[Subject 217] Isy232 - Banned for talking of the felinid vote IC.

[Isy232]

Byond account and character name: Isy232 as "Klynoth Culberry"

Banning admin: Subject 217

Ban type (What are you banned from?): The game servers I believe, I have tried Terry and Sybil and have been denied access on both.

Ban reason and length: "Using IC methods to campaign the felinid vote."

Time ban was placed (including time zone): 20:57:19 Server time. ~17:00 EST

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

Your side of the story: I heard that /tg/ station was a "Light Roleplay" server according to: (https://spacestation13.com/about/). The round was on Doughnut station and I was the captain. I had to take a crap 20 or so minutes into the round, so hid myself in my room and did so, putting in an adminhelp message saying roughly "I need to go to the bathroom, if I take too long, replace me". After I returned, I realized someone must have broken into my room, the door was unlocked and my ID was gone. I scrolled up in the chat and found that someone had made an announcement about the felinid vote using my communications console. I went to it and realized it was still logged in, so I made a post voicing the opinion opposite to the one previous. The time I did this it was 33 or so minutes into the round with the shuttle ETA at 1 or 2 minutes, called for no apparent reason other than people just really didn't like Doughnut station, myself included. I didn't do this in the middle of some super serious round or anything. I was then informed that there is policy against mentioning the felinid vote in character and that I would be banned for 3 hours when the round ended, which I was when the round ended. This was said with next to no time left in the round, therefor no time to question the admin about his/her decision before the ban.

Why you think you should be unbanned: A 3 hour ban may seem very short in comparison to other bans, but for someone who finished school, did their homework and then signed on, only to be banned on the second round they played that night for 3/5 hours they have available, it is extremely annoying. Also, this policy is not displayed anywhere and I was not aware of it before breaking the rule, so I had no clue such harsh punishment was being enforced. Personally, I think this punishment is extremely harsh for what seems to be such a minor infraction to me. I understand the want for immersion, but the round I did this on was one where it was nearly over and I believed the shuttle was being called because people did not like the station. I have the sense to not pull something like this on a round in which people are roleplaying and trying to immerse themselves, but the round I did this on was not one of those rounds to at least a majority of the crew I believe.

I would also like to add that at the time of posting, my ban duration is about halfway over and I hope the effort I actually put into this shows that I do want to play the game and not be an asshole breaking everyone's immersion.

Edit: The ban ended before I got any replies, I still think this is an issue though and have linked to it. I have opened up a policy discussion on this incident at: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 05#p450305

[subject217]

Hi, I didn't notice this buried in the other appeals, so sorry for the late reply. I did not want to ban you originally and I was told to ban you by a headmin, Nervere. Therefore, I defer to his judgment on this.

That being said, I do think you had a point about banning people for something they can't reasonably be expected to know, and immediately after I did this ban Nervere put an MOTD up about using IC methods to campaign.

[Nervere]

We're not going to be tolerating any sort of IC campaigning, no matter your stance, for or against the felinid server vote. The other player who made an announcement that round about the vote received a ban of the same length for the same reason.
Campaigning for a server vote is a pretty blatant violation of our rule against OOC in IC, even if you disguise the campaigning with IC language. The quality of our servers is vastly improved when people are not taking an already-heated debate that belongs in the OOC channel into the IC realm. I added a MotD announcement in bold red font after this round, specifically because the volume of incidents where people were IC'ly campaigning, not because such behavior was not against the rules beforehand.
This appeal is denied.