[Nervere] Spyroshark - dayban for overescalation

[Spyroshark]

Byond account and character name: Spyroshark/Ricky Mclousky

Banning admin: Nervere

Ban type (What are you banned from?): Server Ban

Ban reason and length: Dayban, "As an assistant, killed someone who stole their insulated gloves near the start of the round. Operatives had delcared war at the start of the round. 6 minutes after they stole your gloves, you taze them and kill them with a laser rifle. This is horrible escalation, please be more considerate with you action in the future."

Time ban was placed (including time zone): 2018-08-22 21:38:12 (Server time)

Server you were playing when banned (Sybil or Bagil): Bagil, round 92862

Your side of the story: Alright. At the beginning of the shift, I walked into tool storage and grabbed a pair of insulated gloves. Shortly after, I see a roboticist(might of been a scientist) walk in, and they were either already wielding a flash in their hand, or they had just taken it out. They were moving towards me (I believe there was another assistant nearby too) and so I attempted to disarm them a few times. They then flashed me, then continuously flashed me while dragging me out into the halls. (During this nuke ops declared war, though it isn't relevant.) After dragging me to the other side of the station, they then pulled off my gloves while flashing me, said "Bitch", and walked off. The armory was open, so I walked in and grabbed an egun to take revenge after they robbed me. A little bit later, I saw them in the halls. I shot them once with a tazer, then shot them with lethals until they died. After this I took my gloves back, I dumped them into disposals.

Why you think you should be unbanned: They were clearly starting the fight. Nevere said in our admin PMs that I was responsible for starting the conflict, as I attempted disarms a couple times before they flashed me repeatedly. I understand that my attack was the first thing logged, but I find it very hard to believe that I was responsible for starting that conflict. In my point of view, they attempted to flash me, I retaliated, then they went further by flashing me while dragging me away, and stealing my belongings.

To quote escalation policy:
"You may instigate conflict with another player within reason, but they are entitled to respond with violence. If you think its unfair or excessive they killed you for taking their ID, consider not stealing next round."

[oranges]

>be you
>disarm a guy
>he flashes you and take the gloves
>kill him

Do you see the point where you overstepped the reasonable retaliation part of the exercise?

edit:given that you tased the guy, you also had the means to nonlethally retaliate and you still chose to laser them.

[Spyroshark]

If I ran up to HIM and disarmed him then yes, I would understand how this is going too far. However, I was not looking to fight someone, and I defended myself via disarming before he repeatedly stunned me, and then robbed me because he wanted what I had.

[Stickymayhem]

If this conflict ended at a tase and lase I'd still say that was bad faith escalation (Leaping from a flash theft to an immediate straight murder later using a non-lethal option to secure a complete kill). It looks like you raged and killed someone, and I'd probably note you for that myself.

Where the dayban is certainly acceptable is disposalling the body. That's permanent round removal for stealing your gloves and a total over-escalation. If you left him in medbay and he came back for more, I'd accept it, but you gave this guy zero opportunity to de-escalate the situation. He had no way to back down because you straight up tazed and murdered him in a hallway.

This is a solid ban I don't see how you'd get it appealed.

[Spyroshark]

The ban had nothing to do with disposalling the body. It was never mentioned in ahelps or the ban reason, and I only brought it up because I thought it was a relevant fact, even though it doesn't exactly help my case.

[Stickymayhem]

The ban had nothing to do with disposalling the body. It was never mentioned in ahelps or the ban reason, and I only brought it up because I thought it was a relevant fact, even though it doesn't exactly help my case.

As I said, the killing was already in bad faith. The disposalling just reinforces it. I would have focused on that, Nervere clearly focused on the former, but both were terrible escalation way out of line.

You can't pre-emptively permanently remove people from the round because you're worried they'll want to retaliate. The solution is either don't give them shit to retaliate over, or dunk them once and if they don't de-escalate then you can space them or whatever.

going from "Cool got the gloves" to "Wait wtf I'm tased, oh fuck I'm dead and disposalled" is a shitty situation. You lost gloves, he lost his round. There's a huge gap in escalation you skipped over. You had a fucking taser you could have stripped him there and then and fucked off, but you went way way over the line.

[Spyroshark]

He decided to be a dick to me, so I decided to be a dick to him. That is why I killed him instead of simply taking the gloves off of him.

[BeeSting12]

The golden rule.

We can't ban players for something allowed under the rules. Not just allowed as in "the rules don't say you can't do it," but allowed as in the rules say you CAN do it. We're catering to players that lose ingame and then use admins as their safety net to win OOCly if they can't win ICly every time this happens.

[Stickymayhem]

He decided to be a dick to me, so I decided to be a dick to him. That is why I killed him instead of simply taking the gloves off of him.

>The HoP was a dick to me by not giving me the job I wanted, so I killed him. He decided to be a dick to me, so I decided to be a dick to him.
>The clown was a dick to me by slipping me, so I killed him. He decided to be a dick to me, so I decided to be a dick to him.
>That kid was a dick to me by taking my lollipop, so I killed him. He decided to be a dick to me, so I decided to be a dick to him.

Find a justification that actually justifies anything please. What a dumb argument

[oranges]

Lets look at the policy

If a player wrongs you(theft, attacks, etc), you may retaliate. If you choose to retaliate with violence, you in turn have opened yourself up to violence. If you choose this route, do not expect admins to help you out if you die, even if you were not the original instigator.

You started this fight, with your ESP prediction the guy was about to flash you, so you're open to retaliation, so he flashes you and takes your gloves, so far all good.

If you are concerned about being "kill baited" then consider calling security, using non lethal means to subdue your opponent, fleeing, or otherwise working things out (talking them down, getting your stolen items replaced, etc)

He used non lethal means to subdue you, you however did not when you had the ability the next time you engaged with him, so thats' another violation, he was polite enough to not kill you and you chose not to respect that fact given your obvious anger over being dunked and your gloves taken.

You may instigate conflict with another player within reason (you cant completley destroy their department, kill them unprovoked, or otherwise take them out of the round for long periods of time) but they are entitled to respond with violence. If you think its unfair or excessive they killed you for taking their ID, consider not stealing next round.

This is the only bit of the policy that agrees with your actions, but again, you actually instigated this fight and retroactively covered it with, he was going to flash me. I don't think it's fair to make that assessment and act like he instigated the fight and is therefore open to death, from his perspective he is protecting himself from someone who disarm spammed him when he entered the tool storage with a flash in his hand.

And on top of that, the sentence opens with "You may instigate conflict within reason", this is the guiding principle for everything said after, Spyro in my opinion failed to act reasonably when he started a fight, got dunked and then lethaled and disposed the person who dunked him.

It's a side note but: We should amend the wording of this policy to make it clear that all escalation must be a reasonable progression, then some admins on the team will be less confused about the intent of the policy and we have a more obvious and effective brake on escalation than rule 1.

If you are the instigator in a conflict and end up killing or severely impairing the round of the person you are fighting, you should make a reasonable effort to return them to life at least once or make amends, only seeking round removal if they continue to pursue you. This protection doesn't apply to an instigator being killed.

You failed to uphold this part of the policy and he was not the instigator, and your reasons for doing so (he was going to attempt to kill me later) do not meet muster, you started the fight and invited retribution, part of that is accepting that this means cloning people who will come after you at least once more and dealing with that fact, in the future you can choose not to engage and the other person will be subject to admin sanctions if they come back to fight you.

@Beesting

the golden rule is rule1, don't be a dick, which is what spyro failed to do when he lethaled and disposed a guy who was defending himself from spryo starting a fight with him because he decided that he was going to flash him when he entered a room, especially given that the guy had given spyro a chance by not kiling him when he flash stunned him.

[Cobby]

The ban was edited to include disposalling. I'd prefer to make that the central point of the note/ban since we all agree that's icky but for now I am appeased....

[Stickymayhem]

I've edited the note for now and the ban is being left is. Headmins will sort this shit out and lock or change it tomorrow I guess, but the dayban will probably be done by the time they get round to it.

[Eskjjlj]

In spyroshark's defense I have dealt with the same player in multiple rounds earlier today (22 August). Porter Rifler always went to the tool storage roundstart with a flash in hand and flashed whoever had insulated gloves to steal them.
Here are my dealings with Porter Rifler :
First round : flashes me and steals my insulated gloves roundstart
Second round : flashes me roundstart and welds my chest until I am badly injured then goes afk inside a locker.

Moreover even on rounds where I didnt interact with Porter I've seen them wander near the toolstorage roundstart with a flash in hand to steal gloves or whatever from people.

Clearly Porter does this to be a dick and even if spyroshark disarmed them first it doesnt change the fact that Porter was going to flash them and mug them. So please take into account the repeated toxic behavior of Porter for the final ruling.

Edit : anyone is free to verify my claims once the logs are available.

[Dax Dupont]

In spyroshark's defense I have dealt with the same player in multiple rounds earlier today (22 August). Porter Rifler always went to the tool storage roundstart with a flash in hand and flashed whoever had insulated gloves to steal them.
Here are my dealings with Porter Rifler :
First round : flashes me and steals my insulated gloves roundstart
Second round : flashes me roundstart and welds my chest until I am badly injured then goes afk inside a locker.

Moreover even on rounds where I didnt interact with Porter I've seen them wander near the toolstorage roundstart with a flash in hand to steal gloves or whatever from people.

Clearly Porter does this to be a dick and even if spyroshark disarmed them first it doesnt change the fact that Porter was going to flash them and mug them. So please take into account the repeated toxic behavior of Porter for the final ruling.

Edit : anyone is free to verify my claims once the logs are available.

Please ahelp this behavior if this happens constantly and mention round IDs so we can act on it if it's excessive.

[Nervere]

I'll say how I saw and interpreted the logs from my perspective.
30 seconds into the start of the shift, you get into a fight. You disarm the roboticist in tool storage after assuming they're going to attack you, making them drop their flash.
The roboticist, understandably, doesn't like this and flashes you. They flash you several times as to keep you stunned, then they steal your gloves, running off.To me, this is a perfectly fair conflict: you started a fight, you lost, and you suffered a consequence (losing your gloves). It should've been over by now, but instead you decided to continue the fight. There's approximately a 6 minute gap in your attack logs with Porter Rifler, during which time you prepare to take revenge upon them by taking weapons from the armory. The next time you encounter them, in the HoP office, you wordlessly tase them and laser them to death. You had the means to resolve the situation, by tasing them and taking back your gloves.
Hell, I would've been fine with your situation even if you had decided to rough them up before taking your gloves back. You end up doing neither, however, and you kill them without a single chance for your victim to de-escalate.

Several points that I would like to address.
Firstly, it does matter that nuclear operatives had declared war. Operatives had declared war nearing the end of your initial conflict, if I understand correctly. There is a degree of fair play and sportsmanship expected between the crew, and this bond is strengthened when there is a mutual threat (nuclear operatives declaring war) that faces the crew. This is why, for example, greytiding is punished much more harshly during warops, as well as griefing and messing with command staff.

Secondly, escalation rules hardly support your case. You started a conflict, you got dunked on non-lethally (taking no damage!), and you retaliate by killing the person, even while having non-lethal means on you to subdue your opponent.
Despite you instigating the conflict, you decided to respond with lethal force once the person you aggressed had fought back. Suppose, even, that you were not the instigator of the conflict. It doesn't matter - fact is that someone stole your gloves, a minor aggression at best, and you decided to retaliate by killing them. This is simply terrible escalation. And while it wasn't something that I considered while applying the ban, you mentioned in this appeal that you flushed them down disposals afterwards, effectively permanently removing them from the round. As the instigator in a conflict, you're expected to at least clone the person or bring them to medbay. You did neither, however, sending them down disposals as a final insult to your opponent.

Regarding the portion of escalation rules you cited:

"You may instigate conflict with another player within reason, but they are entitled to respond with violence. If you think its unfair or excessive they killed you for taking their ID, consider not stealing next round."

You really can't claim you're not the instigator because they approached you with a flash in-hand. They were a roboticist, it's a basic part of their job's equipment. You can't just assume they approach with bad intent, disarm them, and then claim a status of victimhood.
Further, escalation is not enforced to-the-letter, and is oftentimes at admin discretion - and for good reason. If we allowed people to kill each other in all instances for minor theft, the station would just be a giant deathmatch. Enforcement is situational, and, in this case, I found that you were not in the right for killing someone for taking your gloves. Let's also now draw an equivalency between stealing an ID and stealing insulated gloves. An ID is something you use to access your department and do your job. It's essential to gameplay function, which is why you're justified in feeling mad when someone takes it. Insulated gloves, however, are a luxury at best, and they certainly aren't necessary to partake in a round.

Something I kept thinking to myself during all of this was, "Is this really how conflict is supposed to happen?"
The answer I came down to was a definite, "no." Regardless of who started it, regardless if they called you a "bitch" or not, you can not jump straight from losing your gloves to taking someone's life.
This is appeal is denied. Due to this being an admin-ban, however, I can imagine that the headmins would like to give their input. They will be the final arbiters of this ban.

[Stickymayhem]

Nerve's assessment of the situation and ban is solid and pretty basic administrative work.

This thread makes it seem like you either wanted to appeal opportunistically knowing you broke the rules, or don't know how escalation is supposed to work as an admin. Neither is great.

[Cobby]

The admin team is quite divided on the matter apart from the disposalling, so it doesn’t seem as simple as a “well you just don’t know escalation” or some sort of manipulative appealing.

If you consider the possibility this “victim” constantly antagonizes players in this way, it’s quite possible Spyro was a victim of a successful ban bait, which just proves Why the oh-so-terrible kor escalation policy has to exist in its current form

[oranges]

The admin team is quite divided on the matter apart from the disposalling, so it doesn’t seem as simple as a “well you just don’t know escalation” or some sort of manipulative appealing.

If you consider the possibility this “victim” constantly antagonizes players in this way, it’s quite possible Spyro was a victim of a successful ban bait, which just proves Why the oh-so-terrible kor escalation policy has to exist in its current form

You can't claim the admin team is divided just because you disagree with the ruling

[BeeSting12]

Just because a flash is "standard job equipment" for a roboticist doesn't mean he can walk around with it in public and look like he's not going to attack someone. Tank transfer valves are standard job equipment for scientists, but running around with a bomb in public wouldn't be taken well either.

Eskjjlj's testimony on the player that stole his gloves is revealing, too. This player has made a habit of assaulting others roundstart and stealing gloves. This makes me suspect the roboticist did in fact look like he was about to attack Ricky, and Ricky simply beat him to the punch. Obviously, this is a "he said she said" type thing, but walking around with a flash is unlogged, so there can be no definitive proof in either direction besides witness testimony.

I'd like to make the argument here that my client Ricky Mclousky did not instigate the conflict, but responded to someone coming at him with a flash in a threatening manner. Ricky got dunked for it which is all well and good, but he is allowed to come back for revenge:

You may instigate conflict with another player within reason (you cant completley destroy their department, kill them unprovoked, or otherwise take them out of the round for long periods of time) but they are entitled to respond with violence. If you think its unfair or excessive they killed you for taking their ID, consider not stealing next round.

Ricky Mclousky was getting his stolen items back and responded with violence. This is literally explicitly allowed by the rules and very hard to misinterpret. This isn't cherry picking one part of escalation policy either. All of escalation policy completely supports him.

If a player wrongs you(theft, attacks, etc), you may retaliate. If you choose to retaliate with violence, you in turn have opened yourself up to violence. If you choose this route, do not expect admins to help you out if you die, even if you were not the original instigator. If you are concerned about being "kill baited" then consider calling security, using non lethal means to subdue your opponent, fleeing, or otherwise working things out (talking them down, getting your stolen items replaced, etc)

You may instigate conflict with another player within reason (you cant completley destroy their department, kill them unprovoked, or otherwise take them out of the round for long periods of time) but they are entitled to respond with violence. If you think its unfair or excessive they killed you for taking their ID, consider not stealing next round.

If you are the instigator in a conflict and end up killing or severely impairing the round of the person you are fighting, you should make a reasonable effort to return them to life at least once or make amends, only seeking round removal if they continue to pursue you. This protection doesn't apply to an instigator being killed.

I've bolded several particularly relevant parts.

1: Porter wronged Ricky, and Ricky retaliated, as is specifically allowed by escalation policy.

2: Choosing the violence route means you forfeit admin protections. Both parties forfeited admin protections when they started violently attacking each other.

3: See above. The rules specifically outline this kind of scenario, and it says to not steal if you don't want to die.

4: The protection of reviving after killing is gone for the instigator. Self explanatory- the rules literally says Porter Rifler has no admin protections.

In conclusion, Ricky Mclousky follow escalation policy to the letter. Under current escalation policy, his actions were perfectly fine. If there's an issue with this, the rules should be changed. The defense rests.

[oranges]

I'd like to make the argument here that my client Ricky Mclousky did not instigate the conflict, but responded to someone coming at him with a flash in a threatening manner. Ricky got dunked for it which is all well and good, but he is allowed to come back for revenge:

Your entire argument rests on this and it's quite clear RIcky instigated the conflict, so everything you are saying has no basis in reality or fact.

ESP guesses that people are going to instigate combat with you are not the start of a conflict. Ricky chose to instigate based on his feeling the guy was going to attack him and then failed to follow policy, up to and including when he lost and was non lethally tossed and then got so mad in a white hot rage that he tased and lased and disposed the guy, violating every single part of of the policy.

I'll refer you to this detailed argument about that: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 04#p434530

It's clear ricky instigated and failed to follow the policy, arguing that someone making threatening movements or having a specific item in hand is "instigating" is a recipe for an impossible to administrate policy.

We must base our investigation on the facts, not what ricky "believed", as we can never determine that.

Prosecution rests.

[BeeSting12]

Just because it's not logged does not mean someone did not start a conflict. For example, let's say someone runs up to me, stun baton in hand, and starts clicking wildly but missing each time, yet there's the tell-tale turning that shows they're trying to melee me. I kill them, and get banned because according to logs, I did not start the conflict. There's more to a conflict than just logs, you should know this.

[oranges]

There is plenty of log evidence to indicate that, it has no bearing on this conversation.

[Stickymayhem]

The intent of the rules is more important than the letter. We don't accept shitty rules lawyering from players, nor should we do so from admins.

It was a bad faith escalation, he leapt straight to killing and permanently removing someone from the round. If everyone did that, the game wouldn't function. He should have tased and roughed him up, at worst really critted him.

Any claims that "He knew this guy was going to attack him because this guy is always shit" is borderline metagaming, especially when it's turned into real game actions like preventive disarming or murdering him.

[lntigracy]

Checking if he actually does this regularly for it to be a known pattern should be simple and I'm surprised nobody has yet.

[BeeSting12]

It's not metagaming- if we find a pattern then that would support spyroshark's story that the guy ran up to him with a flash

[Cobby]

The admin team is quite divided on the matter apart from the disposalling, so it doesn’t seem as simple as a “well you just don’t know escalation” or some sort of manipulative appealing.

If you consider the possibility this “victim” constantly antagonizes players in this way, it’s quite possible Spyro was a victim of a successful ban bait, which just proves Why the oh-so-terrible kor escalation policy has to exist in its current form

You can't claim the admin team is divided just because you disagree with the ruling

I’m clearly not the only one. Yes there is a divide on this hence why we’re still here.

It doesn’t matter who shot first, the conflict could have started with the disarm. Both chose to use violence and handle it themselves and one ahelped after they lost. This is why escalation is what it is now.

All of this is currently supported by escalation policy, which is explicitly made to guide players in how we (should) handle escalation. It literally references stealing = fair to kill, although if you don’t think that’s the true grievance then it would be the flash spam then the steal.

The INTENT of escalation policy was to allow for exactly that for the sake of not dealing with banbaiters (yet here we are), hence why it is worded exactly that. You’re welcome to pull the thread in which kor explains the policy, but don’t assume that wasn’t a planned aspect of the policy because you’re not a fan of it.

[Luke Cox]

Do we have a name on the robotocist in question? I do recall one being a huge pain in the ass constantly.

[BeeSting12]

Do we have a name on the robotocist in question? I do recall one being a huge pain in the ass constantly.

Porter Rifler

[Arianya]

Debate on escalation policy/the roboticist/etc. aside, this appeal was denied by Nervere and as far as I'm aware Spyro has lost interest in discussing it further since the ban is up.

I'll just note for my part that even if you think someone is an egregious, out and out ban/killbaiter that it will always be better to ahelp your concerns and try to get OOC resolution then it will be to arguably metagrudge someone (for good reasons or bad) and then have to justify yourself to an admin when it becomes a ticket. That said, any further discussion probably belongs in a Policy Discussion rather then here.

Locking this pending it being resolved or a headmin posting.

[Cobby]

Reopened so headmins know it isn't resolved yet. Please post appropriately (rich coming from myself hehe)

[CitrusGender]

It's a serious gray area, but this ban has gone through so much time that I don't think it matters anymore.

We shouldn't encourage over-escalation but this type of stuff is going to happen with ambiguity in escalation policy. Personally, I don't think it should be allowed and I think the banning admin's viewpoint on the issue is acceptable.

This appeal is denied, but it really would have been a note anyways. Any other headmin can post.