[Vekter] Jonathon Hills - Unnecessary, Misleading Admin Remark

[JonathonHills]

BYOND account: Jonathon Hills
Character name: Robert Mosser
Ban type: Remark
Ban reason: Rule 11: Was asked to stop intentionally removing trans pride flag grafitti after the CMO ordered him to do so (see notes on Thesaintofkc for context). Instead decided to spraypaint "NAMBLA" on and near one of the flags, insinuating that trans people are pedophiles. When asked not to spraypaint bigoted crap on or near the flags, said he couldn't promise he wouldn't spraypaint on them because they were "on about half the station tiles" (they aren't).
Time ban was placed: 2023-08-27 02:15:56
Server you were playing on when banned: Manuel
Round ID in which ban was placed: 213445
Your side of the story:
I am here to dispute this remark as I find it rather misleading and unnecessary for a few reasons.

First of all, I do not think what I did ever constituted as a violation against rule 11. This is because, as stated in the remark, I had a legitimate in character reason for changing the tiles since I had been ordered to by a superior. I complied because the flags had been placed in several locations, including the CMOs department. I had only repainted and removed a handful of tiles until, as the remark says, I was told to stop removing them by the admin and again I complied. I wasn't removing the flag to be bigoted or hateful. I would have been more hesitant to mess with them had they been contained to just one area, however, they were, like I said, placed in several locations across the station by that point, including inside multiple different department areas. Much later in the round, my job was changed to clown and as a prank, I started writing NAMBLA everywhere throughout the station. I see where the confusion comes from looking back but I wrote this as a reference to the south park joke (north american martin brando lookalike association). I intended this as a way to rile up the station and security, which I anticipated would eventually take offense to the writings on account of the less savory association that the acronym is associated with, only to proclaim my innocence by explaining that I was only part of the martin brando club. Anyway, as evidence to this I would like to point out the fact that I didn't even start with spraying the phrase on the pride flags. At no point did I ever say or do anything to indicate that I was attacking the flags or intending my actions as transphobic. As the remark states, I was once again confronted about the stuff I was writing with a few rather hostile (in my opinion) admin pings. I tried to explain my side of the story by pointing out the fact that the flags were all over the place at that point, especially through all the heavily trafficked areas of the station and so it was inevitable that my graffiti would end up in the same place (since I am trying to put them in the places where they would be most visible). Regardless of this, I once again attempted to comply by abandoning the NAMBLA messages and instead began spraying "clown love" everywhere.

Also, I say the remark is misleading because, beyond accusing me of being bigoted, it leaves out the facts of me complying as well as implies that the flags in question weren't covering a large amount of the station. I have attached a few screenshots taken near round end that show some of the extent of the flags. Keep in mind, these screenshots are near the end of the round so much of the flag tiles were already removed or destroyed by this point. Though I suppose the flags weren't truly covering "about half the station tiles," I think these screenshots show that they were rather pervasive at that point in the sense that they covered much of the highly trafficked areas of the station. That is the reason I stated that I couldn't promise anything because I don't think it's fair that I should be obligated to avoid all areas that were displaying the flag pattern, especially when I had an in-character reason to do what I was doing (drawing provocative graffiti is a common clown practice) and the flag wasn't just contained to one area.

Why you think you should be unbanned:

I could have been more helpful in explaining this to the admin at the time, however, the pings I received were rather hostile and accusing me of being bigoted and hateful without really explaining exactly what I was doing wrong and not listening to my explanations. I think this admin remark is rather biased and paints me in a negative light that I don't feel I deserve. Obviously, the situation would be different had the flags been contained to one area, however, just by the nature that they were covering a large amount of the main hallways in the station, it was inevitable that my graffiti would end up on the flags. I think this remark is harmful to me because it misrepresents the event to paint me as deliberately targeting the flags when I really wasn't and didn't have any intention of doing so. I am concerned with how this may affect future actions taken against me since, obviously, these remarks are always taken into account when dealing with me and will always follow my profile. A good example of this is my previous remark, regarding me metacomming with TheSaintOfKC (the CMO in this round) several years ago. At the time of this event, I was using discord to teach him the controls since he was brand new to the game. This remark was used now in this case when Vekter was pinging me when he accused me of coordinating with TheSaintOfKC since Saint had told him that he had a problem with the flags. Now, I have to admit, its fair for him to suspect meta-comming since we have been punished previously for that offense, but it was not the case in this instance since all my friends and I have made a habit of not voice calling each other when we play and only using in-game chat. Anyway, my point is that obviously these remarks affect how I am perceived by admins in the future, and I don't think that this remark is fair when it is misleading and accusing me of breaking rules that, to the best of my knowledge, I never did. I could see the situation being different if I had been targeting a flag that was contained in its own section of the floor, or if I had said or done anything indicating my intent on destroying the flag in specific or expressing hate towards the group it represented, or if I had not complied with the admin's initial requests of not removing the flag or writing NAMBLA, but this wasn't the case. I think this remark really misrepresents the situation and unfairly accuses me of things I never did and attributes opinions to me that I never expressed.

[Vekter]

Okay, there we go, thank you.

I have issue with your actions for a few different reasons.

1) I originally intended to leave things as they were and not note you for the interaction. Had things simply stayed as "I was ordered to get rid of them", it would be on the CMO, not the both of you. I asked you in the ticket to leave the flags alone and said I would speak with them.

From Ticket #12 during round 213445 on Manuel:

---- Log Begins ----
2023-08-27 01:37:27: Ticket Opened by vekter: Hey, quick question. Someone noted that you'd been going around destroying someone else's pride flag artwork the last few rounds. Is there a specific reason for that?
2023-08-27 01:38:13: Reply from jonathonhills: i was told to remove them from the ground by the CMO. I am just tryting to find ways to clean the paint up
2023-08-27 01:38:48: Reply from vekter: Gotcha, the CMO is the other person I'm talking to. Just leave it be for now, please. It's not hurting anyone.
2023-08-27 01:49:27: Resolved by Vekter
---- No Further Messages ----

This ticket can be viewed:

• By the affected player: http://statbus.space/tickets/213445/12
• By admins: http://statbus.space/tgdb/tickets/213445/12

This ticket was generated by Statbus v.1.16.0

2) The problem is that, shortly after I asked you to stop, the same person who reported this before let me know that you were spraypainting over them, putting "1984" and "NAMBLA" over the pride flags. I did find out that you weren't responsible for 1984 - that was the CMO - but game logs showed that you spraypainted NAMBLA.

Some context is important here - NAMBLA is (quoted from WIkipedia) a "pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States". With this context, it wasn't hard to put together what you were doing - you were implying that trans people are pedophiles. We can beat around the bush all we want (your claim about it being a South Park reference isn't cute), it's not a hard train of logic to follow: Spraypaint "NAMBLA" next to the trans flag. NAMBLA is a pedophilia advocacy organization. There is literally no context for doing what you did that doesn't loop back to "Trans people are pedophiles", which is a bigoted stance. We do not permit bigotry, hence the note for violating rule 11.

11. Bigotry is not allowed.

Intentionally seeking to demean others due to their actual or perceived race, sex, gender, disability, orientation or the like is not tolerated. It is not our goal to create or enforce a list of banned words and instead our goal to eject the expression of bigotry from the community. Enforcement will be less PC based and more common sense based with that goal in mind.

In regards to the flags being present across most of the station, I understand where you're coming from, but plenty of space remained on the station to paint whatever you wanted. I have, in the interest of fairness, left a message for the person who was painting them asking to keep them localized to a specific area if possible, as it's only really fair to give everyone room to paint whatever as long as it falls within the rules.

As far as me mentioning TheSaintOfKC, they were the CMO in this case and their note includes further context on the situation, which is why they were mentioned in yours. I didn't include them for any other purpose, which is why your note doesn't specify that metacomms was an involved part of this. It was handled completely ICly between you two, in that the CMO explicitly asked you to remove them and you complied.

Thesaintofkc/(Peter Griswold) "removal of this hideous graffiti would be of good service to the station"

I don't see that the note is in any way inaccurate. I asked you to stop even though you were ordered by the CMO. Instead of stopping, you spraypainted something over the flag that has no context other than bigotry to it. I asked you not to do it again and you said that you couldn't promise me you wouldn't spray over pride flags because there wasn't room to do otherwise, which we've established is untrue.

I also don't think it paints you in an unfairly harsh light. Again, we have established that your actions have no context other than bigotry, so me declaring it a rule 11 violation is fair.

I am not removing nor modifying this note. We take rule 11 seriously and, while you're entitled to your opinion on LGBT+ people, you are not permitted to express bigoted ideas on our servers.

As for my conduct in the ticket, I will admit that I was terse with you, but I was frustrated that I had already asked you to do something and you not only blatantly ignored my request but also decided to put a hateful spin on things. You are welcome to open a complaint about my behavior if this note is overturned by the headmins.

E: I'd like to clarify for anyone reading this that the issue is not (and never was) with them getting rid of the flags - that's fine in and of itself if you have a valid reason to do so. For instance, the Janitor had also done so this round, but I let it slide because the Janitor's job involves removing graffiti, so he had a valid IC reason to be doing it. I had talked to the CMO about the issue because they had done so multiple times over multiple rounds and the reason they gave me was explicitly bigoted. Again, removing the flags isn't a big deal unless you're doing so for bigoted reasons. I'm not going to ban anyone for painting over a flag. I might talk to you about it if you do it over and over again, though.

[JonathonHills]

My issue with the NAMBLA being strictly bigoted is that I didn't start with graffiti on the flags and it was also not contained to just the flags. You are taking an action that wasn't intended to be an attack on the trans flags and trying to attribute it as one.

[Vekter]

My issue with the NAMBLA being strictly bigoted is that I didn't start with graffiti on the flags and it was also not contained to just the flags. You are taking an action that wasn't intended to be an attack on the trans flags and trying to attribute it as one.

And my issue is that you posted a screenshot proving that you did.

Look closely at those tiles under the text. They're trans pride flag colored.

There was a single instance of you spraying it half on a flag and half off, but your actions don't just magically become acceptable because you put one somewhere that wasn't on a flag, too - that just means that specific graffiti doesn't apply while all the others do.

[JonathonHills]

The NAMBLA graffiti was everywhere, both on and off the flags, that is my point. As I explained, I did this as a gag, starting several minutes after the initial incident of removing the flag. Like I said, I was writing this to be provocative and to get a rise out of people because I was conflating NAMBLA meaning man boy love association with martin brando lookalike association. The act was done to get a rise out of security or other people who I assumed would accost me over the more common meaning of the acronym, and the gag being I would then proclaim my innocence as being a member of the inoculant Martin Brando Lookalike Association. To further prove that this gag was my intention, and not as a targeted attack on the flag or a group of people, the first graffiti tag I put down was in front of the captain's office, well before the flag pattern was put there as well. I don't think the NAMBLA graffiti's proximity to the flags is relevant in proving that this was a bigoted action because I would have placed them in the same locations whether or not the flag was present in those locations. They just so happened to end up on the flags in many instances because the flags were placed in almost every high traffic hallway throughout the station. In hindsight, I wish I had also taken screenshots showing the other places which I had written NAMBLA and CLOWN LOVE that were either entirely off of the flags or in rooms which were entirely separate from any of the flag patterns (specifically the engineering hall, med bay, and maints tunnel just to name a few). My point is you are taking something that was not meant as a bigoted statement and falsely attributed a hateful message to it. Nowhere did I ever do anything to indicate that bigotry was my intended purpose. I'm sorry that you interpreted the message how you did and I understand why you did. Furthermore, I can agree that, all things considered, it was probably bound to be misconstrued this way, which is why I stopped doing it the moment you brought this to my attention.

Look, I want to put away any hostility we had as a result of arguing in the admin ticket as it was mainly centered around me arguing that I thought it shouldn't be against the rules to paint on the flags, something I now think we both agree is not the issue of this incident. As such, I just wanted to present my side of things regarding my intentions for writing NAMBLA everywhere in the station because I think they show that I didn't have hateful intent. Looking back, it probably would have been more productive of me to explain myself at the time of the incident rather than argue over whether or not I should be able to write on the flags, but at the time I thought that was the point of contention.

[Vekter]

I don't buy it, and here's why. Is it more likely that you:

1) Remembered that episode of South Park that aired 23 years ago and thought "Okay, it might be funny if I pretend like I'm doing that bit and reveal that I didn't mean it LIKE THAT when someone gets mad", or
2) Got upset that I asked you to stop erasing the pride flags and made a jab at trans people that you knew you could pass off as #1 if I got mad at you for it?

I'll let the headmins decide which one you intended.

[JonathonHills]

Fair enough to let a 3rd party decide. I guess I just have two remarks from my side:
1) Thanks to streaming I watched that episode last week.
2) I started the graffiti away from the flags and never limited my graffiti to just the flags.

[Vekter]

2) I started the graffiti away from the flags and never limited my graffiti to just the flags.

Worth noting that there's no way to prove this on either side because (to my knowledge) spray painting is not logged.

Also, I would be willing to edit the note to specify that you claimed you were doing the bit from the show. I'm not willing to remove it, though.

[Timberpoes]

"I was just copying an innocent South Park bit" is a flag so red that our bull's proverbial dead ancestors are reanimating and rising from their graves to charge at it too.

We often ask our admin team to give players the benefit of the doubt, but we don't ask them to pull a blindfold over their own eyes and ignore everything in the face of ambiguity. Sometimes you just know it when you see it.

That you have the following note on record:

Code: Select all

2020-08-21 04:15:03
domitius
Bagil
Banned for a week for metacommunications with another player(thesaintofkc).

Which was spawned from the following permaban appeal for metacomms and you running a Tyrone Brown gimmick screaming about George Floyd, not being able to breathe, BLM and ACAB: viewtopic.php?p=572985#p572985

With this very same other player - thesaintofkc - involved again.

Curious also that there's also a Windows notification that some application is using your microphone on your taskbar too in your screenshots.

You must think we're pretty fucking stupid. And maybe you're right. Maybe we are pretty fucking stupid. But we don't need to be smart. We just need to be smarter than the people we're dealing with. And thank the MSO that such people rarely fail to deliver.

For your sake, don't try to climb these stairs - they're far too steep for you. If this appeal being upheld is the worst outcome you get from it, consider yourself very fortunate.

[Timberpoes]

The note's accurate, doesn't unfairly represent things and falls on the back of a rule break.

I don't intend to vote in favour of overturning this and the other headmins haven't chimed in to say it should be overturned, so it'll be upheld.