Accepted Scouser - Ban Appeal

[Nerdbird]

Where you got banned from: The forums
The name you got banned under: Scouser
When were you banned?: 5am today.
How long is the ban? 1 month.
Who applied it?: Unknown
What is the ban reason? "Provocative/inflammatory behavior, only active on forums to stir trouble."
Screenshots, logs or anything that helps your case: Embedded within the post.


My ban reason is light on details so I will recall my recent posts from memory.

Pirate's message in Feelsgoodmans CCC: As the meat of the issues of the thread had already been resolved I thought I'd post it for some levity. Some people don't seem to think the message is real because I didn't post a screenshot but I'm banned from embedding images after Auths to play Khajiit. Fortunately my scribe can embed it for me.



Make unban appeals public: If my ban reason is taken literally, the administration team seems to believe that my interest in making unban appeals public is solely to stir trouble. Quite the opposite - it is a needed change that is intended to protect players from shitty administration and protect admins from accusations of bias. Transparency goes both ways and benefits all involved.

My catalyst for posting that thread was seeing some evidences and complaints about the bans on Goldie, Appetite Ruining Kebab and Fanatic, where it seemed quite obvious that they were banned under unclear pretenses and weren't getting reasonable treatment in their appeals. Opening these up to the court of public opinion would've forced both sides to lay out their evidences in plain sight and reach as close to an objective judgement as possible.

But then again, I could have just been seeing a biased perspective - transparency is important! The Goldie/Tekogub unban pictures was also pretty eye-opening - if a respected community member like Feelsgoodman was getting such a toxic stonewalling treatment then whose to say how people without the recourse of connections were being treated?


Auths to play Khajiit: For those who didn't see, a few weeks ago after the Morrowind Vivec event on HL2RP, I made around ~20 posts sequentially in the Nightmare in Prague thread. They were mostly me pinging random active thread viewers with variations on the phrase 'Auths to play Khajiit' occasionally interspersed with low quality pictures of Khajiits.

Whichever way you want to spin it, no matter how seriously it was intended to be and no matter who wrote it (my favourite writer at TnB was playing Vivec!), Vivec and Morrowind showing up in Half-Life 2 roleplay is objectively funny. The players who played these god characters must have agreed to some extent, seeing as how they spent a post-ending event arguing like an old married couple and playing pool. You don't do that if you're taking yourself entirely seriously. Auths to play Khajiit was at worst some light teasing and it's bluntly unreasonable to have taken it to heart in the way certain people did.


G-Man: Another deleted post. After I experienced a lot of backlash from Auths to play Khajiit, it somewhat galvanized me to gather some criticisms friends and I had and put them into a greentext 'pic unrelated' format. I have a screenshot of this post here.



This was a perhaps misplaced attempt at presenting genuine criticism in the form of comedy - the point being that a Morrowind crossover was out of place, forced and frankly masturbatory when considering the two players playing the god characters are both huge fans of the Elder Scrolls franchise. The ideas of a reality bending, timeline shifting and almost God-like character could have very easily been done in a better way. Obviously the admins and event runners and such have largely accepted peoples criticism of the event and so harping on about it here shows no purpose.


These are all of my recent posts that I remember. If there is any other evidence against me then feel free to post it.


Addendum: Only active to stir trouble/"You don't even play."

"You don't even play" is fast becoming a toxic stonewalling technique used to deflect legitimate criticism from players who have quit due to alienation and frustration. If kept up, this attitude will inevitably alienate more and more players and be a great detriment to the whole community.

To respond to that quip in the hostile spirit it is given - I would play the server if it was good.

 

[Nerdbird]

Images work now

 

[Fuxx]

The metamorph (a spacetime manipulating deity-like alien) choosing to represent itself to humans in an antropomorphic figure was meant to be taken, to my knowledge, quite seriously, and we would be doing the person writing it a disservice to equate the efforts of the finale with unserious memeing done in the post-ending (like the playing pool part). To have constructive criticism is one thing, but to shitpost and spam (asides from the examples provided, see also the images below), is another. It's unhelpful and I'm confident it contributed to that same writer quitting the community. I'm aware of other people who, upon seeing the combined negativity that sprung out all at once, have decided that it was not worth the mental strain to stick around and decided to leave as well. You may have found it humorous, but you can't presume others did as well. These behaviors have consequences and for the sake of preserving some kind of stability, it's important to foster unity, not division.

With that said, I don't think we should make this a debate about whether the finale was good or bad or if could be done better or whatever. I think that's a debate in of itself that everyone is free to pursue in a more appropriate thread. Instead, I want to drive this point home:

At the end of the day, roleplay is a hobby that requires a lot of time and effort sunk into it, so I can understand that emotions can flare out when all this time and effort is ignored or, even worse, disrespected. That goes both ways and it's on all of us to do better. It's on us to promote a comfortable environment where opinions can be expressed and debated politely, which I'm sad to say has hardly been the case in the past 2 weeks and the number of people who have been quietly abandoning the community are a testament to that. The silver lining is that in the past few days it seems we're finally getting somewhere and I hope things can keep improving. So long as this is understood, I'll throw in my support for an unban.

 

[straylight]

the timing on scouser being banned shortly after posting a few serious posts was ultimately an unfortunate consequence on the team being slow on the draw with putting things into motion; it should be made clear the ban was laid down squarely in response to the prior spam and the perceived intent behind it. we knew whenever we agreed on the ban that it would probably come across as a response to scouser's most recent posts, but we decided in the interest of not continuing the trend a lot of users perceive of people being inconsistently disciplined or being targeted for certain responses it was better to deal with the fallout of bad optics than not try and take the first steps towards a new precedent at all

as for the ban itself, from my perspective there's a difference between expressing dissent and dissatisfaction with something or riffing on something and showing up with the explicit intent to cause a lot of noise and be a headache. considering that scouser posted more about making fun of the vivec thing than he has in months combined, i don't think it's completely unreasonable to see where we're coming from here in casting judgment on his intent and rationale behind posting the way that he did.

provided scouser's more productive couple of posts were an indication of a positive upward trend in actually wanting to be contributive to conversations rather than the trend established in mass of posts well before that, i'm in the same boat as fuxx on the topic of an unban

 

[Johnston]

+1 for unban

 

[blooregardo]

It's unhelpful and I'm confident it contributed to that same writer quitting the community.

This is more or less correct. Final straw sort of deal. I'd rather you be part of the community and talk to us like people instead of making people ask a dozen times to stop. Please don't do this anymore

I'm not a moderator --moderators correct me if im wrong-- but I can also say with confidence that you posting on behalf of pirate is a nonissue, and if it is a contributing factor it really shouldn't be

 

[Rabid]

Yeah I have no problems supporting the unban on this for the reasons listed above! +1

 

[slug]

Just waiting to hear back from Scouser in response to the above right now I think.

 

[Nerdbird]

"I've seen and understand your concerns and will bear them in mind going forward."

 

[Brealaran]

After reviewing both the appeal and the responses of my colleagues, I'm afraid I must take a different opinion.

On review for any action from a Community Moderator, I feel it very important to ensure that a rule was violated first, then move on to the merits of the appeal after establishing a violation.

Here, the appropriate rules to apply are 1-B, 1-C, and 2-B. I'll go through each of them in short order.

Do not derail a thread with a defined topic. Keep your posts on track. Any posts that aim to pointlessly drag a conversation in a different direction will result in your posts being deleted and a possible thread reply ban. The zingers need to stay in your pocket unless they actively contribute to a conversation, and it falls to the forum moderators' discretion whether posts do or not.

I think this rule is fairly unambiguous. Nobody should be derailing threads that already have a defined topic to them. That can range from unrelated conversation on a roster thread to shitposting on a feedback thread. This rule gives moderators considerable leeway in determining what is and isn't derailing. It also gives some leeway to posters, implying that certain zingers may be capable of actively contributing to a conversation...

In this case, I think the posts on the screenshot thread were correctly removed. Were they less numerous or less targeted, then I think a ban would be excessive. However, we have more to consider.

Do not spam the forums or discord. Post with intent and purpose.

This rule is very clear. Spam is prohibited. The rule also advises that community members should post with "intent and purpose," which might on a fringe theory allow someone to argue that spam is permissible so long as it is with the requisite intent and purpose. I disagree. That would naturally make the rule functionally useless. That argument is not brought up here, however.

Here, the screenshots posted by Fuxx reveal considerable spam in the screenshots channel. While spam is easily addressed by the removal of the posts, I also think that a short timeout or very short ban are appropriate too in certain situations. As I believe this community ban is based on our third rule violation, and I agree the 2-B rule violation is far more severe than this 1-C issue, I don't see the need to make a decision on whether this particular slew of spam warranted a temporary forum ban.

Do not repeatedly target and harass any member. There will always be beef between one person or another. Do not go out of your way to attack them publicly or privately. If you have a problem with another community member and you must engage with them in public, keep it civil and sort out your differences respectfully.

I've already discussed this rule in another unban appeal made by Gr8Spade. There, I discussed how "repeated" targeting or harassment can be accomplished through as many as just two such posts. The rule also, notably, specifies that the targeting and harassment must be towards a community member.

The targeting and harassment levied by your postings clearly meet the requirement that your conduct be repeated. What I am left to evaluate is whether this conduct targeted and harassed a member. I believe it did.

Your posts clearly align with popular discontent towards how the final major narrative event for Nightmare in Prague was handled. Personally, I was not there until after the things you're criticising happened, so I can't really talk from a firsthand account one way or another on it. What I can discuss, however, is that your postings were extraordinarily critical. Criticism on its own should never be a basis for a community ban, or any adverse action against a post. However, your postings crossed the threshold from criticism, thoughts for improvement, or even stark frustration into the realm of targeted harassment against the writer, whether or not you even mentioned the writer's name. It's hard to show whether or not you really intended to have your posts amount to this, and you've stated in your appeal that you only meant to speak out on something you legitimately wished to see discussed and improved for next time. Because of this, I'm willing to view your words on intent in the light most favorable to you, which leads me to the merits.

You admit this may have been a "misplaced attempt at presenting genuine criticism in the form of comedy." I will take your word for it that it was misplaced. You also have mentioned already that you have seen and understand our concerns and will bear them in mind. These bring me some peace of mind, but much of the damage of your words may have already been done. Your actions show a serious misunderstanding of what kind of behavior is and isn't okay when presenting criticism in a public space, especially when real people put considerable effort into what was, admittedly, an unusual portrayal.

Lastly, I want to address your response about being "only active to incite." The way you phrased your response was rather confrontational and certainly an attempt at a zinger. I don't find it relevant to my consideration of this appeal whether or not you play on the server or are active on the forums, but I do find it relevant how you write your appeal and what tone you take throughout it.

Without your understanding and implicit apology, I would have argued for maintaining the original ban length. I'm glad I do not have to advocate for you to complete the one month. You have already been banned since Sunday because of this. I believe you have learned your lesson, but I also believe that the conduct here amounts to something beyond what can be fixed merely through a lesson learned.

-1 to reversal of the ban.
+1 to adjusting the length to one week, beginning from the original ban date.

 

[Nerdbird]

"A one week ban from when I was banned will very soon be shorter than how long this appeal has taken. Are there any particular hold ups that I can help the admin team with?"

 

[Dandy (dethroned)]

I support an unban on sunday with the understanding that further spam will be dealt with promptly. Don't go off the rails like that again and it'll be peachy.

 

[slug]

Don’t think the time of the unban particularly matters anymore given this whole discussion has lasted this long.

Unbanned, please behave.