/tg/Station 13

Byond account and character name: Thomasasia; Haley Hicken

Banning admin: Coconutwarrior97

Ban type (What are you banned from?): Banned from the game server

Ban reason and length: Metacomming; 1 year

Time ban was placed (including time zone): 2018-11-07 3:05:54 UTC

Server you were playing when banned (Sybil or Bagil): Sybil

Your side of the story: My friend (username zzanthzz) and I were metacomming and we got caught when I saved him from some guy who was killing him. When the admin asked us about it, we told the truth, yet we both got a year-long ban.

Why you think the ban period should be decreased: We broke the rules and frankly deserve a ban, but a full year seems kind of extreme. To be honest, we have metacommed before, but most of the time we played completely separately and mostly harmlessly. For example, with me as a chemist and him as an atmostech or something. We have also been truthful and upfront with the admins when we were questioned. For these reasons, I ask that our bans are decreased to a month or two. Obviously, we will not metacom again.

One year is fairly generous to you, all things considered. A permaban is fairly standard for metacomms given how serious an issue it is.

A couple examples of metacomm appeals from recent memory
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 34&t=18907
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 34&t=19628

You can probably appeal your ban to a shorter length, but one year is hardly excessive given the offense.

Metacomms is very no tolerance in the ss13 community as a whole. Most servers would have just permabanned you and told you not to come back. With that in mind, I'd give you the advice to shift the focus of this appeal towards why you understand Metacomming is harmful and not allowed, and more assurance it wouldn't ever happen again. It is entirely up to the discretion Coconut if your ban will be reduced, however I think that may help your chances.

Hey there! I am denying this ban appeal for the following reasons:

In regards to you being truthful to admins. When I asked you rather you knew the player you metacommed with you responded as such:

[2018-11-07 02:59:38.225] ADMINPRIVATE: PM: Coconutwarrior97/(Landon Adams)->Thomasasia/(Haley Hincken): Hey there, do you know Zzanthzz?
[2018-11-07 03:00:02.059] ADMINPRIVATE: PM: Thomasasia/(Haley Hincken)->Coconutwarrior97/(Landon Adams): was that the guy i jsut killed?
[2018-11-07 03:00:14.915] ADMINPRIVATE: PM: Thomasasia/(Haley Hincken)->Coconutwarrior97/(Landon Adams): or was that the curator?

On the other hand your friend was upfront and truthful:
[2018-11-07 02:59:34.114] ADMINPRIVATE: PM: Nabski/(Gene Ball)->Zzanthzz/(Robert Lee): Hey, do you know Thomasasia?
[2018-11-07 03:00:16.338] ADMINPRIVATE: PM: Zzanthzz/(Robert Lee)->Nabski/(Gene Ball): yea

Based on this it seems you were feigning ignorance of your friend in an attempt to prevent yourself from being banned. This also means you are lying in this appeal.

Additionally, you acted in the complete knowledge that you were violating our rules as shown here:

[2018-11-07 03:01:29.023] ADMINPRIVATE: PM: Coconutwarrior97/(Landon Adams)->Thomasasia/(Haley Hincken): Do you know our rules on metacomming?
[2018-11-07 03:02:19.043] ADMINPRIVATE: PM: Thomasasia/(Haley Hincken)->Coconutwarrior97/(Landon Adams): im not super familiar, but i get the jist

In OP's defense I will say i've seen metacommers legitimately not know the username of the other but rather their IC name. The username isn't really important when it comes to playing with friends, metacomming or not.

I mean he could have just asked the metabro his username but hindsight is 20/20 lol

Cobby wrote:In OP's defense I will say i've seen metacommers legitimately not know the username of the other but rather their IC name. The username isn't really important when it comes to playing with friends, metacomming or not.

I mean he could have just asked the metabro his username but hindsight is 20/20 lol

That is a fair point.

I am a bit skeptical but I'm willing to listen to OP if he'd like to chime in on this.

Coconutwarrior97 wrote:

Cobby wrote:In OP's defense I will say I've seen metacommers legitimately not know the username of the other but rather their IC name. The username isn't really important when it comes to playing with friends, metacomming or not.

I mean he could have just asked the metabro his username but hindsight is 20/20 lol

That is a fair point.

I am a bit skeptical but I'm willing to listen to OP if he'd like to chime in on this.

Yeah, we used steam and discord to communicate, and on both steam and discord he used a different username. The username he uses for SS13 turns out to be his XBOX username, which I didn't realize until afterward. I honestly didn't know what it was at the time.

As for the harmfulness of metacomming, I never really considered how unfair it was. I guess I figured that everyone does it so it was somehow justified? I realize now that this was a fallacy, since regardless of what other people are doing the morality of my actions are the same, and metacomming makes the game less fun for everyone. Given the great effect that one person can have, it follows that when two people communicate their effect is exponential, which can disrupt other people's experience. I've been as honest as possible here, so I hope that you believe me when I say I won't ever metacomm again.

Alright, I appreciate that you seem to understand why metacomming is so harshly viewed and the fact that you seem legitimately apologetic. I'm lowering this ban to 10 months for you and the other person involved.

After consulting with some other admins I'm reducing this ban to a month.

Thank you very much! I promise not to disappoint. Thank you for your understanding and forgiveness.