these troubles were ongoing. Any difficulty which escalated as a result of my presence, I engaged with not because it brought me any joy, but because I felt it was necessary. It may sound paradoxical, but I said the same thing then: If I am ever vulgar and aggressive, it is only because I sincerely believe that we can make progress by this arguing. If I didn't care about any of you or think that you were worth talking to, I would ignore you.

Reason for complaint: Just a fundamental disagreement of priorities that led to my being banned from the Aurora Discord and then (temporarily) the Aurora forum.

 

You actually got banned for being a dick where such behavior is strictly not allowed. Especially considering to what lengths you went to 'facilitate argumentative discourse', which amounts as much as it did, the way you went about it. You didn't do this just once, either, so I don't think the server staff were necessarily 'mistaken' in banning you. You also were given a lot of advance warning-- which you chose to ignore, and are now effectively complaining that the server staff punished you for something you were warned multiple times not to do.

 

However, I contend that the severity of that misconduct is insignificant next to the severity of the offenses I hoped to abate by enacting it and that, in total, I have always maintained the best interest of Aurora Station. Therefore, I believe the outward contempt I have expressed at times was justified, and the administration has disagreed. My goals in making this complaint are only to convince the administration of my good will and (ideally) reverse the decision that was recently made in my appeal.

 

How do you suppose discussion on personal morals relates whatsoever to how the community is moderated, as to what rules are being upheld, and what environment is intended to be cultivated?

Why do you think harassment, in any form or case, is remotely justified?

It's okay to have an opinion. It's not okay to either be a self-righteous keyboard warrior that relentlessly attacks other people over the internet even when told to stop both by staff and the person telling you to quit harassing them, just because you hold an opinion in strong opposition of another person.

If you feel so strongly against other people being able to express their opinion over the internet, you should stop using it. Because it is genuinely causing you more harm than good from a psychological standpoint.

 

By creating the conditions that warrant hostility and then demonizing that hostility, you have proven nothing but the fact that this entire episode is an overblown farce by a few people who would happily sweep any substantive problem under the rug as long as they can maintain a guise of cordiality. But no, as soon as someone says some mean words, you'll pull up your big-boy panties and hand out bans so you can remind everyone not to start any fuss and all go back to pretending everything's peachy. It's just avoidance, and while that would be offensive enough to me on its own, I've enjoyed the unique privilege of taking the fall for it, too.

 

Hostility is never warranted in this community, I don't know where you got this perception that it was. You have openly admitted you have the rules channel muted. You do not make the standards, nor do you have any room to talk on any such standards if you refuse to care for them. You may choose to take hours out of your time to write up vicious slander about other people on the internet and act like a stalker, but you really shouldn't be surprised when community staff choose to punish you for this behavior. That is the epitome of consequence right there and I'm quite glad the system works.

I have zero idea as to how you intend to be taken seriously with this kind of disrespectful, intolerant and malicious mindset that you're very intent on bringing back to the discord.

 

I understand your reasoning here - you don't want your community to be contentious, because you want it to be attractive to lots of people. So you enact an orderly injustice that is palatable to everybody by not having any actual ideology or sentiment. I get it. I'm just telling you that it's wrong, on the grounds that plenty of things are worth getting worked up over. This way, everyone can make an informed decision about what is more important to them. I don't remember the details of everything I argued about on the Discord, but I can say with complete certainty that I only did it because I believed it would help correct some critical failure for the end goal of a better server. It goes like this: Calling people bad names is mean, but telling people they shouldn't feed the homeless is evil. I did the former to combat the latter. Literally. That was an argument I had, because it was an argument that needed to be had, and if I didn't do it, no one was going to.

 

No, actually, that is not the reason the rules are being enforced. Nobody wants to hop onto the server to play a game to be called retarded by someone such as yourself and that they'd enjoy urinating on them (like, ew, you actually said that) because of strong opinions that they hold.

Harassment does many things to work against an enjoyable environment. The part that you did not recognize this is, regrettable, at best.

I think it is very interesting how you continue to argue from a position that assumes you have moral superiority over the staff members that made this decision. This is a particular position that people who have control issues over their life commonly do; they deliberately word their arguments as if they're coming from a position of overall strength. It's extremely curious that you continue to argue with terms such as "good" and "evil", "right" and "wrong", in spite of the fact that human interaction and context works hardly like this. A good majority of relationships end because both parties did not actively seek to understand the other person's reasons for doing or saying the things they did.

But some things are just outright inexcusable to say under the guise of 'doing what is right.' Do you think 'saying what is right' is morally comparable to 'doing what is right?' Because I think if you did, you'd find other areas to spend your time in. I think you're definitely out of your own league if you think yourself as this moral authority that deserves to be brought back onto the discord community to spread your toxic way of expressing your own ideas. It is amazing how you refuse to take accountability for the things you've said, and apologize for it.

But the reason you haven't apologized is because you don't think you're wrong. You haven't learned a thing. That's why you're here with a staff complaint, I imagine, because your unban appeal didn't work out due to your outright refusal to be a man, take responsibility for what you said and why you said it, and then promise to not repeat the behavior. Why did you not do this? Is there this cognitive dissonance going on that confuses you from being able to make decisions that will actually benefit your own growth as a 'better person', or are you mostly content to stay the way you are, constantly insulting people and being overall extremely disrespectful to anyone that slights you and your supposed 'high moral standards?'

You seem to have very little of a temper or self-control. You get into enraged fits very easily. It's not hard to offend you especially if nobody is even trying. If I might appeal to you better: Wrath is a sin, largely because it drives people to make irrational decisions and act extremely destructively. Love thy neighbor as you would thy enemy, or all you do is just bring yourself down to the level of the person you supposedly are purporting as inherently evil.

 

Then, I wait a month for things to cool down, and ask to be readmitted. My thought process is that we could all start over, since all that trouble was ancient history (or so I thought). Then I see you're gonna refuse to engage with the subject matter of my appeal, you're gonna close it in a day, you're going to tell me I can't talk about it for another month, then yeah, I'm gonna tell you to go fuck yourselves. No, it's not nice. It's not supposed to be nice. What it's supposed to be is an appropriate reaction to realizing I was talking to a brick wall and muted (like usual) before I'm done making my case (like usual). Your actions demonstrated that, in your minds, there was no correct response except complete prostration. That approach works when you're telling griefers why they can't murder whoever they want in-game, but it's not appropriate when the rules themselves are what's in question. It's what got me banned from the Discord, and it's what got me banned from the forum: just a popularity contest. And I hardly doubt it's coincidence that the three people who handled my appeal were exactly the three people who wanted me banned (Schev), decided I should be banned (Matt), and actually banned me (Sharp).

 

Uno: A month passing is not 'ancient history.' Get it out of your head that people will not bring up the things you do to criticize your behavior.

Dos: A calm and collected individual with a stable frame of mind takes setbacks with grace and patience, if we wish to talk about moral standards again. A wrathful, angry and sour individual throws a massive fit over it, burning bridges as they go because it's their only way of achieving catharsis with encountering a frustrating situation. I would know, I have been there and my major New Years Resolution is for me to deal with my own anger. Not calling myself the authority on this as I still have much to learn about temperance, but I'm far along with it that I know the signs of what tests my patience.

Tres: You are overreacting and making a false dichotomy in comparing your situation with that of the average enforcement of rules over an open-and-shut case such as grief.

Cuatro: This community is a popularity contest, effectively. Make yourself unpopular and, shockingly! You will be considered undesirable in the community, and people will ask for consequences for your upstart behavior. The staff have the rights and powers to regulate who gets shown the door. Consider yourself lucky that it was only a discord ban that you earned a month ago, in addition to being forum banned for the rudeness awhile ago. It takes an amount of tolerance and patience that I do not personally have to continually allow you to be anywhere near this community.

Cinco: Yes, because of your unique way of dealing with personalities that aren't yours in addition to your very radical expression of moral precepts, I do believe you deserved the ban and that you also deserve to stay banned at the current rate you're going. The way you think of people and thusly treat them is abhorrent. Another thing you failed to consider is that the two pertaining staff members were the staff that were most exposed to your toxic behavior. You really shouldn't be surprised that they were otherwise unconvinced to unban you when you pretty much expressed nothing other than malice.

 

I am quite sure I would like to be unbanned more than any of you would like me to stay banned, for whatever that's worth.

 

I am actually laughing. This is such a hilarious observation to make in protest of a ban, because I have a funny one too. I'm sure a criminal would also like to be outside of a prison cell more than a police officer wants them to stay in it, too. The thing that the two unique situations have in common is the desire of both offenders to escape the consequences of their actions that brought them to such a resolution.

 

I always valued the opportunity to interact with people amicably on the Discord, and I made that reality known even at the time these troubles were ongoing.

 

Possibly not as much as you value hurling vile insults at other people for expressing an opinion that you otherwise misunderstood in intention and the message.

 

Any difficulty which escalated as a result of my presence, I engaged with not because it brought me any joy, but because I felt it was necessary.

 

I'm sure it was necessary from your point of view, if you felt you had something to lose in not hurling violent insults my way and towards the staff. Isn't that what the Koreans call "saving face"?

 

It may sound paradoxical, but I said the same thing then: If I am ever vulgar and aggressive, it is only because I sincerely believe that we can make progress by this arguing.

 

Don't worry, fellow Aurorastation players, "I piss on you because I enjoy it" is a progressive comment that always leads to a resolution in conflict where everyone learns something new and becomes a better person from the conversation that was had.

 

If I didn't care about any of you or think that you were worth talking to, I would ignore you.

 

I am so flattered. Really.

My goals in making this complaint are only to convince the administration of my good will and (ideally) reverse the decision that was recently made in my appeal.

 

Good will is nice and all until you hit the point of improper execution.

 

Sharp, regarding Bauser's ban, wrote:

Point proven. Extending appeal limitation to 24th of July and applying a 3 day forum ban.

By creating the conditions that warrant hostility and then demonizing that hostility, you have proven nothing but the fact that this entire episode is an overblown farce by a few people who would happily sweep any substantive problem under the rug as long as they can maintain a guise of cordiality.

 

I gave you the chance to modify your attitude. It's clear and direct that appeals are for apologetic people who understand their error, which you clearly do not.

 

 

I'm not seeing apologetic behavior here.

 

By creating the conditions that warrant hostility and then demonizing that hostility, you have proven nothing but the fact that this entire episode is an overblown farce by a few people who would happily sweep any substantive problem under the rug as long as they can maintain a guise of cordiality.

 

Going to assume I'm part of people in the above. I assure you that I don't volunteer for staff for anything beyond good intentions. This is a hobby I enjoy, I'm not in this for some power trip or drama. There's no guise. So when I'm presented with an appeal such as yours which results in you mouthing off at the end, I'm not sure what you expected. What conditions warranted hostility? Telling you that your post doesn't look apologetic? That you don't appear to have understood the purpose of the ban and learned from it?

 

But no, as soon as someone says some mean words, you'll pull up your big-boy panties and hand out bans so you can remind everyone not to start any fuss and all go back to pretending everything's peachy.

 

There was no pretending. The discord had less issues with your ban put in place. The spoiler will have some logs about you between staff.

 

I understand your reasoning here - you don't want your community to be contentious, because you want it to be attractive to lots of people. So you enact an orderly injustice that is palatable to everybody by not having any actual ideology or sentiment. I get it. I'm just telling you that it's wrong, on the grounds that plenty of things are worth getting worked up over.

 

 

The above covers it for this one.

 

This way, everyone can make an informed decision about what is more important to them. I don't remember the details of everything I argued about on the Discord, but I can say with complete certainty that I only did it because I believed it would help correct some critical failure for the end goal of a better server.

 

And we told you to stop.

 

My thought process is that we could all start over, since all that trouble was ancient history (or so I thought). Then I see you're gonna refuse to engage with the subject matter of my appeal, you're gonna close it in a day, you're going to tell me I can't talk about it for another month,

 

I feel like you need to read the thread again to understand why it was denied.

 

then yeah, I'm gonna tell you to go fuck yourselves. No, it's not nice. It's not supposed to be nice.

 

This is in fact a "you problem".

 

What it's supposed to be is an appropriate reaction to realizing I was talking to a brick wall and muted (like usual) before I'm done making my case (like usual).

 

You're supposed to present your case in the original post. If you still needed more posts to present your case, then your thread should've been worked on more. Anything beyond your original post should be for addressing concerns and to discuss, which I did allow you. Furthermore, the thread was left open for another 24 hours where you can still present further information to light, but you decided to post what you did.

 

Your actions demonstrated that, in your minds, there was no correct response except complete prostration.

 

What evidence do you have that I have been lying? I do not understand where you even bring such accusation. I deny it utterly.

 

And I hardly doubt it's coincidence that the three people who handled my appeal were exactly the three people who wanted me banned (Schev), decided I should be banned (Matt), and actually banned me (Sharp).

 

Schev is able to post input as he is involved, as could anyone else that's involved. Matt and I handled it, along with input of other staff members, this is hardly a closed door decision between just us two.

 

If you just want to keep me out because I'm not pleasant to be around, great, OK, I know I don't get invited to parties - but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone think you're doing it because it's the right thing to do.

 

The underlined is irrelevant. I am precisely keeping you out due to your unpleasant nature as shown by your violation of our discord rules. I'm also not interested in arguing with you about what's right and wrong. The rules are present, they detail what you can and cannot do. You violated said rules, we told you to knock off this trend but you didn't, you persisted. You still do not understand what you did wrong and are persistently arguing about the moral high ground which I frankly do not care about.

By creating the conditions that warrant hostility and then demonizing that hostility, you have proven nothing but the fact that this entire episode is an overblown farce by a few people who would happily sweep any substantive problem under the rug as long as they can maintain a guise of cordiality. But no, as soon as someone says some mean words, you'll pull up your big-boy panties and hand out bans so you can remind everyone not to start any fuss and all go back to pretending everything's peachy. It's just avoidance, and while that would be offensive enough to me on its own, I've enjoyed the unique privilege of taking the fall for it, too.

The "conditions" did not warrant absolutely any hostility. They were a simple set of questions to see whether or not you had improved from your Discord ban and if you changed your attitude. With your response, you confirmed that nothing changed, and so we extended the appeal period.

Now, Aboshehab has gone over the complaint itself. I am going to go over why we banned you and why we denied your appeal. Let's take a look.

- Why did we ban you from the Discord?

Quite simply, it is because of the completely unacceptable attitude you displayed. You said you had 'good will' in mind, and that you argued, but a quick look at what you said tells a completely different story. In fact, I have some quotes.

You even admitted to having the rules channel muted, it was you that said you 'enjoyed pissing on' Scheveningen. What you said was completely not out of good will, it was not an argument, it was just you throwing insults at someone else. This is completely unacceptable behaviour.

But, even still, we did not ban you immediately. Coalf and I gave you SEVERAL warnings. Now, I do not have Coalf's warnings on hand: but I have mine. Let me show you how many times I've told you to quit your attitude:

And you did not stop. You continued, until I had to have Abo ban you from the discord.

Which you then appealed some time after-- I asked you some questions to see if you had improved in that span of time. With your response to Abo and I you showed that you didn't change, and thus we extended your appeal period.

Well would you look at that, the gang's all here. Nice to see some familiar faces in the audience today.

Let's start with the fun one.

 

How do you suppose discussion on personal morals relates whatsoever to how the community is moderated, as to what rules are being upheld, and what environment is intended to be cultivated?

Morality is not personal. Most people twist it for their own ends, but that's not always the case. The discussion of morality relates to community moderation because there is an unspoken understanding that rules are put into place in order to produce greater good. They punish wrongdoing; what do you think the purpose of that is? They might not want to admit it, in case it makes me look sympathetic (and you simply couldn't allow that), but morals are the foundation on which a community is built and, more literally, the foundation on which its rules are written.

 

It's okay to have an opinion. It's not okay to either be a self-righteous keyboard warrior that relentlessly attacks other people over the internet even when told to stop both by staff and the person telling you to quit harassing them...

Not okay to you. You act as though I was uniquely harassing people, when the reality is that every vulgarity I used was a direct response to someone else making an affront against me. That's the problem with your whole approach here, really: you've misunderstood the direction or flow of events. It's easy for people to see that there is an offense made when I insulted people, but they were completely blind to the offenses that were made before, when they were stepping on me. But just because one offense is obvious and the other is not, doesn't mean one is greater than the other.

 

Hostility is never warranted in this community, I don't know where you got this perception that it was. You have openly admitted you have the rules channel muted. You do not make the standards, nor do you have any room to talk on any such standards if you refuse to care for them. You may choose to take hours out of your time to write up vicious slander about other people on the internet and act like a stalker, but you really shouldn't be surprised when community staff choose to punish you for this behavior. That is the epitome of consequence right there and I'm quite glad the system works.

I have zero idea as to how you intend to be taken seriously with this kind of disrespectful, intolerant and malicious mindset that you're very intent on bringing back to the discord.

Anyone who thinks hostility is never warranted is pathetic and , and by your own actions, I know for a fact that you agree. Your very first interaction with me on the Discord was an act of hostility, telling me how dumb I am, but now you're going to turn around and act like a good little boy because it makes it look like you actually respect the letter of the law instead of just having a massive complex that mysteriously causes you to post everywhere I post and specifically for the purpose of putting me down. Newsflash, Schev: You're not a moderator. You're not an administrator. You're just some punk who got pissy because I disagreed with your game suggestion and then made it your personal crusade to follow me around and insult anything I do. That's how we ended up here, with me trying to have a conversation with the administration, and you just bluntly inserting yourself as usual to make sure I am painted in as poor a light as possible.

The irony appears lost on you, regarding "taking hours to write up vicious slander and acting like a stalker." One of us has acted like a stalker, and it isn't me.

Another thing you continually fail to recognize is my statement that I plan to be perfectly kind and agreeable on the Discord. I expect to be taken seriously because I still maintain the illusion that people here care about what's right and what's wrong; I've brought no malice whatsoever except the malice which was in direct defense of that exact thing.

 

No, actually, that is not the reason the rules are being enforced. Nobody wants to hop onto the server to play a game to be called retarded by someone such as yourself and that they'd enjoy urinating on them (like, ew, you actually said that) because of strong opinions that they hold.

Harassment does many things to work against an enjoyable environment. The part that you did not recognize this is, regrettable, at best.

You know as well as I do that that quote was taken out of context. I was baited into it, and my only regret so far is having taking the bait. So unless you want to provide an actual log of that entire conversation (which you won't, because it exonerates me), I'll just move on.

If they don't want to deal with serious, intense discussions, then they shouldn't make serious, intense claims. If someone says something that is patently offensive and they can't support it, I'm not the bad guy just because I make them confront the fact that they're full of shit. Nobody is forcing anyone on the Discord to make broad, destructive generalizations, but that's what they did, and so they needed to be taken down a peg. Most people aren't paying attention closely enough to see when a person's words have damaging implications that are outside the scope of reason, but I am, and I have done nothing but hold people accountable for the things they say.

Which is ironic, because holding me accountable for the things I've said is ostensibly why I'm on trial. The only difference is that I can answer for everything I've said, and those people (anyone I've rudely insulted) can't.

Furthermore, your repeated use of the word harassment undermines the reality that I was only arguing with a couple people who, at every juncture, also chose to engage with me because they had something to prove. This is not a one-way street, I did not hop online looking for a fight, and the suggestion that I did is, frankly, retarded. Because, as I've said before, 90% of my interactions there (just like on the forum) were perfectly peaceable and constructive.

 

I think it is very interesting how you continue to argue from a position that assumes you have moral superiority over the staff members that made this decision. This is a particular position that people who have control issues over their life commonly do; they deliberately word their arguments as if they're coming from a position of overall strength. It's extremely curious that you continue to argue with terms such as "good" and "evil", "right" and "wrong", in spite of the fact that human interaction and context works hardly like this. A good majority of relationships end because both parties did not actively seek to understand the other person's reasons for doing or saying the things they did.

Does this conclude the portion of your rant where you pretend to know anything about my life? Or pretend that my approach from moral superiority is based on anything other than the directly observable fact that I was fighting for things that everybody else was ignoring? This slander of yours, while cruel, is fortunately transparent.

You have stated that, if it were up to you, I would have been completely erased from this community and game, because you find my actions so utterly abhorrent and irredeemable. Now, do you want to tell me that you aren't thinking in terms of good and evil and right and wrong? Because that's just laughable.

 

But some things are just outright inexcusable to say under the guise of 'doing what is right.' Do you think 'saying what is right' is morally comparable to 'doing what is right?' Because I think if you did, you'd find other areas to spend your time in. I think you're definitely out of your own league if you think yourself as this moral authority that deserves to be brought back onto the discord community to spread your toxic way of expressing your own ideas. It is amazing how you refuse to take accountability for the things you've said, and apologize for it.

I hold myself accountable for everything I've said. I wrote that in the original post, but I know you don't care, because you're not here to talk with me, you're here to talk at me. And that's where we differ. You have this conception of me in your head that is immune to scrutiny. But I have bad news: if it can't be scrutinized, then it can't be right.

 

But the reason you haven't apologized is because you don't think you're wrong. You haven't learned a thing. That's why you're here with a staff complaint, I imagine, because your unban appeal didn't work out due to your outright refusal to be a man, take responsibility for what you said and why you said it, and then promise to not repeat the behavior. Why did you not do this? Is there this cognitive dissonance going on that confuses you from being able to make decisions that will actually benefit your own growth as a 'better person', or are you mostly content to stay the way you are, constantly insulting people and being overall extremely disrespectful to anyone that slights you and your supposed 'high moral standards?'

Like I've said, it's just a problem with directions. When both parties argue from a position of moral superiority, both will necessarily use the same logic, but only one of them is right. And you're wrong, for the simple reason that I've stated a dozen times before and you have ignored a dozen times before because it's at odds with your invincible ego: saying things that are rude is no wrongdoing if it's to defend from things that are actually damaging. You haven't learned a thing.

As an aside, it's disappointing that you equate "being a man" with "bending over and taking whatever people try to force on you." There's nothing manly about choosing to be civil when your entire way of life is under attack. No, I'd say you haven't learned a thing.

 

You seem to have very little of a temper or self-control. You get into enraged fits very easily. It's not hard to offend you especially if nobody is even trying. If I might appeal to you better: Wrath is a sin, largely because it drives people to make irrational decisions and act extremely destructively. Love thy neighbor as you would thy enemy, or all you do is just bring yourself down to the level of the person you supposedly are purporting as inherently evil.

Just because you don't have any personal convictions doesn't mean I have to be just as empty and worthless. I am easy to enrage because I care about the implications of things that people say and I pay attention to what they say. It turns out that people are often accustomed to saying things they don't honestly believe or can't factually support. That might be good enough for you, but it's not good enough for me. I keep people honest.

 

Uno: A month passing is not 'ancient history.' Get it out of your head that people will not bring up the things you do to criticize your behavior.

My offense was saying some mean words to people. Most people aren't still upset about it a month after a stranger calls them something mean. An adult wouldn't be, at least, since we have other things to worry about. If you are, that demonstrates my point that your grudge against me is much more pronounced and vitriolic than anything I've brought to the table.

Dos: A calm and collected individual with a stable frame of mind takes setbacks with grace and patience, if we wish to talk about moral standards again. A wrathful, angry and sour individual throws a massive fit over it, burning bridges as they go because it's their only way of achieving catharsis with encountering a frustrating situation. I would know, I have been there and my major New Years Resolution is for me to deal with my own anger. Not calling myself the authority on this as I still have much to learn about temperance, but I'm far along with it that I know the signs of what tests my patience.

Does anybody believe a word of this? Or believe that it is remotely applicable? How very selfless of you to come in here and share how your personal struggle is so perfectly relevant to me and what I do. You're projecting, hard, and trying to infantilize me by acting like my anger is just a stage that you, in your bountiful mercy, were strong enough to grow out of. If you wanted to do me a favor, you'd stop stalking me.

Tres: You are overreacting and making a false dichotomy in comparing your situation with that of the average enforcement of rules over an open-and-shut case such as grief.

You're comically missing the point. The fact that those two situations are incomparable is exactly what I wanted to show, because it demonstrates why approaching them with the same rules and mindset is dumb and ineffective. But thank you for conceding that my case is not "open-and-shut."

Cuatro: This community is a popularity contest, effectively. Make yourself unpopular and, shockingly! You will be considered undesirable in the community, and people will ask for consequences for your upstart behavior. The staff have the rights and powers to regulate who gets shown the door. Consider yourself lucky that it was only a discord ban that you earned a month ago, in addition to being forum banned for the rudeness awhile ago. It takes an amount of tolerance and patience that I do not personally have to continually allow you to be anywhere near this community.

Precisely an amount of tolerance that you do not have. That's why you're not relevant in the equation. My takeaway from this is your admission that you have continued to target and victimize me just because you don't like me. Your shortsightedness is obvious by the fact that I have been getting along perfectly with everybody else (save for one) completely without incident throughout my stay here.

Cinco: Yes, because of your unique way of dealing with personalities that aren't yours in addition to your very radical expression of moral precepts, I do believe you deserved the ban and that you also deserve to stay banned at the current rate you're going. The way you think of people and thusly treat them is abhorrent. Another thing you failed to consider is that the two pertaining staff members were the staff that were most exposed to your toxic behavior. You really shouldn't be surprised that they were otherwise unconvinced to unban you when you pretty much expressed nothing other than malice.

This isn't a point, this is just you saying you don't like me again. You claim that I clash with personalities unlike mine, but as stated above, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests otherwise, supporting my initial claim that this trouble has been blown out of proportion.

Not to mention, you know

the fact that you think me wanting to feed the poor makes me a moral radical. I'm glad the bar isn't so low for everyone else here.

 

Don't worry, fellow Aurorastation players, "I piss on you because I enjoy it" is a progressive comment that always leads to a resolution in conflict where everyone learns something new and becomes a better person from the conversation that was had.

 

I am so flattered. Really.

Go fuck yourself.

At this time, I'd like to reiterate my desire for someone to actually retrieve detailed logs of the conversations I had on the Discord. The one-sided, closed-minded approach that is being taken in this complaint is obvious by the fact that all the quotes and screencaps being wielded against me are being done in a vacuum, without context. This is because, if you actually look at the statements and attitudes I was responding to, it becomes obvious that my reactions were justified. So far, my aggressors have neglected to do this because they are here to put me away, rather than to discuss with me. And, well, that's pretty sad.

Let's keep the ball rolling.

 

Good will is nice and all until you hit the point of improper execution.

I appreciate your meaning here, but what is the proper way to execute a defense from an attack against your entire way of life? I'm looking out for people. Matt says the reason he was obligated to step in was that somebody privately messaged him with a complaint (and boy do I have a guess about who did that), but every offense that I'm accused of enacting was enacted against me, too - only I didn't complain about it.

 

I gave you the chance to modify your attitude. It's clear and direct that appeals are for apologetic people who understand their error, which you clearly do not. ... I'm not seeing apologetic behavior here.

That's because I'm not apologizing. I didn't do anything wrong, as far as I've seen so far. I came back because I'd hoped, after a month, it would be obvious with the benefit of hindsight that the circumstances surrounding my ban didn't justify that ban. When it became apparent that others hadn't reached the same conclusion, I started a discussion.

 

Going to assume I'm part of people in the above. I assure you that I don't volunteer for staff for anything beyond good intentions. This is a hobby I enjoy, I'm not in this for some power trip or drama. There's no guise. So when I'm presented with an appeal such as yours which results in you mouthing off at the end, I'm not sure what you expected. What conditions warranted hostility? Telling you that your post doesn't look apologetic? That you don't appear to have understood the purpose of the ban and learned from it?

When I say guise, I don't necessarily mean an intentional one. It is equally possible that I recognized a problem that you did not. The condition that warrants hostility is that the actions taken against me represent a one-sided attitude which is not at ALL representative of my regard for the community or the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants. Simply put, I think you got the wrong impression, and acting on that wrong impression made it worse.

 

There was no pretending. The discord had less issues with your ban put in place. The spoiler will have some logs about you between staff.

Fewer issues that you can see, you mean. This is what I mean by sweeping under the rug: the dumb shit that was said in there was massively destructive if anyone actually bothers to unpack it. Only, nobody else bothered to, so it looks as though I created issues when I only alerted people to their presence. I would like to discuss those things, but so far nobody has produced chat logs - only screencaps of me being rude when (as I've been saying for days) that is only half of the story. And not the more important half.

 

Rule 1: Listen to staff, they have a reason when telling you something. Attempting to avoid punishment using any means will result in a more severe punishment.

Rule 2: Don't be a dick.

 

 

The above covers it for this one.

Rule #1 explicitly states that it's based on admins having a reason when telling you something, which is what's drawn into question here. It is my contention that the staff responding to my case (on Discord) were given an uneven interpretation of events that vilified me simply because others complained to admins about my rudeness while I didn complain to admins about every flavor of atrocity they produced. Rule #2, I have been explicitly contesting (ad nauseam) on the grounds that it prohibits some necessary speech.

 

And we told you to stop.

Yeah, you told them to stop, too. And yet it's only me, here, probably in no small part because of the efforts of one user who conspired against me at every turn.

 

This is in fact a "you problem".

You are my problem right now. You have every opportunity to prove what I'm saying is true, that I get along well with most everybody, and since I have no plan of bringing vitriol back to the Discord, it shouldn't even be a particularly difficult choice to make. The nature of this conversation (completely focused on things I supposedly did wrong) has made it seem as though my contribution was much more negative than it was in reality.

 

You're supposed to present your case in the original post. If you still needed more posts to present your case, then your thread should've been worked on more. Anything beyond your original post should be for addressing concerns and to discuss, which I did allow you. Furthermore, the thread was left open for another 24 hours where you can still present further information to light, but you decided to post what you did.

As I mentioned earlier, the nature of that case changed when I learned of the grudge being held against me. One day not necessarily being enough to finish the resulting discussion, it was obvious that you were never interested in entertaining my case at all. It's just a show.

 

What evidence do you have that I have been lying? I do not understand where you even bring such accusation. I deny it utterly.

I don't... think you know what the word "prostration" means. And if I'm misunderstanding you, then: I never said you were lying about anything, and I never implied you were lying about anything.

 

Schev is able to post input as he is involved, as could anyone else that's involved. Matt and I handled it, along with input of other staff members, this is hardly a closed door decision between just us two.

It doesn't matter if it's a closed-door decision if, at the end of the day, that decision is made by the only two people who have a personal stake in it.

 

You still do not understand what you did wrong and are persistently arguing about the moral high ground which I frankly do not care about.

It's disappointing, if somewhat refreshing, to hear you admit it. I mean, I don't entirely believe that you don't care (since, by your own admission, you volunteer out of good intentions and value the hobby of maintaining the community), but your conclusion here is extremely empowering as to the legitimacy of the argument I've made, which is: I got banned because other people didn't care about what was right as much as they cared about what was easy.

I don't have any bad blood towards you, Sharp. I just know you made the wrong call.

 

The "conditions" did not warrant absolutely any hostility. They were a simple set of questions to see whether or not you had improved from your Discord ban and if you changed your attitude. With your response, you confirmed that nothing changed, and so we extended the appeal period.

As I stated in response to Sharp, the conditions absolutely warranted hostility, and for a reason that is plainly invisible to you: the actions and attitudes held against me are one-sided and completely opposite the vast, vast majority of my experience with the community and their experience with me. Of course you're not going to say it was worth getting hostile over; you're the ones ignoring my plea.

 

Now, Aboshehab has gone over the complaint itself. I am going to go over why we banned you and why we denied your appeal. Let's take a look.

Show me where I asked you why you banned me. I never asked, because it's been obvious the entire time. You banned me because I kept doing something that you didn't like. And as I have tried over and over and over again to make the focus of this discussion: that's not a good enough reason.

 

- Why did we ban you from the Discord?

Quite simply, it is because of the completely unacceptable attitude you displayed. You said you had 'good will' in mind, and that you argued, but a quick look at what you said tells a completely different story. In fact, I have some quotes.

...

You even admitted to having the rules channel muted, it was you that said you 'enjoyed pissing on' Scheveningen. What you said was completely not out of good will, it was not an argument, it was just you throwing insults at someone else. This is completely unacceptable behaviour.

I appreciate that, even though you're still cherry-picking and refusing to admit any evidence of the wrongs that were enacted against me, you at least chose some quotes that prove a couple of my claims so far:

1) I was speaking because of a moral imperative

2) I chose to move to private messages because I valued the Discord community (but hey, guess who blocked me in private messages, after saying that's exactly what I should do! That's right, it's ya boi Schev, making sure I have no outlet for disagreeing with him except for those outlets that are keen to annoy admins in the process!! What a pal.)

But. Most important take-away from this is that I didn't ask why you banned me from the Discord, because I wasn't confused as to why you banned me from the Discord. I said that back in my appeal. What I'm telling you is the same thing I told Sharp: You were fed a certain narrative that highlights me as a villain and ignores everything else, and you've been eating it up ever since. Now if you would like to actually get some substantive logs, I could get to unpacking them for you.

 

And you did not stop. You continued, until I had to have Abo ban you from the discord.

You didn't have to do anything. You chose to tell Sharp to ban me because you became fixated on my vulgarity as the source of the Discord's unrest when it was not the source.

Does no one else find it aggravating that everyone involved here is capable of producing chat logs in my defense except for me, and yet I'm the only one willing? Literally anyone else could hop on over to the Discord and scroll up to see what I was arguing for, but they continue to obsess only on the end-result of rude things I said, rather than any cruelty which warranted them. It's missing the mark by a mile.

[mention]Bauser[/mention] Logs my dude from the fateful night.

I gave you the chance to modify your attitude. It's clear and direct that appeals are for apologetic people who understand their error, which you clearly do not. ... I'm not seeing apologetic behavior here.

That's because I'm not apologizing. I didn't do anything wrong, as far as I've seen so far. I came back because I'd hoped, after a month, it would be obvious with the benefit of hindsight that the circumstances surrounding my ban didn't justify that ban. When it became apparent that others hadn't reached the same conclusion, I started a discussion.

 

And I'm fine with this discussion. I'm simply saying that your appeal was not suitable, and I illustrated why. You don't agree with the judgment, and now we're here, completely reasonable.

 

Going to assume I'm part of people in the above. I assure you that I don't volunteer for staff for anything beyond good intentions. This is a hobby I enjoy, I'm not in this for some power trip or drama. There's no guise. So when I'm presented with an appeal such as yours which results in you mouthing off at the end, I'm not sure what you expected. What conditions warranted hostility? Telling you that your post doesn't look apologetic? That you don't appear to have understood the purpose of the ban and learned from it?

When I say guise, I don't necessarily mean an intentional one. It is equally possible that I recognized a problem that you did not. The condition that warrants hostility is that the actions taken against me represent a one-sided attitude which is not at ALL representative of my regard for the community or the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants. Simply put, I think you got the wrong impression, and acting on that wrong impression made it worse.

 

While I won't deny that there is a possibility that I may have gotten the wrong impression, as ultimately there is a possibility for everything, I simply do not feel this is the case.

 

There was no pretending. The discord had less issues with your ban put in place. The spoiler will have some logs about you between staff.

Fewer issues that you can see, you mean. This is what I mean by sweeping under the rug: the dumb shit that was said in there was massively destructive if anyone actually bothers to unpack it. Only, nobody else bothered to, so it looks as though I created issues when I only alerted people to their presence. I would like to discuss those things, but so far nobody has produced chat logs - only screencaps of me being rude when (as I've been saying for days) that is only half of the story. And not the more important half.

 

A discussion resulted in this, I could perhaps get a more logs of this discussion itself but after this, both of you stopped and I left it at that, until more issues were raised later on where staff had to intervene.

 

Rule 1: Listen to staff, they have a reason when telling you something. Attempting to avoid punishment using any means will result in a more severe punishment.

Rule 2: Don't be a dick.

 

 

The above covers it for this one.

Rule #1 explicitly states that it's based on admins having a reason when telling you something, which is what's drawn into question here. It is my contention that the staff responding to my case (on Discord) were given an uneven interpretation of events that vilified me simply because others complained to admins about my rudeness while I didn complain to admins about every flavor of atrocity they produced. Rule #2, I have been explicitly contesting (ad nauseam) on the grounds that it prohibits some necessary speech.

 

Employing ad hominem along with being both rude and insulting others in an argument is not necessary speech. You are not entitled to this form of speech on any of our platforms. If you want to have a discussion, you can share your opinion and discuss, everyone is entitled to their opinion. We specifically have a containment channel for the more heavy topics since people can discuss things, they simply cannot resort to what you did.

 

What evidence do you have that I have been lying? I do not understand where you even bring such accusation. I deny it utterly.

I don't... think you know what the word "prostration" means. And if I'm misunderstanding you, then: I never said you were lying about anything, and I never implied you were lying about anything.

You're right, I misunderstood the definition of the word, I could go into detail on how but it's really not relevant. I do apologize for this point.

 

Schev is able to post input as he is involved, as could anyone else that's involved. Matt and I handled it, along with input of other staff members, this is hardly a closed door decision between just us two.

It doesn't matter if it's a closed-door decision if, at the end of the day, that decision is made by the only two people who have a personal stake in it.

My stake in this is that of a Head Administrator responsible for the community. As stated previously, I felt your speech directly violated our rules, which is why administrative action was presented.

 

You still do not understand what you did wrong and are persistently arguing about the moral high ground which I frankly do not care about.

It's disappointing, if somewhat refreshing, to hear you admit it. I mean, I don't entirely believe that you don't care (since, by your own admission, you volunteer out of good intentions and value the hobby of maintaining the community), but your conclusion here is extremely empowering as to the legitimacy of the argument I've made, which is: I got banned because other people didn't care about what was right as much as they cared about what was easy.

I don't have any bad blood towards you, Sharp. I just know you made the wrong call.

 

People are entitled to their opinion even if you deem it wrong. Some opinions might not be suitable for everyone which is why he have a channel specific for the heavier topics. What you deem is right or wrong in this scenario is to me extremely irrelevant since I'm not punishing you for the intent, I'm punishing you for the execution. If you had good intents, that's good, I just disagree with the execution.

I'd also like to state that I have no blood towards you either and regardless of the outcome, if Garn rules in your favor, that's completely fine as I'm sure he'll outline why I'm wrong. I also still respectfully disagree with you on my call. I feel I've explained myself sufficiently with the points I felt necessary, so unless new points are raised, I'm leaving the rest up to Garn.

Side note.

I am so flattered. Really.

Go fuck yourself.

 

I highly suggest the tone you two are adopting improves.

I only really need to reply to one thing because it's the only part that inherently matters.

 

Another thing you continually fail to recognize is my statement that I plan to be perfectly kind and agreeable on the Discord.

 

I fail to take this point seriously because all you do is be the exact opposite. You've proven you'll go great distances to express your 'moral right' to be vitriolic and spread hateful speech over the internet. And you've proven here you'll just as easily lose your temperament and do it again.

You also told the administration who chose not to unban you to "Go fuck themselves" as well. I think your promises fall on deaf ears at this point.

A chance for recidivism is always considered in contesting bans or appealing them. You have not really learned anything seeing as how the only accountability you've taken is, "Yeah, I said it, what are you gonna do it about it? Btw unban me pls I didn't do anything wrong c:"

Hello

After closely examining the issue i do not find any issue with sharp or datamatt's conduct here. I think ban is legit and i think the appeal in which netted you a forum ban was also legit. I know you disagree with that but i disagree with your disagreement and it is my call to make. Should you next decide to appeal this discord ban i would encourage you to approach it with a healthier attitude. This complaint will now be locked and archived.