[feemjmeem] DireVictory - did a thing

[DireVictory]

Byond account and character name: DireVictory - David Griffenberg
Banning admin: feemjmeem
Ban type (What are you banned from?): dayban
Ban reason and length:
As a chemist, saw someone walking around and "seeing too well in the dark," used this as an excuse to use the spraycan and cuffs he "found somewhere" to cuff and search them, then discovered they were an antag, ordered themselves something from their open uplink, and spaced them. While validing someone after the point of discovering they're an antag is entirely within the rules, you went out of your way to generate a situation based on very loose reasoning ("he had an eyepatch and it looked like he could see better in the dark than he should have") and used a bunch of stuff you "found" to subdue him and throw him out an airlock.

The problem here isn't just that you armed up, it isn't just that you greytided him to search him and found a reason to kill him, and it isn't just that you valided him after you outed him as a traitor. It's the combination of those factors. Take a day off to think about why this might be a bad way to act.
Time ban was placed (including time zone): 19:26 UTC+02:00
Server you were playing when banned (Sybil or Bagil): Sybil
Your side of the story:
I was a chemist on OmegaStation along with Reed Glover. Omegastation posesses only one chemistry dispenser so I wasn't in the mood to make chemistry. also due to the fact the chem dispenser was running low on power. So I made some ephedrine pills and went sightseeing. I went to cargo with some metal from the aux tool storage in order to make some large beakers. I broke in through the plastic drapes, and found an egun in a room. Finally, a cargo personnel threw me out and i realized the autolathe was outside cargo. I also went to RnD to snatch a NV goggles. After a while and a lot of useless running about for entertainment, the station was bombed. I went to escape. This person, Lenny Koepple, was evading the clown by hiding in the bushes. When I walked past him, he, again, evaded me. But, he wasn't wearing NV goggles! He was wearing an eyepatch! So I started chasing him. He ran around, clearly seeing me. I was trying to spraypaint his face, and I did succeed. After some yakety-sax, I dropped a banana and cuffed him. I searched him, and it seemed the eyepatch was, in fact, thermals... he also had a 17tc left PDA in his bag. I spaced him.

Why you think you should be unbanned:
I do understand what I did is dick-ish but he'd have done the same to me. Also, you said I was "metagaming", well, I don't like rules-lawyers, and usually don't do this. I feel the decision was done in haste.
2.Do not use information gained outside of in character means.
I.e.. metagaming. This especially refers to communication between players outside of the game via things like Skype, known as metacomms. Characters are otherwise allowed to know everything about ingame mechanics or antagonists , as well as keep persistent friendships or relationships with other characters when not for the purpose of unfair advantage by teaming up together for little IC reason.

I don't mind the dayban, and I understand it's value. But I don't like when what I hold to be my "rights" (I know, privileges, not rights) are infringed. I am appealing in order to create a precedent.

" you went out of your way" I didn't, he was right in front of me and should have known RnD was actively doing research.
"found a reason to kill him" Duh, he had a PDA full of potential extremely dangerous weaponry and also had a syndicate bomb beacon in his bag. It was only logical to render him harmless.
"it isn't just that you valided him after you outed him as a traitor" I don't really know if this is a shitty act. He was an enemy of the corporation.
"The problem here isn't just that you armed up" Why is this corroborating with the other factors to my detriment? I just found an energy gun.

[feem]

I was very clear about my reasoning in my (lengthy) discussion with you about this, and described both your actions and the rationale for the ban in the ban reason. I won't be lifting this, but will of course be available for discussion with headmins about any precedent or correction that should come from the appeal.

[DireVictory]

i don't mind the ban, I just find the ban reason a bit ridiculous. I do get where you're coming from.
He was not robust and I passed the perception check. Losing is Fun.

[Krusvik]

I was a chemist

I broke in through the plastic drapes, and found an egun in a room. Finally, a cargo personnel threw me out

After a while and a lot of useless running about for entertainment

Don't be a chemist anymore, lol.

[Qbopper]

i don't mind the ban, I just find the ban reason a bit ridiculous. I do get where you're coming from.

then why appeal

[DireVictory]

Can't post in policy discussion yet.

[feem]

Are you saying that when this thread is concluded and if it doesn't end the way you want it to, you're going to open a new thread in policy discussion to rehash the same thing? Is this a good time to bring up that, while you've been behaving for the past ten months, you have a history of jumping from account to account when you start getting too many notes?

[BeeSting12]

I'd just like to mention that while what he did was shitty, his reasoning for searching does make sense. We do allow metaknowledge such as knowing everything a traitor can possess. Seeing well in the dark and having an eyepatch which is something chameleon thermals can turn into would tell you he has cham NVGs and is a traitor although most players wouldn't pick up on that and those that do probably would let him do his thing. So I guess what I'm saying is, using meta knowledge which is allowed under the rules to catch him, which is what he did, is technically within the rules.

edit: Like what he did is dickish but there's also an exception for it specifically outlined in the rules page so this kinda does set a precedent. If I arrest a rev head for having sun glasses on a confirmed rev round will I be banned?

[feem]

That exception is usually there for things like already knowing what redsuits are, knowing the effects of certain spells, and being able to detect revolutionaries from things like flashes, in addition to explaining why every player knows how to do everything in the game.

No individual thing that the player in question did was, alone, too much of an issue. The problem is that the combination of behaviors paints the picture of a player who went far outside of their job and role and used extremely weak justification to greytide someone (they themselves were wearing stolen NVGs), which then incidentally uncovered real evidence of being an antag. It's not an issue of what they did after that, it's an issue of them saying "you see too well" and then going on a crusade to catch them.

[cedarbridge]

That exception is usually there for things like already knowing what redsuits are, knowing the effects of certain spells, and being able to detect revolutionaries from things like flashes, in addition to explaining why every player knows how to do everything in the game.

No individual thing that the player in question did was, alone, too much of an issue. The problem is that the combination of behaviors paints the picture of a player who went far outside of their job and role and used extremely weak justification to greytide someone (they themselves were wearing stolen NVGs), which then incidentally uncovered real evidence of being an antag. It's not an issue of what they did after that, it's an issue of them saying "you see too well" and then going on a crusade to catch them.

This is what I understood from the posted information too. It feels a lot like this was retroactively justified by "but he turned out to be an antag so its ok"

[BeeSting12]

That exception is usually there for things like already knowing what redsuits are, knowing the effects of certain spells, and being able to detect revolutionaries from things like flashes, in addition to explaining why every player knows how to do everything in the game.

The only thing covered in the rules is the nuke ops shuttle. Everything else needs to be added to the rules page if it actually is against the rules to meta revs from flashes or know the effects of wizard spells.

[feem]

No, I'm saying that those are some of the things that the exception allows. It's a spirit of the law kind of thing. If there's an explicit indicator that someone is an antag due to mechanic, then fine. But in and of itself, "can see in the dark" is way weaker than any of those things.

[Lazengann]

Not really because in that situation there is no other way they'd be able to see you in the dark

[imblyings]

I'm stuck between calling this as someone who was smart and someone who wasn't smart and got unlucky, and dying on a hill I don't want to die on for what it is I'm not quite sure.

The chameleon item is meant to help it's user avoid a cursory recognition and identification during a hasty or uninformed search. As far as I understand, it wasn't coded to also mask whatever actions it enables it's user to do.

Walking around a brightly lit hallway and subduing everyone wearing eyewear in the chance they might be thermals as any job is unacceptable. If a person notices something is off, when a persons on mob sprites don't seem to equate to the level of ability they're presenting, then confirm several times afterwards while chasing them that something is indeed off, it seems less like a ban for metagaming, like the person who started the ahelp said it was, and more like a ban for a willingness to act on something being smart and aware will help you notice.

When do we allow people to act on having superior situational awareness and an ability to link and understand what they're seeing to what they know about game mechanics? Beesting said something about players at that skill level probably not choosing to engage, maybe letting them go for some individual reason, but he was also right when this really isn't in the rules at all. Are admins meant to protect antag players who don't have superior situational awareness or can't pre-empt someones decision making? He could have pretended he couldn't see well in the dark, which goes back to what the purpose of making thermals a chameleon item is. It masks the item from a surface level search or visual inspection but it doesn't mean any actions taken with it are completely camouflaged.

If we want to go full '''rp'''''''''''''''''''''', it must be pretty strange to see someone with an eyepatch seem to run away specifically from you in total darkness. No knowledge of game mechanics needed. I know I'd be spooked.

I said at the start this is a hill I don't want to die on or rather, a precedent I don't want to make. It's not clear what is being made a precedent of in the first place. Are we specifically banning non-sec roles from acting on their awareness and knowledge of mechanics during late-game? Is it a ban specifically for non-sec roles acting on their awareness and knowledge of mechanics if chameleon items are involved? There are hills I'd die on for more clear cut cases of sportsmanship but this barely seems like it. The antag chose to run and therefore show his hand when there was no explicit threat to him, it's not a case of an antag being hunted at roundstart by a chemist roaming maint with a stolen egun and nvgs. Maybe it's rude to go after people who unintentionally and indirectly reveal their antag status. Is that what the ban is for?

[feem]

This ban is largely the result of two things:

1) The IC interaction consisted _solely_ of the banned individual seeing the target's movement in a dark room, the individual saying "you can see too well," and the individual arresting the target, whereupon they discovered they possessed antag items.
2) This interaction, predicated on seeing the target's movement in a dark room, was enabled by the fact that the banned individual, a chemist, had spent, admittedly, the entire round collecting various items and implements, including an egun, banana, spraycan, cuffs, and the nightvision goggles which actually allowed the individual to witness the target's movement.

This is a situation where, regardless of either the end state (that the target was thrown out an airlock) or the initial state (that the target was an antag and possessed antag items), both players were in a situation which was unusual (that the individual was wearing nightvision goggles as a chemist, that the target was wearing an eyepatch and "[could] see too well"), and would have been such to either in a context void of the described end and initial states.

If we need to sum this up to a contextless question, and if we need to specify a particular item on which to draw a ruling, then it might be: "Since both players can see in the dark, and both players are not players who are supposed to see in the dark, is it valid to use items available to whichever individual acts first to subdue and strip the other simply on account of the other person seeing in the dark [too]?"

If we want to include the context, then is a player who has spent the round arming themselves as a non-antag who acts on the smallest shred of evidence that someone else might be an antag -- and I find serious issue with the idea that avoiding someone else who's capable of seeing in the dark (and especially when you, yourself, are capable of seeing in the dark due to item theft) is "evidence" of being an antag, to start with -- despite no aggressive behavior from that person justified in having undertaken the unusual actions necessary to demonstrate that they were right to do so?

tl;dr: do you really think that the fact that someone else can see in the dark when you, yourself, can only see that they can see in the dark due to your own theft of items unrelated to your job, is justification to cuff and strip them?

[imblyings]

Item theft is only a factor if we consider it to be part of an overall preparation with intent to hunt antags. By the rules, it's more for roundstart gearing up to catch antags unawares while preparing, otherwise we would have to ban all the scientists and miscellaneous people that gear up with mechs and guns and nvgs and implants, and go off roaming the hallways looking for things that can be made horizontal. His account in the OP says he originally chased him because he wanted to spraycan him and it was then when the ahelpers night vision capability was unintentionally revealed. We can choose to not believe his spraycan story but the fact that omegastation has only one dispenser and no one wants to displace Reed makes it likely there was no malicious intent and that it was not a factor when he decided to gear up.

This leaves the 'see too well in the dark' thing,

Someone displayed a level of evasive movement that couldn't be explained by their onmob sprite. Evasive movement is pretty distinct, OP mentions it, and I know most older players can detect when another player is moving in order to run away from someone. You need to be able to see the person you're evading to produce that kind of movement so it's also different to normal juking about in the dark. There are only a few ingame mechanisms to see in the dark and most of them are related to antags. It just goes back to what I said earlier, it's more an example of someone with better situational awareness and knowledge of game mechanics choosing to cuff and search someone who showed their hand too early.

My view is that players shouldn't be prevented from being smart and noticing things. It's nice when people are merciful upon noticing things but we don't require this in our rules.

[DireVictory]

Are you saying that when this thread is concluded and if it doesn't end the way you want it to, you're going to open a new thread in policy discussion to rehash the same thing? Is this a good time to bring up that, while you've been behaving for the past ten months, you have a history of jumping from account to account when you start getting too many notes?

Why you you implying I will make a new discussion in the policy forum? Also, frankly, I made the new account for the simple reason that I forgot the old one's password... Nice strawman also.

The items I had were gotten mostly from pure chance, not "gearing up". The egun I found in cargo, and didn't even play a major role on stunning him. The banana peel the clown slipped me with, which I took to spite him, the NVGs I took to see in the dark.

If we want to include the context, then is a player who has spent the round arming themselves as a non-antag who acts on the smallest shred of evidence that someone else might be an antag

I didn't spend the entire round "arming myself up", you really like to exaggerate your points, do you? My meaningless roaming about like a heedless chicken on ephedrine was caused by the fact that there weren't two chem dispensers, and the only one left was low on power.

tl;dr: do you really think that the fact that someone else can see in the dark when you, yourself, can only see that they can see in the dark due to your own theft of items unrelated to your job, is justification to cuff and strip

I don't see how that is related. Me comitting a victimless crime doesn't justify looking away from his. It was a bomb round.

The IC interaction consisted _solely_ of the banned individual seeing the target's movement in a dark room, the individual saying "you can see too well," and the individual arresting the target, whereupon they discovered they possessed antag items.

There was no other possibility on how he could see in the dark, seeing as Nanotrasen's NVG tech is either visible or a centcom officials eyepatch, and he was dressed as assistant. This is not me "taking a chance" and there was slim chance for him to be an upright member of society, wrongly stripped.
To your second point, why would the situation be unusual? The station was unlighted, NVGs are clearly superior to puny flashlights. It's not like they lose anything major from me lathing a NVG. Science is there for the crew, but it wasn't currently actively manned and the airlocks were open. The magical girl didn't stop me so I figured that's permission.

[feem]

I understand and agree with that concern, Ausops. I believe there are still mitigating factors in this instance, but I'm going to lift the ban.