[Arianya] deedubya - oranges was right electric boogaloo

[deedubya]

When and where this incident occured: Forums
Forum name: deedubya
Admin: Arianya
Detailed summary:

Spoiler:

So here I am, surprised that someone besides me saw how a few select shitmins were abusing their moderator privileges in FNR to remove dissenting opinions. Due to being a direct victim of this, I start posting in said thread. My first post made it through somehow. After that, I got called out directly in the topic, and attempted to post to provide more evidence of the fact that the policy was being abused by abusive authoritatian admins. Then - to nobody's surprise - those very same orwellian shitmins decided to deny and delete any post that wasn't bootlicking or supporting their narrative, despite it being related to the topic. In the very topic created to call out that exact sort of behavior, no less. The irony is pretty strong.

Here's the post I had to copy-paste three times trying to get it past the shitmin filter. I don't even remember what the two posts preceding it were, probably me calling out wesoda saying that I had receipts regarding the admins previous abuse of power as it related to me personally. Again, the irony is pretty strong here.

Spoiler:

Further proof that this is being weaponized by shitmins trying to silence voices of dissent.

This thread isn't your personal soapbox to whine about your post approval.
Discuss the policy or don't, but don't use it to rehash your post approval.

If you kindly remove your head from your own ass, you'd realize that the policy being abused is the entire reason for the post approval existing. It's proof that the policy doesn't fucking work, thanks to bad actors existing in the system. It's more on topic than the majority of the posts here.

I'll keep posting this until it makes it through.

By the way, as the forum ban requested, I did read the rules, of which I was in violation of...surprise surprise, none:

1.) Global Forum rules apply
2.) Familiarise yourself with the server rules before posting here; http://tgstation13.org/wiki/Rules
3.) This is not the place to discuss bans requests, appeals, administrators or other players; that belongs in the FNR section
4.) This board is for discussing administrative policy and rules, including in-game server configuration; coding policies and rules is discussed in #coderbus viewtopic.php?f=2&t=150

It's pretty obvious at this point that everyone responsible for this unjust censorship and ban should have their forum moderator privileges revoked. Just because you have a grudge against me and want to hide the truth does not grant you immunity from your own rules. Perhaps you view it differently, but the administration is meant to serve the community and make it better, not lord over it from on high stomping out any peons that dare speak against them.

[Arianya]

(The banning admin in this instance was myself)

I'll respond at a later point.

[Arianya]

So the rules you broke:

1. No spam. (Contentless posts, repeated posts, off topic posts)

(Emphasis mine)

3.) This is not the place to discuss bans requests, appeals, administrators or other players; that belongs in the FNR section

To clarify, you submitted 5 posts for approval, with 3 of them being the same post repeated verbatim, each of which was rejected by either myself or Karp (who issued you a forum warning after the 5th instance) - on the 6th instance I issued you a week forum ban to a) hammer home that you can't just keep submitting rule breaking posts and hope to grind down all opposition. and b) give you a chance to step away from the situation and cool off.

The thread in question was about Peanut policy in FNR/An0n3 Amendment - with each of your rejected posts being entirely about your post approval status - while your post approval was for violating that policy, that doesn't make it open season to soapbox about your ban. As the Policy Discussion rules say - it's not the place to relitigate your bans (or post approvals, in this case).

As a general principle, if you're being told not to do something you can either accept it or open a admin complaint against the forum moderator in question to challenge their ruling - repeating the action you're being told not to do again and again won't serve you any better on the forums then it would in game.

As for "wanting to hide the truth" and "have a grudge" - I'll respond in a second post.

On the other matters, I refute the complaint wholeheartedly. There were 6 (!) seperate violations of the rules, including one after a warning. While you're free to challenge the moderation action (which as far as I know, you didn't via the correct route for appealing forum bans, solely by logging into old forums accounts to circumvent your forum ban), this wasn't the right way to do it and the ban was merited after being given more then a fair chance.

[Arianya]

On to the second post: Regarding

Just because you have a grudge against me and want to hide the truth

I'm splitting this up because I want to talk to you, not from the viewpoint of a moderator defending their moderation action, but as a person - no one cares. Genuinely, honestly, no one cares about your crusade. There is no grudge to worry about, no hidden truth to a conspiracy theory to reveal. Your posts get rejected because they're bad. You get put on post approval because you refuse to take any feedback on your posting style. The issue is that you have such a huge chip on your shoulder that you presume everything is some plan against you. I posted extensively as a non-admin in Ban Appeals - within the peanut policy - as well in Policy Discussion. I would stand by any of those posts now as I would have back then.

Your posts would receive the same treatment if they were from a brand new user with no history or from an old player with a regdate from 2013. I say this to you in the possibly vain hope that you will reconsider your stance on posting, because despite your acerbic and conspiracy theorist style of posting, I would rather not see someone end up eating a permanent forum ban from MSO or the headmins.

This isn't posturing, this isn't some attempt to dunk on you. Please reconsider your posting.

[deedubya]

So the rules you broke:

1. No spam. (Contentless posts, repeated posts, off topic posts)

(Emphasis mine)

3.) This is not the place to discuss bans requests, appeals, administrators or other players; that belongs in the FNR section

To clarify, you submitted 5 posts for approval, with 3 of them being the same post repeated verbatim

The first of those deleted posts was a direct response to someone who called me out directly in the topic itself. Not only has such argumentation never been against the rules in that forum before, but why would the post I was responding to be allowed to stand if such things were against the rules?

I don't remember what the second post was, but I know the following three were also on topic: I was providing examples supporting the topic of discussion at hand. Including it happening in the very topic that was trying to curb it.

each of which was rejected by either myself or Karp (who issued you a forum warning after the 5th instance) - on the 6th instance I issued you a week forum ban to a) hammer home that you can't just keep submitting rule breaking posts and hope to grind down all opposition. and b) give you a chance to step away from the situation and cool off.

Doing what you're told versus doing what's correct isn't a hard decision for me to make.

As an aside, Karp accused me of reposting the same post repeatedly just to spam and piss off the admins. They even insisted on it after I tried to correct them. This was a blatantly false attribution of motive. I reposted it because I know from personal experience that not all the forum moderators have this inane bias that others seem to carry. Evidenced by the fact that a post of mine will get approved(due to it being within the rules, as nearly all of my posts are), but will get deleted later on by a moderator that's sick of seeing poor administration be called out with evidence against them.

The thread in question was about Peanut policy in FNR/An0n3 Amendment - with each of your rejected posts being entirely about your post approval status - while your post approval was for violating that policy, that doesn't make it open season to soapbox about your ban. As the Policy Discussion rules say - it's not the place to relitigate your bans (or post approvals, in this case).

As a general principle, if you're being told not to do something you can either accept it or open a admin complaint against the forum moderator in question to challenge their ruling - repeating the action you're being told not to do again and again won't serve you any better on the forums then it would in game.

As for "wanting to hide the truth" and "have a grudge" - I'll respond in a second post.

On the other matters, I refute the complaint wholeheartedly. There were 6 (!) seperate violations of the rules, including one after a warning. While you're free to challenge the moderation action (which as far as I know, you didn't via the correct route for appealing forum bans, solely by logging into old forums accounts to circumvent your forum ban), this wasn't the right way to do it and the ban was merited after being given more then a fair chance.

This is all covered in the above response as well.

That being said, that's what this topic is: Challenging all of the moderation actions in a single topic. I didn't see it necessary until the ban, as I held a vain hope that my posts would actually reach their intended targets. They never did.

On to the second post: Regarding

Just because you have a grudge against me and want to hide the truth

I'm splitting this up because I want to talk to you, not from the viewpoint of a moderator defending their moderation action, but as a person - no one cares.

They should. Not because I'm someone they should feel obligated to defend, but because they're just as liable to fall victim to poor administration in the future if they refuse to stand up for themselves in the present.

Genuinely, honestly, no one cares about your crusade. There is no grudge to worry about, no hidden truth to a conspiracy theory to reveal. Your posts get rejected because they're bad. You get put on post approval because you refuse to take any feedback on your posting style. The issue is that you have such a huge chip on your shoulder that you presume everything is some plan against you. I posted extensively as a non-admin in Ban Appeals - within the peanut policy - as well in Policy Discussion. I would stand by any of those posts now as I would have back then.

Your posts would receive the same treatment if they were from a brand new user with no history or from an old player with a regdate from 2013.

I wish I could believe you. But I've seen far too many examples of this sort of behavior from certain moderators that clearly have no interest in doing anything but covering up for their friends and silencing anyone that dares speak out against them. Not just against me, but against other members of the community as well. The only bright spot I have in this observation is that it seems to only be a minority among the administration as a whole. It would be nice if the majority that's actually doing a good job did something about the ones giving them a bad name.

I say this to you in the possibly vain hope that you will reconsider your stance on posting, because despite your acerbic and conspiracy theorist style of posting, I would rather not see someone end up eating a permanent forum ban from MSO or the headmins.

This isn't posturing, this isn't some attempt to dunk on you. Please reconsider your posting.

This is the only part of the post that I can believe was sincere. You certainly had an opportunity to finally be rid of me. The only other reason I could think you'd want to avoid permabanning me was because of the drama it would cause, but that's a non-issue since most of the hut-dwellers would be in full support regardless of the poor reasoning behind it.

[Arianya]

I'll preface this by saying that I don't intend to go back and forth on most of these points. It serves neither of us any benefit to argue endlessly over the things we disagree on, as ultimately it's up to the headmins to decide whether there's merit to the complaint.

That said, I would like to correct a couple of minor points.

Not only has such argumentation never been against the rules in that forum

Argumentation of the topic is not against the rules, yes. As noted, the topic of that thread was not your post approval (nor the circumstances that lead to your post approval) - the point of Policy Discussion is to discuss policy, and in certain cases (such as that thread) it's broad enforcement, not specific examples and especially not your own instances of punishment, whether right or wrong.

I was providing examples supporting the topic of discussion at hand. Including it happening in the very topic that was trying to curb it.

None of your posts were deleted for peanut policy in that thread, mainly because peanut policy doesn't exist in Policy Discussion (for fairly obvious reasons).

Doing what you're told versus doing what's correct isn't a hard decision for me to make.

While I appreciate the strength of your convictions, I do need to note that this isn't a personal preference or a grey area - if an administrator tells you to not do a thing, and you continue to do a thing, it will simply result in further administrative action being taken. As noted, if you disagree with moderation action, it's far better and wholly within the rules to open an admin complaint or provide feedback at the forum moderation thread (https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=626) then to keep trying to do the same action, regardless of motive.

[deedubya]

Alright, then. Answer me this. If the following post ( https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 07#p552910 ) was valid commentary on the topic, then how is me directly responding to said commentary somehow against the rules? I can also see that you specifically went on a deletion bender in that very same topic, yet that post remained while my attempt to respond to it never made air. This is merely the most recent example of many that proves to me that there is a very obvious bias among certain forum moderators when it comes to dealing with me in specific. Attacking someone you dislike while not discussing the topic whatsoever? A-OK. Defending ones self while still discussing a related topic to the OP? Shut it down, goy.

As a reminder, this complaint isn't against the ban in specific, but for every instance of poor moderation that occurred against me within that topic. The only reason I didn't make 5-6 different complaint threads for every single one is because it'd be a waste of time.

Since I have no way of recovering the original deleted/unapproved post, the burden of proof is on you to show the original post and demonstrate how it violated the rules, and also justify why the attack on my person was not in violation of the rules.

None of your posts were deleted for peanut policy in that thread, mainly because peanut policy doesn't exist in Policy Discussion (for fairly obvious reasons).

This is admittedly probably more of a policy discussion issue, but why is a PA/ban for peanut policy applicable to policy discussion in the first place, considering that rule doesn't apply across FNR as a whole?


Also a note to reiterate regarding your last point: The only reason I kept re-posting it is because I am fully aware that not all forum moderators share the same faulty reasoning when they decide to approve or deny a post. I've been witness to this first hand. Certain nameless mods have approved posts of mine that were within the rules, only for a mod that dislikes me to proceed to delete it or stealth edit it to be more to their liking. I wasn't re-posting it just to spam or piss people off, despite the accusations. I was re-posting it hoping that the post would make it to one of the fairer moderators.

[Arianya]

Alright, then. Answer me this. If the following post ( https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 07#p552910 ) was valid commentary on the topic, then how is me directly responding to said commentary somehow against the rules?

I think it's worth noting here that not every post is going to catch the attention of a moderator. There's a reason we have the ability to report posts, and it's to specifically draw attention to a post that may be rulebreaking. By the nature of post approval, your posts are always going to get scrutinized because someone has to put their name against saying "this post is within the rules".

With hindsight 20/20, would I have deleted that post if my attention was drawn to it? Probably, but then, I probably would have deleted or edited out the overt references to your post approvalfrom the post that you made which caused that reply to be made.

And both of these judgements are with the hindsight of you then continuing to push the conversation towards your ban. Your original post, in isolation, I probably would have approved myself, as while it is somewhat soapboxing about your post approval, it's atleast largely talking about the policy. But to then continue it, and also basically tunnel down to specifically just talking about your ban, is clearly a step beyond that.

Since I have no way of recovering the original deleted/unapproved post, the burden of proof is on you to show the original post and demonstrate how it violated the rules, and also justify why the attack on my person was not in violation of the rules.

a) I don't have access to that post anymore then you do. Disapproved posts are completely discarded and I have no access to anything about it other then the log message saying who disapproved it at what time for what reason. I think you can agree that it would be beyond the pale to ask every forum moderator to keep a record of every disapproved post in case they need to defend it at some point in the future.

b) You're the one making a complaint - the onus is on you to make a compelling case that the moderation action was wrong, and then me to defend that moderation action. So far as I can see, your only argument has been what those posts probably were, and even your description of them sounds like it would have fallen afoul of the same issues as the one post you do have preserved - arguing more so about your post approval then policy in general.

This is admittedly probably more of a policy discussion issue, but why is a PA/ban for peanut policy applicable to policy discussion in the first place, considering that rule doesn't apply across FNR as a whole?

In the interests of brevity, I'm going to say "not my department" and also "not really material to the complaint".

Also a note to reiterate regarding your last point: The only reason I kept re-posting it is because I am fully aware that not all forum moderators share the same faulty reasoning when they decide to approve or deny a post.

I get your logic - but an unkind reading of this would be "admin shopping". Again, if you disagree with the moderation action, it's always going to be better to complain or offer feedback - if the moderator is wrong or is acting inconsistently, then that'll get it highlighted to MSO/the headmins and that person talked to/punished/other. Posting it repeatedly doesn't do that, and at worst ends up with this situation - you eating a ban for it.

[PKPenguin321]

posting as a global mod:

each of which was rejected by either myself or Karp (who issued you a forum warning after the 5th instance) - on the 6th instance I issued you a week forum ban to a) hammer home that you can't just keep submitting rule breaking posts and hope to grind down all opposition. and b) give you a chance to step away from the situation and cool off.

Doing what you're told versus doing what's correct isn't a hard decision for me to make.

cringed

As an aside, Karp accused me of reposting the same post repeatedly just to spam and piss off the admins. They even insisted on it after I tried to correct them. This was a blatantly false attribution of motive. I reposted it because I know from personal experience that not all the forum moderators have this inane bias that others seem to carry. Evidenced by the fact that a post of mine will get approved(due to it being within the rules, as nearly all of my posts are), but will get deleted later on by a moderator that's sick of seeing poor administration be called out with evidence against them.

yes, we forum mods disagree on rulings here and there, but no you should NOT repeatedly attempt to toe the line and gamble on one of the forum mods going against the opinion of all the others. this alone is grounds enough for your ban. if you want a second opinion, maybe PM me or another mod or something, but don't just keep posting it over and over.

[deedubya]

I think it's worth noting here that not every post is going to catch the attention of a moderator. There's a reason we have the ability to report posts, and it's to specifically draw attention to a post that may be rulebreaking. By the nature of post approval, your posts are always going to get scrutinized because someone has to put their name against saying "this post is within the rules".

Apologies if I find this hard to believe. In my own experience, moderators have been more than happy to read over every single post and delete them without any reports required. Even in that very same topic, you started purging posts a mere three posts later. I doubt that post went beneath your(or any other moderator's) notice, I just think that you had no personal reason to delete it. The accusation of bias then comes in when you refused to allow me to respond to said post, which was quoted in the post sent in for approval(so there's no "oops I missed it", it was clearly brought to moderator's attention by default) while leaving said post to stand.

Since I have no way of recovering the original deleted/unapproved post, the burden of proof is on you to show the original post and demonstrate how it violated the rules, and also justify why the attack on my person was not in violation of the rules.

a) I don't have access to that post anymore then you do. Disapproved posts are completely discarded and I have no access to anything about it other then the log message saying who disapproved it at what time for what reason. I think you can agree that it would be beyond the pale to ask every forum moderator to keep a record of every disapproved post in case they need to defend it at some point in the future.

b) You're the one making a complaint - the onus is on you to make a compelling case that the moderation action was wrong, and then me to defend that moderation action. So far as I can see, your only argument has been what those posts probably were, and even your description of them sounds like it would have fallen afoul of the same issues as the one post you do have preserved - arguing more so about your post approval then policy in general.

Forums naturally leave their own logs of deleted and edited posts. If you choose to utilize a form of moderation that doesn't leave a paper trail - like post approval, for example - then the onus is on the moderators to ensure their actions are defensible. Otherwise, you wind up with this farce where you can censor people as you please with no way for the victim to have justice, unless they automatically assume bad faith on the part of the moderators and archive every single one of the posts they put up for approval. I was foolish and assumed good faith from the moderation. It wasn't until it was too late that I started realizing what was happening and preserved my posts going forward. If you don't want to have to keep your own paper trails every time you disapprove a post, remove the post approval and use the forum's in-built logging system to justify post deletions instead.

I get your logic - but an unkind reading of this would be "admin shopping". Again, if you disagree with the moderation action, it's always going to be better to complain or offer feedback - if the moderator is wrong or is acting inconsistently, then that'll get it highlighted to MSO/the headmins and that person talked to/punished/other. Posting it repeatedly doesn't do that, and at worst ends up with this situation - you eating a ban for it.

yes, we forum mods disagree on rulings here and there, but no you should NOT repeatedly attempt to toe the line and gamble on one of the forum mods going against the opinion of all the others. this alone is grounds enough for your ban. if you want a second opinion, maybe PM me or another mod or something, but don't just keep posting it over and over.

I can see how you can interpret it that way. I was going off the logic that ingame admins have to adhere to, that being if you have an obvious bias in the case then you should hand the ticket off to another admin to handle. This wasn't being done in my eyes, so I took it upon myself to try and get through to a different moderator. If you'd prefer, I'll save my posts and post a complaint every single time one of my posts doesn't make approval, if that's the proper procedure to follow.

[peoplearestrange]

I'd also like to add that I had, a few times, previously suggested that you should be forum banned for:

6 We are here to have fun, if you are not having fun, maybe it would be best for you to take a break
If you consistently cause drama, we may ask (read: ban) that you take a break, and may also require that you abandon your old identity should we allow you to come back.

I don't believe the forum ban is entirely fair to be pinned upon Ari's head solely. This was something that was discussed with the other forum mods, admins and heads. I won't go to into the details as I feel like it could easily become an attack on you and thats not my intent here.

But I'd ask you to consider why you continue to stay around here when you do not play on our servers, do not wish to engage with the community in a positive manner and take up a lot of admin/mods limited time.
Perhaps your energy would be best spent growing your own community and server rather than a politics of some place you used to play?

[deedubya]

I'd also like to add that I had, a few times, previously suggested that you should be forum banned

Surprising absolutely nobody at all, considering how often you've taken the time to insult me in the hut. I'll at least commend you for being the only moderator with the balls to admit they just straight up want me gone.

But I'd ask you to consider why you continue to stay around here when you do not play on our servers, do not wish to engage with the community in a positive manner and take up a lot of admin/mods limited time.

Just because I do not abide by poor administrative practice doesn't mean I'm not interacting with the community in a positive manner. Perhaps if you view it as a negative, it speaks more to how you treat and view the community than anything else.

Also, "limited time" has never flown with me. If you don't have the time to spend on a job you volunteered for, then don't volunteer to do it. The "fuck you, pay me" mentality is incredibly poor form for someone that's supposedly volunteered their time to help a community they enjoy.

Perhaps your energy would be best spent growing your own community and server rather than a politics of some place you used to play?

Who said I'm incapable of doing both?

[PKPenguin321]

yes, we forum mods disagree on rulings here and there, but no you should NOT repeatedly attempt to toe the line and gamble on one of the forum mods going against the opinion of all the others. this alone is grounds enough for your ban. if you want a second opinion, maybe PM me or another mod or something, but don't just keep posting it over and over.

I can see how you can interpret it that way. I was going off the logic that ingame admins have to adhere to, that being if you have an obvious bias in the case then you should hand the ticket off to another admin to handle. This wasn't being done in my eyes, so I took it upon myself to try and get through to a different moderator. If you'd prefer, I'll save my posts and post a complaint every single time one of my posts doesn't make approval, if that's the proper procedure to follow.

sure, or just pm someone else like i said. it would be more productive than this thread at least, seeing as you're all arguing about posts that nobody can remember the contents of

[peoplearestrange]

Surprising absolutely nobody at all, considering how often you've taken the time to insult me in the hut. I'll at least commend you for being the only moderator with the balls to admit they just straight up want me gone.

I do admit I have insulted you in the hut a fair few times, but when you straight up call me the T-slur over and over again it does wear me thing. Though as I have been told many times, this is from the NTR Hut and anything players say in there do not count (though administrators are exempt from this and I have been told off a few times because of it).

I would also like to point out that it was not/is not just me who discussed upon this. To blame 1 person (2 now?) seems a little bit like scapegoating. I believe this complaint is about the admin team in general than a specific person.

Also, "limited time" has never flown with me. If you don't have the time to spend on a job you volunteered for, then don't volunteer to do it. The "fuck you, pay me" mentality is incredibly poor form for someone that's supposedly volunteered their time to help a community they enjoy.

Sorry that wasn't what I was implying, this has nothing to do with pay, its to do with the limited number of people, the hours that they choose to spend on the forums and the required effort in replying to difficult and complex situations. That amount of mental energy can only be spread so far before it becomes spread thing and admin teams eventually feel the stress of their volunteering. This can often leave a situation where, if it is but one person taking a large proportion of their time it is questioned whether the easiest solution with the least amount of damage might be to simply remove that person. Around servers we would usually call this a Rule 1. (or Rule 0) ban.
In your case a few people pushed for this though it was decided that a week ban would be sufficient to serve as a warning.
This is the information I wish to bring to light.

[capn_monkeypaw]

In regards to the substance of this complaint, there's very little to be said that hasn't already been covered by Arianya.

We're not upholding this complaint. You are not objecting to a specific instance of moderation or administrative power abuse. You are using this complaint to express your displeasure with the remarkable amount of patience demonstrated by Ari and Karp in the face of your multi-day temper tantrum.

To review: you submitted six rule-breaking posts for approval. You were issued a forum warning along the way in a futile attempt to wave you off from the ban you inevitably received.

To reiterate: the policy discussion forum is not a venue for relitigating your bans or any other administrative action taken against you.

To be perfectly clear: You are on post approval for a reason. In appeal threads, you constantly post bad-faith arguments that either hinge on irrelevant points or are rendered moot by the broader context. You never, ever read logs or even bother to try and comprehend the arguments presented by the responsible admin before sharing your uninformed opinion as an uninvolved party. Your posts in FNR in general consistently do nothing but muddy the water and derail conversation.

You've thoroughly demonstrated that you're unable to abide by our very simple FNR posting rules despite having them repeatedly outlined for you by administrative actions of increasing severity, finally culminating in your most recent forum ban.

And now having returned, you post two complaints about perfectly valid administrative actions and threaten to post a new complaint every single time your posts don't get approved. (Your emphasis.)

We're going to save you and everyone else the trouble. You are now confined to the shed. This means that you are now only allowed to post in the NTR hut.

Everyone else here is playing a game about spessmen. You have connected to our servers twice in all of 2020. I'm not sure what game you're playing anymore, but I can assure you that the rest of this community is sick to death of it.

I have no idea why you insist on wasting so much of our time. Perhaps only medical professionals can explain why you continue to waste so much of your own.

Coconutwarrior97: Do not uphold.
Phuzzylodgik: Do not uphold.
TWATICUS: Do not uphold.