[K Peculiar/Headmins] imsxz - zemsta's ban

[imsxz]

When and where this incident occured (Game Server, forums, Discord): forum https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22516
Byond account and character name OR Discord name: imsxz/imsxz
Admin: K peculiar and headmins
Detailed summary:
The permanent ban was applied seemingly mainly due to the metacommunications, which were "confirmed" on an extremely loose basis. The headmins acknowledged that the evidence was not condemning, however. Despite this, the appeal was denied on the grounds that Zemsta had been consistently displaying bad behavior, particularly with his accomplice who's ckey I don't have on hand but yall know who he is.

This complaint is about the lack of indication given to Zemsta prior that he was in violation of the rules. He seemingly had no clue beforehand that his friendship was even passing any boundaries, and kept doing it presumably because he hadn't the slightest clue he was doing anything bad. I don't want to name and shame, but past incidents regarding metafriendship going too far has been met with warnings and shorter bans, I know 2 or 3 pairs of cat people statics I could cite specifically on this(not a meme I swear).

Furthermore, his "excessive greytiding" was used as evidence against him as if he had been told that breaking into HOP office was a violation of the server rules. The fact of the matter is that his only real warning about tiding was more an escalation related note due to critting someone (seemingly in self defense but this isn't the time to argue about that) and never had indication that he was tiding too hard outside of the 1 case where he was daybanned for retaliating against someone punishing him for his tiding in character.

In conclusion, I believe that the circumstances surrounding Zemsta's ban had far too many admins jumping to conclusions and assuming that everything he did was in bad faith, and lost us someone that I personally believe was on the track towards improving as a player and contributing to the community as a whole.

[Arianya]

Speaking as a forum administrator:

This is functionally a ban appeal, which is in violation of the rules for this subforum anyway, and is on the behalf of another player which seems ill advised on top of it.

Additionally, a double barrelled (or quadruple barrelled, technically) complaint seems in poor taste - The only person capable of ruling on this technically is MSO, which will realistically lead to this thread being sat around for weeks until he finds the time and wherewithal to investigate - assuming he even cares to in this instance.

Overall, I'm not inclined to leave this thread open - it's pretty directly violating rule 4 and seems ripe for peanut posting besides. At best I'd leave this locked until MSO has time to investigate, and at worst I'd throw it in the trash.

I'll leave it open for now to give those involved due time to speak their mind on the matter and to discuss with other forum mods, but I'm currently leaning towards locking it and letting MSO deal with it if he cares to.

[imsxz]

I apologize if this seems like a ban appeal, I myself have always advised against making complaints after denied ban appeals, but that’s mainly because the bans in question were entirely justified or otherwise not worth the time for a complaint. In this particular instance I felt strongly as someone who first hand observed the whole process and being part of the blame that his repeated behavior leading to the ban was the fault of the admin team.

I can’t think of a single other place I would use to complain about the administrative conduct over a ban, because it certainly isn’t in the appeal itself. I had waited for the appeal to be resolved because I had hoped the head administrators would realize that Zemsta barely had any indication to change his behavior and give him another chance, but to no avail.

tl;dr if there’s a better place to put a complaint about admin conduct I’m all ears

[wubli]

Imsxz, who do you think should respond to this complaint? Since, well, it's usually us handling them.

[imsxz]

If anyone needs to resolve it I'd guess MSO since that's how complaints against headmins go but regardless of the outcome I wouldn't mind this being closed by the headmins themselves to spare him the headache.

I made this complaint thread on behalf of Zemsta because 1) I feel responsible for his ban for a number of reasons and want to fix my mistake and 2) I know for sure it'd get closed if he made his own because making a complaint for your own ban appeal result is really dumb.

I hate to be /that shitter/ but I've seen and worked with first hand the banning and appealing process for tons of players, this one left me very perplexed and I am beyond reasonable doubt that the admins involved exercised proper conduct in this banning/appealing instance.

If the admins involved come to a general consensus on whether or not Zemsta was given a real indication in any way that he was violating the rules that he was banned for prior I'll not make any more official threads about it and delete this/allow it to be resolved by whoever.

The response to the appeal didn't go very into detail why the appeal was denied, so excuse me if it seems I'm trying to frame their response in the wrong light, I'll try my best to be as fair as possible. The appeal was denied mainly on the grounds of "awful behavior" and "excessive metafriending", which sounds pretty damning if you don't look into it, but in his case he was never even told to stop "metafriending" and the "awful behavior" consisted of a single 24 hour ban without many implications to what he was even doing incorrectly other than overescalation which is fairly unrelated to tideshittery.

I don't mean to cause unnecessary drama, I genuinely do think all 3 headmins this term are great, but I also want to do what I think is right.

Would you think it fair to be banned for repeating actions that you weren't even asked to not repeat? Anyone who develops bad habits is doomed to get banned when an admin gets fed up with it.

edit: On the off chance that someone pulls the ol' "just read the rules LOL", the rules are intentionally vague and we have admins to tell people when they're crossing into the danger zone. They even explicitly mention metafriending as a pseudo allowed thing as long as you're not giving "too much of an advantage", which is extremely subjective and for the admins to MODERATE, people won't know they're going too far if you don't tell them.

[MortoSasye]

and I am beyond reasonable doubt that the admins involved exercised proper conduct in this banning/appealing instance.

What is the objective of this complaint then if you think the above? Which actions do you think the headmins/k peculiar made that should get them punished if you think the ban and appeal were exercised properly?

[imsxz]

Upholding a PERMANENT(indefinite, won’t be lifted automatically) ban with little chance for the offender to even begin to change his ways, since he never knew he was supposed to change.

I don’t think anyone has to be punished, I just want some proper justice for Zemsta.

[imsxz]

oh i had a typo, i meant didn't exercise proper conduct wew

[Jordie0608]

As mentioned this isn't really a complaint, so the thread doesn't need to remain open. If you want to bring a problem with the appeal to attention for further debate you'd be better off just directly contacting headmins/kpec; MSO doesn't need to rule on anything if you can manage to change their minds. You can always group PM on the forums/discord to start a discussion.

[oranges]

I don't see how this isn't viewed as a complaint, they have an issue with how the headadmins handled a ban appeal, they're complaining about their conduct.

Forum pm's are never going to be an effective or transparent way to deal with these so I don't see why people keep suggesting it and I see zero reason to close this thread, its' a valid ongoing concern and until it's resolved pretending it doesn't exist is silly.

Don't rely on petty rules and bureaucracy to hide a complaint, just beat it on it's merits. If you can't do that, then the complaint has merit and deserves further thought.

edit: may I remind you I specifically had the scope of the complaints forum widened to cover forum and discord moderation action, and if you ask me this falls under both the game and forum action.

I'd expect the headadmins to rule on this complaint like any other, they are the final authority in all cases, does this mean this action was ultimately pointless? Maybe, or maybe the headadmins will consider the input from long time member of the community and ex admin. Either way, it can be resolved without the hosts attention.

The way I see it this is asking for a second review, because they believe that the original appeal had more merit than was assigned.

I think we should allow this, (only once per an appeal though mind you) because under usual circumstances, when a ban is appealed and rejected by the admin, I've been telling people the next step is to make an admin complaint.

[wubli]

I am fine with it and agree with oranges. I do not agree with the complaint but I'd rather it was discussed instead of just closed. I don't think it's a loophole in the rules and done in bad faith.
Still, this needs to be discussed with the other admins/headmins so it will take a bit.

[Cobby]

As of right now the ban and the note still refer to it as metacomms so can someone change that?

Also just for clarification, is the reason why they're permad is because they were suspected of metacomming and after confirming they're at least metafriending you want to play it safe? Pretty sure the appeal is grounded in the fact that the reason is just "metafriending" but it's a perma which in """normal""" circumstances is kinda odd.

[imsxz]

From what I can gather from the 2 rather vague denials of the appeal, the headmins requested that the ban/note be changed to say metafriend instead of metacomms.

[cedarbridge]

This is what happens when you don't do a proper sting like you're supposed to.

[MrStonedOne]

This boils down to a few factors relating to the original appeal.

1. Was it fair to permaban somebody for second offence violent greytide and first offence no warning metafriending.
2. Was it fair to deny this permaban appeal.
3. Was the appeal really denied, subjecting the ban to the 1 year cooldown.

The first question can't be addressed in an admin complaint, the proper venue for that ends at ban appeals.

The second question (technically) can however:

The crux of this boils down to timing. While a headmin or the banning admin could have decided to reduce the ban to n months given the downgrade from metacoms to metafriending, It doesn't make sense in this case to suggest that they should have done so. So in that light its not unreasonable to think that this is an appeal that likely would have been appealable after a longer period of time, but is not on its face something likely to be successfully appealed ~1 day after the ban.

The third question you might have noticed was suspiciously worded. The 1 year rule serves to hold off a flood of repeated and equally poorly designed appeals, and encourage people to make a good appeal and to put some thought into their appeal rather then throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. While it doesn't state so in the rule, it doesn't make sense to apply this rule to an appeal that was successful in part, even if it didn't result in an unbanning.

Additionally, downgrading part of the ban reason from metacomms (a more serious offence) to metafriending opens up an interesting question: Would the user have been more willing to accept the ban as reasonable and wait the proper period of time before appealing that would have ultimately stood a chance at succeeding if it had more accurately reflected the truth of metafriending in the original reason?

For those two reasons I'm going to ask hulk to strike out the part of his response to the appeal that says it may only be appealed after 1 year, but uphold the rest of their decision.

Note: This is the kind of ban that is more appealable the more time the user has off of /tg/ in good behavior at other servers, zemsta is advised to think carefully about how and when they want to re-appeal.