[RP] Mouseofthecake - Subtler Emote Copy+Pasting

[Monara]

BYOND Name of complaint against: Mouseofthecake

Your BYOND name: Monara

Date of issue and round ID: 6/5/2023 Round ID: 1738

Reason for complaint: Mouse looked in on someone's subtle ERP (noncon), drew admin attention to it, then posted one of the participant's entire post. They then continued to talk about this scene and bring it up over the course of roughly 15-20 minutes, updating staff like it was something they were entitled to be reading, and sharing as it developed as if it was some sort of sports event.

Furthermore, their ghost sprite was hidden and within the area, suggesting it was again not for administrative purposes but their own 'satisfaction', whatever that may be.

When Moony and myself mentioned the hard push for player privacy regarding antighost being hidden from admins, Mouse said quote; "because it would be idiotic af".

When further attempting to defend their inappropriate conduct, they made claims such as quote; "but they were in public literally two tiles away from a window"(there were no other players in their department, emotes were subtler and the players moved away shortly after, before the other person joined the dept, and into a location that new player was unlikely to enter) "im sorry but that's not private, that is fully public.", "it's a non-issue", "someone 'being around' does not excuse public noncon" (It was in subtlers, and crew were not being involved) and what-if-isms such as "what if they'd waltzed into cargo before they moved?".

This is seriously fucking disgusting conduct from an admin, and something I've warned about in the past. This is incredibly disrespectful to players, and it should be made very clear to them that they're able to RP here without threat of staff looking in on private/sensitive scenes, let alone copy+pasting to share entire emotes with other staff.

This is completely disrespectful towards players, and the details in their defense when saying "they were in a public space" while the emotes were in antighost, as well as how they had their ghost sprite hidden, shows how it's likely not the first time Mouse has pried in on antighost emotes with non-administrative intent.

-------Image Attachments Context-------

The last two images showing cargo are where it took place. Mouse felt it was important to include these in the original, private discord ticket. The image with the arrow is where they were before they moved. The image with the blue box scribbled over 3 tiles is where they were after they'd moved, which was before the other player (a miner) joined cargo.

All identifying info was edited out by me, ping me on discord if I missed anything and I'll immediately delete it, and remake the post if needed.
By request of headmins I'm making a forum post instead of a private discord ticket.

Imgur album. Images are titled for further context.
https://imgur.com/a/li3tlqP

[mouseofthecake]

We've had a lot of problems with public non-con scenes causing massive shitstorms in the community, so I felt obliged to at the very least bring attention to the fact that the two were doing it in public. No, it being a subtler is no excuse, just as you wouldn't expect someone to have sex in the middle of the bar. If you feel the need to have a scene that hardly, go to the dorms, or at the very least lock yourself further into the department like the duo above did shortly after.

I was asked "who" was doing it in asay after I called it out, and felt it was easier to just copy-paste the whole thing rather than type out their name. Given this, again, happened in private administrator-only channels, I felt it wasn't a big deal, as we could've seen it anyway through the logs, and if anyone unsavoury had access to that info, they wouldn't be in asay to begin with.

"Furthermore, their ghost sprite was hidden and within the area, suggesting it was again not for administrative purposes but their own 'satisfaction', whatever that may be."
What a lovely piece of baseless, presumptuous smear. I hide my sprite literally every single round, because I'm self-conscious about my half-baked player sprites, and would rather avoid someone orbitting me altogether. I could use simplemob sprites, yes, but that'd feel even weirder. If anyone wanted to follow me anyway, there's nothing stopping them from using the follow verb, as I do not make my overall presence in who or admin tabs a secret in any given situation.
These assumptions that I brought attention to a public noncon scene, which are notorious for the painstaking amount of bullshit they bring both ICly and OOCly, simply because I am a malicious little goober, are completely asinine. I have nothing against anyone, and even if I did, I wouldn't let it taint my judgement as an admin. The duo in question were simply seeking their own form of entertainment, I just wished they'd respected public spaces at first.

Let it be said, that nothing ensued from this "incident". The duo were not noted, I didn't take a picture of them or their scene, nothing. All I did was copy-paste a snippet into asay to get my point across. I did not intend to poke fun at them or whatever has been assumed, and I stand by my decision to call out future incidents, if only so we can brace against the inevitable ruckus that will fall.

I'll spare the rest of the complaint from the vitriol Monara has thrown my way in both asay and admin Discord channels. This is simply all there is to it.

[Shadow]

Hi, I figured I should give my two cents since I was a witness as a ghost for a brief moment of the incident. I can confirm that the two characters were initially at the spot where the arrow points in Imgur and, more obviously, that there were no cargo staff or anyone making cargo orders, i.e., no one that the scene would interrupt.

I find it really disingenuous to, as an admin, see that scene in an otherwise unpopulated department and immediately assume that it was a sign of trouble. I think it is common sense that if a cargo staff had joined or someone had randomly walked in that they would have relocated to somewhere more private -- which they did, even before either of those two things happened. Compared to other players (not to name names) who openly lewd each other in the bar with zero intervention, this scene seemed well-planned and didn't interfere with or involve anyone else.

But to the point of the complaint, I, and I'm sure many other people, find it in extreme distaste that you not only took an issue with it but took it upon yourself to give a play-by-play commentary to the rest of the admin team. There were plenty of other methods you could have used (i.e., LOOC to ask them to move out of the hallway view) if the other players were your top priority. Gossiping about it in asay instead really does make me think that you had some ulterior motive for doing this.

"I was asked "who" was doing it in asay after I called it out, and felt it was easier to just copy-paste the whole thing rather than type out their name."

This is probably one of the worst breaches of the players' trust I could think of. Subtler ghost emotes were hidden even from admins and only retrievable via logs until just a few months ago for this exact reason. If people are using subtler emotes instead of subtle or me, they probably don't want anyone else looking at it outside of some severe accusation of abuse going on. So the fact that you decided to highlight the entire message and post it for the ENTIRE rest of the admin team to see because you couldn't be bothered to spend the extra 10 seconds to type out their names instead frankly scares me and makes me wonder if you have done similar things in the past that weren't brought to light by a fellow admin. (To repeat, this was only discovered because of another admin; otherwise, the two players and the rest of the non-staff community would have had no idea.)

Given Silicons has already made a PR reverting the ability for admins to see subtlers in the first place, I imagine an internal discussion was had about the issue. But even barring this incident, the mentality you've demonstrated here and the fact that you continue to defend it really makes me question if you can live up to the responsibility of being an admin.

[mouseofthecake]

Hi, I figured I should give my two cents since I was a witness as a ghost for a brief moment of the incident. I can confirm that the two characters were initially at the spot where the arrow points in Imgur and, more obviously, that there were no cargo staff or anyone making cargo orders, i.e., no one that the scene would interrupt.

I find it really disingenuous to, as an admin, see that scene in an otherwise unpopulated department and immediately assume that it was a sign of trouble. I think it is common sense that if a cargo staff had joined or someone had randomly walked in that they would have relocated to somewhere more private -- which they did, even before either of those two things happened. Compared to other players (not to name names) who openly lewd each other in the bar with zero intervention, this scene seemed well-planned and didn't interfere with or involve anyone else.

But to the point of the complaint, I, and I'm sure many other people, find it in extreme distaste that you not only took an issue with it but took it upon yourself to give a play-by-play commentary to the rest of the admin team. There were plenty of other methods you could have used (i.e., LOOC to ask them to move out of the hallway view) if the other players were your top priority. Gossiping about it in asay instead really does make me think that you had some ulterior motive for doing this.

"I was asked "who" was doing it in asay after I called it out, and felt it was easier to just copy-paste the whole thing rather than type out their name."

This is probably one of the worst breaches of the players' trust I could think of. Subtler ghost emotes were hidden even from admins and only retrievable via logs until just a few months ago for this exact reason. If people are using subtler emotes instead of subtle or me, they probably don't want anyone else looking at it outside of some severe accusation of abuse going on. So the fact that you decided to highlight the entire message and post it for the ENTIRE rest of the admin team to see because you couldn't be bothered to spend the extra 10 seconds to type out their names instead frankly scares me and makes me wonder if you have done similar things in the past that weren't brought to light by a fellow admin. (To repeat, this was only discovered because of another admin; otherwise, the two players and the rest of the non-staff community would have had no idea.)

Given Silicons has already made a PR reverting the ability for admins to see subtlers in the first place, I imagine an internal discussion was had about the issue. But even barring this incident, the mentality you've demonstrated here and the fact that you continue to defend it really makes me question if you can live up to the responsibility of being an admin.

Hi, I figured I should give my two cents since I was a witness as a ghost for a brief moment of the incident. I can confirm that the two characters were initially at the spot where the arrow points in Imgur and, more obviously, that there were no cargo staff or anyone making cargo orders, i.e., no one that the scene would interrupt.

I find it really disingenuous to, as an admin, see that scene in an otherwise unpopulated department and immediately assume that it was a sign of trouble. I think it is common sense that if a cargo staff had joined or someone had randomly walked in that they would have relocated to somewhere more private -- which they did, even before either of those two things happened. Compared to other players (not to name names) who openly lewd each other in the bar with zero intervention, this scene seemed well-planned and didn't interfere with or involve anyone else.

But to the point of the complaint, I, and I'm sure many other people, find it in extreme distaste that you not only took an issue with it but took it upon yourself to give a play-by-play commentary to the rest of the admin team. There were plenty of other methods you could have used (i.e., LOOC to ask them to move out of the hallway view) if the other players were your top priority. Gossiping about it in asay instead really does make me think that you had some ulterior motive for doing this.

"I was asked "who" was doing it in asay after I called it out, and felt it was easier to just copy-paste the whole thing rather than type out their name."

This is probably one of the worst breaches of the players' trust I could think of. Subtler ghost emotes were hidden even from admins and only retrievable via logs until just a few months ago for this exact reason. If people are using subtler emotes instead of subtle or me, they probably don't want anyone else looking at it outside of some severe accusation of abuse going on. So the fact that you decided to highlight the entire message and post it for the ENTIRE rest of the admin team to see because you couldn't be bothered to spend the extra 10 seconds to type out their names instead frankly scares me and makes me wonder if you have done similar things in the past that weren't brought to light by a fellow admin. (To repeat, this was only discovered because of another admin; otherwise, the two players and the rest of the non-staff community would have had no idea.)

Given Silicons has already made a PR reverting the ability for admins to see subtlers in the first place, I imagine an internal discussion was had about the issue. But even barring this incident, the mentality you've demonstrated here and the fact that you continue to defend it really makes me question if you can live up to the responsibility of being an admin.

You must've missed a fellow admin clearly stating they were uncomfortable with resuming their secoff's patrol routes so as not to disturb the scene in question. Just because there was nobody in their immediate vicinity does not make it any better. We have a history of people crying wolf after being caught in noncon, no matter what they were divulging at the time, hence my concern.

Your attempt to bring others into this is confusing. Should we or should we not view such cases in an administrative light? Furthermore, the ones you speak of never perform noncon in public, which is infinitely a better choice, as noncon is a serious crime Icly and can shape an entire round if found, as well as potentially result in PKs. Bringing an iota of attention to it as I have, is literally the least we can do.

What play-by-play? I posted a single emote to asay, and then only said anything when they finally moved, dashing my concerns. LOOCing them would have been infinitely more a breach of privacy than anything I did. Your rationale is not making much sense here.

The entire rest of the admin team? There were only 6 members of staff in-game at the time, 3 of whom acknowledged my callout. None of those players' activities were divulged beyond that in any way, shape or form, until this complaint, and the internal ticket made against me. Nobody cared to, because spreading it around would've been scummy, and an actual breach of privacy for an something that ultimately amounted to nothing.

Silicons removing the ability to see subtlers again also spans back months ago, to a large discussion about the issue that divided some of the community. If this is how people are going to react for even the slightest use of such information in an administrative capacity, then sure, remove it for all I care.

And, last of all, a reminder that no rules were broken throughout this. Nobody but myself was ahelped, and no rules or guidelines for staff or players were broken. I still stand by my apparently outrageous decision of calling out public noncon to make other admins aware of a potential situation that could quite literally result in a PK.

[Monara]

You must've missed a fellow admin clearly stating they were uncomfortable with resuming their secoff's patrol routes so as not to disturb the scene in question. Just because there was nobody in their immediate vicinity does not make it any better. We have a history of people crying wolf after being caught in noncon, no matter what they were divulging at the time, hence my concern.

Your attempt to bring others into this is confusing. Should we or should we not view such cases in an administrative light? Furthermore, the ones you speak of never perform noncon in public, which is infinitely a better choice, as noncon is a serious crime Icly and can shape an entire round if found, as well as potentially result in PKs. Bringing an iota of attention to it as I have, is literally the least we can do.

What play-by-play? I posted a single emote to asay, and then only said anything when they finally moved, dashing my concerns. LOOCing them would have been infinitely more a breach of privacy than anything I did. Your rationale is not making much sense here.

The entire rest of the admin team? There were only 6 members of staff in-game at the time, 3 of whom acknowledged my callout. None of those players' activities were divulged beyond that in any way, shape or form, until this complaint, and the internal ticket made against me. Nobody cared to, because spreading it around would've been scummy, and an actual breach of privacy for an something that ultimately amounted to nothing.

Silicons removing the ability to see subtlers again also spans back months ago, to a large discussion about the issue that divided some of the community. If this is how people are going to react for even the slightest use of such information in an administrative capacity, then sure, remove it for all I care.

And, last of all, a reminder that no rules were broken throughout this. Nobody but myself was ahelped, and no rules or guidelines for staff or players were broken. I still stand by my apparently outrageous decision of calling out public noncon to make other admins aware of a potential situation that could quite literally result in a PK.

I'll be responding with one para for each point, in order.

This wouldn't have been the case if you hadn't shared it in the first place. It was a non-issue, and remained a non-issue for the rest of the round.

I spoke with the players involved, notifying them of the forum post. I'll quote one of their responses (Which I got permission to do). "it's super fucking gross to have someone reading my antighosts and giving a play-by-play to unrelated people, that's literally why i antighost, and this was a planned out thing so the chances of this weird pk scenario occurring were 0 because i would sooner pretend it wasnt happening than make it a sec scene"

I misattributed a post that highlighted this, if you were the one who said it. Misread an EM's reply as your own. Regardless, the constant updates to staff (some in response to a question, some not) is generally the same thing, since you were giving updates to the situation until I'd stepped in.

The rest of the admin team were not all ghosted as you were. As you say yourself, it's a callout. It's inappropriate. The fact that you insist their privacy isn't breached only makes me more confident that you're incapable of living up to the standards of staff here. Information regarding the players were censored, and they'd rather have this complaint seen with their identifiable information omitted, than to have had it swept under the rug.

Silicons had agreed to the changes I proposed with the logging system months ago, but noone ever added it. He said he'd do it if noone else did, and now that it's clearly a problem he's doing it to hopefully heavily limit these sorts of issues in the future.

It's disrespectful of privacy, and while not directly stated, clearly falls under rule 0 of common curtesy. Players took appropriate measures to not involve other players in their scene, antighosted, and immediately moved out of the lobby after their introduction posts. There was no issue at the time, there was no chance for accidental intrusion, the players were well aware of rules and common decency. There was no need to alert admins, and no need to copy+paste their entire post into Asay. If a player is PK'd, or if a scene like that *does* become an issue, that's when we step in. There are literally no preventative measures that can be taken by staff, and there's no need to implement it. Someone getting PK'd is simply on themselves.

Another final quote from one of them, again with permission to post it for further context on their thoughts, showing they're sensible, responsible players that wouldn't have dragged people into it in the first place. "the rp there basically consisted of 4 emotes, a ziptie, and a move to the crate warehouse. it was over in about 15 minutes from starting, and would have sooner if we could type faster. again, if somebody ran by the cargo lobby and asked about it we would've pretended it wasn't happening so the risk of some public shitstorm or whatever was nonexistent."

[mouseofthecake]

I'll be responding with one para for each point, in order.

This wouldn't have been the case if you hadn't shared it in the first place. It was a non-issue, and remained a non-issue for the rest of the round.

I spoke with the players involved, notifying them of the forum post. I'll quote one of their responses (Which I got permission to do). "it's super fucking gross to have someone reading my antighosts and giving a play-by-play to unrelated people, that's literally why i antighost, and this was a planned out thing so the chances of this weird pk scenario occurring were 0 because i would sooner pretend it wasnt happening than make it a sec scene"

I misattributed a post that highlighted this, if you were the one who said it. Misread an EM's reply as your own. Regardless, the constant updates to staff (some in response to a question, some not) is generally the same thing, since you were giving updates to the situation until I'd stepped in.

The rest of the admin team were not all ghosted as you were. As you say yourself, it's a callout. It's inappropriate. The fact that you insist their privacy isn't breached only makes me more confident that you're incapable of living up to the standards of staff here. Information regarding the players were censored, and they'd rather have this complaint seen with their identifiable information omitted, than to have had it swept under the rug.

Silicons had agreed to the changes I proposed with the logging system months ago, but noone ever added it. He said he'd do it if noone else did, and now that it's clearly a problem he's doing it to hopefully heavily limit these sorts of issues in the future.

It's disrespectful of privacy, and while not directly stated, clearly falls under rule 0 of common curtesy. Players took appropriate measures to not involve other players in their scene, antighosted, and immediately moved out of the lobby after their introduction posts. There was no issue at the time, there was no chance for accidental intrusion, the players were well aware of rules and common decency. There was no need to alert admins, and no need to copy+paste their entire post into Asay. If a player is PK'd, or if a scene like that *does* become an issue, that's when we step in. There are literally no preventative measures that can be taken by staff, and there's no need to implement it. Someone getting PK'd is simply on themselves.

Another final quote from one of them, again with permission to post it for further context on their thoughts, showing they're sensible, responsible players that wouldn't have dragged people into it in the first place. "the rp there basically consisted of 4 emotes, a ziptie, and a move to the crate warehouse. it was over in about 15 minutes from starting, and would have sooner if we could type faster. again, if somebody ran by the cargo lobby and asked about it we would've pretended it wasn't happening so the risk of some public shitstorm or whatever was nonexistent."

I unfortunately had no way of knowing it would remain a non-issue, as I can't predict the future. What I could do, I did, to literally no one's detriment. You're the one who decided to turn it into an issue when I had no interest of doing anything about it unless shit hit the fan, which, as I've repeated time and time again, is a very real possibility.

Again, wasn't a play-by-play. It was a single emote followed by an all-clear after they'd moved. I have no clue how the rest of the scene played out, and I couldn't care less about that. I'm sorry if they felt grossed out by it, but the alternative of someone stumbling on them and not having the scene voided - again, something nobody but them had any way of knowing wouldn't be the case - was real. I don't even ERP anymore, why would I care?

Again, two posts. Three if you include me stating that it's a scene, which is a given. I had no intention of harassing anyone or whatever Machiavellian scheme you have attributed.

Would your judgement have changed if there were any other aghosts? Regardless, there not being any is irrelevant. We call out possible issues if we see them, and if not, whatever, we're not gods.

You're not one to talk about rule 0, seeing as you can not remain in a neutral and mature state of mind when dealing with things like these, as asay logs in-game and our ticket demonstrate, but let's keep pretending those don't exist and you handled it perfectly.
Yes, there was no issue after they moved. This lightning-quick introduction you keep talking about took about 20 minutes. That is plenty of time for someone unannounced to see them. That is what I was worried about, that's why I called it out to the 3 active staff, just in case shit hit the fan. It wasn't even a "preventative measure", as this, again, did not result in any notes, kicks, bwoinks, bans, or any interaction with them at all besides looking at a short emote.

Again, information I had no way of knowing besides actually breaching privacy and asking them myself. Why is it that you think all of my assumptions are unprofessional guesswork, but yours are rightly justified? Hell, you started this by claiming I was somehow getting off to calling out a potential issue to achat of all places. How can you still believe to be even remotely correct about any of this?

[Putnam]

What I could do, I did, to literally no one's detriment.

For the record, I would've been pretty upset if I had been in-game at the time? I don't want to see that stuff. I don't ghost on this server specifically because I can see subtlers and thus I would be able to see this stuff. Like, I can deal with it if needed, but there's literally zero reason to subject myself to it if it's being kept private between two people, which it actually was here, until you posted it in asay. "To no one's detriment" is risible given how many people are explicitly saying your actions are detrimental. You can't decide that it wasn't actually detrimental to them.

[mouseofthecake]

What I could do, I did, to literally no one's detriment.

For the record, I would've been pretty upset if I had been in-game at the time? I don't want to see that stuff. I don't ghost on this server specifically because I can see subtlers and thus I would be able to see this stuff. Like, I can deal with it if needed, but there's literally zero reason to subject myself to it if it's being kept private between two people, which it actually was here, until you posted it in asay. "To no one's detriment" is risible given how many people are explicitly saying your actions are detrimental. You can't decide that it wasn't actually detrimental to them.

I did ask one of the involved parties about it, and they said it was a minor irritation at worst. I'm not saying you're forced to see everything in asay, but if you don't want to, you could always de-admin. What I mean is that this whole situation is clearly being blown out of proportion. Had Monara shown a modicum of politeness or respect, instead of immediately insulting me and accusing me of being a pervert on a so-called "complaint", I would've likely apologized for making them uncomfortable, but I guess it's only not a detriment when you decide to feel for someone else.

Again, at no point did I ask anyone specifically to deal with it, it was a call-out for a potential issue. If it's not your cup of tea, cool, simply don't take it. It resulted in nothing anyway.

[mouseofthecake]

Also, and I'll repeat this for as many times as I have to; asay is asay, it is not leaked, shown to anyone, or distributed amongst admins. There was no play-by-play. Not a single player was aware of these circumstances at any point before this complaint went up. It could have very reasonbly been resolved with a single, polite request, but was instead blown up to this degree, despite everything. If you really feel like this was a breach of privacy, this complaint wouldn't exist, and neither of the involved parties would've been contacted. Smearing, name-calling, and what have you, are not valid responses to such an incident, especially when nothing happened in an administrative capacity in any way, shape, or form. Malicious intent is clearly being assumed where there is none. The emote itself was admittedly a misstep, but one that did not warrant this level of persecution, as if Monara had only asked respectfully I would've responded in kind.

And, of course, please take an effort to respond to my posts in their entirety if you can. Focusing on single inane statements won't be the trump-card you think it is, because I have gone over literally every single aspect of this whole situation several times by now, and am repeating myself with every post.

[Blubelle]

I'm not officially RP staff in any context, but I've been on the server for over a month now and I can see what goes down anyways due to being staff, so I'll go ahead and pitch in here.

On one point, the antighost interaction location was definitely in a public spot and I can see why Mouse would've been concerned about that. On the other hand, subtler is subtler, and their interaction was out of the way and was not intended to make anyone uncomfortable as a result. Despite what Mouse called out, I don't think the involved party they called out did anything wrong.

However, Mouse's complaints had only been in adminchat. It's only been in adminchat. Under these current circumstances, all admins are able to see subtler-antighost if they're observing anyways, so I don't see why it was such a big deal that he brought that topic to discussion - especially since it had not left private channels at this point. It could've been handled with discussion of correction, or maybe just getting questions answered in the private channels. Suddenly, it's now out here, and now there's this big forum discussion about it when such discussion could've just been kept private, and given clarification on what needs to be made clear and what isn't.

I'm essentially repeating a few arguments that were already made here, but this feels plenty unnecessary and I wanted to chip in to make sure that is clear.

The big question is, if discussion of subtler-antighost topics is considered a breach of trust in asay, then why are admins allowed to just see such things in plain sight while they are observing around? Just kill the admin's ability to see antighost shit and leave it to logs. I logdived all the time on Main, I'm sure all admins are capable of logdiving on RP if they need to for any reason. Which is currently the focus right now as there's some testmerged code for that currently - but I would like to see that merged fully.