Citadel Community

BYOND account and character name: Royalderg#9964

Banning admin: HeroWithYay (Is what I've been told by Kevin/Silicons they never spoke with me so I'm going off that info)

Ban type/duration (where you are banned from and for how long): Discord ban/ perma

Ban reason: "Continued uncivil/confrontational behavior despite previous warnings with no signs of improvement or willingness to improve. Permanent."
(Note: This was given to me by Kevin/ Silicons a day after the ban occurred not even by the supposed banning admin)

Your side of the story:

I was talking with someone about project zomboid and then I was suddenly out of the discord. Everything in the past has been dealt with in the past, I don't remember any type of warning or even a talk before I was suddenly dropped from the discord. There's two sides of a coin when it comes to a disagreement and both parties usually cross a line when admins have to get involved. The rules even state to have thicker skin and you're all not here to stop every disagreement.

"With all the above said and done, keep in mind that there are degrees of severity to these things. While we will not tolerate attempts to drive out players through toxicity, a certain amount of “thick skin” is required at some point. We are not here to protect your feelings from the smallest slight, nor to get involved in every personal argument whenever someone gets rowdy. At some point it may be better to let go of a perceived slight rather than to escalate continuously until a small disagreement becomes a boiling kettle."

I know some people don't like me and I cannot change that sadly, however when those people are in a state of power and use that as a justification to ban someone it's very rough. I distinctly remember Hero saying something about "Don't worry I'll abuse for you" in the chat logs before my ban. It's probably deleted now as people that helped me couldn't find the exact log (though I'm sure admins have a bot that could recover it). I simply cannot talk about the "no signs of improvement or willingness to improve" because its an opinion done by someone as outlined before that has a bias, I'm mostly focused on what occurred presently and why it happened. The past is in the past and trying to suddenly pin everything on me (even though its been dealt with already) is very strange and the main reason I'm not going to even entertain the idea of "past behavior" since it was never talked about in any form before this.

Why you think you should be unbanned:

Despite what people that dislike me might say I'm not even the person that causes issues a majority of the time. I don't play the game much anymore and I have never caused an issue in game for both servers I've been apart of (Main and RP). I've even dealt with someone who is now permabanned from the community and acted mature the whole way while doing so. There's many people who are on the opposite side of the coin and very much enjoy me being around, I won't list their names but they outnumber those who don't and those who apparently have a blood grudge for me barely slighting them.

TLDR: This ban was unfounded and wasn't properly communicated, I'm assuming it was done on impulse by someone who dislikes me. I've never once spoken with Hero about anything relating to admin duties or my actions and that alone should be a reason to throw this one out with the kitchen sink intact.

Edit: Also just banning me from the Discord seems very much like targeting especially since people know I enjoy talking with people that enjoy my company in there. It's strange it'd be this specific.

Edit 2: I just really want this to be civil so lets not have a dog pile of people that disagree or agree, and just have a simple conversation about this. Cause I really can't stand the drama stuff and it really took a lot just to even make this, because of my hatred for highschool level drama shit.

These are the messages in particular that got you banned, the later talk about project zomboid had nothing to do with it.
I believed this was reason enough to ban you because the conversation had been relatively civil to that point and you very quickly escalated to personal insults and attacking the integrity of Putnam's character/fitness to be staff.
It also seems like you were well aware what you were doing was actionable and were trying to pressure Putnam into not taking action with what you said in the second image.

The message about admin abuse incorrectly attributed to me was posted by R0-adic, which is likely why you had trouble tracking it down.


Despite this neither R0-adic nor Putnam were involved in the decision-making itself.
You may also already be aware but I will mention that the ban only extends to the discord server and has nothing to do with your behaviour in-game.

In terms of the contents of the appeal I'm reasonably unconvinced. We do care about past behavior and things that have been dealt with in the past are only dealt with on the pretense that they won't happen again or that you would at least put some effort in to improve, choosing to disregard this fact will not change it or give me any confidence that I could lift this ban and we wouldn't continue to have issues.

Your ban is the result of a long series of problems and this was the final straw, much of this appeal boils down to attacking my own integrity which parallels the most recent behavior with Putnam that got you banned in the first place.

I am only willing to lift the ban given good enough reason to believe we can expect better behavior and not because you decided yourself that it is invalid. You don't have to be friends with everyone but we would like to see you be able to disagree with someone without escalating to toxicity.

Hello Derg,

I'd like to weigh in on this ban reason and state my personal reasons for this ban staying applied for the foreseeable future. I'll be listing out the reasons of why we're quick to hesitate on appealing this ban, or at least me personally, and inform you as to why this is consistent and why this sort of thing has been happening to you over and over since you don't seem to understand what the problems were or are and it would do you and ourselves a favor to explain the logic since there seems to be a huge gap of lacked knowledge about the case at hand. I am not here to speak on the present ban reason as much as I am to explain why I feel it would be reasonable for us not to appeal this ban because of a consistent behavioral issue.

• The pattern of behavior you have consistently shown to us throughout your stay at our server has always been visible to us, even when you think we don't notice it. When you are persistently aggressive with other players and get into conflict that can easily and rationally be de-escalated via conversation that doesn't span beyond personal insults between you and the people you are fighting with. I do not agree that they are in the right, and if you personally felt as though they were taking the conversation too far you have always had access to the discord ticket box or to ping an admin to intervene. Let me repeat: At any given time, you could have called on us to intervene on an argument, but instead you opted to take the low road and consistently meet our expectations for how you act every time. Instead of doing that, and taking the proper steps to inform us of a problem that we should be made well aware of, you opted to sit in place and continue hurling insults at the other person until a completely uninvolved third party had stepped in to inform us of it.

• Every time you are talked to and told not to persist in this type of behavior that you constantly put on display for us to see, you immediately forget everything we'd just talked about and revert back to the same old song and dance that got you in trouble in the first place. You've been banned for acting this way before, several times actually, and each time you somehow forget what we told you which was the same thing I had just mentioned in the first talking point above. You can sit here and want change all you want but that change will not come until you change your outlook and attitude; So far you've opted not to do that and chose to continue on. At this point in time it no longer becomes our accountability to make sure you're following the rules like you said you would as much as it becomes your accountability to hold yourself to the rules that we told you each and every time before this to abide by if you would like to stay part of this community. You chose not to.

Finally, I would like to outright state to you that admins that have directly seen/been involved with the same thing over and over eventually skip the formalities of the ticket and just point-blank ban you from the server when they recognize the pattern of behavior and know that intervention with a ticket is going to do slim to none to stop your argumentative tirades that don't actually argue about the topic at hand as much as eventually turn into personal insults towards players. On top of that, I would like for you to remember that you directly ignored me in a ticket before when I came to you trying to get you to talk to me and explain what was going on. Given all of that, do you think you really need a ticket when you know flat out what you did in that instance and have been doing for ages?

I know some people don't like me and I cannot change that sadly, however when those people are in a state of power and use that as a justification to ban someone it's very rough.

Nobody does this here, we typically have solid foundation of reasoning behind an administrative action because if we don't it gets heavily scrutinized. Stop saying admin bad because you can't accept that your pattern of behavior is one you refuse to change.

This ban was unfounded and wasn't properly communicated, I'm assuming it was done on impulse by someone who dislikes me.

Admin men aren't biased, there's typically a line of logic leading up to a ban, and there's not a solid doubt in my mind that Hero had his reasons for immediately removing you from the community. Sitting here thinking we dislike you when we ban/ticket/mute/whatever you is really a you problem than us because I have friends that even I would ban on the spot if they broke the rules as consistently and thoughtlessly as you. The reason I haven't is because they don't sit here, get in to extremely long-winded personal arguments with people, ignore us when we intervene, and then proceed to make their fifth ban appeal stating Admin Bad is their reason of why they want in.

Cause I really can't stand the drama stuff and it really took a lot just to even make this, because of my hatred for highschool level drama shit.

You say this like we don't know what you do every time you get appealed and return to the community. You exude petty high-school level drama. You are on brand for that. We could buy a whole room to sit you in by yourself and within minutes you'd be trying to start a fight with the four walls or your own self.

On top of everything, this ticket you made seems disingenuous because of how thick you laid the layer of 'admins are the problem, 'I refuse to sort my own problems out and get anger management help', putnam, r0, and Hero are all badmin'. A strong -1 towards the unban personally. You are way too argumentative and from how it stands, and it shocks me that you have friends on this server given how I only really ever hear about you or see you arguing with others. I think if in the future you come back with a differing perspective on everything and a greater understanding of the situation at hand beyond the slim scope of what you've given us today and come with change in hand willing to actively contribute positively towards the community I'll change my mind.

So, with that, I'm ending this long winded forum post by summing it up as follows: No, I don't think you should be pushed back into the discord to repeat the same pattern of events, and I don't think blaming your lack of ability to change on the admins in a disingenuous post about a prior ban is gonna really get you unbanned, and if it does I'll literally eat a house. Like I will go to my neighbors yard and start eating the panel siding, man.

Thanks for your time, hope this information finds you well and you have a wonderful day,
~Jay

Jaybirdnerd wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:26 am

This ban was unfounded and wasn't properly communicated, I'm assuming it was done on impulse by someone who dislikes me.

Admin men aren't biased, there's typically a line of logic leading up to a ban

One that should be properly expressed to the people being banned before, suddenly abandoning this principle is a clear sign of abuse and even if you think its not. How am I supposed to know what's happening?

Cause I really can't stand the drama stuff and it really took a lot just to even make this, because of my hatred for highschool level drama shit.

You say this like we don't know what you do every time you get appealed and return to the community.

Every time you get appealed???

This is literally my first EVER ban appeal because its an out of blue perma, I've literally dealt with all of my other bans and there hasn't even been that many.

The rest of your post is chalked up to assumptions and what I said before about people disliking me. It's not backed up by any amount of evidence and is literally just an opinion. Instead of providing situations where "I was clearly in the wrong" which I assure you has never happened, there is two sides to a coin and every situation I've been involved in you could probably understand either side.

You simply don't because you know there isn't anything, the rest of the drama stirring I simply won't respond too because I won't stoop like you assume I do.

HeroWithYay wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:54 am

These are the messages in particular that got you banned, the later talk about project zomboid had nothing to do with it.
I believed this was reason enough to ban you because the conversation had been relatively civil to that point and you very quickly escalated to personal insults and attacking the integrity of Putnam's character/fitness to be staff.
It also seems like you were well aware what you were doing was actionable and were trying to pressure Putnam into not taking action with what you said in the second image.

The message about admin abuse incorrectly attributed to me was posted by R0-adic, which is likely why you had trouble tracking it down.


Despite this neither R0-adic nor Putnam were involved in the decision-making itself.
You may also already be aware but I will mention that the ban only extends to the discord server and has nothing to do with your behaviour in-game.

This whole post lacks context to the situation and the lead up to this particular thing

Just because you take a side in the argument doesn't mean there wasn't a reason to engage.

I'm actually banned from the discord so I can't use actual evidence to support what I'm saying but you can clearly see in the first screenshot Putnam undermines me by saying they don't think I understand a basic concept

I don't think the banning admin should really be making posts but that's cause I like unbiased opinions in things. I'm clearly bias and so are a lot of individuals in this situation.

Edit: Its weird we have to do the thing that could be solved in a ticket on the forums in public? I mean I don't mind it.. but its kinda embarrassing that there was a clear escalation past that point and we're literally at the point people would be in at a ticket. (and then I could actually collect REAL evidence to show my point and not be one sided like this is)

HeroWithYay wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:54 am

We do care about past behavior and things that have been dealt with in the past are only dealt with on the pretense that they won't happen again or that you would at least put some effort in to improve, choosing to disregard this fact will not change it or give me any confidence that I could lift this ban and we wouldn't continue to have issues.

Why are you or any particular entity the end all be all on "improvement" there's no measurement for improvement other than your own personal desires. That is exactly what I outlined in my appeal and EXACTLY my problem with how this situation has been dealt with.



Either post hasn't commented on me directly quoting the rules about arguments because they realize I'm within the rules and them stepping in, in this manner is overstepping

^^^
This is because I understand the guidelines and I stay within them. When I do truly mess up because we all do, because we're human. I apologize for it and move on, I don't hold a blood grudge which seems all too common in the internet today.

Edit: Just to further prove my point I took my direct quote from the rules and I'm going to post it here in bold so when people later read this, they can realize what I'm talking about

"With all the above said and done, keep in mind that there are degrees of severity to these things. While we will not tolerate attempts to drive out players through toxicity, a certain amount of “thick skin” is required at some point. We are not here to protect your feelings from the smallest slight, nor to get involved in every personal argument whenever someone gets rowdy. At some point it may be better to let go of a perceived slight rather than to escalate continuously until a small disagreement becomes a boiling kettle."

I won't say my personal feelings on the matter because I'm not a drama hound, but I think the above paragraph has some interesting things to point out about how driving out players is unallowed, and admin intervention in "every personal argument" isn't required or even wanted. As the rules state it may be better to let go of a perceived slight rather than to escalate continuously until a small disagreement becomes a boiling kettle Escalation wasn't required or needed, both parties moved on with their lives and as stated before started talking about separate things (as you can see with Putnam in the screenshot and me in logs (too bad I can't acquire them) admins we're not required in this situation and the fact a """"""third party"""""" was the one to report this further proves my point) and I think we can all know what the most escalating thing an admin can do is. Apart from deleting a server I guess.

I'm gonna toss my hat into the ring here, sorry if this is 'peanut-posting', but I feel like another person's view might add something to this.

I should start out by saying I do have a slight bias as Derg is someone I speak to often, so if you want to stop reading here, hey more power to you.
That being said, while I do understand why the decision was made, both from the topic that was being discussed, and how it was handled. I do however feel the comment about power-tripping was.. something..
akin to how I felt when the same kind of 'high horse' comment was made towards me from another staff member a bit back. It just feels like excess rudeness for the sake of it, and a flex of "I'm in this position of power, and you are not.", and while I get the whole "Treat people how you want to be treated" statement, it ends up just being shit-flinging from either side. In this situation it just feels like the sudden axe feels a bit much from the eyes of what's akin to a "staff outsider" as I know this isn't my place to deem whats right and wrong, but just feel this is alike to some of the scrutiny I've been put under as well.
That uh, that's all. I really have not much else to add to the topic.

TL:DR it again feels like the rules aren't really consistently enforced among staff and the situations that arise, and while yeah there have been variables that play into this decision making, and obviously that changes the outcome, I've seen far worse be let go of, and much less be punished just the same if not more harshly.

Hello everyone! This thread's already starting to get jumbled up, and originally I was gonna do this whole itemized thing where I went down through every cogent point in the thread, but I feel like I can actually just handle most of this by addressing the post quoted below.

royalderg wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:49 am

HeroWithYay wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:54 am

We do care about past behavior and things that have been dealt with in the past are only dealt with on the pretense that they won't happen again or that you would at least put some effort in to improve, choosing to disregard this fact will not change it or give me any confidence that I could lift this ban and we wouldn't continue to have issues.

Why are you or any particular entity the end all be all on "improvement" there's no measurement for improvement other than your own personal desires. That is exactly what I outlined in my appeal and EXACTLY my problem with how this situation has been dealt with.

Either post hasn't commented on me directly quoting the rules about arguments because they realize I'm within the rules and them stepping in, in this manner is overstepping

So, here's the deal. Hero isn't the ultimate authority on "improvement" as some nebulous goal. However, the Administrative Team is not pursuing a nebulous goal - in spite of an insistent and clearly strategic attempt to characterize it as such on your part. The Staff are simply concerned with your combative nature and your established tendency to escalate arguments to the point where other community members feel the need to request Admin intervention. No one has set out a checklist of steps you need to achieve beyond "stop becoming the center of chat firestorms" - a request that you and I both know the Administrative team has explicitly laid out to you repeatedly in the past.

royalderg wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:49 am

This is because I understand the guidelines and I stay within them. When I do truly mess up because we all do, because we're human. I apologize for it and move on, I don't hold a blood grudge which seems all too common in the internet today.

Edit: Just to further prove my point I took my direct quote from the rules and I'm going to post it here in bold so when people later read this, they can realize what I'm talking about

"With all the above said and done, keep in mind that there are degrees of severity to these things. While we will not tolerate attempts to drive out players through toxicity, a certain amount of “thick skin” is required at some point. We are not here to protect your feelings from the smallest slight, nor to get involved in every personal argument whenever someone gets rowdy. At some point it may be better to let go of a perceived slight rather than to escalate continuously until a small disagreement becomes a boiling kettle."

You cite Global Rule 4 c.3 repeatedly in this thread, and it falls to me, as one of the Head Administrators, to educate you in the proper application and interpretation of said provision. Global Rule 4 ("Be Respectful To Each Other"), covers a general sense of community behavior. In essence, it is not so far off from the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is, appropriately enough, already Global Rule 0. GR 4 exists to augment the vague sentiment of GR 0 with explicit examples and expectations for the community. In this thread, as evidenced in the above quote, you cite this rule verbatim for "...people [who] later read this..." The issue here being that you are attempting to deflect from the larger issue by citing a specific rule that is advantageous to your argument.

The Community Guidelines state:

There is no possible way to have every situation outlined in a rule book. You don’t want to read a rule book the size of a graduate thesis, and we don’t want to write one. Have common sense; Do not rules lawyer in a way that will ruin other players’ enjoyment of the game/community, or otherwise make yourself detrimental to the general enjoyment of everyone else. Toeing the line too much on a policy will be treated as breaking it.

You may recognize this as a similar provision to what is cited elsewhere in Citadel policy as the "Elastic Clause". The point of such clauses is to ensure that the spirit, and not the simple letter, of each rule is honored.

Historically you have demonstrated a total contempt for the input of the Administrative team. I know from personal experience that the Staff have long attempted to counsel you patiently. In fact, in this very thread you attempt to obfuscate and minimize your many - and recent - encounters with the Administrative team. You have been counseled directly on becoming overly hostile in Discord arguments before. At least one of these cases demanded my personal involvement. Since you have neglected to mention it already in this thread - you have been banned from the Citadel Discord in recent memory not only for engaging in flame wars in general chat, but for ignoring and disrespecting the Staff I dispatched to discuss the matter with you. You refer to "past behavior" as if the Admin team is not excessively aware of your behavior in the very recent past. Personally, I feel as if you're writing this appeal for the non-Staff audience, to garner sympathy from corners yet unknown. Statements such as the following -

Edit: Its weird we have to do the thing that could be solved in a ticket on the forums in public? I mean I don't mind it.. but its kinda embarrassing that there was a clear escalation past that point and we're literally at the point people would be in at a ticket. (and then I could actually collect REAL evidence to show my point and not be one sided like this is)

- are blatant theatrics, and from my perspective, betray your actual motive here.

In matters of Quality Control, it falls to the Head Admins to determine the suitability of a ban. As one of Citadel's head Administrators, I will say what the Staff will not. The team has no confidence that you will not reoffend. If we unban you from the Discord the minute I post this, it is the widely held belief of the team - and of the Head Administration - that you will become embroiled in yet another flame war before the week is out. I personally have chosen to back your Discord ban not because of any explicit violation, but because of an established pattern of behavior.

-1

DJKouta wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:23 am

I'm gonna toss my hat into the ring here, sorry if this is 'peanut-posting', but I feel like another person's view might add something to this.

I should start out by saying I do have a slight bias as Derg is someone I speak to often, so if you want to stop reading here, hey more power to you.
That being said, while I do understand why the decision was made, both from the topic that was being discussed, and how it was handled. I do however feel the comment about power-tripping was.. something..
akin to how I felt when the same kind of 'high horse' comment was made towards me from another staff member a bit back. It just feels like excess rudeness for the sake of it, and a flex of "I'm in this position of power, and you are not.", and while I get the whole "Treat people how you want to be treated" statement, it ends up just being shit-flinging from either side. In this situation it just feels like the sudden axe feels a bit much from the eyes of what's akin to a "staff outsider" as I know this isn't my place to deem whats right and wrong, but just feel this is alike to some of the scrutiny I've been put under as well.
That uh, that's all. I really have not much else to add to the topic.

TL:DR it again feels like the rules aren't really consistently enforced among staff and the situations that arise, and while yeah there have been variables that play into this decision making, and obviously that changes the outcome, I've seen far worse be let go of, and much less be punished just the same if not more harshly.

I don't know what comment you're talking about but I am unironically blameless here.

In all seriousness, though, R0's comment was in response to RoyalDerg personally attacking me and following that up with "and also you're an admin and thus have power over me", which, like. I don't know what that is? I was literally never going to actually do any moderation action here. I straight-up didn't. I didn't even know about the ban until, like, an hour after it happened, I had absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever, and the literal worst I thought about doing was exactly what I said there, a 30 minute "cooldown mute" sort of thing. I actually was not aware of the history of chat blow-ups, either, and as such I can't really say I have an opinion on this appeal.

...Except that the ban happened because I was called an idiot out of literally nowhere, which is, uh... like. I'm not the one with a grudge here, I think?? I feel I'm being accused of grudging, when I barely remember conversations a minute after they happen?? Like, come on.

And, like. The context for "you don't understand half the stuff you actually say" was me... not getting an opinion on mods being advertised by Valve. If you think that's a proportionate response, then I'm... not sure what to say about that? Like, the context of what led up to that makes it worse.