The Civil Protection De-WL, and the Greater Willard Problem

[Goose]

There's little need to post further screenshots, as the majority of it has been provided by my fellow faction management. I'll try my best to remain entirely unbiased in this response.

It's no secret that we're constantly butting-heads Omega, anyone who's witnessed any interaction between us can testify. I can confidentially say that I was the pushing force behind your dewhitelist, one glance into the rank-leader chat can support this. However, it was not simply because I don't like you. Which, admittedly, I don't. Our personalities don't mix, however, I set this aside when we're handling faction and in character manners. The reason I pushed for the dewhitelist, was due to the constant toxicity displayed by you. As well as the overall poor RP quality I've seen, which everyone is guilty of sometimes, but I've seen from you especially.

Whether an accident or not, you seem to consistently draw out the worst in both players and staff by how you uphold yourself. Which can be backed by several individuals, should they choose to come forward here. However, that does not excuse the behavior of all parties in this situation. I believe we should've messaged you before kicking you from the discord explaining why you were being removed, and I don't believe that you should've been told to 'cope' or anything like that when you were expressing your frustration. I also believe that your concerns should've been given in a more appropriate manner, that what appears to be a culmination of anger and frustration in both LOOC and discord chats.

Your wording is a key part that led to your eventual dewhitelist. You always seem to be constantly venting in both LOOC, discord, and /cp chats, instead of raising your concerns in a more appropriate manner, such as DMing faction leads or making a forum post such as this one. While I agree, that it does look bad on us as staff for dog-piling you, and that the players who egged you on should've been punished (I'm not sure if they were), your overall behavior is what lead to this. You seem to victimize yourself quite often, which can be understood in some circumstances, but not all. You take personal offense, and cannot tolerate any form of action against you or your characters.

Overall, nobody in this situation is right. The only thing that came out of this, is you losing your whitelist. I agree with this choice. However, the manner in which this was handled by both staff and us as faction management could've been more professional.

 

[Omega]

The reason I pushed for the dewhitelist, was due to the constant toxicity displayed by you. As well as the overall poor RP quality I've seen, which everyone is guilty of sometimes, but I've seen from you especially.

I would like examples of this poor RP quality that isn't the single /me everyone else had been posting. I feel my roleplay quality is consistent enough to explain why I would have the whitelist. Saying you see the poor RP quality from me especially, I hate to say, probably comes from the bias you have against me. Off the top of my head, I can think of two other Civil Protection who I had heard complaints about lack of RP quality from.

Whether an accident or not, you seem to consistently draw out the worst in both players and staff by how you uphold yourself

This sounds like because people dislike how I say things, they immediately begin to be toxic themselves even if in situations it's again just criticism or if I hadn't even been toxic myself. This goes along with my whole double standard thing, where staff are allowed to be as toxic as they want but it's fine, but a player is slightly toxic (or very) in some form of genuine criticism and they are vilified and cast out.

You always seem to be constantly venting in both LOOC, discord, and /cp chats, instead of raising your concerns in a more appropriate manner, such as DMing faction leads or making a forum post such as this one.

I only get inconsistent things on this. Willum said earlier to DM faction leads or to even use the Discord to have discussion (though not in the public chat), yet I have had several admins mention how they don't want anyone in their DMs, or to simply not bother them with my issue. Something that happens far too often, as well. Imo, I don't see a problem with using LOOC to vent about or discuss things, if you don't want people using it, don't have it. However, of course, I'm going to cut back on it, I don't think it should be stopped entirely.

You seem to victimize yourself quite often, which can be understood in some circumstances, but not all. You take personal offense, and cannot tolerate any form of action against you or your characters.

That's... just not true. I'm fine with things happening to my character, this entre thread I've been repeating it's not the death of the character this was about, but rather the general conduct of staff and how the event was handled. Also, I have to admit this is fairly ironic coming from you if I remember Quarry Town correctly. Or when you banned me for 3 hours for simply asking why Civil Protection was defending a Vortigaunt in LOOC (cardinal sin). Are these not moments of you reacting and taking personal offense to an action taken against you or your character? Goose, when I think of these toxicity double standards between staff and players, you are the main one in mind when I talk about them. You've acted the same way I have several times and it seems each time I get told to cool it, and to hold off for a bit, and you get a slap on the wrist, if even that. I can list several times I've just accepted the characters death. Maybe a little bartering to see if NLR was possible, but ultimately acceptance. I don't like when I die for fairly BS reasons (ZHANSHI-1), or when I misunderstood an RP thing as just something interesting between ClapTrap and I's characters and was /pming him about it (This thing below).

Cause whether y'all want to believe it or not, I accepted my character's death. Both times I was disappointed, but okay with it. And both times when I've reached out to a staff member or someone involved in some way due to a point of confusion, criticism, or concern, I have been told off.

 

[Hayden]

I don't have much to add here, other than agreeing with what people have already said. The attitude of some players in the chat while you were expressing concerns should be noted and said players kept under watch to see if it was just one-off or common behaviour, but overall the de-WL is justified given you were already (as Claptrap put it) on your last legs in the faction (Which some would say was lenient), and didn't change to try to fit in with the given expectations and quality of roleplay, especially during a serious situation of which you're the 'starring role' in, so to speak.

I have to admit this is fairly ironic coming from you if I remember Quarry Town correctly.

However this is a moot point. As we discussed prior in DMs, the ban in Quarry Town was justified given your attitude. While it could have been handled differently (Warnings should have been provided prior so you'd have known to keep your temper in check - Warnings are now implemented properly), your attitude justified Goose banning you for the rest of the event and I would've likely done so myself after a short discussion in staff chat, if Goose hadn't been so quick on the draw.

I would like examples of this poor RP quality that isn't the single /me everyone else had been posting.

Though another less important thing I'll say is, all it takes is one low quality /me or interaction till you're known as the man who did IBS roleplay or the guy who called a vort based. It'll be forgotten about eventually, but when you're already on the FL's radar it's generally best to at least pretend to be interested.

 

[vortist]

I think the moral of this story is.
Don't be a giant asshole, no matter the ranking. Lets leave it at that I say.​

no just be rebel and grind scripts and shotcop every minute

 

[Omega]

At this point, I would like to state that this isn't entirely just about a de-WL anymore, but the general conduct I see from staff.

However this is a moot point. As we discussed prior in DMs, the ban in Quarry Town was justified given your attitude. While it could have been handled differently (Warnings should have been provided prior so you'd have known to keep your temper in check - Warnings are now implemented properly), your attitude justified Goose banning you for the rest of the event and I would've likely done so myself after a short discussion in staff chat, if Goose hadn't been so quick on the draw.

I think the moral of this story is.
Don't be a giant asshole, no matter the ranking. Lets leave it at that I say.

The moral I have seen so far is that the only people that get any kind of punishment in regards to their attitude are players, while staff have free reign on how they want to act towards people on a whim. Word something incorrectly twice in a Short Stories while you give legitimate (albeit, poorly worded (mostly)) criticism? Banned from the event with no prior warning even though you had already apologized immediately after sending the first criticism (without any kind of warn). Complain about the unjust treatment in Discord? Get timed out in the server by the admin that mistreated you in the event.





Taken fairly out of context admittedly, but hearing someone deny I'm being targeted (that's fine) and then immediately say "If you were targeted, you'd be gone" implying that... that's a thing that goes on. Doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the team hearing someone like this say that (yes, they were staff.)


Next thing I don't have logs of, however it did happen, and I trust you can view the logs of the server if you wish to refute anything I say, or correct any errors in my retelling of events. Long story short, I had been killed and NLRed. As I was discussing something with the admin that had been dealing with it, they had asked me "By the way, why did you accept death when help was right there?" and I had responded saying that I hadn't, but I was typing through the console speak ICly. The admin immediately began accusing me of lying to them, repeatedly saying they have the logs that say I gave up, and I needed to stop lying. I had told them I wasn't lying, that the bleedout was obviously bugged, and I guaranteed anyone would vouch for it that it's bugged. Well, the admin continued, and we had went back and forth until LiAm and Rabit showed up to actually test what the issue had been. Turns out, I wasn't lying and the bleedout was bugged. Now admittedly, I was forthright with what I had to say next, because I simply said "Apologize" followed up with a simple "I'm being serious, I want an apology." Instead of the admin just saying they were sorry, LiAm immediately jumped to their defense telling me that I was the toxic one in this situation. I explained basically what I've been saying in this thread all night, that when I fuck up, I'm meant to apologize and make amends where I can, but if an admin messes up, whoever is effected just has to deal with it. After a bit more of back and forth I had finally gotten an apology from the admin, which wasn't all too sincere.


And finally, I have this screenshot provided to me by a cool source (related to Quarry Town incident, however much of a moot point that seems to be for some reason). Imo, this and the previous screenshot just show me only staff are allowed to have biases or emotions.

 

[Rabithunter]

@NIXeighteen Tagging you so you may see whats being said in this thread. I will ask all of those making comments here to keep it within the guide of whats being complained about. From this point on, please make it relevant to the conversation. Any comments believed not to be within the conversation boundaries will be deleted.

 

[Maroon]

Where did you get this screenshot from exactly? This looks comically fake/altered.

 

[NIXeighteen]

while staff have free reign on how they want to act towards people on a whim.

Never. If this is ever the case, ping me or DM me and we will get this sorted.

Banned from the event with no prior warning even though you had already apologized immediately after sending the first criticism (without any kind of warn).

How did you provide this feedback? Was this the usual keyboard slam everyone on the internet does or did you actually provide good arguments? Cause I know for a fact you don't "just get banned/timed out".

Complain about the unjust treatment in Discord? Get timed out in the server by the admin that mistreated you in the event.

Same as the above. Plus, who was this admin?

(yes, they were staff.)

Names? You've been quite honest about all the others stuff so don't leave names out in a situation where we need them.

And finally, I have this screenshot provided to me by a cool source (related to Quarry Town incident, however much of a moot point that seems to be for some reason). Imo, this and the previous screenshot just show me only staff are allowed to have biases or emotions.

Not really any relevance to the discussion to be honest. This is a screenshot out of context providing no addition to the discussion.
On the other hand, it doesn't show staff can just "have a bias and fuck people over"; Goose told his opinion. Yes, without a filter but there is no bias in this screenshot.
I am willing to sort this discussion regarding a few staff members. The de-whitelist is out of my reach but if you are willing to talk I suggest you respond on this thread.

 

[Omega]

Where did you get this screenshot from exactly? This looks comically fake/altered.

Got it from a guy named dno who randomly DMed me this out of the blue. Apparently he had been getting actively removed and was told to actually not send the screenshot if he had wanted to get back into the server (also provided picture below to show which server he had apparently gotten this from, some of our DMs, and proof this is an actual person who’s friended Atle and not me just asspulling this information or screenshots. All of these were provided on the second day of Quarry Town)

How did you provide this feedback? Was this the usual keyboard slam everyone on the internet does or did you actually provide good arguments?

In-Game using the @ system. First thing that happened was I was contacted by one of the people helping run the event to get some people organized and get the ball rolling on the story for day 2 of the event. While this was happening, the staff kept having things happen that the players are obviously supposed to respond to, however I was a little cranky and just trying to get what I needed done done and in @ Said they should stop interrupting the meeting when I was asked to have the meeting by some of the people helping run the event. I immediately followed up with another @ apologizing for wording and being aggressive, stating that I just want to help. Even in the moment I admittedly lashed out. The second occurrence was an OTA (who I didn’t actually know was Goose), got killed and afterwards simply S2Ked dropping a grenade on the corpse after people had swarmed it. In @ again, I had said “Whoever was that OTA was is a little bitch” and in the middle of my walk to check on everyone ICly, I get zapped out of existence because I have been deemed toxic on a level that only staff are allowed to be.


So at this point I get timed out.

Plus, who was this admin?

Refer to above. Similar thing had also happened with Sachimii where in the screenshots of the original post she’s one of the people telling me to cope and also timing me out.

Names? You've been quite honest about all the others stuff so don't leave names out in a situation where we need them.

This particular message was sent by ClapTrap.

Goose told his opinion. Yes, without a filter

He can tell his opinion with no filter, and I can’t or else I get banned or timed out for toxicity. If anything, this is extremely relevant to the argument of there being double standards in this community in regards to how staff can act, and how players can act. Staff can get away with doing the stuff players do but it’s okay, since their buddies in the team know them.

 

[thejanitor413]

this is what i heard about in the vc last night, CP mains need some hobbies cause why was they defending they RL or wtv the fuck like they life depended on it lmao

 

[Maroon]

Got it from a guy named dno who randomly DMed me this out of the blue. Apparently he had been getting actively removed and was told to actually not send the screenshot if he had wanted to get back into the server (also provided picture below to show which server he had apparently gotten this from, some of our DMs, and proof this is an actual person who’s friended Atle and not me just asspulling this information or screenshots. All of these were provided on the second day of Quarry Town)

Maybe don't use altered screenshots if you don't want this thread to be perceived as bad faith. I talked to the dude and he admitted it's fake. You owe Goose an apology.

 

[Omega]

Maybe don't use altered screenshots if you don't want this thread to be perceived as bad faith. I talked to the dude and he admitted it's fake. You owe Goose an apology.

@Goose Sorry, I didn’t know it was fake, and from what I saw the timeline of him messaging me with the time in the actual screenshot matched up. Asked several people if they were able to verify whether it was real or not and the answers I’d usually get were akin to basically “the bureaucracy of Willard goes deep”.

Though even if it wasn’t faked, according to NIX it’d still be acceptable for him and presumably other staff to had said something like that.

But yeah, sorry about that one. I’ve obviously been sitting on it for moment as I never fully committed to the idea of any kind of report until recently.

 

[NitroSky]

I realize this may not be my place, I'm often out of the loop when it comes to discord drama and back and forths, infact I very seldom even talk on discord barracks chat. That being said, I've known Omega since before he was whitelisted, so my perspective may seem biased, as I don't know how he interacts with others on a singular basis. He contributes a lot to the community, in creating roleplay for others, and i'd say 9 times out of 10, his roleplay is solid and not trollish ("/me takes it like a man" for example). He definitely has a desire to be apart of the community, to both RP and provide RP for others, and isn't a minge that is out to ruin people's HL2RP experience. I've seen the toxicity discord can produce, hence why I rarely communicate on it, and definitely don't agree that one person's attitude should be seen as edgy and 'lol XD', whereas someone else is labelled toxic.

Omega has a lot of good qualities as a faction member, despite the examples of toxicity people witnessed, and absolutely no one deserves to deal with toxicity, but I feel like there's a lot to be desired for the community as a whole in that regard. It's hard to read subtext when you're sitting behind a computer, and things can be taken out of proportion. At the end of the day, this is just a game.

We all get frustrated by certain aspects of the server; lore, scripts, roleplay, factions, and so on. And I agree that airing it out in public can lead to unnessecary drama and petty fights, and if someone has a legitimate issue, it's better to address it privately and with constructive criticism, rather than letting your anger get the best of you and start 'cope posting' as people apparently call it.

Again, this has nothing really to do with me, and I've always gotten along with Omega, and the rest of the community, but I hope he gets another chance at being in the faction someday, maybe after a certain amount of time and old wounds have healed.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Because of the circumstances that this thread has voluntarily polluted in terms of fake evidence (not the fault of the OP, this is not Omega's fault due to him not knowing) to suggest an anti-stalliance against good faith put into both the original poster and the members of staff, this is going to be closed. I'll put it very simple for everyone here:

Treat each other how you wish to be treated with respect.

People who come to play here are often, in some case or another, being pushed into similar active situations between members of staff losing their cool with people who are becoming impatient or too impulsive to control themselves. It is dissatisfying enough that this goes both ways. If you have problems with someone, you take them to private messaging or you contact members of staff like myself or the Head of Staff being @NIXeighteen who would formally look into these problems for you.

I'm remaining unbias to this, and will state that what ever the situation presented here - staff behaviour can always be better. ALWAYS.

There's a fine time between showing stoicism and times being stern and direct. Both of you, all of you perhaps, are victims of manipulation by someone we banned for being very highly and heavily toxic. DNO in this case with no surprise there - he has a history of it where he used to minge raid the community and others in the past on more than one occasion.

Everyone here has shown they're admitting to doing wrong and knowingly so. I expect better from my members of staff and I will contact the people involved in my own team in private, or I will let NIX handle that specifically if due time he is available.

In future, the thread is corrosive to mistrust, and as I was committing my own searches in the past for potential wordplay and visual left-overs from previous conversations, even the automated bots don't show them and they most certainly are supposed to visualise deleted logs (and logs of logs being deleted, so there's no hiding from it. Very easy to spot.) It proves falsification.

Nobody is here to take insults or give them out, end of.

If we get beat in a game or if we die in the game because the situation may have been unfair - there is no fairness in Half Life 2 RP, especially for serious RP. You either commit when you feel the time is right, or you don't and you play it safe to dedicate commitment another time for when you want to up the danger level criteria.

@Omega - Nobody is blaming you for anything, it was a difficult spot and tensions between people emotionally were high. I completely understand that staff behaviour is critical to any success for the server and most importantly the community, and they will be spoken to regarding that. I need you to keep your cool, your calms and your qualms to a level of self-moderation so as to not draw unwanted attention both internally and externally. We've seen the damage falsified evidence can do, and it's not your fault for getting manipulated. People generally will try and fuck with everyone to get a good kick out of it.

CP Leads - I expect better in terms of the Quality Control in terms of psychoanalysing the people you want in RL positions or even the CP whitelist. This is just a smaller part of a bigger problem which keeps reaching my ears along with the rest of the management team here. You're all doing well, but you can do better so long as you play the cards right. If there's drama, let us know and we'll try to solve it for you.

@Goose - If you are ever frustrated, do not offload onto the players. You and I both know the playerbase gets the short end of the stick in these arguments which can dogpile from either side between other staff and players. Frustrations were high, and discounting the false evidence that's been shown, you can always return to disputations by shifting it over to another person who is unbias, or to handle it personally at a later date with a cooler head.

Overall, I don't think this issue is a community wide concern, but rather a selective group of people that just so happened to get involved with the growing intrigue behind the drama that eventually manifested the complaint thread.

This matter will be archived as INCONCLUSIVE, not rejected or accepted. This will only conclude if the people involved relate to stalliance for their problems in the future with the people in this thread, or marked outside this thread. Staff concerns will be left to me, others will be left to the maturity and opportunity for the individualistic level of problem solving concerns.

Please be nice to each other, that's all I'm asking. Thank you very much for the complaint thread, and I wish everyone a chill and relaxing day or night.