Accepted Unban appeal for Fanatic/Collar (posted on his behalf)

[Faust]

I was asked to post this unban appeal for Fanatic, I'll do so without editorializing.

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Username: Fanatic
Steam ID: STEAM_0:0:71221994
Ban reason: Antisemitic dog whistle (Photo)

To start, I was not dogwhistling or being racist, not sure how what I posted could be construed that way, what am I missing that someone can explain to me? I can not have a dialogue or make a proper honest appeal without some clarity into this. The burden of proof falls with the admin team here. From my perspective it looks like it was done to silence me from posting for the next X amount of time, and comes off as a power play. I'd also alike this appeal made public so the community as a whole can provide input on this. Cheers.

 

[slug]

You have a checkered history with making antisemetic dogwhistles targeted towards Moatilliata, a practicing jew, primarily on discord. In isolation this could have been passed as something innocuous and not something to make note of, but coupled with that information it became increasingly clear to us that you've been was making extremely ill-intended, racially-charged jabs toward someone you don't like.

If the ban was a power play to stop you from posting, then why were you the only one banned? Why weren't you just reply banned from the thread? Others engaged in the thread with far more inflammatory shit-slinging than you did. You were banned because we've had the increasing sentiment that you've been tippy-toeing the line to get at Moat and after this we felt it had been enough.

 

[Faust]

This is his unedited reply.

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Again, I'd like this unban to be made public so others can see it or possibly present their own evidence of me being antisemitic—or how frankly silly this all is.
ADL's hate.com has nothing about pork roasts, BBQs, or burning in relation to this. A Google search for anything antisemitic related to this only returns minimal results simply for having the word "pork" in it. So I'd like to see the breakdown of how my reply to Bloo—referencing my previous post about BBQs—is antisemitic? BBQ was used as an analogy for why people don't want to play on the server, following the actions or perceived actions of some of the team. I fail to see the leap in logic that this was:
A) Directed at Moat?
B) Antisemitic?
C) Heinous and inflammatory enough to result in a ban?

It sounds like it comes down to: "It's a dog whistle because Moat said so," when no one else I’ve shown this to sees it that way. The last line about "increasing sentiment" sounds like it was a proactive assumption that I was going to post something horrible—which again, is not the case, nor was it my intention. I can get riled up in these posts, but I'm not out here posting swastikas in GOOC.

The royal "you"—the admin team—are the arbiters of what is perceived as a dog whistle. YOU are not the arbiters of what I meant and what my intentions were. If you want to take that role, evidence needs to be provided to show I am being disingenuous or otherwise hostile. Were my intentions to harm someone because they’re Jewish? That seems to be the perceived intent here, but it doesn't quite add up. "Tiptoeing the line" in regard to a comment that wasn't even made at Moat or referencing them?

The only "checkered" history I have with Moat is when I was banned from the Rebel Discord for saying "Russians are orcs"—considered a "racist dog whistle." I argued that Russians aren't a race. People have Palestine flags, slogans, and chants in their descriptions. The rule Moat quoted referenced "ableism," yet others in the community say "retard" without filter. If we’re going to put a blanket ban on all politics and ableism, then saying "retard" affects a lot more people in this community than saying "Russia or Israel bad." We argued about it for like five paragraphs, and nothing else came of it. It's not relevant to this, but yeah, maybe not the time or place.

Once again, the comment was not directed at Moat, so I'm curious as to how it was perceived to be towards them? I also can't see how this was antisemitic and could use some clarity on that. The core issue here is, can anything just be perceived by a few members as as a dog whistle, not elaborated on how it is one, then that member banned?

I’d love to see evidence of these other alleged dog whistles or claims. Being labeled “antisemitic” is a serious accusation and requires serious proof. Again, to reiterate: I don’t hate Jews. I don’t want negative things to happen to random Jewish people. I'm here and vocal about this because I care about this community and enjoy the stories written here.

 

[slug]

The part about burning a pork roasts (jews being not able to eat pork) to drive neighbors away coupled with your engagements with Moat were what were highlighted here. After asking them, they said these exchanges were on shoutbox (not discord as I misstated above) and were deleted. Given the shoutbox has no logs I am not able to provide that here, but it was that which fueled the idea that this is where that was coming from.

This is hypothetical, but I think an unseen element in this was that there have been those who have done as much as a jab against Moat, and thus we have come to be hyperaware of anything that is perceived in that nature, as a lot of it is by design done in a way that’s meant to be plausibly deniable.

I’m willing to take you at your word that this was not the case and that this was a misinterpretation/crossing of wires on your intent, and was only a criticism of the admins themselves and their actions, and while I might disagree with the fact that you have chosen be somewhat inflammatory at times (a point that wasn’t moderated much in that thread because it was going somewhat both ways) and typically don’t make use of the outlets we provide to lodge your criticisms constructively, I maintain that is not relevant to why this ban was placed.

I’d love to see evidence of these other alleged dog whistles or claims. Being labeled “antisemitic” is a serious accusation and requires serious proof. Again, to reiterate: I don’t hate Jews. I don’t want negative things to happen to random Jewish people. I'm here and vocal about this because I care about this community and enjoy the stories written here.

If for any reason we feel that your words/actions in the future do not align with the above, we’ll return to this conversation.