Yet another ban appeal I guess

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

Steam Name: Joku
SteamID: STEAM_0:1:226297218

Name of the Admin you were banned by: Kappatalist

How long is the ban for?: Permanent

The reason you were banned?: LTARP, FailRP, (Metagame?)

Why do you wish to be unbanned?:

I feel as if my punishment was only allowed to remain/be a permanent ban because of the ultimatum I had haphazardly (and without much of a choice) agreed on, given by booile in February last year. That ultimatum being that if I were to receive a single warning of any kind that'd be placed on my record, no matter the severity, consequences or any other criteria, I'd be permanently banned again. The first re-ban after this (which was also LTARP) I took full responsibility for, seeing and accepting that I had screwed up and done a rule break, but in the second instance, I think there was more harm in banning me than keeping me on the server, which I will explain below.

The second situation that lead to my ban happened on the 7th of August. @Kaffee's vortigaunt, Kaar'Raf was figured out to be a free vortigaunt, due to his collar not shocking them as they entered the drain on Triumph street. Meanwhile this was going on, I (as Mr. Morales by nickname) was told by cheeeese's character Yamen Houston, A.K.A 'Baxter' told me that the combine might be sending a CP unit and one of the loyalist men (them being Flextern and/or his companion) into the slums. Realizing that this may result in a sweep due to the amount of suspicious action happening at the time, I took off to my base, while telling everyone that "Cops are coming" to get them to leave, before I flagged off in my apartment (LTARP).

Onto my citizen character Frank Sanders, whom due to the recent RDT bombing done by Belgg (as Slava Mozorov) among other actual terrorist actions committed by the rebels, had been getting falsely beaten, interrogated and otherwise mistreated by the Combine. He was also nearly fed to a headcrab for no reason by someone who came from the slums the same day, which both worked in contribution to my actions as Frank during the hunt for Kaffee. Either way;
I flagged onto Frank Sanders, and I spawned in, and did not see or hear anything going down, believing my warning had died in vain, planning on heading back to character or staying as Frank for city business, tabbing out and doing my thing(s) on various other apps I have open, e.g reading through the Discord and browsing the forums. And once I tab back in, I find myself in the middle of a large TBC ring, with incendiary grenades blowing up and hearing CP's getting damage and a vortigaunt blast flying across the screen. I figured that this is my character's change to take (petty?) revenge against the slums for causing him such misfortune as they had, which was to help the CP's with the already ongoing hunt down of their target, which I found out to be a vortigaunt.
I follow the vortigaunt into the slums, trying to distract it with stupid questions, and subtly getting in its way, but not to provoke it to attack me, until I get into the slum housing, where S2K is initiated. As the warm-up for S2K ends, I immediately chase the vortigaunt up the stairs, through the many possible criminals running around in an apparent panic, to an apartment, where I see the vortigaunt enter. I yell to the CP's that the vortigaunt had entered this apartment, and to go get them, and the other possible criminals running around all over the place. To my surprise and later doom, I learned that all of the Neighborhood Watch was inside the apartment, trying to hide their weapons, armor and other illegal items in their lockers, only to get gunned down by the CP's who raided the apartment.

The events that occurred that night would end up with me getting banned around 18 hours after, for the aforementioned LTARP, FailRP and possibly Metagame.

Let me begin from the heaviest of the bunch.

1. Metagame
Checking all the images and other material I have from the events of the day I cannot find any indication of metagame happening on my part, but (if it even is among the rule breaks here) I think where it is coming from, knowing where Raf's/NW's hideout was and using that information to tell me where Kaar'Raf went. I can say I did not know that the NW used the apartment next to the hole in the wall as a base, believing they still used the one upstairs, which if it were the case, I'd have lost sight of Raf during the chase as they'd have gone upstairs, and simply yelled that they are somewhere in the apartments. I simply followed Raf, saw them entering the apartment next to the hole in the wall, and closing the door, then told the CP's where they went, as seen below:



2. FailRP
I know what this is for, which is coming along on the chase for Raf in the first place, having no real reason to do so. The reason I joined up for said chase was for the revenge against the slums and the people/beings it houses for what they had done to the city infrastructure, among other things, causing him to receive beatings, risking starvation and being fed to a headcrab.
I completely understand that this does not sum up to sufficient reason to do this, since nobody in particular was the culprit of the damages, but there is a catch. If, according to the rules, no matter who you are, where you are, or what you are doing IC, AFK or not, if you find yourself in a TBC ring and get caught in crossfire, you are liable for letting yourself get killed in the fight, and it being a PK, why am I not allowed to take offensive/defensive measures to prevent death from occurring? It is not my fault I got myself into the TBC ring, as the fight started happening around me when I was tabbed out. That's also the other thing, I did not initiate combat with the rebels, that being the CP's, or the rebels/Raf at the CP's. My overall involvement was minimal, and who knows if it'd have mattered either way, since there is/was no limit to the amount of apartments/bases the CP's can raid until they find their target, at least that I know of. This may only lessen the severity of this warning, but wouldn't it make sense to you in my boots?

And finally, 3. LTARP
This is for flagging off to avoid the sweep. It was partially my mistake, but I believe I can and may also drop some of the blame on whoever wrote that section in the rules. Someone had said (I don't remember who if it is important) that the hidden bases rule is back, thinking we are allowed to go into our bases and be able to hide in them without a worry in the world and flag off in them again. I also thought that since I had done nothing to cause a sweep, I.E shotcopping, miscellaneous threats, or other or make myself a known and super major target in one, I could flag off my character or leave the server without having to worry about an LTARP ban. I was completely oblivious to the fact, that apparently even if you aren't the reason for the sweep or any kind of other trouble that you may cause, leading you to be hunted, or even if you don't cause anything with your actions, you still cannot leave the server or character, that being the bad part in the written rule;
The LTARP rule is either not properly specified for people not native to an English speaking country, or it simply lacks definition as it is only stated that "you should neither leave the server or character for approximately 30 minutes after an active situation, as people may be looking for your character." The active situation, in this instance being Raf's exposure as a free vortigaunt, which happened around 6 minutes after I left the character, having also done that after doing the people a favor of warning them of a possible sweep being caused by either Flextern or his partner and a CP, by seeing the operations going on in the slums. I had no idea they were actually preparing to kill or capture Raf.
If my argument here is easily dismantlable, all I can do is ask that did me flagging off my rebel character matter, the circumstances within me leaving my character and other points considered?

To sum everything up, even if I can be held accountable for any rule breaks with my statements, was permanently banning me really better than keeping me unbanned? Especially with the One Warning ultimatum, I was always doing the utmost not to get myself into any trouble that would be rule breaking or cause rule breaking, but that, obviously, was not enough, because of the damned ultimatum. One mistake, even if minor, and it'd've been all over. My actions that day weren't done out of malice and/or personal reasons, like the accusations of me doing them in that light state. I did not know anybody else was in the apartment other than Raf when everything was happening, having expected everyone to have also flagged off character, gone into the city or otherwise escaped the possible sweep. All that, without mention of the fact that the entire event was voided, and Raf was never legitimately exposed as a free vortigaunt, and there were no repercussions for anyone's actions during or after it.
Permanently banning me also led to the disbansion of my group, Morales Distributors, which had a really good beginning to it, and I'm sure we'd have flourished if I were allowed to continue leading it. I had a good feeling about it as well, but unfortunately, what happened, well, happened, and with my fall fell the group too. Of the members, those being Antsy, cheeeese, Dave the Owl and Scott Govaerts, three left the server soon after, who I believe would have stayed, had the gang not disbanded.

Everything happened to fall in place to build a bridge for me to cross back into the cast of the banned players, and it was upsetting, and still is.

I wish you to reconsider keeping me, a well dedicated player away from the server for, with all things said so little, as well as keeping me on thin ice if I am to be let in again. That being said, if I am to be let back on the server again, I plead to you that you abolish the One Warning ultimatum. It is unfair and is practically a relic of the old punishment system.
I want to experience the end of V2 with you and the community, having been there in the beginning of the server in V1.

Please, and thank you.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Debates are still ongoing with the staff team. Sorry for the long response times. It's being looked into.

 

[Rabithunter]

Hello! Apologies for the waiting time. I have a lot to go through here and the staff have been discussing this behind the scene's. Let me walk through the various aspects of this appeal step by step.

In the past you had been warned for various reasons. Those include the following:

Metagame seems to be the most prevalent reason for your warnings and something you have been prone to doing. Fedora banned you for this on the 18th of November 2021. The second warning was three days later by Noh, with a ban appeal thread attached.

You were given a warning after this appeal was accepted, and your ban reduced to three days.
The next warning isent particularly clear, so moving to the last one that states you char swapped/flagged off your char to avoid CP's from RPing and trying to find your char.

Moving to the bans next, we have the following:

Your first on the 9th of December 2021 was for being constantly toxic towards staff members, with multiple metagame cases and was "classed" as a detriment to the community. This was placed by Fedora and Rule Zero'd, meaning that it was down to staff discretion given how the rules may not have covered the ban in is entirety.

The second was a ban given after being warned that you would receive one if warned again, given by Goose. This was given (From a little deducing through the warnings) after Flerk warned you for flagging off your char.

The final one given by Kappatalist was for avoiding a sweep by flagging off your char. This is something you have done multiple times, being warned and banned for all of those occurrences.

I understand how you have said you will change, and how you know the wrongs you did to receive all of these warnings and bans. I also understand that you believe you know why and how you did wrong, proving such within this appeal in the form of details to relay those facts.

Looking through the history of others as an example, I can see people who have been banned and warned in equal measure as you have been, and for months (As I think of one individual) has not done anything to warrant being given a ban/warning, and are now RPing in a much better way then they had been. They didnt receive a perma ban as you have done, but did in quick succession and could have easily been given one, had they not changed their RP methods and abide by the rules of the server.

All in all, I dont believe you will change, or at least not yet. Through the majority of your appeals, your story has for the most part remained the same, in regards to you supposedly learning from mistakes and vowing not to do what got you warned/banned in the first place. I appreciate the fact that you have put in the efforts for this appeal process and for that reason I have also put in some effort to this reply, to hopefully convey my thoughts and opinions on the matter.

I will state that this appeal is denied, based on previous infractions and the toxicity towards staff in the past. For now I will say that you are now back on the forums again, so you can freely converse with others and partake in the various discussions. Over time, if we can see that you are no longer toxic to people and prove to us as a staff team that you are indeed capable of keeping a cordial conversation, you may again appeal in two months from this date. I make this decision carefully, given how you have only just been unbanned from the forums to make this appeal. I hope you understand the reasoning behind my denial, and respect why I and the rest of the staff team have come to this decision.