Timed Ban Appeal, Waswar

waswar · Post by **waswar** » 01 Dec 2018, 16:37

Your Byond ID: Waswar

Character Name: Arella Aharon

Type Of Ban (Job-ban (include the job), Timed Ban, Permaban): Timed Ban

Admin who banned you (if known): Starmute

Total Ban Duration: 1 Week

Remaining Duration: 6.3 Days

What other servers do you play on? Currently, none.

Are you now or have you been banned on any servers? Which ones? N/A

Reason for ban (If you have a Permaban, it should be the EXACT MESSAGE YOU GET WHEN YOU LOGIN with the Error code that looks like this: X##XXX##. If you do not provide this EXACTLY you can't be unbanned): Baned for meta communications with Adzolaria. Was actually decent enough to talk about it. Hopefully this ban will give them time to think about things and clear everything up.

Link to previous appeals for the same ban (if applicable): N/A

Your appeal, including evidence (screenshots, etc):

Greetings everyone!

The nature of this appeal I would like to see if I can make rather open, for even if it is denied, I would like, if possible, to sort of discuss the issue at hand to see if I can know what to change for the future, so that I do not make the same mistakes again, or change my behavior to make it less problematic.

I'm going to begin with the broader picture, as it goes back several months.

In March or April(the first note should tell us which one), I introduced my friend Adzolaria to Colonial Marines. We are OOC friends who have been trying out different roleplay groups for some time. When we first began, we were not well-versed with the rules, whatsoever, and thus we were metacomming as MT's with strange personalities. I admit now that I was metacomming, and I acknowledged it in a previous appeal Adzolaria made with, I believe, improper escalation mixed with griefing, when the issue of our characters' friendships were brought up.

When it became known to us that our behavior was problematic, we changed it promptly. Whilst we did and as recently as yesterday continued to communicate before the rounds began to land in similar roles/the same squad, we do not share ongoing round information whilst the round is ongoing. If we need assistance or the like, we will let each-other know via radio. Adinah usually lets me know after the round is done how bad I am at responding to her radio requests as certain roles, as she will repeatedly ask for my character's attention and I do not see them, inadvertently angering her.

Now, I am aware of a note from April(ish), and a note from last night. According to Starmute from our conversation last night, we also have another warning approximately within the last month or 30 days. I am not sure if this is reflected in my notes or Adzolaria's, if not both, but if there is a situation accompanying it within my notes, and if it would be helpful, I would like to address it, if possible, to help clarify the situation.

According to rule 6:

Acting upon knowledge your character does not have or communicating information about the current round, including but not limited to private discussions, chat rooms, and voice chats during the game. If you want to talk to other CM players about CM or just in general, we have an official Discord, but keep the discussion about past rounds and never about the current one.

I believe whether or not we are meta-communicating post-Aprilish depends on whether coordinating pre-round start counts as communicating information about the current round.

Last night for example, we did indeed spawn as researchers together, but during the round, we did not communicate. I had known everything from either witnessing the situation play itself out, or through the radio. For example, there was some dispute over the body bags being set up. I had actually witnessed a Delta Medic setting them up in the center of the medbay floor, and Adinah I guess formed them into a pattern resembling the Star of David, and she told some I believe other medic that it was the miguen David or the like(I had to google it, it's Maguen David), the Star of David.

Now, for some added context, the medbay was rather understaffed. The CMO, Aayla Buchanan, got to chemistry, and I had set up the OR's with their IV's, and gave the marines a few flasks they desired. Then the CMO was ordering that the bags be removed "Because it's not a morgue". I was a bit irritated with this as a Medic actually helped us set up, and it's not very common that they do so, and thus I went along the lines of the CMO being unappreciative, and mildly opposed her on that subject alone.

I may get the chronology off in the next part or mix two things together, but the jist is correct.

However, whilst Adinah was making a big deal over it being the Maguen David, I ignored it when the fighting became a bit inflamed. An MP warned us in which case I milked the fact that the CMO(inadvertently) hit me with a body bag they threw, and the MP eventually left us be. I believe it was around this time that I told Adinah to stop screaming antisemitism, and to try to be more diplomatic, as I didn't want to be associated with her being so histrionic about some body-bags being moved.

A little bit later, they were fighting against whilst I was then helping a cargo technician fill a crate with medical supplies. Shortly after, I saw the CMO chasing Adinah with a flash, and I tried to get into her way to stop her. She ended up flashing me twice before flashing Adinah. It was only after we were told to leave the medbay that I called the CMO an antisemite since I was kicked out more so for Adinah's actions than my own, as I do not believe I was being disruptive enough, or at least to Adinah's level, to warrant being removed, and the crux of the conflict was between Adinah and the CMO, and that thusly I thought my removal was fallacious.

But this was the situation from last night. On the topic of metacomming, I do not believe we did anything wrong last night or in general, except in the afforementioned role selection, in which case I wholly admit we did indeed break it if it counts.

However, a different issue was brought up by StarMute which may also be worthy of addressing, as I think it may contribute to the issues I've been causing. He said that it is extremely heavily frowned upon to have "friends before the round starts", so to say. And whilst I do see people interact warmly to one another before the round start, I suppose my character's friendship with Adinah must be toned down or eliminated, especially if it's seen as causing many issues, and thus I would like to discuss the scope of what would be needed to be done to eliminate these problems, such as wholly eliminating the pre-round role selection(which I've been mulling over since last night), as well as the in-character friendship in general.

Lumdor · Post by **Lumdor** » 01 Dec 2018, 17:19

So, you both were banned for picking the same role and being friends before round start?

DriedMilk · Post by **DriedMilk** » 01 Dec 2018, 17:28

Just gonna stroll by as a character witness.

Both characters (Adinah and Arella) are one of the few that actually try to be HRP.

Even if the pairing may seem suspicious, it's clear they're doing it for the sake of maintaining RP and not to gain an advantage vs xenos.

waswar · Post by **waswar** » 01 Dec 2018, 17:32

I'm considering that it may be more along the lines of us picking the same roles and being too cooperative as friends, but I mentioned the other stuff as I think it's additive to the perception that were metacommers, and thus to address them to try and alleviate any issues we may be causing, if that makes sense, so that we do not cause such trouble in the future.

When StarMute was informing me, I believe he said something along the lines of "we determined", as well as the existence of a previous note or warning albeit that I am not aware of other than the fact that it exists, so there is probably more to it that other administrators are also aware of. I do know he mentioned along the lines of being too "buddy-buddy" and the fact of us opposing the CMO together, in which case someone may have reported us or an administrator who was witnessing the event may have believed we were metacommunicating.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » 01 Dec 2018, 17:45

Your notes

► Show Spoiler

Adzolaria's notes

► Show Spoiler

I'll be posting logs and replying more in general however the incident "this month" was November 6th.

waswar · Post by **waswar** » 01 Dec 2018, 18:05

If I may ask, is there more context for the November 6th incident with Adzolaria? I really don't remember which one that was, I just have no memory of it I'm afraid. Would there be a way to remember our roles at the time? That may help to clear up the situation and clarify it.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » 01 Dec 2018, 18:36

Looking at the logs after I dived you were a CL, they were a survivor

waswar · Post by **waswar** » 01 Dec 2018, 18:46

Thank you for clarifying that, StarMute

I appreciate it!

I don't really much remember the incident itself. I think the last time I was Corporate Liaison when Adinah was survivor, she was playing a particularly paranoid survivor, who was saying things along the line of, "We're all gonna die, we have to get out of here." Was this that case?

When I play CL, particularly if I'm late-joining, I try to correspond with CiC so I can sorta brief what's going on, especially if there's no survivors or if I know there's a survivor on board and I want to find them, so I do regular laps between the CL office and CiC. I tend to play CL as a more cooperative role rather than a soft antagonist, unless the Company asks otherwise. Do you think it could have been coincidence I was coming to CiC at the time, in spite of our OOC friendship? We never roleplayed our survivors as having known eachother or any of the ship crew.

If this is that case, I don't think that what was going on during that round would point to any metacomming. If I remember correctly, I was trying to speak with Adinah several times that round, but she kept running from me. Later on, I tried to convince her to take Ultrazine with the basis of "It would help you run, it makes you faster!" more or less, and thus try to force her to speak with me via the addiction it causes, but she continued to flee from me regardless, in which case I gave up.

ThesoldierLLJK · Post by **ThesoldierLLJK** » 01 Dec 2018, 19:02

Some logs

I went through all of Waswar's conversations, and honestly they were all In-character conversations. I also found no LOOC/OOC IC from them that could be considered metagaming. The shitlery I see was all mostly IC shitlery with the CMO over something they tried to create in RP as Jewish characters which lead to an IC fight.

[21:50:13]ADMIN: PM: Adzolaria/(Adinah Mizrahi)->Starmute/(Fionia Hope): We ignored the orders of the CMO because we made a Maguen David, a well-known symbol of Judaism out of bodybags and she ordered us to dismantle it. Our building of the maguen david was, however, roleplayed in-game. The CMO then picked up a bag and threw it at Arella, and she started a conflict between us.

Ahelp sent

► Show Spoiler

Mod Chat/Investigations

► Show Spoiler

PMs Between Starmute and Waswar

► Show Spoiler

My opinion on the matter is the following:

After reviewing this a couple more times, this is really a gray area. I mean there's nothing wrong in my own opinion if a group of players say "Hey let's all roll Charlie squad." or "Hey I am going for CO/XO, who wants to join me in CIC as a SO."

The incident in question with the CMO I can see was a IC violation of Marine Law. I didn't see any blantant metacomming in OOC/LOOC, but at the same time you guys have bit of history of bad behavior.

I think this is one of those tricky situation where Starmute made a judgement call, and up to Emerald Blood or Lordington to decide on if the ban should be reverse/shortened/etc...

waswar · Post by **waswar** » 01 Dec 2018, 19:16

Thank you, ThesoldierLLJK!

If I may, whilst there may be cases where I have indeed taken things too far with Adinah, I don't think this is one of them, but that's just my opinion. Adinah was doing the shenanigans when setting up the Star of David and I was only mildly on her side, like I said in the initial post, all I really did was get into the CMO's way(just by moving, I did not click on her or anything, I was attempting ctrl-clicks to grab but nothing else and I don't know/think I landed any), and I didn't really oppose the CMO too much until I was kicked out of the medbay due to the whole situation, as in both an IC and OOC level I think the whole situation was overblown.

In my opinion, I think this was a case of Adinah taking memery a bit too far, which is completely fair if it's a problem, and it was conflated with metacommunication.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » 01 Dec 2018, 19:29

Okay so hi there.

Here's the situation as I saw

You currently have several notes regarding metacommunications with a friend. Upon picking up the request I looked at the situation. The CMO originally reported you and mentioned meta-communications in his a-help. I was informed by several admins that you and the other player have a history of this.

When the CMO flashed the researcher you immediately came to help. The CMO is the head of your department and while this is a server where there is HRP, it seems you always come to the aid of Adzolaria. When one of you is having issues the other seems to immediately run to their aid. Considering the prior warnings and the problematic behavior in the past, most players would try to stay away from situations where you could be viewed as having a relationship with the character outside of the game and cooperating inside the game to make other players rounds distressing

A fair bit of mods gave me advice during this whole situation (considering I was a trial). They guided me through the process and listened to their opinions and advice during the whole situation. Unfortunately I knew that this whole situation would need clarification.

The problem for me is Adzolaria's note in November and the previous notes in march tell me that there was a warning gave and the other players viewpoints that there is some sort of alleged or true impropriety on your part. Logically if I were in your shoes and knew mods were watching for a behavior I would try to avoid being in situations where that behavior could be construed as possible meta-communications. When I get a admin pm directly about metacoms.... it doesn't look like you are trying at all to avoid that kind of situation.

That's my thought process during the whole ordeal.

waswar · Post by **waswar** » 01 Dec 2018, 19:39

I believe that is a fair assessment if one is looking at general trends. If one does one thing, they are likely to repeat it.

I know I am asking you to go against logic from a quick deduction alone, and for that I apologize. However, I believe that the CMO may have made the report due to a preconceived notion. The CMO, Aaylah Buchanan, was having a dispute with Adinah over bags lying around. In my opinion, it's not a big deal, as like I said, I only piped in when I mentioned that a medic helped set it up. I asked Adinah, when the MP came, to stop stating that "the CMO is an antisemite", because my character thought the situatious was quite frivolous. I was only more so against the CMO when she had the both of us removed from the medbay altogether.

The reason I came to the aid of Adinah when the CMO was chasing her with a flash was because the CMO tried to get an MP to throw us out of the place because of out disagreement. Like I said, I was only mildly on Adinah's side since making a big deal out of some bags lying around when there's no other surgeons around and the CMO is the only person on chemistry is rather frivolous. In fact, I believe the CMO made the accusation of metacommunication because she knew it was a low-hanging fruit to attack us with. Also, the MP's reprimanded her for her liberal use of the flash.

But I do not believe my aid was out of hand, I was just trying to delay the professor so mediation could be made.

ThesoldierLLJK stated that there was no evidence of metacommunication, though it's completely fair if people think there was anyway.

I would like to address this however: [21:52:43]ADMIN: MOD: Taketheshot56/(Patton 'Hardtack' Moore) : suicide pacts, breakin each other out

We only did this suicide pact when we both were new players and we didn't understand the rules very well. I got Adzolaria into CM around this time, and it was one of their first rounds. I'm sorry to say this, but I unfortunately believe it's a bit unfair to hold this against us months later; it's been about eight months. However, on the other hand, if it's punishable to be way too friendly with one player or another, I wholeheartedly acquiesce and agree that we are guilty of such.

waswar · Post by **waswar** » 01 Dec 2018, 20:14

In fact StarMute, I don't even know if an apology on my part is good enough. I would like to first of all thank you for moderating for the server, and honestly, if I were in your situation and saw what you probably saw, I would have made the same decision.

I just feel like the situation was spurred because the reputation has outlasted the behavior, if that makes sense. The reason we still play together is that it's basically a safe bet, at least on my part, that I'm guaranteed to get someone to roleplay with throughout the round. I've been in squads and roles where I feel like I'm the only roleplayer present, and having Adzolaria around makes sure that at least another person to facilitate RP with. Even if some of the things they do are asinine.

And even though our march note is absolutely warranted and justified, I was never asked about the November 6th one, and in my opinion, I feel like it being noted is a partial catalyst to the ban from last night. If it's the round that I think it was, my showing up to the CiC was coincidental in the first place, as Adzolaria's paranoid survivor was making a conscious effort to avoid me. Intermittently, I was chasing her throughout the Almayer, trying to get her to speak with me since she never saw me after making onto the ship, and like I said, I did try and fail to convince her to take an ultrazine in the hopes of having her have to return to me over the reliance that ultrazine causes.

frozentsbgg · Post by **frozentsbgg** » 01 Dec 2018, 20:20

I wholeheartedly feel that this appeal should be granted.

It's quite obvious it was a judgment call made by Starmute, and I believe that this ban should be lifted or reduced.

The conduct of Adzolaria's IC shittery is still very concerning and the whole Anti-Semitism RP with the CMO Deeply goes against CM's core values.

That being said, you've admitted it might have gone too far, and I agree with you.
I hope if you're unbanned, or when the ban expires you both reflect on not just the Meta-Comms accusations, but also how you continue to roleplay IC.

Thanks,

Sleepy Retard · Post by **Sleepy Retard** » 01 Dec 2018, 20:44

Character witness, in a sense.

I know that Arella definitely has no problems with the antisemitism RP - it's always directed at Arella, and not the person behind the screen - I mean, every single interaction I've had with them over all my times seeing them have been precisely that. I've also seen them countless times with the other jew character, but I've never actually seen them do anything suspicious, such as showing up at a location that they shouldn't of ran into. A CL running into the CiC is hardly suspicious, really.

I think a lot of staff can say that they've at least once, or twice, gotten a friend to roll the same squad, department, xeno. The whole shebang. Does this mean they're metacomming? Nah. With Adinah, they're definitely connected ICly, but the worst I've seen come of this is them begging for their dead friend to get a medal. When I had told them the hostiles should've gotten a medal for killing Adinah, they were upset, sure, but they never took their 'relationship' over bounds, persay. They've gotten verbal, and I've seen them be a bit physical, but nothing that would genuinely be stepping over bounds.

I think this whole thing was just a combination of their old newb-shitlery getting them the hammer. I don't think I've ever seen them once go too ham with the jewish friend schtick, though I have seen Adinah go a bit overboard, Arella has consistently been a pillar of RP, always going above the average person, even roleplaying when I was clearly shitposting or joshing.

I think the main problem is both their characters are jews. There are many, many, many, many other people like this. Their names just stick out like sore thumbs, horribly so, which is why they get it so bad. If there were two Africans with very African names, the same sort of thing would've applied, but it's just that most people have 'generic' names, or two names from two different cultures.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » 01 Dec 2018, 22:10

I will forward this appeal to titan or emerald with a recommendation that it be lifted alongside your friends ban. You seem honest enough about the whole thing and I hope this never comes up again. When shenanigans happen sometimes it can appear to us that you two are doing something you shouldn't be doing.

Emeraldblood · Post by **Emeraldblood** » 01 Dec 2018, 22:40

I'll lift the ban but don't cause bad shit to happen with your friend. You're free to be friends ICly, help each other out, stick together (assuming you're in the same department/squad, don't ditch to be with your friend) and all that, but not to a point where you're breaking roleplay or rules just to help your friend out, say shooting MP to keep them from being arrested. Just don't cause problems because when you're breaking rules with a friend involved, it's 10x more suspicious looking.

Resolved - Bans for you and your friend lifted, notes stay.

Timed Ban Appeal, Waswar

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