[Iain0] Rachetix - Perma Ban appeal

[Rachetix]

Ban Details
BYOND account: Rachetix
Character name: Kyle Damnvers
Ban type: Server
Ban length: Permanent
Ban reason:

Time ban was placed: 2024-02-01 01:23:07
Server you were playing on when banned: Terry
Round ID in which ban was placed: 223142

Reasons for Appealing - Delete irrelevant sections
Are you appealing a validly placed permaban and would like another chance to be unbanned?: Yes
If yes, please explain why you believe it should be accepted: I promise to change my behaviour, and never let such a situation take place again. I will admit, I should've immediately mentioned the part where I injected people with the virus, but it was also in good faith. I believed that to get antibodies for a cure, I had to get samples from other players, because monkey blood didn't give me them. I played Virologist on a different server after that, and now I understand the role better, even going as far as having a healing virus released, and succesfully curing a spreading disease (Paradise Station server). I will admit, I should've immediately mentioned to the admin that I injected people with it - but I did also believe my sneezing/coughing was the reason of the general widespread of it. I did also withhold that information, because when I saw the PM from the admin and got scared. I promise in the future, shall a similar situation occur, I will cooperate and be open with the admin immediately.
Is the reason/note factually accurate and fair?: Yes

Do you disagree with the admin's interpretation of rules or policy?: No

Do you feel the ban length or decision to note was unjustifiably harsh?: Not unjustifiable, but I do believe it to be a bit too harsh
If no, please provide more details: I believe the perm might be a bit harsh, but then again I'm unsure about the frequency that such bans are successfully appealed and the difficulty of having it appealed.

[Rachetix]

I forgot to add in the time the ban was given, but it's fixed now

[iain0]

Hmm, well, I did dig through your previous rounds, and I think I was your CMO in the preceding round and remember trying to help you learn virology and vaccines particularly, so that was starting to work in your favour.


Here's the events that started all this rolling, ultimately this became a permaban because you were obviously being misleading in the ahelp and a low hours account creating and intentionally spreading a "very unhappy face" level virus is pretty suspect.

For context, all log lines are taken from https://tgstation13.download/parsed-log ... nd-223142/ using a combination of attack.txt game.txt and virus.txt files merged in notepad++ and sorted lexographically ascending (standard admin log merge + filter approach). Then filtered by ckeys Rachetix and EmilioL.

Spoiler:

[2024-02-01 01:02:15.243] GAME-SAY: EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) (mob_3424) "i got an a infection" (Medbay Treatment Center (84,98,2))
[2024-02-01 01:02:16.806] GAME-EMOTE: EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) (mob_3424) points at Meer-Scale (Medbay Treatment Center (84,98,2))
[2024-02-01 01:02:17.005] GAME-EMOTE: EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) (mob_3424) points at Meer-Scale (Medbay Treatment Center (84,98,2))
[2024-02-01 01:02:23.075] GAME-SAY: EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) (mob_3424) "how" (Medbay Treatment Center (85,100,2))
[2024-02-01 01:02:26.709] GAME-EMOTE: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) sniffs. (Medbay Central (84,88,2))
[2024-02-01 01:02:47.375] GAME-EMOTE: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) sniffs. (Medbay Central (92,104,2))
[2024-02-01 01:02:55.111] GAME-SAY: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) "Gentlemen" (Medbay Central (94,105,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:00.556] GAME-SAY: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) "Oh shit" (Medbay Treatment Center (87,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:04.357] ATTACK: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) attempted to inject *no key*/(Ellis El) with the syringe which had /datum/reagent/blood (15u, 1 purity) (NEWHP: -300) (Medbay Treatment Center (85,104,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:08.196] ATTACK: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) injected *no key*/(Ellis El) with the syringe which had /datum/reagent/blood (15u, 1 purity) (NEWHP: -300) (Medbay Treatment Center (85,104,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:08.198] ATTACK: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) transferred reagents to *no key*/(Ellis El) with the syringe which had /datum/reagent/blood (5u, 1 purity) (NEWHP: -300) (Medbay Treatment Center (85,104,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:15.540] GAME-EMOTE: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) sniffs. (Medbay Treatment Center (86,104,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:38.857] GAME-SAY: EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) (mob_3424) "hey so how do you treat infection" (Medbay Treatment Center (84,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:40.206] GAME-EMOTE: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) sniffs. (Medbay Treatment Center (86,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:47.836] GAME-SAY: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) "You have infection?" (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:51.015] GAME-SAY: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) "Lemme deal with it" (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:53.370] ATTACK: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) attempted to inject EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) with the syringe which had /datum/reagent/blood (10u, 1 purity) (NEWHP: 75.4) (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:53.836] GAME-SAY: EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) (mob_3424) "on my head yeah" (Medbay Treatment Center (84,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:55.099] VIRUS: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) was cured of virus: COVID-13 - sym: Sneezing, Viral self-adaptation, Chills, Confusion, Deafness and Cough re:10 st:0 ss:-3 tr:5 at (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:57.170] ATTACK: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) injected EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) with the syringe which had /datum/reagent/blood (10u, 1 purity) (NEWHP: 74.4) (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:57.171] VIRUS: EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) was infected by virus: COVID-13 - sym: Sneezing, Viral self-adaptation, Chills, Confusion, Deafness and Cough re:10 st:0 ss:-3 tr:5 at (Medbay Treatment Center (84,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:03:57.173] ATTACK: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) transferred reagents to EmilioL/(Meer-Scale) with the syringe which had /datum/reagent/blood (10u, 1 purity) (NEWHP: 74.4) (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:04:01.397] GAME-SAY: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) "There we go" (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))
[2024-02-01 01:04:05.899] GAME-SAY: Rachetix/(Kyle Damnvers) (mob_3423) "Should fix you up" (Medbay Treatment Center (85,102,2))

but it was also in good faith. I believed that to get antibodies for a cure, I had to get samples from other players, because monkey blood didn't give me them.

This is some questionable "good faith".
1) If you believed this was necessary for a cure then you can infect and cure yourself
2) you already know what the cure should be and yet dont have it on hand to cure the person you just infected
3) you don't go make it until you get confronted later on (not shown in logs above) and continue to claim you're not the cause of the virus
4) you lie to the other person, not asking for their help in deriving a cure, but lying that you're going to help them, when you do anything but.

On top of the seeming bad faith you also demonstrated in the ahelp I'm less sold overall. Can you explain why you approached this situation with Meer-Scale like this?

[Rachetix]

To start, I understand how me being a low hour account could be suspicious, but I assure you I genuinely started playing SS13 this week, at the time of my ban Terry's was my first and only server - all 10 hours of my account was spent there.
The misleading part - as I've admitted in in the original post, was because of fear and being unsure which of the two was the true cause. For that I admit full fault on my part

1) At the time, I didn't know "possible cure" = "the thing you have to use to get your body to create antibodies for a vaccine". Since after putting my blood in the Pandemic machine and being unable to create a Vaccine I came to the conclusion that I perhaps need to gather samples from other infected beings, I didn't use monkeys for that because none of their blood gave me the antibodies
I now know the process: be infected > use the "possible cure" > create vaccine from your cured blood
2) Refer to the first sentence in 1#
3) I did withold information I infected anyone by injecting them, but I never denied being the cause of it. It was an airborne disease and due to me being without a Bio Suit when I was in Medbay infecting the two I infected with syringes, it could've spread to others which could've had more encounters with other players than the other two. I had no way of knowing how widespread it was, since I spent the entire time in the Viro lab and interacting with Meer-Scales and the other guy
4) That is true, I figured no one would be willing to be injected with a dangerous virus so I decided to lie with both of them. But with the second guy, the Virus had the "Sensory Restoration" symptom. I was curious to see if it'd be able to heal his injury

For my reasoning of approaching the situation with Meer-Scales, first sentence of 4#. Why I did not immediately draw blood and test for antibodies? I believed it needed time to develop in the organism, which would then allow me to create a vaccine - and then in turn spread it and save the day. As I have mentioned, I now understand how the role works, and how to create a vaccine
Get a test subject and inject them with the virus > use the "possible cure" on them, which listed in the Pandemic machine > draw their blood after curing and then use the antibodies within to create a cure

[iain0]

Alright. I'm prepared to accept you may be a newer player and your release of a quite unpleasant virus (why did you start with something so bad) /might/ be a mistake in learning the job.

The weighty part of this situation is the deception ; both as a non antagonist claiming to help a player while clearly doing something harmful to them, as well as what followed in the ahelp. These are both fairly objectively wrong and shouldn't even need reading the rules to recognise.

Even in this final post, your response to point (3) caused me hesitation ; my point 3 about the cure and claiming not to be the cause is how you behaved towards the player IC, that much is objectively in the logs, your rebuttal of "never denied being the cause of it" doesn't mesh with what I said, however, if I try accommodate what you might mean, I could assume you meant you didn't lie to me about being the cause. Which is true, but not what what I accused you of. And the issue is, at this point, trying to infer what you might mean doesn't feel great when you've a history of deception.

Regardless, to move towards wrapping this up, there's a stern lesson to be learned about interacting with admins here, however, around here people generally get second chances to learn from their mistakes, and I see no reason not to offer you a chance to turn this around, but be aware that people generally /don't/ get third chances, so be careful.

Things you need to learn from this experience
1) Do not deceive other players as a non antagonist about "helping" them when you're harming them. There are more details to this rule including not mis-labelling pills and so on, and even some affordance for messing around without the deception, but I'll leave you to research that ; the starting point is not to deceive people like this as a non antagonist.
2) Do not lie to, derail, misdirect or otherwise stall admins ; you're obviously fully aware of what you did and how, be honest and forthcoming, this whole thing would have been little more than a note and maybe short ban depending on details, heck I might not even have found out about all the details of your interaction with the player (though it was round end and your ticket made it a perma-wrap, i'd likely have investigated further if i was only evaluating the consequences of your IC actions)

Assuming that's all clear and fine by you I'll offer this
* Reduction of the ban to a total of 1 week, from time originally placed, which should expire early Wednesday UTC
* Ammendment of the original note to the following

Banned from the server for 1 week - Created and released a very harmful and transmissive virus. Derailed and deceived in admin help e.g. detailing the transmission medium when asked how it got loose (more than once), eventually settling on "workplace accident" as the cause, when they intentionally injected other players. It's debatably /possible/ there is a learning curve for virology here, however the deception shown generally is not acceptable. Reduced from perma on appeal. If this note is recent, consider verifying information sourced from this player.

Over to you

[Rachetix]

I agree with the offer, and everything is clear. Thank you for understanding.

[iain0]

Applied as discussed. Turns out I fucked up the maths on the ban expiration, 1+7 = 8 and thus it will expire early on Thursday (2024-02-08 01:23:07 Server time / UTC)

Thanks