[Vekter] Darius Moberly - An Unfortunate Encounter

[Ffakka]

BYOND account: Ffakka
Character name: Darius Moberly
Ban type: Note
Ban length: Note, permanent I assume.
Ban reason: Warned - Fireaxed pretty much every inward facing window on the station. Asked to knock it off in future rounds.
Time ban was placed: 2020-08-27 23:10:53
Server you were playing on when banned: Terry
Round ID in which ban was placed: "145160", according to Scrubby (https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/145160?h=ffakka)


Your side of the story:

I played Assistant and by the fortune of doors being open and noone throwing me out, got into atmos. Tided the Fireaxe and went around the Station breaking Windows. Broke no Space Windows, didn't rob or kill anyone (prior to someone offering me a part in his crime gang later) and all I stole as far as I remember were the Axe and some Sunglasses from Lawyer.

Then Admin bwoinks me, and this is how that goes:









Images with better Resolution can be seen here.
I will include the partial chatlogs that I have in the Attachment.

At this point, I am pretty baffled and dont feel like playing anymore, but also feel like Admin just let off some steam and that was that, since he logged off after "dealing" with this ticket. After complaining about the incident to fwends on wether I should appeal it at all, I was told to check if I had a note, and to my surprise I had one.


Why you think this Note should be altered/removed:

After consideration for a few days, I came to dislike this note for several reasons. The first of these is the Technicality of the Rules themselves. Vekter seems to be arguing that I was being a dick, a Rule 1 Case:



I disagree this Rule applies to this incident. I did not go "out of your way to seriously negatively impact or end the round", all I did was break indoor facing windows of a few departments. This could admittedly lead to someone else severely negatively impacting the round, but I find it harsh to argue the breaking of indoor windows is on its own "seriously negatively impacting" the round. Theres Examples on the Wiki of Rule 1 Precedents which I want to quote aswell:



The fourth Precedent makes a mentioning of "unprovoked Grief" and "repeated unprovoked minor grief". I do not find it reasonable to associate the breaking of indoor windows with anything but "minor grief", as I am not directly attacking other players, stealing their possessions, inhibiting Security or Heads to do their Job directly. There may be instances of other players abusing the broken windows for unprovoked grief, however, I can hardly force or prohibit them from doing this, and they should be dealt with as individual cases. A broken window to a non-antagonist is by no means an invitation to randomly kill, steal or grief, as they still fall under the Rule 1. Another Consideration of this might be how much trouble a broken window really is, since you could likely fix the windows of the most important departments on station in less than five minutes with a single engineer or borg.

However, the most important consideration to me is, assuming this does fall under "minor grief", that it is not repeated. The act of smashing windows over the station is to be seen as a "whole", I had no considerations or grudges towards other players doing so, I simply bindy'd. I am very confident there exists not one instance in the past few months where I did this, mainly because I haven't been playing at all since about two weeks ago.

If It is not "repeated minor grief", based on the Precedent alone it means I havent broken Rule 1.

Another Point towards the Technicalities of Rules for this incident are 5. and 6. specifically mentioning that by breaking Windows, I am automatically a valid target for anyone affected, and even valid to be executed by Authorities should they be able to make a case of me breaking into high Security Areas, which they sure could on this round.

This to me does not seem like a major, "unfair" Grief that noone can do anything against, that ends peoples rounds and ruins their day, but rather like a typical IC-Incident that, empowered by these Precedents, literally the entire station could justifiably react to.

From my past Experience with Bwoinks, IC incidents similar to this as a rule of thumb do not seem to be handled OOC'ly, but rather the player ahelping gets told to "handle it IC'ly". I sadly have no deeper insight into how Admins are supposed to handle cases like this than this, I hope with this thread there can be clarification for me.

I want to close this with saying that I have seen other Note Appeals be dismissed for reasons such as "A note is not a punishment, just a reminder", given this one could maybe (?) justify noting me for breaking windows in order to "track grief attempts". Since this doesnt seem to fall under Rule 1 on its own though for the reasons I specified, im not sure noting a "non-rulebreak" is justified.


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However, this is not the only reason I am appealing. The encounter I had with Vekter on that night I labelled as "unfortunate" in the Header, this from my point of view is being positive about it. You may want to reread the general tone and wording of the Admins PMs to me, and put yourself in my situation:


You have just broken windows in autism spessman simulator. An Admin bwoinks you 10 minutes later with "hey, yeah, maybe dont do that." for what you regard something not even worth talking about, the conversation continues, the Admin labels you as a Jackass and leaves, closing the ticket saying that he actually has nothing to do about you, leaving you with the question of why he would be aggressive in the encounter at all if its not a big deal and leaving the server soonafter. (this can be seen in the attached logs)


I felt strongly that night about how the Admin handled this Incident, and I still disagree very much with the passive-aggressiveness, the "talking-down" approach for whats basically the Admin roasting me for four Messages before bailing. I understand that this game makes people angry, answering somewhat meaningless ahelps late at night sure would make me angry too, but there is absolutely no reason to let it out on me as a Player in that situation, especially since Im somewhat confident I have not interacted with Vekter in a meaningful way before. I don't judge him for it personally, as Im prone myself to get angry, and am prone myself to do silly things while angry, but I do judge him "professionally", if that makes sense.


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The last point im going to make on this is the last 2 messages I and the Admin wrote before the closing of this ticket, in the third image you can see me asking the Admin:


"PM to-Admins: i understand. But what now? I cant undo it."


"Admin PM from-Vekter: I mean, nothing really. Take your lumps I guess? I just wanted to ask you to stop and not do it in future rounds."


This response is dishonest for two reasons. The first reason is that this Message Exchange started after I had already stopped breaking windows in the round, i would assume for the window between me moving on from breaking windows, and the Admin saying "I just wanted to ask you to stop" to be about 5-10 minutes. I sadly dont have adminslogs to nail down the exact time. This reason is petty, but it does seem from the exchange alone that the admin had to bwoink me to get me to stop, which I want to make clear was not the case.

The second and more major reason being the Admin proclaiming, being asked "what now?": "nothing really.", and then giving me a note before leaving. The only reason I know about this note at all, is because an unaffiliated admin told me it existed. It is a public note, which I was completely unaware you were going to give me. Maybe this is my fault for being a german and taking things too literally all the time, but if you as Admin tell me that you are going to do nothing, I will expect of you that you are actually going to do nothing.

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References of good conduct: I have two bans in total on /tg/, both from when I started playing, both regarding different rules, with only one of them I would consider a major incident under the circumstances of being a total seething newb.

The latter of these bans happened on the 17th August 2019, about 2 months from when I started playing. In total I have played 2128 rounds on /tg/, according to Scrubby, with the vast majority of these rounds being after the 17th of August 2019. Before this incident, the last two Notes I have are positive.

I have never been noted or banned twice for the same thing, which should be indicative of me trying to understand the rules, work with the admins, and knowing what is or is not crossing the line.

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I didn't think id ever make an account and be on the forums and here I am appealing a note for breaking windows.
Thanks for coming to my TED-Talk.

[Vekter]

While I greatly appreciate the amount of effort you put into this, I will not be removing this note. You're strongly misunderstanding the purpose of notes - as a means of tracking behaviors between rounds. Mass window breaking has historically been used as an excuse for either killbaiting (waiting for someone to forcibly stop you so you can axe them to death) and banbaiting (being killed in the ensuing fight and adminhelping their behavior to get them banned). This is something that we do sometimes note for if we feel like it might be an issue again down the line.

It is important to understand that a single note will not result in you being banned in the future. Your argument that this doesn't break rule 1 because it's not a repeated instance doesn't hold water - we have no way of tracking whether or not it is if we don't note you for the interaction. If you don't continue the specific behavior outlined in the note, there will not be a problem. That's it. As long as you don't make a habit of breaking the vast majority of the windows on the station, nothing will happen to you.

Your appeal itself, ironically, doesn't do much to actually defend your behavior or state why we should remove the note. Most of it reads more like an admin complaint than a note appeal. The most frustrating thing about it is if you had simply said "Yeah, I was bored, I won't do it again" I would have just removed it. It's not that deep. But this seems more like an excuse to rag on how I treated you and not actually lose the note.

I encourage you to open a complaint if you have issue with how I treated you in the interaction. As for the note, I'll not be removing it. It's trivial in it's importance and will do nothing to impact your stay here.

[Ffakka]

Ive seen your response, and would like to reply in detail at a later time, most likely tomorrow. Im not familiar with how long these threads are open.

[Vekter]

Ive seen your response, and would like to reply in detail at a later time, most likely tomorrow. Im not familiar with how long these threads are open.

I'll say that, while you're welcome to post a reply, I'm not likely to lift this. It would take a lot for me to remove a note like this as the only real reason to do so would be if the note was factually incorrect or completely unwarranted. This doesn't seem to be the case and notes are not removed because the admin in question was rude to you. While I will apologize for how I acted, I don't believe it was outside of expected behavior and is also completely irrelevant to the note's contents or existence on your record.

You can plead your case to the headmins but note removal is a very rare instance.

[Ffakka]

You're strongly misunderstanding the purpose of notes - as a means of tracking behaviors between rounds.

I haven't challenged this at all, the entire appeal is challenging whether the note itself is valid/reasonable under the circumstances that it came to exist, not whether notes are a punishment. For the purpose of explaining this, I do have other notes that were given to me and are meant to track my behavior. Notes which I haven't challenged because they were dealing with situations that could have been breaking the rules to some regard, but not in a manner major enough to warrant a ban, given to me by Admins in a professional, calm manner, with them being kind enough to tell me that Id be given a note for this.

This case differs on all of these accounts, not only is the Incident itself under the Precedents written out in the Serverrules clearly not breaking any Rule on its own, but also the Note was given to me in an unprofessional, extremely rude Exchange of Messages, with you as the Admin explicitly stating that "mostly nothing" would result from this when asked, which is not a good way of saying "im going to give you a note".

Mass window breaking has historically been used as an excuse for either killbaiting (waiting for someone to forcibly stop you so you can axe them to death) and banbaiting (being killed in the ensuing fight and adminhelping their behavior to get them banned). This is something that we do sometimes note for if we feel like it might be an issue again down the line.

It is impossible to prove intentions to a degree satisfying enough that everyone would believe you, but it is also unfair to convict people of something they haven't done.

Lets for the sake of argument assume that I would, in a future round, break all the windows and kill- or banbait another player through it. Lets also assume that an ahelp is issued. Would the fact that I have a prior note for breaking windows influence your decision to ban me for these things at all? I sure hope not because it seems to me that breaking windows is not at all the deciding factor in these issues. I could have not broken windows, and the offense would still just be as bad, with the windows again not breaking the rules on their own, but the ban- or killbaiting clearly warranting action.

Another point I want to make towards this is it being a slippery slope. Consider this statement:
"Break-ins into Cargo and the Ordering of Tons of Snakecrates with Cargo-Money have historically been used as an excuse for either killbaiting (waiting for someone to forcibly stop you so you can kill them to death and they die) and banbaiting (being killed in the ensuing fight and adminhelping their behavior to get them banned)."

This is, in its essence, the same logic you seem to justify this note with. However, as I argued before, ALL of these actions on their own are not breaking the Rules as I understand them. If were we to accept your logic on this as being true, wouldn't the consequence be that we'd need to start noting every single player doing any sort of crime at all because all crime in this game might create conflict that could be abused to kill- or banbait?

I would argue the purpose of these things being an IC-issue is both for the basic reason that we are playing together on a spacestation, have people precisely picking roles precisely meant to deal with issues such as this, and have rules protecting people in any role from them just watching someone grief, aka that its simply a part of the game and not meant to be handled by admins unless it escalates into a crystal-clear major-grief rulebreak that ruins the round for someone, and also to prevent the insane amounts of work attached to noting down and tracking every single IC-issue minor grief/crime in hopes of preventing these players from doing it ever again.

Your argument that this doesn't break rule 1 because it's not a repeated instance doesn't hold water - we have no way of tracking whether or not it is if we don't note you for the interaction.

This is the very first time I agree with you. It however doesnt satisfy me any of the points I made during this appeal are voided. I still believe this was a single IC-issue unworthy of a note, and should've been handled as such, and I still believe the circumstances in which the note was given to me were unfair.

You giving me this note, to me seems as if I were breaking into the HoP's Office one round, to tide a flash and AA, and would have gotten a note for that. With the setup of a flash and AA, I could easily killbait or banbait players (although not sec or heads, since im valid to them), and would have obtained items powerful enough to result in a major grief of the round, by for instance distributing AA or killing anyone escalating at all with a flash. Again, the break-in and obtainment of the items on its own doesnt break any rules, and should be treated as IC-issue. I believe the offense is so minor that the point where I would consider a note justified would be if it happened basically every round, and the intent to grief with these items would become clear.

This is not the case here, I broke windows one single round, and no major grief action from my side followed up. From my point of view, what im being warned about is to "not break indoor facing windows ever again or ban", but there was absolutely no indication from your point of view that I would be doing this again, and there is absolutely no reason it should result in a ban if I, lets say, do it once every 100 rounds because im bored.

Your appeal itself, ironically, doesn't do much to actually defend your behavior or state why we should remove the note. Most of it reads more like an admin complaint than a note appeal. [...] But this seems more like an excuse to rag on how I treated you and not actually lose the note.

My appeal argues the issue of noting me for this behavior is illegitimate, hence I dont see why there would be a need to justify my behavior. Im essentially arguing that my behavior albeit being annoying was not a major disturbance to the round on its own and hence unworthy of making an IC-issue OOC without additional context.

Let me elaborate why your treatment of mine matters to the case. With /tg/s form of governing, admins inherently possess both executive and judicative powers. You not only try to enforce the rules, you also judge over those on which you are enforcing them. In the real world, the executive has a need to be precise in dealing with lawbreakers, because it needs to prove to a separate, independent judactive instance that without all doubt the accused person is guilty.

Admins on /tg/ on the other hand are able to just talk down on me in ahelps, lie to me about the consequences of such ahelps, and prosecute me (in this case, admittedly in a minor manner.) nonetheless, even if I never broke rules in the first place.

Effectively, I am being sentenced guilty unless I appeal, in which case I might hopefully get a separate, independent judactive instance in form of higher authorities within /tg/s structure. In a more compact manner:

Im arguing that the circumstances on how I got this note are unjust, this naturally should also be considered in an appeal besides me argueing that the note itself is unjust.

Usually, in the real world, if a case is found to have been mishandled in a way similar to the way you mishandled mine, the case is dropped. I want to make it clear that Im not banking on that here and that theres certainly arguments to be made against this given /tg/s size, but I do want to know whether admins handling issues like this, completely detached from whatever an issue it is, is considered just.

Im agreeing with you again on one thing, I am much more upset about how I got the note than about the note itself. This doesnt mean my appeal is unjustified on either issue and I still want clarity. Im not sure I see the Necessity to repost the exact same things I posted here in another forum just for formalities sake.

The most frustrating thing about it is if you had simply said "Yeah, I was bored, I won't do it again" I would have just removed it.

I dont see how this is considered a healthy process. Have you seen anything ingame to believe at all that the window breaking was not just done out of boredom, but with a malicious intent? Isnt this what you would need to prove here, instead of just stating the possibility of it? Besides, if the note really is justified from your point of view, why would you be willing to remove it at all?

While I will apologize for how I acted, I don't believe it was outside of expected behavior and is also completely irrelevant to the note's contents or existence on your record.

I disagree. Ive dealt with a reasonable amount of ahelps over time, you were the first person to be unreasonably rude for a minor grief ic-issue and you were also the first person to lie to me about the consequences of the ahelp. Given that I can only assume that you somehow have some kind of animosity towards me or generally players acting in the way I acted, I would say its not at all irrelevant to the existence of the note.

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This argument is very draining to me, and has been depressing me to an extent, mainly of how bizarre and stupid this entire situation is to me. It would be very easy for me to just not respond and let a silly note be a silly note. The amount of ressources I have to put into this in order for my replies to be somewhat orderly is staggering. Id much prefer if this issue could be resolved quickly by someone higher up, telling me clearly why it was wrong what I have done under the LRP rules, why it should be immediately noted for, and how the behavior of this admin towards me was acceptable. If we can resolve all those things, I will happily rest the case, forget about the entire ordeal and play spessman again without the thought in my head that this thread is actually a thing.

I appreciate you responding Vekter, and I appreciate that you at least say you apologize.

[Vekter]

As much as I, once again, appreciate the sheer effort you've put into this post, my decision stands. You did something we normally note for. I noted you for it. If a headmin wants to remove it I won't argue, but I feel like debating the matter further is just wasting both of our times.

Whether or not you agree with my decision is not relevant to the existence of the note. Your appeal has been denied.