Edge Case Complaint

[bupkis]

Admin: virvatuli

Server: Goonstation 1

Date + time: 12:15 AM EST 1/29/2021

Synopsis:
I was banned by virvatuli for three and a half days for attacking a player and a sec officer. I do not contest or appeal my ban. I did strike a naked person a couple times in the medbay with a scalpel before stopping, and following that I also hit a sec officer with the same scalpel a few times before being batoned, cuffed, and spaced. I ahelped my treatment by the sec officer, since sec is not supposed to escalate, and then again when I watched them space another person who was fighting non lethally in the medbay. 

The following round, I was playing sec. I responded to someone claiming to be a rev head by attempting to arrest or search them, and during that time virvatuli was messaging me. The person who said they were a rev head told me they were joking when I found them, so I played a joke on them by dropping a pepperspray grenade in their workplace. After that, I was teleported to the time out zone. 

I am making this post for multiple reasons. First, I believe the only reason I am banned currently is because I sent ahelp requests myself, and had I not, no other players would have brought these incidents to the attention of the admins. Second, I wish to correct the record of my ban. In the ban reason, virvatuli writes "When a Security Officer tried to stop them, [they] attacked [the Security Officer]." This is not accurate. The sec officer made no effort to stop me before I attacked the sec officer, or at least they did not inform me of their intention to do so or ask me to stop what I was doing. I simply happened to attack them following my attack on the naked player. 

I am assuming my ban is due to rule one. I believe "brutal assault" is listed as an edge case on the Grief page on the wiki. I did not have a way to tell my targets current health, so by striking them more than just a couple times I apparently put one of them in crit. Since I haven't played on the server in a while, I was not used to the amount of damage my weapon was doing. I believe going forward, multi day bans should not be handed out for edge cases due to the inherent vagueness surrounding them.

I also believe players constantly bend and break rules like this with inconsistent repercussion, and the admin team should consider methods of resolving these inconsistencies. I suggest revising the server rules or stricter moderation and observation as methods of doing this.

[kyle2143]

Now, I read the logs, so let me establish what happened as I saw it: 

Someone hit you with a station bounced radio a single time, this does like 1 damage.  Then you stabbed someone who didn't fight back with a razor blade 9 times in a row uninterrupted without saying anything. After that, you stabbed two more people: the Captain and the Sec Officer. Then the Sec Officer stunned you and later spaced you. The other player who was spaced by that Officer was actually an antag who was killing people on the station. Also, there were a bunch of other antagonists killing people on the station as well, sec was pretty beleaguered and as a result were dishing out harsher punishments.

For reference, here is the full text of the ban:

"Attacking random people in medbay with a razor as a non-antagonist, putting one into crit. When a Security Officer tried to stop them, attacked them. Take a break and reread our rules before you come back to play, you can see them here"

You say you made this post for a couple of reason reasons so I'll discuss them individually. (I'll deal with them in no particular order).

I wish to correct the record of my ban. In the ban reason, virvatuli writes "When a Security Officer tried to stop them, [they] attacked [the Security Officer]." This is not accurate. The sec officer made no effort to stop me before I attacked the sec officer, or at least they did not inform me of their intention to do so or ask me to stop what I was doing. I simply happened to attack them following my attack on the naked player. 

The part bolded is my emphasis. The crux of the ban is not really that you defied the orders of a sec officer, that's part of it, but not the main bit. It was that you just started randomly attacking people, nearly killing one, then stabbing both the Captain and a Sec officer for no good reason and without saying a single thing. 

You say "I simply happened to attack them following my attack on the naked player. " I'm not sure why you do so because this is like the exact opposite of an excuse. Would that explanation get you out of a jail cell if it happened in real life? I don't think so.

I did not have a way to tell my targets current health, so by striking them more than just a couple times I apparently put one of them in crit. Since I haven't played on the server in a while, I was not used to the amount of damage my weapon was doing.

To reiterate from before, the incident that prompted the Security Officer to arrest you was you stabbing someone with a razor 9 times in a row. I really don't know what your goal would have been if not to seriously harm them. Yeah, it's a videogame and damage values can change, but the weapon was a knife and you spent about 15 seconds standing there stabbing him. Of course it would harm him.

I believe "brutal assault" is listed as an edge case on the Grief page on the wiki. I believe the only reason I am banned currently is because I sent ahelp requests myself, and had I not, no other players would have brought these incidents to the attention of the admins.

You weren't banned for sending the ahelp. But it was your ahelp that brought the incident to the attention of admins. Your reason here isn't really a defense of your actions nor does it cast dispersions on the ban's validity. This is like claiming, "This guy killed me because I tried to kill someone, arrest him!" It just doesn't make logical sense. I will say, however, that I personally don't look to kindly on people who push others, toe the line, or grief them and then ahelp them when things don't go their way just to get them in trouble. You acted like an antagonist towards Sec, they treated you like one. Can't really fault em much.

Also, you'll notice that the Grief Edge Case point you cite states: "Brutal assault - it's really hard to tell beyond the first whack or two if you're about to kill or cripple someone."

Nine knife stabs in a row is not "the first whack or two".

[virvatuli]

Hello! Thanks for making the complaint, I was the one who banned you. Here's how I see things regarding your ban:

The security officer in question spaced an antagonist, which is entirely within the rules. This has nothing to do with your ban. That the security officer spaced you as a response to what you were doing has nothing to do with your ban.

The fact that you tried to murder someone with a razorblade (read, you stabbed them 9 times in a row, for no reason other than having a radio bounced off of you), and then proceeded to stab two other people immediately after, one of whom was the security officer, the other the Captain, as a non-antagonist is what your ban is about. Just because an admin wasn't around at the time and you may or may not have not been ahelped about your actions, does not mean that the rules do not apply to you. The entirety of your actions that shift came across as low-effort griefing. Your history on our servers correlates with this, as you have been warned about rule breaks and asked to review the rules several times before. When someone has multiple strikes against them and does not show an improvement in behaviour, then yes, that's when bans are handed out.

Regarding the last bit "I also believe players constantly bend and break rules like this with inconsistent repercussion", yes I actually agree. Frankly I'm getting rather tired of having to deal with people who think it's OK to break the rules/ride the line consistently, get a slap on the wrist, then come back and do the same thing. Which is the reason why I gave you a ban and asked you to review the rules, rather than just scold you over admin PMs while you pepper-gassed the Captain and Roboticist.

I hope this clears some things up.

[bupkis]

kyle2143 I think you misunderstand, I am not contesting my ban. I did break the rule. I am not trying to make excuses. I wrote my response while I was still salty about it so maybe I come off that way though, so, sorry. My reasoning with ahelping the sec officer is that I thought it was pretty clear to them that I was subdued, and instead of walking to sec and putting me in a cell they walked what seemed to me to be an equally long distance to an airlock and tossed me out. It makes sense though that late in the round they wouldn't want to deal with any bullshit. 

virvatuli, hi. I latejoined and didn't really know what was going on, so I didn't know the other person that was spaced was actually an antag. I'm sorry for giving you sass and continuing to do dumb things while you talking to me, I should have just stopped and stepped away after the first round, really. Your message does clear things up, thanks. Would I be able to see the previous strikes and warnings? I don't think I am able to view them myself and honestly don't remember every incident. Just out of curiosity. 

Again, I deserve this ban and will take the full time. If I was appealing it I would have posted this in appeals. I will do better when the ban elapses if I return to the server.

[virvatuli]

Would I be able to see the previous strikes and warnings? I don't think I am able to view them myself and honestly don't remember every incident. Just out of curiosity. 

Absolutely! They are called your "notes" and you can request them at any time through the discord, and they'll be sent to you through DM (sometimes note pages can get very long and it's not practical to send them ingame). Just ask an admin that's around and they'll be able to send them to you.