[RaveRadbury] Typhnox - Player's Club sub-forum ban

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

BYOND account: Typhnox
Character name: Imitates-The-Lizards
Ban type: Player's Club sub-forum
Ban length: Unspecified, but presumed permanent.
Ban reason: This is a warning regarding the following post made by you: viewtopic.php?f=83&p=660979#p660979

You really can't seem to avoid taking bait and not engaging this stuff. You've been warned about this and since then you acknowledge your warning while still taking the bait.

We can't trust you to engage peanut threads without stirring up drama. For this reason you're being banned from the Player's Club board.
(Currently we do not have that permission set up so until then you will be generally forum banned. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
Time ban was placed: Fri Jan 06, 2023 4:56 pm
Server you were playing on when banned: Player's Club sub-forum
Round ID in which ban was placed: N/A, this is for a forum ban
Your side of the story: A drama tier list thread was made on the Player's Club sub-forum in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=83&t=33066 . Naturally, as the topic of the thread was all the past drama of the last year, it ended up with people reviving my drama. Again. I made one or two posts but generally tried to avoid my own personal drama, however, there were a couple of posts made in the thread which related to my drama which I felt compelled to address - namely, Axle gave pretty good reasons as to why the retraction statement I issued regarding my opinion which started my drama may not have been genuine: He rightfully pointed out that I may have felt compelled to post a retraction statement due to the large number of people calling me a god damn pedophile, rather than because my opinion actually changed. I responded to this post by explaining why my retraction statement was genuine, and a couple of posts after that which were in response to my post in the thread.
Why you think you should be unbanned: This ban should be lowered to a forum warning, or outright removed for the following reasons:

I have never actually received a forum warning or an order from the admin team not to engage in this topic: In my ban reason from Rave, he states "You've been warned about this and since then you acknowledge your warning while still taking the bait.", however, this is just...flat out not true. I have received 2 forum warnings up to this point. One was for a completely unrelated matter from Mothblocks, and one from Rave for bringing the topic of "is lolicon pedophilia?" to the forums. I have long acknowledged this warning as a valid one, however, it clearly does not apply to this case, because we were not discussing that topic, and there are many posts on the forum where I have refused to engage in that topic following receiving that warning, on the grounds of having had received that warning, the majority of which can be found in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=83&t=32194 . I very clearly follow that warning to the letter. Based on the wording within the ban message "You've been warned about this and since then you acknowledge your warning", I believe Rave mistook my opening segment of my post "I apologize to the admin team members who want me to just not engage with this topic" to mean I was given a warning I am refusing to follow, however, this was simply me stating I have a few people who are friendly to me on the admin team who have advised me to just not engage in the topic, not that I have been formally commanded not to engage with posts relating to this matter.

The ban reason does not actually make any sense: What the heck am I even actually banned for? Responding to drama? So is this an acknowledgement that I did not actually start this drama? If so, how does this ban even make any sense? "We can't trust you to engage peanut threads without stirring up drama." Except I didn't stir the drama. Axle and Timonk did. Ban them, not me.

Unequal and unsympathetic application of punishment standards: Okay, Rave, let me ask you a question - If tomorrow, someone posted a post in the Player's Club where he (and subsequently several other people) called YOU a pedophile, and when asked for evidence for this incredibly heinous accusation, responded by saying "Well, okay, there is none, but one time several months ago you made a post where you had a bad opinion, and therefore you touch kids, and therefore I feel entitled to harass you for months on end.", what the hell would your response be? You would permaban them! Instantly! But when it comes to me, all they get is some post removals and maybe, MAYBE a temporary forum ban like toemas got. Is it because I'm a regular user? Is it because you personally do not like me? I do not know, but it should be REALLY OBVIOUS by now that the admin team's failure to take a strong stance on the people who are actually stirring this drama has left me with a choice of "say nothing and people assume the worst because you do not refute it" or "respond to it, because you take very strong offense to the incredibly heinous accusations levied against you, but risk being banned". Do you even understand the position you are putting me in? The admin team should NEVER put someone in this position, where my choices are silently live with people literally calling me a pedophile, or be banned!

A warning would be much more strategically applicable: Like I mentioned before, I have not actually been warned not to engage in this topic. If I WAS actually warned for engaging in this topic, it would be an instant defense I could use. Someone comes up with some new angle it makes sense for me to respond to tomorrow? I can respond with "Sorry, I've been warned not to engage on this topic, so I will make no further comment.". Instant defense. People no longer can assume that whatever heinous thing is said about me is correct, because they know I could have a response to it, but I am not allowed to post it. People can no longer assume the worst, Drama dies out. Problem solved.

I actually DID try to avoid the drama: There was a post from, I believe from Timonk, which I reported, where he literally said I like children. I reported the post, went to sleep, woke up, and.... the post was still there. With subsequent posts from members from the admin team (See Timberpoes post in the thread), and members of the admin team viewing the thread, but just...no one removing the post, after several hours, and clear engagement from the admin team on the thread. How else was I supposed to interpret this except as the admin team refusing to remove posts stirring the drama about me again? Since the admin team was clearly refusing to act on the matter, I decided it was appropriate for me to respond to it, due to the dilemma I referred to earlier, but decided it would be better to respond to Axle's much more logical post rather thank Timonk's clearly bait post, if I was going to be forced to respond to any posts at all. However, I very clearly did try to avoid the drama.

The posts were actually pretty mild: All things considered, the discussion I had in that thread was much more mild than past discussions. Toemas and I actually had a productive conversation for once, I feel. I feel like you may be over-exaggerating the drama of the thread, and it wasn't actually all that bad for once.

Anything else we should know: I am sick and tired of this drama.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I have additional arguments to make.

This ban actually runs contrary to the presumed goal: If we assume the whole point of this ban is to cut down on drama, it actually accomplishes exactly the opposite of that goal and reinforces drama. How? Because this let's people know if they don't like someone (and let's be honest here, I'm probably top 3 in the "most unpopular forum users" contest), as long as you get enough people to cause enough drama, then even if the person you don't like has actually done nothing wrong, if you say enough things that are wildly offensive to them to bait them into enough responses, eventually the admin team will just ban them to not deal with them any more. Is that REALLY a good precedent to set?

And secondarily... This whole thing may have been just a huge misunderstanding. See viewtopic.php?f=7&t=33094 ...

It looks like what triggered this was just Timonk making an early entry for "blundered post of the year". For whatever it's worth, I forgive Timonk completely. I've made posts which were just as stupid - see the post I made to start my drama in the first place.

Rave, just unban both Timonk and I, with a slap for each of us and call us both dumbasses. No one got hurt and this ban is nearly indefensible. The only casualties were a few brain cells of the forum users.

[RaveRadbury]

You kept touching the hot stove when we told you not to. We are not responsible for the arguments that you've made in this community or the consequences of the arguments, we can only do so much to address people harassing you. When you can't stop yourself from posting about it and rehashing it our only remaining option is to remove you from the places where you might be tempted to post about it again.

I have support from the headmins on this ban, it will not be overturned this term. If you'd like to take the opportunity in this appeal to have a frank discussion of how you got here and ideas on how to have a better appeal next time I'd be happy to talk to you about it. I will still take this opportunity to highlight examples that have been factored in to why this ban will remain, and it will be up to the next headmins to decide whether or not to unban you.

Sorry that it took longer than you expected for the forum report to be handled. Forum moderation is difficult and can frequently take a few days for decisions to be made.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I believe this appeal was mishandled, because there are many aspects that you did not address, such as the fact that I was never forum warned about engaging in this topic, or else you would have simply said "No, you are wrong, you were warned here, for this post, for this reason.", Which you failed to do, and also you directly acknowledged that I was being harassed (whether rightfully or not) meaning that you are admitting to punishing the victim. However, unless MSO feels like stepping in here, I have no higher authority to appeal to, so I suppose I have no choice but to accept this ban.

In that case, I will take this time to continue to demonstrate my good will and good faith behavior in the community, and I will take you up on your offer to hear whatever advice you have for me Rave. What do you recommend that I do in order to have a more successful appeal next time? How can I get back in the admin team's good books?

Edit: Just in case it wasn't clear, I have no interest in squabbling about how this appeal was handled. I am only interested in having a productive conversation about what you would like to see from me for the future.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Oh right, I'd like to at least request my ban be lowered to read-only perms. The logic behind my ban is me engaging with the drama, right? Well with read-only I can't engage. Even logged out players can see the Player's Club, as it is right now, I actually have less perms than someone who isn't even logged in, which is mighty silly.

"This forum is not on the index page for logged out users or users without a byond verified account, direct links to topics should still work for those users."

[Vekter]

I believe this appeal was mishandled, because there are many aspects that you did not address, such as the fact that I was never forum warned about engaging in this topic...

You have been told multiple times by multiple admins (including myself) that the best thing you can do to avoid further drama is to drop the topic entirely and stop responding when others try to start it back up. You don't need to be warned on every separate platform to understand that we expect that of you everywhere, not just in-game.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I believe this appeal was mishandled, because there are many aspects that you did not address, such as the fact that I was never forum warned about engaging in this topic...

You have been told multiple times by multiple admins (including myself) that the best thing you can do to avoid further drama is to drop the topic entirely and stop responding when others try to start it back up. You don't need to be warned on every separate platform to understand that we expect that of you everywhere, not just in-game.

That's true, but, there is a significant difference between being given well-meaning advice about what would be best for avoiding drama, and being given an actual command not to engage in the topic, that if I don't follow, will result in a ban.

Hell, I didn't even need a warning. Just a simple request from the admin team to avoid the topic would have been sufficient, since that would put the onus on the admin team to actively tackle the topic, instead of leaving me in a gray area where it was "they don't like this topic, but no one has told me they will stop it from being talked about". As I mentioned earlier in my appeal, I didn't feel like this was handled a lot of the time, since it felt like at most a lot of the time it would result in maybe a post removal at most. Were people forum banned over this? I don't know! I don't have access to your ban logs or admin conversations. But if you, Vekter, literally just said "Hey, please don't engage this topic, I got it, I'll remove any posts stirring it up again, or someone else will." I would have happily done so. Hell, you could even still just ask me now, and I'll still go along with that. If Rave's next post in this thread is "Hey so we just want this drama to go away, you agree not to engage this topic without DMing Me, Sticky, Vekter, or Timberpoes on Discord first to make sure it's a good idea, I agree to unban you", I would say "Yeah sure, sounds good." Honestly, I think you guys way overthink this.

You only had to ask. Because as it was, since I couldn't see any of the conversations, from my point of view, it just didn't feel like anything was being done, unless it was super extensive and very incredibly blatant harassment, like what happened with Abdul Shakur.

I guess you could say it's my fault for not reading between the lines of what you meant, and you really meant "GOD JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP" when you said "Hey it is probably in your best interest to just not talk about this topic", but hey, if I was that smart, I wouldn't have gotten into this drama in the first place, so, I'm sorry for being a dumbass who caused you trouble Vekter.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I... I'm sorry.

In case it wasn't clear in my last post, I was really left in the dark about a lot of stuff. I didn't realize how much work the admin team was doing behind the scenes. I'm not an admin here and I have never been one, so I'm not familiar with your guys procedures behind the scenes.

It felt like the admin team would get rid of me if they could, but they just couldn't justify it, so when people posted messages bringing up the drama again, they would just let it sit for a couple days to make sure people saw it, to make sure that I got hurt first, and then they would just delete the posts out of obligation, without punishing anyone. Since it kept happening over and over, I didn't think anything was being done by the admin team, so I had to handle it myself, which is why I kept replying. Basically, since all these posts were simply deleted without a ban/warn message, I had no feedback about what the admin teams actions were.

That's why I was so exaggeratedly happy when Abdul Shakur got banned, and why I kept praising Vekter so much everywhere. It was the only time I felt like the admin team did something about it, but it gave me the impression that you guys would only act in the case someone literally stalked me from server to server for weeks with large and constant rule breaks before action would be taken.

If someone told me before that all of those post removals also had a 3 day or week or whatever forum ban attached, I would have gotten the memo a long time ago.

I think you guys were of the mind that this topic was one best handled in the gray area of "some things are better left not said" in regards to why no one just asked or told me explicitly and definitively not to engage with the topic, but it just didn't work because I didn't have enough information to come to the right conclusions about what the best social action would be. You guys were playing social chess while I was playing battleship, guessing blindly.

It felt like I was alone. And it really sucked.

[RaveRadbury]

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These are the threads that informed my decision to lock you out of the club. You showed some insight in editing out posts that would have further caused trouble for you, but making those posts in the first place caused a lot of concern. Obviously those edits can only be viewed by admins, but I'm fairly certain you're aware of what you engaged and then later decided to remove. Of course, there's also the big post you made that got the mod message slapped on it, the one you kept up because you felt that sinful had so effectively undermined your previous resolution that it required response.

If you would like to appeal next term, I would recommend making a succinct appeal that addresses your problem of engaging arguments that will be problematic for you. Focus on how you've spent time reflecting on how there are some arguments and replies not worth making (actually do this, too).

We are a niche community built around a community project. Community members do not come here to engage heavy topics. Even if you lay out your case with flawless logic there are those who will be outraged by what you've said. Ultimately we're concerned with having a pleasant community, which is why we have rules about not saying things that upset people rather than rules against being incorrect.

We all deserve a break from this drama. The term is over halfway over, a few months to be free of seeing people take pot shots at you will help you separate yourself from it. In that time I hope that you can develop the tools and responses you need to handle if/when someone tries to jab you with your drama again. In the meantime you are free to engage the rest of the forums; between policy discussion and coding discussion there's still a lot to talk about around here.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Well, you don't seem to have a personal bias against me like san has against sinful, so this is a good enough outcome for me. If you won't be looking to adjust my perms to read-only as requested earlier in the thread, I suppose this thread is resolved - I'll just do my best to be the extremely boring engineer main you probably know I am by now.