[DeltaFire] Cafaling - Main Server Ban for suicide

[Cafaling]

BYOND account and character name: Cafaling/Cheri Rifler

Banning admin: DeltaFire

Ban type/duration (where you are banned from and for how long): Main Server/Day Ban (1440 minutes)

Ban reason: Upon being hit by a bloodcult stunhand, used the suicide verb to circumvent that stun and committed suicide them from being converted. Inacceptable behaviour.

Your side of the story: I'll admit up front that this was a scummy move. I don't blame people for being upset about it. I had run in planning to throw spears and due to latency, ran further in than I expected, got stunned. Locked away from immediate assistance and faced with the prospect of being forcefully converted to a hostile, subversive faith- not to mention through a method that, flavour wise, drives the character to madness/makes them a shell of who they were, I opted to suicide.

Suiciding is something you have to type out, and then manually confirm, with the confirmation mentioning 'Hey, you're gonna permanently remove yourself from the round are you sure?' It's also blocked by being asleep or being restrained. Cultists have available to them both means of preventing it. The entire time I did all this, no attempts were made to cuff me, or knock me out. I managed to successfully suicide, permanently removing me from the round.

The round continues more or less without event, 2 cultists complain about what I did but otherwise things are calm. While the shuttle is flying to CC, I'm contacted by DeltaFire and explain what happened. During the discussion, Deltafire likens what I did to suiciding while being arrested, which is a false equivalency. He also tells me that using methods to crit yourself and then succumb in order to die (Which doesn't make you un-revivable) is perfectly fine to do. One option you can use for that, dental implants, can only be stopped by being asleep. even restraints don't prevent you from biting down on a dental implant.

A little more discussion occurred, with me making my case as to why I did what I did, and my logic for it, and then I received a day ban. I was initially content to wait this out but after conferring with a few people I'm choosing to appeal it.

Why you think you should be unbanned:

Following the ban I looked over the rules, there's only one that references suicide in any capacity that can also POTENTIALLY apply here:

3.6: Do not intentionally commit suicide to avoid IC punishment or for cringey "an hero" moments (e.g., killing yourself in the permabrig/offing yourself after making a long, drawn-out play about how you're gonna off yourself because you're sad). Doing so will result in either a server ban or identity ban.

This is part of the category of 'Stay in-character' which covers things concerning how to conduct yourself as a normal crewmember working on the station. The rules surrounding it, and the situation DeltaFire reference makes me think this is intended to be used as a way to catch griefers who suicide to escape arrest. That's a very different scenario that happened with me, where I chose death over conversion. From an IC standpoint, dying would be preferable to getting forcefully converted, and that's how I handled it.

On top of that, the fact that somehow it's okay to kill yourself through a method that still leaves you revivable/clonable but not via suicide seems incredibly hypocritical. In choosing to suicide, you take the permanent out that might potentially be the worse call, if say Sec is right outside, ready for a rescue. You're made aware of that fact every time you opt to do it. The cult could've gotten stomped and I would've been stuck out of the game for over an hour. I was okay with that. Someone who kills themselves with another means doesn't have to take that gamble but apparently won't be punished.

This is a double standard, plain and simple. Suicide is really its own consequence, considering what it does.

[Trojan_Coyote]

I'm going with a hard no on this. We have very clear rules on suiciding to escape consequences. You freely admit you suicided to escape being an antagonist in this situation, which is unacceptable.

[CygnusB]

You... cited it yourself yet you're saying it's justified?
"3.6: Do not intentionally commit suicide to avoid IC punishment[...]"
That's the part you're looking for.
You can't suicide to avoid. IC Punishment. In this case, losing a fight and the punishment being getting converted.
If everyone commited suicide after being stunned, no conversion gamemode would ever progress further than the roundstart members.

[Cafaling]

The rule, and those in the same category of it, seem clearly intended towards the situations that Deltafire attempted to reference, which aren't remotely similar to the circumstances I found myself in. There's a massive divide between suiciding to avoid brig time and suiciding to not become an antag.

Let me re-iterate. They had plenty of time to cuff me, or knock me out, and did neither. They failed to properly secure me. Both Blood Cult and Clock Cult can create and apply an infinite number of restraints practically at will to their victims, which takes almost no time at all. There was a solid length of time from the stun to when I suicided, and I had actually started regaining stamina but I was still behind an access locked door.

[HazelBailey]

Yeah I'm against this. As has already been said, suiciding after getting caught isnt allowed due to the suicide to avoid IC punishment rule and losing and getting dragged off by cult is that IC punishment. That's all there really is to this.
The fact that they didnt do anything to prevent you from typing in the suicide verb means nothing because you shouldnt be doing that in that situation anyway.

[Cafaling]

Why shouldn't a crewmember who has been stunned, captive, and trapped- but not cuffed by their captors, who are clearly intending to convert them to their cause through forceful means, choose to die while they still have the chance? There have been plenty of cases where a member of crew has welderbombed, TTV bombed, or even plasma-flooded and burnt themselves alive to stop a cult. In some cases the way they do that is by baiting the cult into catching them and bombing the heart of the base. This is, was, and I would hope will continue to be a rules legal action, as is (According to DeltaFire) using something like a dental implant to put yourself in crit before succumbing.

All of these methods wouldn't be punishable, but for some reason suiciding is. Again, this feels like a clear double standard. For most people, becoming an antag and getting to do antagonistic things is the furthest thing FROM a punishment. We have a known issue of certain characters who find out the roundtype and then become suspiciously unrobust/laggy right up until they're converted. Complaints have been made about this and evidence compiled, sometimes with no result.

[SectoidDan]

The suicide verb is not intended to be used in this way, and was in fact previously removed due to abuse (yes, abuse) like this. You would not have the ability to instantly and utterly kill yourself, even while naked, in a normal situation. On top of that, it's just bad sportsmanship.

This is now the fourth admin to tell you to take your lumps and move on.

[Pandora]

So just so I'm understanding the ruling on this correctly:
Usage of the suicide verb that announces it to people locally and give them a small window of opportunity to prevent it, via stuns or cuffs and leaves a non-revivable body, to circumvent conversion/arrest/death-via-sec, not okay.
But beating your own head in with a toolbox whilst on the floor (as an example), leaving a revivable body behind if you succeed in dying prior to conversion/arrest/death-via-sec, is a-okay?

[SectoidDan]

Someone else's appeal isn't the right place to ask something like this. In short, we have tight restrictions on suicide at all, and even tighter restrictions on use of the suicide verb.

The suicide verb should only ever be used in situations where you can't cryo or otherwise exit the round properly, and your death will have no impact whatsoever on the round. Obviously using the verb when you're about to be converted violates that second part. Use of this verb is considered equivalent to ghosting in nearly all cases.

Suicide in general is something that should only happen in extreme circumstances, and with ironclad IC reasoning. Doing it to be edgy or funny, or because you're about to be thrown in perma or whatever, is not acceptable, as laid out by the rule mentioned above.

If you want more clarification, ask in #staff-forum on Discord.

[Cafaling]

Since a pr changing the availability of suicide is now up and will likely be merged, this appeal is even more of a moot point. However none of you have addressed the double standards I'm calling out, nor have you demonstrated why death over conversion isn't "ironclad IC reasoning"

But obviously we're just gonna have to agree to disagree here. The ban is more than half up anyways.