Regarding My Short Stories Ban Appeal

[Omega]

I don't know where else to post something like this, since this is to do with Short Stories and not main. Please don't remove this thread or close it, please just move it to the correct area if this isn't the right place to do it.

I had recently made a Short Stories Ban Appeal, the appeal being posted yesterday. Today, it got denied. The reason for being denied was that the Short Stories staff has noticed it calmed down since I've been gone, and that they don't feel I've learnt my lesson. My question- both for the Short Stories team and anyone else reading this- is what am I supposed to do? In my appeal, I acknowledged Hayden and I have some real fundamental disagreements on how certain things should be handled and what should and shouldn't be said. I also said that if I'm to enjoy Short Stories, I should at least abide by the rules of the organizers, even if I disagree with the rules. I had apologized for how aggressive I'd acted in the past, and acknowledged that I want to put it behind me and focus on sharing a story. Here's my actual appeal;




So, it got denied, with a 9-1 vote, 9 against me coming back and 1 for. Now, back to my question- what am I supposed to do? I get told to try again in 3 months to show that I'm actually interested, instead of coming back for the big event, but why? What difference would it make? My main interest at this point is the main mega event, and my appeal's language wouldn't really change, so what am I supposed to do? I'm disappointed in the events I did miss, like Purgatory, janitor's Japanese Shogunate one, and Alessio's 'Holy Light' event, and I want to start making up for the lost time with this mega event. I want to mirror my first time coming to Willard, with i17 being what hooked me, and the mega event Black Gold being what truly made me fall in love with Willard- both main and Short Stories. This truly feels like a moment where I'm damned if I do, and damned if I don't. I've already been unbanned from main since June, and I haven't caused any trouble since then, because I've learnt my lesson. I'm only asking now that I can be unbanned for this mega event to show the Short Stories staff team that I've changed. Because at the moment, the message I got was that to the SS team, I haven't learned my lesson.

With this thread, I want to be able to at least discuss with the rest of the team so there isn't only one person defending me and supporting my unban, but so there's two. I've never liked the system where someone gets one post to make their case, only for it to get denied, so please, SS team, have an open mind and at least talk to me about what I can do to prove I've changed. My proposal is to allow me into the event, and if I just revert back to my toxic practices, then just keep me banned. I want to use this Mega-Event to show I've changed, since it's the best time to. It's more than twice the length of your average SS, and I feel if I show I can be good through the New Frontier, it'll show that I have learned my lesson. Thank you for reading this, and I look forward to future discussions regarding this.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

Short Stories team needs to answer for their... crimes

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

This is my hot take and this isn't made to throw digs. I'll explain how I view this;

So much in Willard has changed since you've last been around. If the first thing you do after a denial of an appeal after not being present for a good amount of time, immediately resorting to making a community-viewable complaint thread about you being denied is... counter-acting your argument and is reinforcing theirs.

A lot.

Short Stories sets a very specific bar and the team is very protective over their events for good reason. We've been relatively drama free by a large margin in regard to standard players - they're always wary of lifting them. Generally you could have directly messaged the people involved, but here we are...

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

This is my hot take and this isn't made to throw digs. I'll explain how I view this;

So much in Willard has changed since you've last been around. If the first thing you do after a denial of an appeal after not being present for a good amount of time, immediately resorting to making a community-viewable complaint thread about you being denied is... counter-acting your argument and is reinforcing theirs.

A lot.

Short Stories sets a very specific bar and the team is very protective over their events for good reason. We've been relatively drama free by a large margin in regard to standard players - they're always wary of lifting them. Generally you could have directly messaged the people involved, but here we are...

I don't mean to be divisive or cause unwanted controversy but doesn't Short Stories allow members who are banned permanently or otherwise on the main server to participate in their events? I don't know if this is still the Short Stories team's policy; it just seems a bit conflicting to allude to some community-given standard while simultaneously allowing the community's pariahs to fester in their discord and partake in their events. Again, I don't know if this is still their policy, but it has been for the longest time, and I'm just going off the record.

 

[Omega]

This is my hot take and this isn't made to throw digs. I'll explain how I view this;

So much in Willard has changed since you've last been around. If the first thing you do after a denial of an appeal after not being present for a good amount of time, immediately resorting to making a community-viewable complaint thread about you being denied is... counter-acting your argument and is reinforcing theirs.

A lot.

Short Stories sets a very specific bar and the team is very protective over their events for good reason. We've been relatively drama free by a large margin in regard to standard players - they're always wary of lifting them. Generally you could have directly messaged the people involved, but here we are...

Rad, the last time I got banned one of the large points was that I kept bringing arguments to DMs. It showed my aggressiveness. Here, in the forums, we can have a coherent discussion without people spamming out messages out of rage. Hayden is the only person that I know is involved, and I don't want to just bring this to Hayden's DMs, because they quite literally told me they don't want to overrule the vote.

I don't know what else to do here, because no matter what it seems I'm gonna be painted as the bad guy.
Also, I don't know who's in the Short Stories team, I don't have access to the SS Discord, and if I went out of my way to DM all of them regarding my denied appeal, I feel like that would make me look even worse. I was told the forums are where discussions like these should happen, since no one needs to respond to Discord DMs, and DMs may often be left unanswered, depending on who you DM.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

Rad, the last time I got banned one of the large points was that I kept bringing arguments to DMs. It showed my aggressiveness. Here, in the forums, we can have a coherent discussion without people spamming out messages out of rage. Hayden is the only person that I know is involved, and I don't want to just bring this to Hayden's DMs, because they quite literally told me they don't want to overrule the vote.

I don't know what else to do here, because no matter what it seems I'm gonna be painted as the bad guy.
Also, I don't know who's in the Short Stories team, I don't have access to the SS Discord, and if I went out of my way to DM all of them regarding my denied appeal, I feel like that would make me look even worse. I was told the forums are where discussions like these should happen, since no one needs to respond to Discord DMs, and DMs may often be left unanswered, depending on who you DM.

No disrespect to you, Omega, but every time you made one of these complaint threads, it never ended well for you. I can refer to several instances where these long complaint threads worked counterintuitively and were used against you.

 

[Omega]

No disrespect to you, Omega, but every time you made one of these complaint threads, it never ended well for you. I can cite several incidents where these long threads worked counterintuitively and were used against you.

Once again, damned if I do, damned if I don't. If I DM them, I'm going out of my way to argue.
I will say, with my previous threads, they mostly didn't go my way because of how I acted during them, not because of my message.

This is again, another opportunity to show that I've changed. To have a simple discussion, where everything's in the open, and hopefully nothing can be misconstrued.

 

[Omega]

This is my hot take and this isn't made to throw digs. I'll explain how I view this;

So much in Willard has changed since you've last been around. If the first thing you do after a denial of an appeal after not being present for a good amount of time, immediately resorting to making a community-viewable complaint thread about you being denied is... counter-acting your argument and is reinforcing theirs.

A lot.

Short Stories sets a very specific bar and the team is very protective over their events for good reason. We've been relatively drama free by a large margin in regard to standard players - they're always wary of lifting them. Generally you could have directly messaged the people involved, but here we are...

One more thing when it comes to this, if the Short Stories team prefers I simply DM them, or we have some kind of group discussion over Discord, I'd be more than happy to simply delete this thread. It's just that I've found when I DM people, it's seen as more confronting and aggressive. I'm not trying to have this thread or discussion devolve into insults like I have in the past, I just simply don't know how else to handle this... since the only other Short Story member I know of that isn't Hayden is Reece.

 

[Hayden]

This is my hot take and this isn't made to throw digs. I'll explain how I view this;

So much in Willard has changed since you've last been around. If the first thing you do after a denial of an appeal after not being present for a good amount of time, immediately resorting to making a community-viewable complaint thread about you being denied is... counter-acting your argument and is reinforcing theirs.

A lot.

Short Stories sets a very specific bar and the team is very protective over their events for good reason. We've been relatively drama free by a large margin in regard to standard players - they're always wary of lifting them. Generally you could have directly messaged the people involved, but here we are...

Just to add onto what you said near the end - Omega did initially DM me about it when he saw his appeal was denied, but since I was out dealing with personal matters I only saw it after he decided to make this thread, which I assume was made under the assumption that I wasn't going to discuss the appeal through DMs.

Personally I don't really care whether it's done through DMs or a thread, most of the SS staff are busy handling the event planning so a slower paced forum discussion would likely work best regardless.

I've just got home, so I'll write my response to the actual thread once I'm all sorted and have had something to eat.

 

[Neonity]

I don't mean to be divisive or cause unwanted controversy but doesn't Short Stories allow members who are banned permanently or otherwise on the main server to participate in their events? I don't know if this is still the Short Stories team's policy; it just seems a bit conflicting to allude to some community-given standard while simultaneously allowing the community's pariahs to fester in their discord and partake in their events. Again, I don't know if this is still their policy, but it has been for the longest time, and I'm just going off the record.

Short Stories does permit individuals who are banned from the main server to partake in events at the Short Stories staff's own discretion.

However, Omega is not currently banned on the main server, so his only ban remains for Short Stories.

 

[Hayden]

Finally free and will write my response to the points made. Note that once I've posted my response, I'll @ short stories staff to review this and provide their own opinions.

To begin with - I'll just state that when I became Short Stories manager I swore to stand by some principles to avoid making mistakes that I feel like Willard main has made in the past. One of those principles is a commitment to democracy - allowing every member of staff in the team have a vote as equal as my own that I will avoid vetoing outside of the most dire circumstances. It is for this reason that - as much as I might like to - I won't veto the unban appeal and force a unban. That will ultimately be up to the rest of the team.

Now, onto the responses-

I don't mean to be divisive or cause unwanted controversy but doesn't Short Stories allow members who are banned permanently or otherwise on the main server to participate in their events? I don't know if this is still the Short Stories team's policy; it just seems a bit conflicting to allude to some community-given standard while simultaneously allowing the community's pariahs to fester in their discord and partake in their events. Again, I don't know if this is still their policy, but it has been for the longest time, and I'm just going off the record.

Yes, we tend to ban people who are banned in the main server permanently. Though occasionally we won't ban if the reason is a bit 'out there' or if the player has always behaved well in SS events. Though this is irrelevant because as Neonity said, Omega isn't banned from the main server.

In regards to the main post made by Omega, I genuinely don't think you're a bad guy. I think sometimes you just struggle to find the right way to phrase criticism which often causes your criticism to lean towards toxicity and hostility - something I can't abide. The SS team spend hours and often days to write a event that they think the players will enjoy and that they themselves will enjoy running, while positive criticism is appreciated, the way you phrase things often lead to staff losing motivation to plan events because nothing would ever be perfect enough and you would often end up causing further drama with other people joining in following your stead.

To answer why appealing again in 3 months instead of just giving up is a better option - showing that you're actually dedicated to joining the community again proves that you'll also be dedicated to not reverting to your old habits. While yes, you might have wished you could have joined some of the other events we've ran, you didn't appeal for them - to us, it just looks like you might just be here for the mega-event and once it's over might just return to stirring drama, on purpose or accidentally, we don't know. Alongside that, being more active on the main server + the main server's discord will allow the SS team to see that you're a lot more chill than you used to be and have learned from prior mistakes.

For sure, we could give you a chance to take part and prove that you've changed, but if you do return and just go back to how you acted in the past, it'd only lead to other players feeling more negative too and also likely lead to the staff losing motivation once more, which in a mega-event of this scale, could be catastrophic. I personally would not want to risk something like that given how much work everyone has put into this, and how high the expectations are from the players who are going to be joining.

With all that said, I will now leave it in the hands of my team to decide again, but you're also free to provide a response to anything I've said too.

 

[Omega]

In regards to the main post made by Omega, I genuinely don't think you're a bad guy. I think sometimes you just struggle to find the right way to phrase criticism which often causes your criticism to lean towards toxicity and hostility - something I can't abide. The SS team spend hours and often days to write a event that they think the players will enjoy and that they themselves will enjoy running, while positive criticism is appreciated, the way you phrase things often lead to staff losing motivation to plan events because nothing would ever be perfect enough and you would often end up causing further drama with other people joining in following your stead.

To answer why appealing again in 3 months instead of just giving up is a better option - showing that you're actually dedicated to joining the community again proves that you'll also be dedicated to not reverting to your old habits. While yes, you might have wished you could have joined some of the other events we've ran, you didn't appeal for them - to us, it just looks like you might just be here for the mega-event and once it's over might just return to stirring drama, on purpose or accidentally, we don't know. Alongside that, being more active on the main server + the main server's discord will allow the SS team to see that you're a lot more chill than you used to be and have learned from prior mistakes.

Sorry if my responses from here are more scattered, as I’m not home at the moment. With this first part, I hadn’t appealed a ban previously because I had expected them to be denied. I know I’m a bit controversial when it comes to the Willard Staff, so my lack of speaking in actual Discord is because I don’t want to accidentally stir drama. I’ve played on main here and there after my unban, but I hadn’t been too big of a fan of the new loyalty system, and wasn’t finding too much to do in the industrial city at the time. I’ve been meaning to hop back on, but I’ve been obsessed with Escape from Tarkov and Squad lately. Though through people like Reece and M!NT, I’ve been keeping up with the state and development of Willard. I know my lack of public communication may make me seem uninterested, but it’s because I know I can just say things that may cause drama without meaning them to. I was hoping this would be seen as me keeping my head low and trying to be a good member of the community, but it seems to have done the opposite.

For sure, we could give you a chance to take part and prove that you've changed, but if you do return and just go back to how you acted in the past, it'd only lead to other players feeling more negative too and also likely lead to the staff losing motivation once more, which in a mega-event of this scale, could be catastrophic. I personally would not want to risk something like that given how much work everyone has put into this, and how high the expectations are from the players who are going to be joining.

I feel like this argument can just be made forever, because there’s no real way to refute it, since it’s just two hypotheticals; one where everyone loses because I act the same way I had in the past and staff lose motivation and I get banned, and the other where I only lose and stay banned. I could apply again in three months, but at this point, there’s nothing stopping the team from making the same point again, that I could just go back to my old ways, so I should stay banned. That’s why the big question of “Why?” comes up. From my point of view, it feels like if I came back in three months, that’s what would happen. I already waited so long to do this appeal to have some time in between what I got banned for, and my unban appeal. I had thought giving everyone time to cool off would be the best for mainly myself, but also all of us. It seems that once again, this had the opposite effect, making it seem worse for myself.

 

[Hayden]

Alright. The second unban vote has been met with 9 people voting for a unban, and 5 people voting against. So I've gone ahead and lifted the ban, as explained in your DMs, along with the stipulation provided there.

What I'll say here is - this won't work in the future, for anyone considering writing a discussion to open conversation with staff when their appeal is met with a denial. I know some people look upon me unfavorably after allowing this to be seen as a legitmate attempt at cementing a unban, but I felt it may be for the best to allow it for reasons I mostly mentioned in my replies.

This discussion will be locked. I hope everyone has fun in the upcoming megaevent, and my DMs are - as always - open if anyone has questions or would like to talk about this.