[<Mindstormy>] TheLoLSwat - ban
Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2023 5:10 am
BYOND account: TheLoLSwat
Character name: Lisa Green
Ban type: server
Ban length: 2 days
Ban reason:
Time ban was placed: 22:22:46
Server you were playing on when banned: sybil
Round ID in which ban was placed: 200128, logs are here if anyone is interested
Your side of the story & why you think you should be unbanned: For clairty, and an ATTEMPT to not write too much, I will merge these two sections.
Context
- Kendra hunter (my valentine) gave me an esword as a gift as seen here.
- while conversing with Kendra Hunter (we are also 1 tile from eachother and off to the side as to not interrupt anybody else), mr Max Power comes up to me (same distance that Kendra was, 1 tile) and does... i dont know (he just stood there, i think the typing indicator came up but i didnt understand what he was doing or trying to do
- Using the esword i had just recieved along with a laser gun, I attacked Max and was able to crit him in two esword hits and three laser shots while he fled towards escape (this is on icebox) and then looped around back outside medbay entrance. After going into crit, Max Power almost immediately succumbs to his injuries
- I take my leave, he was out in the open and right next to medbay. I intentionally did not stop attempts to revive them, but I also did not stop the crew from dismembering his corpse after explaining to them why i did what i did.
-Shortly after, I get a bwoink.
Now I know what you may be thinking reading those hastily thrown together bullet points, and rereading these points without my small commentary makes me almost believe that the admin had case to atleast note me. However, a deeper dive into the logs shows that it is not the case.
Last thing i will talk about before going into why the ban reason (in and of itself) is dumb is my "interaction" with Max Power that round.
- Max power enters brig (However, he had a free entryway into brig because of tide so I did not do more than yell at him and everyone else to get out since i usually had to process a prisoner or do somthing else important)
MASSIVE disclaimer: unlike the other points i have made, this is the only one that I dont have log support for, this is either because 1. Max power never entered brig (which is not true), or 2. I am separating the one instance into two which or 3. Max power entered just to be weird and stare (which although I am pretty certain this is the case, I cant say in full confidence because I cannot find log evidence). This point isnt going to be the one that makes or breaks my appeal anyway, just some added potential context.
- Max Power enters brig while I have another confirmed traitor cuffed and about to process them. After a few seconds of posturing (I was not getting a good feeling about the guy because he was just staring at me and not even saying anything so I opted to use the traitor chaplain as a meat shield just incase he pulls out a gun or something), Max power comes at me with a stun baton and promptly gets blammed for it after missing me.
- After shooting Max, I let him run out of brig without even giving chase because (IC, forefront reasoning): I had to process the prisoner and I wanted to throw the chaplain in jail for breaking into a sec locker and also being a traitor instead of risking losing both a footchase and leaving the prisoner unguarded when brig is wide open. (OOC, back-of-mind reasoning): I wanted to give Max some time to contact me when we are lightyears away via PDA or radio if he wanted to de-escalate. Not only did neither of this happen, Max also only said 6 things over comms in over 20 minutes, with one of them being "O" (although this may be irrelevant, it just helps to show the actions taken (or i guess not taken) by Max which further lead me to believe that he was up to no good).
With all this out of the way, I can do an almost complete 180 (if you think this is going to be jarring just imagine what I was going through experiencing an admin do this to me in real time) and talk about the actual reason I was banned. Powergaming.
Before we start (yeah whatever i know ive been saying that a lot im sorry rule 12 is a beast so i need to leave no doubt here) lets get a few terms out of the way.
Powergaming in its most "pure" form is essentially using any game mechanic (intended or not) with the purpose of furthering a goal. I suspect that the wording of these two statements in rule 12 precedent 1 matching with my own definition is not a coincidence. I would even go a bit further to say that the wording is intentional in order to differentiate "pure" powergaming and what rule 12 is trying to combat (playing to win)
Validhunting in its most "pure" form is essentially... going around hunting people down. What differentiates validhunting and hunting someone that is valid is that validhunter's have notoriously bad motives for doing something as drastic as removing someone, and instead hiding behind rule 4 to not get banned for killing.
Given these two definitions, I believe that the admin meant to use the term "validhunt" instead of "powergame" as it is closer in line with rule 12 (playing to win). and as such unless otherwise specificed I will be using the terms validhunt instead of powergame where it applies.
The part where i go over the ban reason, TLDR
Excessive powergaming: The reason that I decided to call this validhunting instead of powergaming is because of the wording used by the admin during the ticket. I dont have access to these logs but I would really appreciate it if the banning admin or another admin that has access to it can post. I can confidently say, however.
I was not playing to "win", when it was in the best interest of the narrative of the round I let antagonists go, or gave them a large obstacle (such as perma) to see if they could overcome it, or even avoided fighting them to instead quickly create a gap despite certain death (probably) if i fail, and this all happened in the same round i was banned for essentially violating rule 12, which covers playing to win. below are a few examples
- Did not harm my traitor valentine, even though this is the weakest counterpoint it still counts towards not "playing to win", especially considering there are many loopholes to ruining someones round without harming them that a validhunter wouldve gone through in order to "win" at both their valentines objective and also the general "kill/permanently incapacitate antag" traditional validhunt method
- Caught a traitor dead to rights breaking a security locker open with an emag and only threw him in perma, figuring that he will have an escape. (OOC)
- Was sleepy pen'd by a traitor and instead of using the 30 seconds to lethal and RR like someone that is playing to win wouldve, I juked him into the teleporter room and closed the portal to buy myself just enough time to run downstairs and wait off the sleep. I of course threatened Weston and I probably wouldve beaten him (bad) but I confidently wouldnt have executed him, especially on lowpop. I know this is entering "wouldvecouldveshouldve" territory but I hope that my previous examples can
-Instead of gunning down a "friendly" (was saccing people in the halls on lowpop and wasnt actively going around murderboning i guess) heretic, i gave a suggestion that allowed both of us to go on with our day while still keeping him close by just in case i need to smack him for doing even more dumb heretic stuff (obviously i was going a little light because they were doing a gimmick)
Not to say i was perfect that round, as I did shoot quite a few people that didnt want to leave sec (and that were actively robbing it after i told them to drop the locker and kick rocks). However, i dont believe it is relevant when talking about a powergaming ban.
Regularly ignores duties as captain to powergame: This one upset me. If NOTHING else, I pride myself on actually trying to lead the station during threats (or lead them into despair and urge them to get off station if its hopeless). I always make sure power is up, through threatening engineers with jail time if i have to go down there to set it up myself. I spent damn near TWENTY minutes with (also power came on here) the rest of the crew trying to figure it out, which i might add you didnt even help with despite:
- specifically being asked to help in as IC of a way as i can without disrupting the flow of the shift with admins just turning on the lights and going "fixed lol" which honestly also wouldnt have been a bad idea considering, but I wont fight against your choice to instead check my player panel and follow me (from words used in the ahelp, please correct me if im wrong as i do not have access to the logs) because im not the admin so surely whatever reasoning you have made it worth ignoring the entire server when the shuttle was about to be un-recallable and power had to miraculously come back on after Kendra (i believe but im too lazy to check and ive been working on this all evening)
- We were going to speedurn the shuttle because we all (i floated the idea and nobody seemed to disagree since nobody could figure it out) legitimately believed that something out of our control was fucking with the power.
I cant provide too many examples as this was a short shift on top of being lowpop, but I hope that my previously seen captain gameplay and the small interactions i had this round can help prove that I actually give a damn about my captain job. I am confident that i am wording this atleast decently but make no mistake, I am very disappointed with the adminwork done in this ticket. I dont believe that the admin was acting in good faith (or at the very least being very negligent) and if I can read the logs I can at the very least either have concrete logs to back up my claim, or I can apologize for to accusation and we can get back to processing the appeal part of this appeal.
Finally, Disk has been left unsecure on nearly every shift Lisa was captain for: This is just untrue. Could you tell me where i leave the disk "nearly every shift" that isnt secure? perhaps there is a contraption that is specifically designed to hold smaller things.... Its also almost as if there is a special code so that only the code-haver can access the contents of this mystery contraption... If only there was a name to perfectly describe in as few letters as possible the point of this mystery contraption and what it is supposed to do...
Im also not sure why this is part of the ban reason, considering protecting the disk in a different non traditional way isnt really "incompetence", especially when you look at the numerous examples that i spent hours curating and getting log evidence for to prove that im not an incompetent captain, or one that ignores captain duties to "validhunt". Would you bwoink a captain for surgically implanting the disk inside the clown, or putting it in an infinite disposals loop? The nuclear disk also came into play exactly 0 times that round And i dont believe my note history supports you adding it to the ban reason because you disagree with my playstyle and how i choose to protect the disk.
I hope to get the note removed as I dont believe it is fair to apply considering everything i just said. I would also like atleast a few other admins to check the ahelp logs and ask themselves if it was handled appropriately by the admin (this can be done privately, I just hope I can encourage a few staff members to poke their head into it). I want to say that this admin is acting in bad faith but I know that I have bias so I just want to put everything i can out and let conclusions be drawn where they may
will be editing and all that just hope to get the first draft out
ps. This is a long post but I am open to discussion about this if (when i guess?) you disagree. It feels like you started yelling at me for something rule 1 related (why did you rr that guy being asked when i didnt even behead the fucking guy), and as soon as I was able to explain why i did what I did, you pivoted it to rule 12 and then went "ok yeah powergamer + you obviously dont banned see you on forums" and then went radio silent before banning me when my actions clearly werent in violation of rule 12, i wasnt playing to win!!!!!!! I spared the only traitor i was able to actually catch by putting him in perma, and didnt even use the esword on him when he won a fight against me, knowing that he has syndicate gear and refuses to go back to jail. I really dont mean to rant but I cant say at all that I believed you did due diligence especially when it comes to a rule as complex as rule 12.
Character name: Lisa Green
Ban type: server
Ban length: 2 days
Ban reason:
Time ban was placed: 22:22:46
Server you were playing on when banned: sybil
Round ID in which ban was placed: 200128, logs are here if anyone is interested
Your side of the story & why you think you should be unbanned: For clairty, and an ATTEMPT to not write too much, I will merge these two sections.
Context
- Kendra hunter (my valentine) gave me an esword as a gift as seen here.
- while conversing with Kendra Hunter (we are also 1 tile from eachother and off to the side as to not interrupt anybody else), mr Max Power comes up to me (same distance that Kendra was, 1 tile) and does... i dont know (he just stood there, i think the typing indicator came up but i didnt understand what he was doing or trying to do
- Using the esword i had just recieved along with a laser gun, I attacked Max and was able to crit him in two esword hits and three laser shots while he fled towards escape (this is on icebox) and then looped around back outside medbay entrance. After going into crit, Max Power almost immediately succumbs to his injuries
- I take my leave, he was out in the open and right next to medbay. I intentionally did not stop attempts to revive them, but I also did not stop the crew from dismembering his corpse after explaining to them why i did what i did.
-Shortly after, I get a bwoink.
Now I know what you may be thinking reading those hastily thrown together bullet points, and rereading these points without my small commentary makes me almost believe that the admin had case to atleast note me. However, a deeper dive into the logs shows that it is not the case.
Last thing i will talk about before going into why the ban reason (in and of itself) is dumb is my "interaction" with Max Power that round.
- Max power enters brig (However, he had a free entryway into brig because of tide so I did not do more than yell at him and everyone else to get out since i usually had to process a prisoner or do somthing else important)
MASSIVE disclaimer: unlike the other points i have made, this is the only one that I dont have log support for, this is either because 1. Max power never entered brig (which is not true), or 2. I am separating the one instance into two which or 3. Max power entered just to be weird and stare (which although I am pretty certain this is the case, I cant say in full confidence because I cannot find log evidence). This point isnt going to be the one that makes or breaks my appeal anyway, just some added potential context.
- Max Power enters brig while I have another confirmed traitor cuffed and about to process them. After a few seconds of posturing (I was not getting a good feeling about the guy because he was just staring at me and not even saying anything so I opted to use the traitor chaplain as a meat shield just incase he pulls out a gun or something), Max power comes at me with a stun baton and promptly gets blammed for it after missing me.
- After shooting Max, I let him run out of brig without even giving chase because (IC, forefront reasoning): I had to process the prisoner and I wanted to throw the chaplain in jail for breaking into a sec locker and also being a traitor instead of risking losing both a footchase and leaving the prisoner unguarded when brig is wide open. (OOC, back-of-mind reasoning): I wanted to give Max some time to contact me when we are lightyears away via PDA or radio if he wanted to de-escalate. Not only did neither of this happen, Max also only said 6 things over comms in over 20 minutes, with one of them being "O" (although this may be irrelevant, it just helps to show the actions taken (or i guess not taken) by Max which further lead me to believe that he was up to no good).
With all this out of the way, I can do an almost complete 180 (if you think this is going to be jarring just imagine what I was going through experiencing an admin do this to me in real time) and talk about the actual reason I was banned. Powergaming.
Before we start (yeah whatever i know ive been saying that a lot im sorry rule 12 is a beast so i need to leave no doubt here) lets get a few terms out of the way.
Powergaming in its most "pure" form is essentially using any game mechanic (intended or not) with the purpose of furthering a goal. I suspect that the wording of these two statements in rule 12 precedent 1 matching with my own definition is not a coincidence. I would even go a bit further to say that the wording is intentional in order to differentiate "pure" powergaming and what rule 12 is trying to combat (playing to win)
Validhunting in its most "pure" form is essentially... going around hunting people down. What differentiates validhunting and hunting someone that is valid is that validhunter's have notoriously bad motives for doing something as drastic as removing someone, and instead hiding behind rule 4 to not get banned for killing.
Given these two definitions, I believe that the admin meant to use the term "validhunt" instead of "powergame" as it is closer in line with rule 12 (playing to win). and as such unless otherwise specificed I will be using the terms validhunt instead of powergame where it applies.
The part where i go over the ban reason, TLDR
Excessive powergaming: The reason that I decided to call this validhunting instead of powergaming is because of the wording used by the admin during the ticket. I dont have access to these logs but I would really appreciate it if the banning admin or another admin that has access to it can post. I can confidently say, however.
I was not playing to "win", when it was in the best interest of the narrative of the round I let antagonists go, or gave them a large obstacle (such as perma) to see if they could overcome it, or even avoided fighting them to instead quickly create a gap despite certain death (probably) if i fail, and this all happened in the same round i was banned for essentially violating rule 12, which covers playing to win. below are a few examples
- Did not harm my traitor valentine, even though this is the weakest counterpoint it still counts towards not "playing to win", especially considering there are many loopholes to ruining someones round without harming them that a validhunter wouldve gone through in order to "win" at both their valentines objective and also the general "kill/permanently incapacitate antag" traditional validhunt method
- Caught a traitor dead to rights breaking a security locker open with an emag and only threw him in perma, figuring that he will have an escape. (OOC)
- Was sleepy pen'd by a traitor and instead of using the 30 seconds to lethal and RR like someone that is playing to win wouldve, I juked him into the teleporter room and closed the portal to buy myself just enough time to run downstairs and wait off the sleep. I of course threatened Weston and I probably wouldve beaten him (bad) but I confidently wouldnt have executed him, especially on lowpop. I know this is entering "wouldvecouldveshouldve" territory but I hope that my previous examples can
-Instead of gunning down a "friendly" (was saccing people in the halls on lowpop and wasnt actively going around murderboning i guess) heretic, i gave a suggestion that allowed both of us to go on with our day while still keeping him close by just in case i need to smack him for doing even more dumb heretic stuff (obviously i was going a little light because they were doing a gimmick)
Not to say i was perfect that round, as I did shoot quite a few people that didnt want to leave sec (and that were actively robbing it after i told them to drop the locker and kick rocks). However, i dont believe it is relevant when talking about a powergaming ban.
Regularly ignores duties as captain to powergame: This one upset me. If NOTHING else, I pride myself on actually trying to lead the station during threats (or lead them into despair and urge them to get off station if its hopeless). I always make sure power is up, through threatening engineers with jail time if i have to go down there to set it up myself. I spent damn near TWENTY minutes with (also power came on here) the rest of the crew trying to figure it out, which i might add you didnt even help with despite:
- specifically being asked to help in as IC of a way as i can without disrupting the flow of the shift with admins just turning on the lights and going "fixed lol" which honestly also wouldnt have been a bad idea considering, but I wont fight against your choice to instead check my player panel and follow me (from words used in the ahelp, please correct me if im wrong as i do not have access to the logs) because im not the admin so surely whatever reasoning you have made it worth ignoring the entire server when the shuttle was about to be un-recallable and power had to miraculously come back on after Kendra (i believe but im too lazy to check and ive been working on this all evening)
- We were going to speedurn the shuttle because we all (i floated the idea and nobody seemed to disagree since nobody could figure it out) legitimately believed that something out of our control was fucking with the power.
I cant provide too many examples as this was a short shift on top of being lowpop, but I hope that my previously seen captain gameplay and the small interactions i had this round can help prove that I actually give a damn about my captain job. I am confident that i am wording this atleast decently but make no mistake, I am very disappointed with the adminwork done in this ticket. I dont believe that the admin was acting in good faith (or at the very least being very negligent) and if I can read the logs I can at the very least either have concrete logs to back up my claim, or I can apologize for to accusation and we can get back to processing the appeal part of this appeal.
Finally, Disk has been left unsecure on nearly every shift Lisa was captain for: This is just untrue. Could you tell me where i leave the disk "nearly every shift" that isnt secure? perhaps there is a contraption that is specifically designed to hold smaller things.... Its also almost as if there is a special code so that only the code-haver can access the contents of this mystery contraption... If only there was a name to perfectly describe in as few letters as possible the point of this mystery contraption and what it is supposed to do...
Im also not sure why this is part of the ban reason, considering protecting the disk in a different non traditional way isnt really "incompetence", especially when you look at the numerous examples that i spent hours curating and getting log evidence for to prove that im not an incompetent captain, or one that ignores captain duties to "validhunt". Would you bwoink a captain for surgically implanting the disk inside the clown, or putting it in an infinite disposals loop? The nuclear disk also came into play exactly 0 times that round And i dont believe my note history supports you adding it to the ban reason because you disagree with my playstyle and how i choose to protect the disk.
I hope to get the note removed as I dont believe it is fair to apply considering everything i just said. I would also like atleast a few other admins to check the ahelp logs and ask themselves if it was handled appropriately by the admin (this can be done privately, I just hope I can encourage a few staff members to poke their head into it). I want to say that this admin is acting in bad faith but I know that I have bias so I just want to put everything i can out and let conclusions be drawn where they may
will be editing and all that just hope to get the first draft out
ps. This is a long post but I am open to discussion about this if (when i guess?) you disagree. It feels like you started yelling at me for something rule 1 related (why did you rr that guy being asked when i didnt even behead the fucking guy), and as soon as I was able to explain why i did what I did, you pivoted it to rule 12 and then went "ok yeah powergamer + you obviously dont banned see you on forums" and then went radio silent before banning me when my actions clearly werent in violation of rule 12, i wasnt playing to win!!!!!!! I spared the only traitor i was able to actually catch by putting him in perma, and didnt even use the esword on him when he won a fight against me, knowing that he has syndicate gear and refuses to go back to jail. I really dont mean to rant but I cant say at all that I believed you did due diligence especially when it comes to a rule as complex as rule 12.