[CoconutWarrior97] Mey39 - Doxxing Drama Round 2 (years later)

[mey39]

BYOND account: Mey39
Character name: -
Ban type: Permanent ban across all platforms
Ban length: Permanent
Ban reason: "Publicly revealed a community member's age in another discord and went to two separate administrators with this information. While going to administrators to ask questions about the rules like this is perfectly fine, doing so while you've also spread the information publicly reeks of bad faith. Additionally we recently learned they had previously shared another community member's real name publicly prior to this incident
Time ban was placed: 2020-11-03 11:09:40
Server you were playing on when banned: None
[Round ID in which ban was placed: 149596
Your side of the story: This is going to primarily be an appeal related to and addressing the previous appeal. See here: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=30227

I will recap once again after reading it and coming to understand the situation better looking back on it. As before, there are 2 parts.

The first one is related to the sharing of another player's age within a public space. I became incredibly close with this person, and we shared a significant amount of time together both inside and outside of the game. At a certain point they revealed to me that they were underage, and I immediately cut contact with them. After this, I continued to not speak with them for an extended amount of time, with the intent of possibly resuming our friendship at a later date.

Later, there was a small amount of drama outside of ss13 related to them that ensured we would not be friends again. It was at this point that I brought this information to the admins, rather than keeping it secret, as it broke rule 9 and I previously didn't wish to get them into trouble.

It was at this point I went to a side server filled with other Manuel members and I essentially just told them the revealing information. As CoconutWarrior said, I basically invited the others to ask about the situation so I could tell them.

Onto part 2. I made another friend in Manuel and we started to chat and hang out outside of the game. At some point while playing a different game, their friends referred to them by their real name, and following along I did the same. This didn't cause any issues at the time. Later on, in the same offshoot server mention previously, I referred to this person by their real name in the public chat. This resulted in me being kicked from said server.

Why you think you should be unbanned:

Withholding the information that this person was breaking a rule purely because I wanted to remain their friend, and then revealing that information to not just the admins, but other players was a mistake. I believe now that I should not have waited to inform the admins of this just because I happened/wanted to be friends with this person. As CoconutWarrior pointed out in the response to my last appeal, this is bad faith and now, as I've become older and the event becomes less emotional in my mind, I have to agree. This is something that I should have reported as soon as I became aware of it, and I can see how my attachment and selfishness has affected my judgment.

When telling others the age of this person, I fully admit that this was because I was upset at the person in question at the time and wanted to "out them" for breaking the rules. I don't know how I could have seen that as a good idea, and I see it now as an irresponsible and immature way to handle the situation. Truthfully, looking back on those messages is incredibly embarrassing, as it is obvious that no, I did not 'flatly' state what happened, and that I essentially baited others into asking about it. Younger me back then was in an incredibly bad mental state and as such I acted emotionally and irresponsibly when faced with this situation. That however is not to excuse or justify what I said, but more of an explanation that the Mey from 3 years ago who did that is not the same as the Mey today.

In regards to the second part, while I didn't understand at the time or when I made my last appeal, I have come to see it in a different way. This information was clearly shared between a small group of friends and was never a name this person was referred to outside of this space and was not a name given out to strangers. Saying it in a public space such as that offshoot server was crossing the line, as it was an anonymous space, not the closer friend group as before. I now see much more clearly how it is relevant to the ban, as younger Mey from 3 years ago would often reveal private information without understanding why someone might not want that info shared, or the potential consequences for that person. Sharing personal information too easily, as CoconutWarrior said, was the issue.

With the 3 years since this ban, I too have aged and grown. Years spent with new groups and new friends have taught me how to better handle situations like this, and how my behavior was immature, irresponsible, and how I acted in poor faith. I've come to better understand how the second incident with the name is relevant, and how it may have painted a clear image of who I was at the time. This is in contrast to my last appeal, where I didn't see how it could have possibly been connected to the first incident.

I hope that my own growth and understanding of the situation is clear to see, and I hope it shows that I am not that same person I was when these incidents happened, or when I last made an appeal. A good deal of shame and embarrassment surrounds these events for me, and I hope to fix things and redeem myself. I want to do this not only to play again, but to clear the record and demonstrate how I've changed as a person since then. I've gone out of my way to contact the person first involved to smooth things over, and I see reversing this ban as the next step in hopefully fixing this whole embarrassing situation.

[Vekter]

Coconut has been notified of this appeal.

[Coconutwarrior97]

I think you've a good job showing you understand why what you did was wrong and it seems to me you've changed for the better in the time since your ban. I'll lift your ban in-game and on discord, have fun and follow the rules!

[mey39]

Awesome! Thank you