[CoconutMage] ATHATH - Game Show Permaban

[ATHATH]

BYOND account: ATHATH
Twitch account: ath1909
Character name: literally didn't even get to play
Ban type: Discord AND game
Ban length: Permanent(!)
Ban reason: In the screenshot dump below.
Time ban was placed: In the screenshot dump below.
Server you were playing on when banned: literally didn't even get to play
Round ID in which ban was placed: Round ID, should be present in ban reason from server. Can be excluded if it cannot be found. Example: 101235
Your side of the story:
I woke up at around noon on Sunday, the day of the game show. After I went through my "morning" routine, I checked Discord for pings and noticed that I had been kicked from /tg/cord while I was asleep. I had no idea WHY I had been banned- the only clue I had was this single PM from CoconutMage that had been sent at 6:31 AM (my time) the previous night:

Spoiler:

I soon after discovered that I had not just been kicked from /tg/cord, but also BANNED from it, for a crime that I was still completely unaware of. I sent CoconutMage some DMs to inquire as to what had happened:

Spoiler:

Thanks to some contacts in Manuelcord (love y'all), I was able to find the official reason for my Discord ban:

Spoiler:

Illuminating.

Those Manuelites also informed me that I had not only been banned from /tg/cord, but also from the SERVERS, only a few hours before the start of the game show, which I had secured a place in months earlier and had been very excited for participating in, as it would've played to my strengths and (hopefully) have been a chance to show off some of the countless bits of SS13 trivia knowledge that I've been collecting over the years.

I checked, and sure enough, I had been banned from the servers for 2 days. Thankfully, this ban reason was more clear, albeit still very odd:

Spoiler:

To clarify what happened here:
While I was codediving the non-map file parts of the game show testmerge PR (https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/59825), I noticed that the names of the PR's map files blatantly gave away the names and sequence of the game show's events. I posted about this in the #mapping-general channel on /tg/cord alongside a screenshot that contained 2-3 of the spoiling file names, similar to the one below (I'd post the original, but it looks like it's been deleted):

Spoiler:

I then followed that up (in the same channel) with the posts contained in the following image and went to bed.

Spoiler:

Note the time difference between my last post and the first response post.

After discovering that this was the ban reason, I continued my "conversation" with CoconutMage:

Spoiler:

After not receiving any response from CoconutMage, I sent CitrusGender some relevant screenshots, informed them that I would not be able to attend the game show due to my ban (meaning that they could open up my reserved slot for someone else), and learned that they were "aware of the situation" (which meant that CoconutMage wasn't trying to secretly screw me over for personal reasons or anything like that, which was a relief):

Spoiler:

Per CitrusGender's recommendation, I watched the Twitch stream of the event instead. After some minor salting near the start of the stream, I was able to settle down and enjoy it.

... Until partway through the setup for the second event (the mech building one), when I was timed out from the Twitch stream for an hour for a reason I was not informed of. I hadn't posted any of the ASCII amogus cock or ASCII booba stuff. I hadn't posted any spoilers about the lootbox contents for the battle royale event, and I actually couldn't post any spoilers for the mech building event- the mech building event didn't have any dedicated code for it outside of its map file, and I had only read the non-map files of the testmerge PR. All I had been doing was asking questions about the rules of the event ("can they build AIs to pilot their mechs?", "can they build multiple mechs?") and the event's map ("are the mechs behind that reinforced glass real? if so, could you teleport into that glass to reach those mechs?") and theorizing possible strategies ("yeah, savannah-ivanovs are probably the best mechs for this event", "could they lay BORIS shells around an area and then detonate them using a robotics console to inflict damage?") (quotations paraphrased). One of those questions even got a direct response from the people streaming the event- the mechs behind the reinforced glass were display versions and not real.

Needless to say, I was pretty fucking pissed about being fucked over with no explanation two times within the span of a few hours, but I couldn't really do anything about it, so I just salted in Manuelcord a bit and then watched the rest of the stream (being able to participate in chat again near the end).

Finally, over an hour after the stream and the game show had ended, I received my first PM from CoconutMage since their "howdy" PM (tbf, the more important game show stuff probably kept them very busy):

Spoiler:

Now that I was finally able to properly talk to him, I asked CoconutMage about the time out from the Twitch stream, and his response was what can only be described as a :walter: moment:

Spoiler:

And yes, that's a permaban from the game servers too.

Spoiler:

Note the "UPDATE" section of the ban reason that wasn't present in the 2 day version of this ban.

Why you think you should be unbanned: I don't believe that I should have been banned for 2 days, let alone permanently. I posted that screenshot in #mapping-general to warn you about the possibility of people easily spoiling the event names/orders by just skimming over the PR, not to encourage people to spoil the upcoming events in #discussion-general or something.

If someone stumbles into #mapping-general the day before a game show that the mapping team has been working on is due to be released and is surprised that there are spoilers for that game show there, I honestly don't know what to tell them. Other people have posted far greater spoilers for the game show there without being reprimanded, such as mid-development screenshots of event maps, yet I'm supposed to be banned, kicked out of the game show, and told that my "actions are deterimental [sic] to the community" for posting 2-3 file names?

Spoiler:

The "UPDATE" message at the end of the reasoning for the permanent version of my ban is incredibly misleading, and I believe that my ban being upgraded to a permaban was probably just a result of a miscommunication between CoconutMage and Domitius, with CoconutMage thinking that I had been spewing spoilers or telling people how to crash the server or something.

https://clips.twitch.tv/ChillyLittlePou ... _bIFHx9h30
"I wanna see some thinkin' outside the box." -Domitius

I'd like to reiterate here that I don't codedive to "make the game less fun for people", I do it to make cool and memorable things happen, to improve the community's (and my own) understanding of the game, and to curb the spread of misinformation.

Spoiler:

References of good conduct: None; it's been like a day since the game show.
Anything else we should know: The funny thing is, I think the Discord ban is more significant to me than the game ban, as I'm currently going through crippling :borgspin: withdrawal (and I don't wanna be separated from my friends there).

[Domitius]

Hey! Since I'm involved I'm here to post relevant logs from the twitch chat and quickly go over that mess.

Twitch logs from Athath from the start of the twitch stream up til the timeout.

Spoiler:

I was aware of your discord ban and from what I understood it was related to leaking event details intentionally. This is relevant in my mind as when I looked over during the mech round I saw you posting ways to exploit ways to complete the challenge or ways to gain a massive advantage. I understand I said "Think outside the box" but it was in context to shifting their work station around though I also understand that confusion.

With all of that on my mind I placed the timeout because I was scared you would start posting further exploits or leaks for later challenges that some may jump on. The duration for the time-out was set low but I apologize for not sending you a message with reason at the time regardless of it's length.

On my part I'm sorry this whole thing spiraled out so far.

If you need anything else please let me know!

[Coconutwarrior97]

What heavily influenced my decisions here was your note history,

Spoiler:

2021-03-10 - Named himself "Marth From Super Smash Bros Melee" as a chef to abuse a bug that let CQC grab from long distances. Was warned to not name himself overly OOC names on jobs that don't have a lax naming policy.
2020-01-16 - Has been warned not to abuse in game exploits, especially not in order to murderbone, and ESPECIALLY not through TC trades.
2019-12-23 - Banned from the server for 1 month - [Common] Bob Bobson says, "I have the power to LAG THE STATION AT WILL, GODS" [Common] Bob Bobson says, "NOT UNTIL THE ADMINS GIVE US OUR SANT" | holding the server hostage by lagging it out to get what they want, OOC in IC
2019-08-11 04:52:47 - Warned for exploiting the wiz suicide thing: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/14982
2019-5-29 - I know it wasnt malicious but please dont make your name a url via agent card and then ask an AI to orbit you, forcing people to click links is a bad idea and it's a slippery slope with bug abuse and potentially giving people the idea of linking malicious sites at silicons with their name

These are largely cases of you using exploits in-game, which to be fair is not what happened here, still the fact its related to what I'd generally call you using coding knowledge in a generally detrimental way i.e spoiling the event's round order and offering potential exploits in twitch chat while the event is going on . The original 2 day ban being for sharing spoilers about the event in #mapping-general. The code is open source, but that doesn't mean you should be spreading information about the specifics of the event order in public channels. It brings more visibility to it since I don't think the average player is going to look at the files to actually see. Basically don't be a party pooper. Fikou @'d you to warn you not to do it after deleting the messages, and once I learned of that I decided to upgrade it to a two day ban given your history.

The next day, I woke up after the event had already happened, I noticed discussion about your comments in twitch chat and you getting muted for it. Domitius provided me the logs from that chat,

Spoiler:

The following lines are what specifically drew my attention,

Spoiler:

"also, if teleportation works"
"can they extract the cyborgs from behind the windows"
"and then deploy them around"
"and then use a robotics console"
"to detonate them"

In regards to that twitch clip, "thinking outside the box" should not be taken as "ok then i can share a way you could potentially exploit the event in the twitch chat.

This is more of a cumulative ban, which is why I made sure to specifically cite your previous notes/bans related to this.
My impression is that you weren't malicious with these two events, but all the same you seem to just not understand why you shouldn't be doing them, getting noted/banned for it, and then still continue to do them. Thats why I opted for a permaban, and I do not intend to accept this appeal. As always, other headmins may overrule me.

[ATHATH]

With all of that on my mind I placed the timeout because I was scared you would start posting further exploits or leaks for later challenges that some may jump on. The duration for the time-out was set low but I apologize for not sending you a message with reason at the time regardless of it's length.

On my part I'm sorry this whole thing spiraled out so far.

If you need anything else please let me know!

Fair enough, I can understand why you might have been worried and panic-muted me, and I do accept your apology for not sending a reason message or a warning. We're cool, Domi.

Also, clarification for why there's :pogchamp: in the logs: I posted that in response to someone in OOC chat telling people in Twitch chat to post :pogchamp: as a part of... some kind of joke, I don't remember which. You can probably see it somewhere in the Twitch VOD, although I don't expect anyone to actually care enough to dig it up.

Say, Domitius, are the logs for the other messages that were posted in Twitch chat during the robotics competition available? Was I the only one theorizing/strategizing/asking questions about the specifics of the rules?

[ATHATH]

The code is open source, but that doesn't mean you should be spreading information about the specifics of the event order in public channels. It brings more visibility to it since I don't think the average player is going to look at the files to actually see.

"public channels" is misleading; that was #mapping-general, which I assumed was a safe place to discuss upcoming events in, as it'd be pretty silly if we forced our mappers to spoiler every single image they posted there that was related to the event they were working on. Again, if you get spoiled because you entered and read messages in a channel labeled "#mapbus" (or whatever it's currently called) the day before a game show that CitrusGender has repeatedly announced (with @everyone pings) that we have had our mapping team greatly contribute to is due to take place, it's your own damn fault. Maybe we should make an #events-general channel or something to avoid this kind of thing.

Fikou @'d you to warn you not to do it after deleting the messages

This, IMO, is where the reprimand for this incident should have ended. Ironically, because I was banned from the Discord server, I was actually unable to see Fikou's ping until someone screenshotted it and posted it in a server we shared.

In regards to that twitch clip, "thinking outside the box" should not be taken as "ok then i can share a way you could potentially exploit the event in the twitch chat.

I didn't need permission from Domitius or CitrusGender to theorize about possible strategies in Twitch chat- I just found that quote ironic. To be clear, I wasn't using information gained from the code of the testmerge PR in that robotics event theorization. I was literally just going off of what I (and the rest of Twitch chat) was seeing on the stream.

What heavily influenced my decisions here was your note history,

This is more of a cumulative ban, which is why I made sure to specifically cite your previous notes/bans related to this.

Ah, so this is entirely about my note history, and the inciting incident here is just being used as an excuse to reevalutate my note history. Well, I wish you had been transparent about that from the beginning- it'd have saved me a lot of typing in my opening post. Let's go over those notes you cited, then, shall we?

2021-03-10 - Named himself "Marth From Super Smash Bros Melee" as a chef to abuse a bug that let CQC grab from long distances. Was warned to not name himself overly OOC names on jobs that don't have a lax naming policy.

The "bug abuse" in action: .
I've complied with the warning (and will continue to in the future), but I still stand by what I said in the title of this video- that joke was worth the naming policy note. It should also be noted that I specifically avoided using this bug to kill a heretic who had wiped out the rest of the station, and IIRC, I was slain by that heretic because of that.

2020-01-16 - Has been warned not to abuse in game exploits, especially not in order to murderbone, and ESPECIALLY not through TC trades.

I believe that this note was made in reference to my demonic deal gimmick, in which I TC traded for a spellbook of Instant Summons and a slaughter demon heart, then marked the slaughter demon heart using Instant Summons. I then went around offering random people this demonic heart in exchange for them performing a minor act of evil/betrayal of their job. The true goal of each of these deals was not to get a victim to do evil things, but rather to trick them into eating the demonic heart, which would replace their own heart with the demonic one and give them the ability to bloodcrawl. After a victim ate the heart and tried to test their ability to bloodcrawl, I'd recall the demonic heart from their chest into my hand while my victim was mid-bloodcrawl, removing their ability to STOP bloodcrawling and forcing them to slowly wither away due to their lack of a heart on the ethereal plane. This is possible because Instant Summons has code that specifically pertains to using that spell to recall a marked organ from someone's body:

Code: Select all

			if(!item_to_retrieve.loc)
				if(isorgan(item_to_retrieve)) // Organs are usually stored in nullspace
					var/obj/item/organ/organ = item_to_retrieve
					if(organ.owner)
						// If this code ever runs I will be happy
						log_combat(L, organ.owner, "magically removed [organ.name] from", addition="COMBAT MODE: [uppertext(L.combat_mode)]")
						organ.Remove(organ.owner)

I believe that the reason that this note was applied was because I didn't tell the admin I was TC trading with what I planned to do with the items I TC traded for or that I had done this gimmick before (albeit in a less refined state).

2019-12-23 - Banned from the server for 1 month - [Common] Bob Bobson says, "I have the power to LAG THE STATION AT WILL, GODS" [Common] Bob Bobson says, "NOT UNTIL THE ADMINS GIVE US OUR SANT" | holding the server hostage by lagging it out to get what they want, OOC in IC

This note is less excusable. I described the (regrettable in hindsight) circumstances surrounding it in this ban appeal (https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... lit=ATHATH), but to sum it up, I broke into Centcom, got kicked out by some admins, later mistakenly believed that I was currently being watched by admins due to having just randomly received an item from them via drop pod, and tried to have my character "get revenge" on them/provoke them into smiting me by threatening (over comms in bigtext) to perform a blank search using a library console if a list of demands wasn’t satisfied, which would cause the server to drop everything for 5-8 seconds to try to load every single piece of ""literature"" in the library as search results (IIRC). I followed through on my threat once or twice before being banned.

It was my first and only time experimenting with lag exploitation, and I've avoided lag exploitation since then (and plan to continue to due so in the future), as I've learned that attempting to intentionally cause lag (especially to intentionally provoke admins) is an incredibly fucking stupid idea.

2019-08-11 04:52:47 - Warned for exploiting the wiz suicide thing: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/14982

That note links to the wrong issue report (or at least a misleading one); it should be changed to link to https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/45855 instead.

Basically, the mind transfer spell has a safeguard against initiating a delayed suicide and then mind swapping with someone else to cause them to commit suicide instead. However, at the time, the way that the signaler suicide worked was that you'd swallow a signaler, and only after that signaler received a pulse would you die and actually be marked as a suicider/having started a suicide attempt. This meant that I, as a wizard named "suicide wiz", could swallow a signaler, mind swap with someone (because I wasn't marked as a suicider yet), and then have a pAI buddy use the pAI signaler program/software to pulse the signaler inside of my old body while both myself and my victim were unconscious, resulting in my victim dying and being marked as a suicider. I could then use Instant Summons to retrieve the (marked) signaler from my old body's corpse and repeat the process with my next victim. It was a cooler (and funnier) way to execute my mind transfer victims than just having a plainclothes apprentice with a soulstone on standby to one click dust my old bodies while they're unconscious, IMO.

It should be noted that, 2-3 months before I finally rolled wizard and could pull off the gimmick, I tested it to make sure the core concept worked with the help of multiple admins. Nobody (including the witnessing admins and me) fixed or reported the bug during that 2-3 month period, but I made the issue report linked above (only) after successfully pulling it off as a wizard in a dynamic round.

2019-5-29 - I know it wasnt malicious but please dont make your name a url via agent card and then ask an AI to orbit you, forcing people to click links is a bad idea and it's a slippery slope with bug abuse and potentially giving people the idea of linking malicious sites at silicons with their name

Relevant issue report: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/44089 .
After seeing the above issue report, I tried pranking the AI with it (I believe with a link to a thanos.dance, which at the time was a “website” that just contained a (safe) gif of Thanos dancing) during an actual round, which I am sadly foggy on the details of. However, I probably did that as an HoP (using my console to rename a generic ID card), not an agent card, as AIs can't track people who are wearing agent cards, last I checked.

My impression is that you weren't malicious with these two events, but all the same you seem to just not understand why you shouldn't be doing them, getting noted/banned for it, and then still continue to do them. Thats why I opted for a permaban, and I do not intend to accept this appeal. As always, other headmins may overrule me.

You're right, I don't understand why I shouldn't be doing this. Please enlighten me, as I would like to see your reasoning here- or is your reasoning just “exploit bad”, even after reading my clarifications above? Because if the reason I’m being banned by a head admin is just “exploit bad” and viewing the edges and cracks of game mechanics as more than just imperfections to be removed is declared to be blasphemous, or if you genuinely believe that I hurt the game and the experiences of other players more than I help them, then I don’t need you to permaban me, I’ll leave of my own free will.

[Domitius]

With all of that on my mind I placed the timeout because I was scared you would start posting further exploits or leaks for later challenges that some may jump on. The duration for the time-out was set low but I apologize for not sending you a message with reason at the time regardless of it's length.

On my part I'm sorry this whole thing spiraled out so far.

If you need anything else please let me know!

Fair enough, I can understand why you might have been worried and panic-muted me, and I do accept your apology for not sending a reason message or a warning. We're cool, Domi.

Also, clarification for why there's :pogchamp: in the logs: I posted that in response to someone in OOC chat telling people in Twitch chat to post :pogchamp: as a part of... some kind of joke, I don't remember which. You can probably see it somewhere in the Twitch VOD, although I don't expect anyone to actually care enough to dig it up.

Say, Domitius, are the logs for the other messages that were posted in Twitch chat during the robotics competition available? Was I the only one theorizing/strategizing/asking questions about the specifics of the rules?

The entire chat is available through the VOD here https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1069589549

During the robotics section of the stream it was mostly mechanics and rule questions but please take another look to see if I missed anything.

[ATHATH]

After reading through the peanut thread, I can now see why certain people might not want me to codedive or push mechanics to their limits, but I still believe that my positive impact on the community is greater than my negative impact on the community.

I would also like to note that these notes describe my codediving and bug exploitation's impact at its worst. They don't recount the tales of a corpse on a rolling chair silently tackling its way through an away mission as a part of a raid group, of a moth with a real, non-wig afro, of Wide Mewtin, of a blind, wheelchair-bound lizard who managed to *dab 200 times in a single round and live to tell the tale, of a sec officer who successfully re-humanified a gorilla, of a plasmaman who transcended the need for clothing with the aid of a virus and the power of his stand. I'm not some monster who seeks only to round remove people and break maps.

[Coconutwarrior97]

"public channels" is misleading

Mapping-general is indeed a public channel, given how anyone can view/post in it. Also there is in fact an events-bus channel where stuff like this sort of thing is discussed in-depth. Hence why discussing event order in mapping-general was considered to be spoiling the event for others. I fail to see how this part is misleading.

"theorize about possible strategies in Twitch chat"

I will reiterate again, this was not a simple "valid strategy" or anything, this was you sharing a way a participant in the event could gain an unfair advantage, hence why I referred to it as an exploit.

This is not the place to appeal all the other bans/notes I cited, just this one. That would be quite ridiculous if that became standard practice, to see every ban/note appeal also appealing EVERY other note/ban they got related to their newest note/ban.
I believe that's just common sense right there.

You're right, I don't understand why I shouldn't be doing this.

Actively sharing ways for players in an event to gain an unfair advantage, in a way that they can quite easily see if they are watching the twitch chat is very not cool. Especially after you had already been banned for spoiling specifics about the events.
Thats as far as I'm going to continue explaining my reasoning. Since anything further just feels like I'm going to be repeating myself. I'll lock this now and leave it up to the other Headmins on how they'd like to handle this.

[Naloac]

Overall we dont think this is deserving of a perma. While you do have a history of exploiting things instead of reporting them, I dont see them mostly as malice fuelled actions. We dont think the twitch logs mattered as your only discussing strats which anyone could have done themselves. The part about speaking in events bus doesnt really apply since its a hidden channel for normal players so mapping general would be the obvious place to talk about the event. As such will be overturning this perma ban and changing it to a discord warning about not spoiling events.

Naloac -Yes
Jimmius -Yes