Adjusted Nick Softban Appeal

[Nick]

Link to your Steam Community Profile or SteamID: STEAM_0:0:114876951

Character Name (If Applicable): John Black
Ban Length: 2 days

Member of Staff who banned you: Dragu

What is the official reason of your ban?: "Intentional non-serious behavior & trolling"
Why should your ban be lifted?: I'll be real here, the character may not have been entirely serious, but forty eight hours for a character who acts out of line for exactly two minutes is absurd, no other methods were tried and Dragu is notoriously bad at talking about issues until he results to absurdly harsh lengthy sentences.

I wasn't exactly B-Hopping around punching everything and everyone with a stolen pipe, or coming into the conversations of ordinary players and yelling slurs and absurd sentences. I interacted with a total of 3 people, to one of them I said exactly two words which were "What?" and "Ok.", the second was dragu and the third was NixEighteen who just passed me by, not paying attention to the badly worded joke.

Even then, while the character may not have spoken in a correct manner or been totally conventional, I wasn't maliciously affecting the experience of others in any significant way, it was two minutes of an absurd situation. A stint he'd undeniably forget in the following hours. All that was lost was time, I doubt Dragu was at the time exactly concerned about his 'immersion', he was aimlessly walking in a basement, interacting with nobody and doing nothing.

I'd like to add that I see the situation as being hypocrisy of the highest order, members of the community, heavily including staff members and Dragu himself, have taken part in unserious behavior much worse than unconventional lines and animations, usually in crowded areas with people trying to engage in roleplay, placing fires down while people are talking, using the console to make them drop their items and say things in chat during interaction, spawning props and fucking around with them, killing each others characters constantly, but these things are always passed off as jokes, nobody ever gets punished, let alone softbanned, what's different this time? Only one person (a staff member who was at the time alone and not engaging in any meaningful interaction or situation) had to deal with looking at some lines of text for about two minutes. If you're going to punish someone for something make sure you're at least yourself up to that same standard.

I could guarantee to you that if it was a another member of staff or even another player doing this stuff he'd have nothing to say, he might even egg it on, but now he decided to lash out with a harsh sentence, which I find interesting.

Date of Occurrence: 23rd of February (My time). 22nd of February for the UK.
Evidence (If Applicable): No.
Other Players/Staff involved: No.

Additional Details: 48 hours is way too much.

Bottom line:
Softban for something like this: Pretty absurd, warnings, conversations and other methods exist.
Softban for 48 hours (two entire days) for something like this: Absurd to the power of many.

 

[NIXeighteen]

Why should your ban be lifted?: I'll be real here, the character may not have been entirely serious, but forty eight hours for a character who acts out of line for exactly two minutes is absurd, no other methods were tried and Dragu is notoriously bad at talking about issues until he results to absurdly harsh lengthy sentences.

You have been warned several times to stop with the trolling and un-serious behaviour. You're a pretty well known member in the community and everyone knows how you are. This time though, you took it too far.

I wasn't exactly B-Hopping around punching everything and everyone with a stolen pipe, or coming into the conversations of ordinary players and yelling slurs and absurd sentences. I interacted with a total of 3 people, to one of them I said exactly two words which were "What?" and "Ok.", the second was dragu and the third was NixEighteen who just passed me by, not paying attention to the badly worded joke.

I can confirm you walked past me. The only thing you said was just as un-serious as the other things you said. I ignored it cause Dragu was busy already dealing with you.
View attachment 914

The sentences you were writing were not punctional. You agreed with being punctional when you first join the server. Again, a lot of people know you and this is now how you basically type. Even if the character was intendend to bea bit worse at speaking English, you can still write propper sentences.

Even then, while the character may not have spoken in a correct manner or been totally conventional, I wasn't maliciously affecting the experience of others in any significant way, it was two minutes of an absurd situation. A stint he'd undeniably forget in the following hours. All that was lost was time, I doubt Dragu was at the time exactly concerned about his 'immersion', he was aimlessly walking in a basement, interacting with nobody and doing nothing.

Maybe it's not affecting your situation. But if a random player passes by, it could be disruptive. I suppose this is not about Dragu's immersion, but caring about other's immersion.

I'd like to add that I see the situation as being hypocrisy of the highest order, members of the community, heavily including staff members and Dragu himself, have taken part in unserious behavior much worse than unconventional lines and animations, usually in crowded areas with people trying to engage in roleplay, placing fires down while people are talking, using the console to make them drop their items and say things in chat during interaction, spawning props and fucking around with them, killing each others characters constantly, but these things are always passed off as jokes, nobody ever gets punished, let alone softbanned, what's different this time? Only one person (a staff member who was at the time alone and not engaging in any meaningful interaction or situation) had to deal with looking at some lines of text for about two minutes. If you're going to punish someone for something make sure you're at least yourself up to that same standard.

Can't deny this and trust me, it's being dealt with. Staff members are warned as well and punished as well if they continue un-serious behaviour. Only, they stopped and as I see it: you continued.

I could guarantee to you that if it was a another member of staff or even another player doing this stuff he'd have nothing to say, he might even egg it on, but now he decided to lash out with a harsh sentence, which I find interesting.

I don't quite agree with this. Again, if a staff member does the same he would have been warned. Only difference is, this would be done through the staff chat. Which explains why it looks like they're not being punished.

Additional: You have been harashing the staff after the softban in Discord ever since (at the moment of writing this). Every little thing you saw was trolling and staff had to softban him. You even went on and took an OOC matter IC by going after Dragu. Eventhough nothing happened, you still did it.
If you remained serious and accepted the consequences, I wouldn't be typing all this. But since you were harashing numerous staff members, I felt like reacting to you.

As said earlier; a lot of people know you and know how you RP. I expected more from you than this.

-NIXeighteen

 

[Generic]

Personally, I agree that a two-day soft-ban is a little bit excessive for how minor the infraction sounds. I only really noticed one thing he said in console being out-right "mingey". Although the purposeful spelling and grammatical errors cited in Nix's response were also a bit trolly.

If it were up to me I would reduce the length of the ban as, to my knowledge, his behavior did not negatively impact anyone other than staff members who noticed it in console.

 

[CJ]

I agree with Generic's statement about the excessive length of the softban however I am not at liberty to decide.

 

[Nick]

You have been warned several times to stop with the trolling and un-serious behavior. You're a pretty well known member in the community and everyone knows how you are. This time though, you took it too far.

None come to mind, jog my memory please.

And if by "too far" you mean I talked to three people, to two of which I said funny haha's (both of which people I am familiar with) and then left them alone, I'll be the first to tell you it could've been a lot worse, and people have done a lot worse, continuously.

I specifically chose who I'd do this with, I didn't want to go up to a random player I've never met, I know what descriptions and models to look for, and I doubt you two actually lost an ounce of roleplay, considering you've had to deal with worse from people with more ability to do funnies and have been fine.

The sentences you were writing were not punctional. You agreed with being punctional when you first join the server. Again, a lot of people know you and this is now how you basically type. Even if the character was intended to be a bit worse at speaking English, you can still write proper sentences.

They were still sentences and the entire thing was not exactly meant to be taken completely seriously in the first place, I had my inspirations.

Maybe it's not affecting your situation. But if a random player passes by, it could be disruptive. I suppose this is not about Dragu's immersion, but caring about other's immersion.

I would estimate that this interaction has had exactly zero negative impact on you or Dragu's ability to roleplay your characters. It was a brief conversation of mostly stereotypical new member speak.

And there was no random player, in fact there was very little chance of a random player walking by because of the current player count and me knowing everyone else was out and about doing whatever it is they do, the interaction did not take long enough for the risk of other unaffiliated players wandering in to be great enough for any real concern.

I'll say this again, there has been far worse, hell, didn't you participate in the constant fallover funny shit while in public roleplaying? I don't know man.

Can't deny this and trust me, it's being dealt with. Staff members are warned as well and punished as well if they continue un-serious behavior. Only, they stopped and as I see it: you continued.

Doesn't seem that way to me, just today I've already seen something similar, it's been an everyday occurrence and while I personally don't have too much against it, haha's are haha's and they happen, but I fail to understand how you can justify yourself doing these things and then banning people for considerable periods of time for doing the same or similar.

Also I did not continue, I finished the haha after he said one thing in LOOC and left the room. Said one line to your character and intended to be done with the whole thing, but then got softbanned by resident roleplay extraordinaire.

I don't quite agree with this. Again, if a staff member does the same he would have been warned. Only difference is, this would be done through the staff chat. Which explains why it looks like they're not being punished.

I seriously doubt that.

Additional: You have been harassing the staff after the softban in Discord ever since (at the moment of writing this). Every little thing you saw was trolling and staff had to softban him. You even went on and took an OOC matter IC by going after Dragu. Even though nothing happened, you still did it.

I have voiced my opinion, I found the punishment (and still do find it) to be unjustifiably harsh and that's what I've said. While I might've used some wording and choices of expressing my discontent with the situation poorly (e.g. sarcasm and not just taking it to the forums immediately) I still stand by what I said.

If you remained serious and accepted the consequences, I wouldn't be typing all this. But since you were harassing numerous staff members, I felt like reacting to you.

If I just accepted the consequences and moved on I wouldn't be here typing this appeal at all because I'd be waiting out the unjustifiably long softban, but I didn't so here we are.

And I don't think 'harassing' is exactly the right term, I was complaining, sure, very vocally at times and using tactics which don't exactly get my point of view accross (i.e. sarcasm), but I don't think any of it fits the bill of harassment, which is a very strong word.

As said earlier; a lot of people know you and know how you RP. I expected more from you than this.

I'm flattered that you listened to what CJ said.

Still don't find a 48 hour ban for a funny haha line off the bat reasonable. Even if I've been "warned multiple times", which I didn't personally know about. In fact, I've more than once had to myself tell others they're going too far, have I been listened to? No.

 

[Aspect™]

I seriously doubt that.

View attachment 916

I have also directly contacted members of Staff who exhibited extraordinary amounts of unprofessional behavior in-game when it proved necessary. Staff also follow rules and do get punished for not following them.

Putting that matter aside, your harassing members of Staff and targetting Dragu In-Character and Out-Of-Character over your punishment as opposed to making the Appeal Request, and leaving it at that does not stack the odds in your favor. While I understand frustration may be present, I advise avoiding such behavior in any future situations of similar nature, as that behavior can not only not help you, but could also increase the severity of your punishment, if there comes the need for such action.

Now, while I agree that jokes and banter are relatively commonplace in the server, seeing how we are a pretty tightly-knit community of people, doing them whilst others are attempting to roleplay in a serious manner is unacceptable, and you should not take the example of others who carry out such actions, just because they do so. Instead, next time, report them to a member of staff, or, in the case of a Staff Member acting inappropriately, contact me or @JACK about it.

All that being said, I will await @Dragu's take and opinion on the situation before coming to a verdict regarding this matter.

 

[Dragu]

I would never take back the punishment I dealt out, and I believe that it was fully justified and appropriate for the situation at hand. You were warned twice in LOOC chat to stop trolling, yet you continued, and even begun to take it to other players. The softban was issued for the purpose for which softbans were created: a slap on the wrist. Since non-staff players were on at that time of the day, I had no way of knowing whether or not you wouldn't take your disruptive actions somewhere else and lower a random's quality of roleplay.
Perhaps I would agree with lowering the duration of your sentence. However, you have been personally insulting and slandering, most notoriously, myself, and the rest of the Administration Team, to the point of us considering dishing out a hardban for your actions. Even when you were writing your ban appeal, you were constantly talking in voice chat about how I shouldn't be staff, and making toxic comments to the situation. You claimed that the softban wasn't justified, and that you were roleplaying a mentally ill character. You don't roleplay mental disability by doing, for example: "/me sits", "/me lays", "/me sleps", or by saying "I dont see combines or civil protection Wants to protect us they are like animals we have no choice i tell YOU(COMBINES they dont have humor)"
Since you took the matter personally, and even so far as to DMing me:
View attachment 917
, I am heavily against the lifting of your softban. You personally harassed me for hours, and this isn't even the first time something like this happened.
Let me address a bit of what you said:

I'll be real here, the character may not have been entirely serious, but forty eight hours for a character who acts out of line for exactly two minutes is absurd, no other methods were tried and Dragu is notoriously bad at talking about issues until he results to absurdly harsh lengthy sentences.

You were warned twice, very clearly in LOOC. I told you to stop, and you continued messing around. You scoffed at my warnings (quite literally), therefore I issued a softban, as the rest of the (online) staff team agreed that it was justified.

I wasn't exactly B-Hopping around punching everything and everyone with a stolen pipe, or coming into the conversations of ordinary players and yelling slurs and absurd sentences. I interacted with a total of 3 people, to one of them I said exactly two words which were "What?" and "Ok.", the second was dragu and the third was NixEighteen who just passed me by, not paying attention to the badly worded joke. Even then, while the character may not have spoken in a correct manner or been totally conventional, I wasn't maliciously affecting the experience of others in any significant way, it was two minutes of an absurd situation. A stint he'd undeniably forget in the following hours. All that was lost was time, I doubt Dragu was at the time exactly concerned about his 'immersion', he was aimlessly walking in a basement, interacting with nobody and doing nothing.

Yes, if you were B-Hopping and RDMing, you would've been hardbanned. The softban clearly worked, since you stopped doing what you were doing after you received it. You interacted with a total of 3 people because the softban, in my opinion, worked. I didn't punish you for breaking my personal immersion.

I'd like to add that I see the situation as being hypocrisy of the highest order, members of the community, heavily including staff members and Dragu himself, have taken part in unserious behavior much worse than unconventional lines and animations, usually in crowded areas with people trying to engage in roleplay, placing fires down while people are talking, using the console to make them drop their items and say things in chat during interaction, spawning props and fucking around with them, killing each others characters constantly, but these things are always passed off as jokes, nobody ever gets punished, let alone softbanned, what's different this time? Only one person (a staff member who was at the time alone and not engaging in any meaningful interaction or situation) had to deal with looking at some lines of text for about two minutes. If you're going to punish someone for something make sure you're at least yourself up to that same standard.

If you think that staff members are doing something they should not be doing, then you are free to report them to the Administrative Manager. Continuing to slander us by talking about this on the forums doesn't help your case. This is a classic "he did it and didn't get punished, so why did I get punished?"

I could guarantee to you that if it was a another member of staff or even another player doing this stuff he'd have nothing to say, he might even egg it on, but now he decided to lash out with a harsh sentence, which I find interesting.

Again, you're acting as if I suddenly attacked you and wrung your neck with a 48-hour softban (which is already 1/4 of the way to being lifted). This is not an attack on you personally, and treating it as such proves that the only reason you're making this appeal is to attack me.

There is nothing else to say. Your behavior was absolutely abhorrent, and I'm sure that the other staff members present in the voice chat that day agree.

 

[Aspect™]

Your SoftBan duration has been reduced by 24 hours.

Let this serve as a warning to cease your disruptive behavior when members of Staff request for you to do so next time, if there ever is a next time.
Future infractions of similar nature, given this whole ordeal, will be met with more severe punishments.