[BebeYoshi] Alterist - Droneban

[Alterist]

Byond account and character name:

Banning admin: Bebeyoshi

Ban type : Drone Ban

Ban reason and length: Banned from drone - Fought a Kudzu as a drone. Kudzu are critical objects to the round, please read the giant text that appear when you spawn as a drone. One Week(?)

Time ban was placed=: 2018-05-21 12:32:10

Server you were playing when banned (Sybil or Bagil): Sybil

Your side of the story: I ghosted early in the round cause I felt like playing drone, went around the station upgrading everything. I found shadowshrooms in the hallways after a while, and I started clearing them. I cleared around half of the shrooms, then I had to afk for a while. After I came back to find that the main hallways were infested by kuzdu, so I started clearing that along with the shadowshrooms. A human spots me and tells me that I'm breaking my laws by shooting a flower pod with a plasma cutter. I ignore him and keep clearing the kudzu, eventually the flower pod spawns a Venus Human Trap and I get killed by it. Bebeyoshi Bwoinks me, asking me If I was attacking the kudzu, and I say yes. They tell me that Kudzu is a living being and I shouldn't interfere with it, I say that I've never heard of that policy before and asks for a link to a forum link or policy page on such. Bebeyoshi replies that they don't know if such a page exists, but insists that Kudzu must be a living being. In the end, they ban me cause they claim kudzu is critical to the round.

Why you think you should be unbanned: First of all, no hard feelings to Bebeyoshi, they're doing what they believe to be correct. I made this appeal so I could get some confirmation on how drone law should be interpreted here. So statement one: "Kudzu are beings and shouldn't be interfered with." so I tried looking on the forums to see if any rulings were made about this, and I couldn't find any. However, I did find this statement made by an admin:

living beings == /mob/living

Source: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 50#p337381
With this, we can assume that dead beings are /mob/dead and beings of any kind is defined in the code as /mob/
and according to the code, Kudzu(or spacevine, as it it called) is a obj/structure, same for the flower buds
See: tgstation/code/modules/events/spacevine.dm
This is reflected by the drone static vision too, as the Venus Human Trap that kudzu can spawn get the static overlay, but the kudzu itself and flower buds don't.
So therefore, by clearing kudzu, I have not interfered with a being of any kind
Second Statement: "Kudzu are critical to the round"
This refers to one of the lines that appear when you spawn as a drone:

Code: Select all

DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE ROUND AS A DRONE OR YOU WILL BE DRONE BANNED
	Drones are a ghost role that are allowed to fix the station and build things. Interfering with the round as a drone is against the rules.
	Actions that constitute interference include, but are not limited to:
	    - Interacting with round critical objects (IDs, weapons, contraband, powersinks, bombs, etc.)
	     - Interacting with living beings (communication, attacking, healing, etc.)
	     - Interacting with non-living beings (dragging bodies, looting bodies, etc.)
		    These rules are at admin discretion and will be heavily enforced.

Yes, I know that last line don't do me any favours. But it's very nebulous as to what is critical to the round or not. The rules give out a few examples but not a complete list, while kudzu seeds might be considered contraband, it isn't something that only traitors can obtain as bebeyoshi should know, being a self professed botany main. Kudzu can also spawn as an random event, which might never get an announcement. If the Kudzu was planted by an traitor with harmful intent, it would be impossible for a drone player to know it was done so, whether ICly or OOCly and to avoid clearing the kudzu in the name of "not interefering with the round" and drones are somewhat obligated to clear it, given their laws.

Code: Select all

3. Your goals are to build, maintain, repair, improve, and provide power to the best of your abilities, You must never actively work against these goals."

I believe that clearing Kudzu(and shadowshrooms) falls under maintaining the station. It is something that is spreading on the station possibly damaging many parts of it, including firewalls, camera and windows, and I must "mow the lawn" so to speak to do it in the best of my abilities.

I made this appeal because I did what I believed to be an allowed course of action. If there is any policies/ruling made in the past by admins, please bring them to my attention, I will take the ban willingly if so.

[cedarbridge]

You were looking for a policy thread as this ban was properly placed.

Drones may not interfere with kudzu in the same way that they may not interfere with blobs or other non-carbon threats to the station. Your job is to repair and construct. You are not a member of the crew and not a hedge against damage to the station.

[Arianya]

Arguing code structure is a bit of a red herring. Kudzu may have been programmed as structures for code reasons that have no relevance to our rules or the gameplay structure.

Similarly, arguing about whether kudzu is or is not "round critical" is also a red herring.

As a drone your job is to repair and maintain, but that does not mean you act as prevention. Think of yourself, not as a human in a drone shell, but as a dumb little piece of metal whose one job is to fix something which is broken. In this case, the kudzu has a similar "role" as a blob or a bomb, they are things which can cause damage to the station but which you have no directive to deal with. If the kudzu bashes down a wall or causes an explosion, feel free to repair the damage.

If the crew welderbomb the kudzu and end up leaving a gaping hole into space, feel free to patch that up.

You are never there to fix the cause of damage (traitor, plasma fire, blob, kudzu) but simply there to fix the result. You fix a wall and the kudzu smashes it again? Tough shit, you're a dumb little drone and all you can compute is that there should be a wall there and there isn't.

Note that this also applies to non-being things that may be spawned by random events, a key one being anomalies. To quote the wiki in full:

Law 3 gives your mandate: station upkeep. This is not the same as prevention! Upkeep can include repairing hull breaches, cleaning bloodstains or vandalism, repairing power issues, and generally what a Station Engineer or Janitor never does. This is intentionally somewhat broad. For example, setting up the solars is definitely okay. Building a fort in maintenance is probably okay. Dragging around the nuclear authentication disk like a party train is not okay. And interacting with living beings in the process is never okay. If you see an active bomb, you leave it alone. There is no damage yet after all. Once it goes off, the station is damaged and only then does your third law come into play. Use common sense or get banned.

[Armhulen]

arianya used too many words and kept saying red herring so here's an easy explanation

"i think the issue is that kudzu is a big antagonist action like a syndicate bomb to the station, you shouldn't be defusing a syndicate bomb and you shouldn't be fighting kudzu"

[Armhulen]

also someone should lift this ban, it was a mistake that was cleared up and he's been noted once and banned once in 1200 connections i think he's a good player and a weekban for this was not necessary

[Arianya]

also someone should lift this ban, it was a mistake that was cleared up and he's been noted once and banned once in 1200 connections i think he's a good player and a weekban for this was not necessary

Not my ban, obviously, but this was a week roleban after what I can only presume was extensive back and forth in ahelps, after which the player still clearly thought they were in the right.

Headmin fiat of course applies, but why should the ban be removed if it clearly wasn't a "mistake" and they (at the time of posting the above) thought they were in the right and that they should do so again in future?

[Armhulen]

if he acknowledges he was in the wrong then he understands the ban, and we can lift it. it's good the ban happened so he could have it explained to him

[Alterist]

I've always thought that clearing kudzu fell under the "maintain" part of Drone Law; like you would mow a lawn to maintain it so you would clear a station of overgrown weeds to maintain it. Like I've said, I couldn't find any policy on drones and kudzu, nor anomalies for that matter. So I've always been clearing both as a drone, this was the first time I've been notified by an admin and player that it was against the rules.
Anyways, now I know, and so it won't happen again.

[BebeYoshi]

If I lifted the ban, I would break the part that says "DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE ROUND AS A DRONE OR YOU WILL BE DRONE BANNED". Killing kudzu surely is interfering with the round, kudzus are a major threat to the crew and this should be really obvious. What I could do is reduce the ban duration to half a day since you recognize your mistake and it wasn't clear if kudzus were a nono to drones. The rule page also lacks a lot of clarification about drones, probably would fall in this precedent "If an antagonist causes damage to the station, you are generally expected to fix the result, not the cause of the station." and about the beign part, this is unrelated to this and should have its own policy thread if you want.
(Reduced to half a day)

[Armhulen]

great, resolved