Character name: Axle Brady
Ban type: Server
Ban length: Permanent
Ban reason:
Time ban was placed: 11/30/23
Server you were playing on when banned: N/A
Round ID in which ban was placed: 219780
Your side of the story:
Here is the sequence of events, as best I know them to be. Not hammed up, not exaggerated, no buzzwords, no drama, just the facts. I invite anyone to correct anything I'm saying, but I've talked to everyone involved to make sure it's accurate. Judge it for yourself.
1) Lenald shared 5 screenshots of a private Discord, showing myself and a couple admins making fun of the iansdoor ban appeal for Thonk. The screenies showed shit-talk against TBM and iansdoor, along with me saying stuff like "iansdoor is trash at reading logs" and laughing at him for blowing up in reply to my logposting (the entire peanut thread for that appeal is now deleted for some reason). Why did I get involved? Because Thonk was a friend and the way the admin was handling it was either malicious, lazy, or both, and that bothered me, so I wanted to help. Why the private shittalk? Because I was irritated. Not to "coordinate a harassment campaign for admin burnout," spare me.
2) As a result of these leaked screenshots, all the admins in this private server were batcaved in the TG Discord. A batcave is a private thread headmins create to interrogate individual admins for conduct breaches. Usually there is a looming threat of deadminning involved. Headmins asked each admin what the private Discord was for and if it was for targeted harassment. I presume they found which admins were in the private Discord because Lenald leaked a member-list.
3) Alamo was quickly deadminned for anti-admin sentiment seen in the 5 screenshots (no actual conduct violations occured in these screenies). Charley left the server instantly after being batcaved because she didn't want to be strong-armed into leaking stuff. Scriptis, the last admin batcaved, gave headmins a full copy of the entire server's message logs. He stated this was to prove there were no metacomms or actual rulebreaks, because there weren't.
4) Headmins began reading all the logs (over a hundred thousand messages probably). The issue with this was we were all good friends and shared personal info in this server. I won't go into detail but info that could be considered dox-worthy was in the server. I didn't feel comfortable with anyone, much less admins who we'd badmouthed, flipping through our personal info without even a clear objective. So I reached out to MSO with the concern. He said he'd look into it. This is probably what led to his involvement and (somehow) my blacklist so I regret doing that, but that's neither here nor there.
5) During the next few days several things happened. First Charley was deadminned for "bus leaks." Alamo was permabanned for "leaking private player info." The "bus leaks" consisted mainly in screenshotting her own messages telling a story so she wouldn't have to retype it. The "private player info" consisted in connecting two ckeys together, although we already all guessed they were the same player. Sun was permabanned for saying she metagrudged a player (a single-line comment in the server).
6) A couple days later, presumably after the headmins had read more of the tens of thousands of messages, Pepper and I were blacklisted for "theorizing and coordinating admin burn-out," as well as "draining admin resources and stoking drama." Then you add a permaban to me for "harassing and brigading within the ban appeals/players club subforum." Whatever messages we sent that were apparently over-the-line and qualified as targeted harassment, or a "forum brigade," were never shared with me or Pepper. You showed the entire adminteam privately, so they could "understand our bans," but we ourselves were never given the courtesy.
There is no doubt in my mind the constant negative, sarcastic, and hateful banter the headmins were reading, for days on end, contributed to the blacklists and this perma. I vented often in the server about bans and admin decisions I disagreed with, and sometimes we made fun of and trashtalked (pretty ruthlessly) admins and headmins we disliked. We worked on ban appeals together and dug logs together to help each other out when someone got noted or banned for a BS reason. We didn't use the ban appeals subforum as a platform to harass admins. We used it for its purpose of appealing bans. Even if, in private, bad-faith shittalk and theoryspinning was a part of that, my actions themselves consisted in nothing more than helping write ban appeals and occasionally posting logs. All my posts in the Ban Appeals subforum are just logposts and rule quotes. "Brigading" in the player's club is even more insane because I'm literally banned from the Player's Club. So I would really love to see any evidence whatsoever that doesn't amount to just talk in a private server.
I'm not sure why the headmin team is extending their sphere of power into the private servers of players. Investigating metacomms would be one thing. Looking for bus leaks with zero evidence would be sketchy but still somewhat understandable. But reading through 10s of thousands of logs, going off of nothing more than some screenshots of a few people shittalking an admin over a ban appeal? All to collect whatever dirt could be scraped from several months-old logs people sent, and spin it into a scary claim like "targeted harassment"? Harassment which quite literally could not even be viewed by the supposed "targets" we were harassing.
Why you think you should be unbanned: First of all I'm appealing this permaban which you've for whatever reason slapped on top of the blacklist - I'm not appealing the blacklist. But this is on my Centcom and I don't want a bullshit ban on my account. In short, why do I think I should be unbanned? Because what someone says on a private server in the confidence of their friends is quite frankly none of your business, or anyone else's business. Pure talk in an external 'cord with absolutely zero tangible action behind it, does not justify a permaban.
