[JertheAce] DeepIndigo -Permanent Everything ban

[DeepIndigo]

Byond account and character name: DeepIndigo /(multiple characters)

Banning admin: JertheAce

Ban type (What are you banned from?): Server/Discord

Ban reason:
According to server log: Harboring info about underage players.
According to forums and discussions there-in: Organizing a cabal with the intent of discouraging Aronai from being an active presence in the community by seeing his characters permavored (I realize how dumb that sounds. The person who proposed that method supplied silly reasoning as to its efficacy that would have which at the time seemed about as reasonable as anything else on this server)
Ban length: Permanent

Approximate time ban was placed (including time zone): 14.June.2017 (Sever connect window says around 2206hrs, but for my timezone (Pacific USA/Canada GMT -08:00) it was around midday unless I'm mistaken)

Your side of the story:
Bear with me, I'm writing this after 6 months or so of trying to keep my mind off it (and failing to. It has literally eaten at me every single day since I was banned, before I go to sleep. I actually couldn't sleep for a few days immediately after, and all but quit discord because it reminds me of this fiasco too much)
I'm going to leave certain names out because by now we either all know who was involved, or if you don't, you don't need to go asking these people about it. If you're dying to know them, go read that cluster$%^& of an appeal thread I started back then at the suggestion of Ace when I tried to reach him to talk about all this.

At the time, I was fairly frustrated with a number of experiences in an otherwise rather enjoyable time spent in the community for this server ( got shouted out of the lore discussion at one point by two admins and another player for asking what I felt to be legitimate questions about the lore and what I perceived to be gaps of logic; as an example from some months prior that was already looked into by a few admins at the time and later). Apart from private one-on-one discussions with friends and an admin or two though, I'd largely just bottled it up. By the time the idea to reduce Aro's presence was proposed to me by [We'll call them "O", an apparent close associate of Aro's who in the one or two brief conversations I'd had with them prior to he mess that lead to this appeal, had lead me to believe they weren't all that close and virtually didn't talk] (leading to me organizing the cabal), I was already pretty upset.

This was compounded by the testimony I'd heard from someone who'd by then come to be a pretty good friend of mine, [calling them "J"] about some really unbecoming treatment they'd received from him over the years, even under completely different identities he would not have known, and a couple other factors I'm not getting into because it only has the potential to stir up more #$@% which I'm not here to do, I suppose you could say I was more or less radicalized at that point, and I let that get the better of me, and that was exceedingly #$%&ing stupid of me. This lead to my putting of 'O' and 'J' into contact after discussion of gripes regarding Aro with 'O'. When the "plan" (and I use that term loosely) was decided upon, 'O' brought up that they already knew of someone doing vore roleplay with Aronai [they'll be "A"] who could be "persuaded" (read: unfairly pressured due to their hesitance once they knew what was going on) to do the first "killing".

We'd later found out that 'O' had convinced 'A' to engage in the roleplay with Aro before even speaking to me the night this all went down, and when it came to light that 'O' had been the one to leak all the cabal's conversations to the admin team, and I confronted them, they tried to say it was 'A' who leaked (and were promptly disproved by a combination of log timestamp comparison and 'A' generally being a good person who was only participating due to 'O' and peer pressure anyway). In the end, everyone but 'O' was banned, which taken with the other events is pretty suspect but that's an issue for other discussions, if any. (though if memory serves 'A', thankfully was unbanned because frankly they never should have been banned to begin with since all they did was ERP someone on discord). Honestly I only mention it here for any new admins who might not otherwise be aware of the entire situation.

Later, I sought forgiveness from everyone who'd not blocked and removed me on discord without so much as a word, reached a person or two who had blocked me in order to attempt to do so (I have calendar reminders set for June 16th of 2018 Zalvine, as agreed) and had even made an attempt to two to get a hold of Aro, to no avail. Also did a fair bit of talking with Demi and Hoodoo (who was an admin at the time).

Why you think you should be unbanned:

Covered some of this above, but,
I've had six months to think about this. Six months of thinking about it every day before sleep for at least an hour. And I've spent the whole time kicking the crap out of my self for being such an idiot:
-I let mostly bottled up frustration fester into malice, and that was foolish of me
-It affected my judgement and when 'O' came in I ended up going from zero to full imbecile in seconds, then got carried away with the results.
-I took advantage of a friend or several during all that and since have tried to make amends with them. I'm immensely grateful to every one of them who's forgiven me or at least chosen not to cut ties with me.
-I said a lot of dumb &%*% I shouldn't have.
-I did some supremely dumb ^&$% I shouldn't have.
-I should have used the proper channels (admin complaint forum) for my gripes but at the time it seemed like that wouldn't yield real results.

I'm aware I was told by Ace that there was no appealing my ban in the other appeal thread, but to be fair, I have it on good authority that the first thread was not going to be taken seriously (the term "kangaroo court" was used to describe to me how it was planned to be treated more than once, by admins and friends-there-of) and it was pretty poorly executed on my part anyway.

And if my appeal is rejected, so be it, as heartbreaking as it's been to not be able to come here and roleplay as numerous characters I've put a lot of my self into. I'd like to extend a personal apology to everyone I've wrong who I haven't been able to reach personally, but especially Aronai, though I don't expect to be forgiven, in either event.
Lastly, of course, if my appeal were to be accepted, obviously, none of this %$&^ or anything similar would happen again.

[Thranos]

What do you mean I can't just crowdfund a darknet hitman with bitcoins to start a coup to destabilize a furry vore server because someone on it once made me drop my tendies?

[arokha]

I'm going to consider two aspects of this situation.

One aspect is whether or not I think you actually feel bad about what you've done and regret doing it on a level beyond that you regret getting caught. This is an important part of any appeal. Admins can't totally know a person, we don't have internet-empath powers, so we have to just judge based on a few paragraphs whether a person feels no guilt, is faking guilt, actually feels guilty, or actually feels guilty enough to have learned their lesson. It's important that anyone in an appeal is the latter thing in that list, otherwise there's no internal force in them to prevent them from doing the same thing again.

The other aspect is whether I personally think you're suitable for playing here based on mentality and other aspects of what I think I see in you. Basically whether I think your behavior will contribute to the server both in the short term (providing well-liked RP) and long term (not causing harm to the 'structure' of the server). People often consider that if someone 'RPs good' then they should be allowed to play on the server, but admins have a responsibility to steer the server in the direction they think is beneficial for everyone in the long run, sometimes going against popular demands if they think it would cause problems players can't/aren't willing to see.

These are the things that a parole board might do in prison, except in this case the prison is the bigger 'everywhere else' and the outside is 'a SS13 server'. They try to evaluate a person's history, determine if they have remorse for their actions, and decide whether or not they will be a detriment to society if released back into it.
--- --- ---
With regards to the first aspect, after reading this appeal I'm fairly convinced you do regret your actions, but I'm unsure you actually feel remorse for having done them, so much as feeling bad about the consequences. When you posted your appeal, some of the other admins started pasting parts of the logs from the previous appeal, and it reminded me that you were coming up with your own ideas on what you should do to me, beyond whatever things 'O' suggested doing. 'O' never mentioned doxxing me, yet you suggested that it'd be a good idea, saying you had contacts, for example. In fact they spoke against it and you tried to convince THEM it was a good idea.

It's clear that while they suggested the plan that you eventually went with, they didn't coerce you into it, and in fact you seemed to take it on as the leader of the 'cabal' when you thought it might have me resign. 'O' barely says anything after the start, and you take over constantly reassuring 'A' that they are doing the right thing. It doesn't speak of someone conflicted about what they are doing, or somehow deceived into the act. I digress, however, from the appeal.

The issue is that it seems you still contend in some parts you aren't responsible for your actions. In fact part of the appeal reads that you should be unbanned 'because you've suffered enough' which is not really the point of a ban, to make someone suffer, rather the point is to separate you from the community until such a time when including you would be appropriate. Given that, I'm not sure you meet that criteria, that being that you actually feel like your actions were bad simply because they are immoral, not because they had bad results for you personally.
--- --- ---
For the second aspect, whether or not I think your mentality is suitable for the community, I have my doubts. I'm told by people who claim they are close to you that you wanted me removed because of my manipulation, and that I somehow was opposed to someone being an admin, and didn't want Zalvine as an admin. I'll point out that the only person I've ever had any part in being deadminned was Nightwing, and I was not a headmin at the time and not my decision. I did support him being removed, however, but I didn't manipulate anyone to do it. I just spoke out against him in the admin chat whenever I felt he was doing something wrong. As for Zalvine, I supported him being an admin. I'll quote my only negative comment from the admin chat: "[1:49 AM] Aronai: Zal HAS gotten mad and stormed off a couple of times about things but we've all done it." which is hardly much of a negative comment. In reading back I also see that I was reminding people to go read his app and comment at the time.

I notice you don't mention it, but this also came shortly after I 'didn't support' your admin app because I thought you acted strangely about certain things on the server, namely any admin ruling involving you, and I wasn't sold on the idea of you being an admin. I didn't 'kill your admin app', I was just the last to comment on it. Other people had already not given support.

Given that the above things don't appear to be true (Not supporting Zalvine, manipulating Nightwing out of being an admin), I would assume it'd be hard to find good evidence to support them, which makes me think you acted based on unjustified beliefs with no knowledge, to the point you were suggesting doxxing someone to get rid of them, potentially ruining part of their life to get them to stop playing a video game. If this is what you are willing to do based on 'what you heard' then I'm not sure you have the proper mindset to participate in this community. I feel like you'd second-guess every admin decision and wonder if there's some conspiracy going on behind the scenes: the exact reason I didn't support your admin app originally, since you didn't seem to agree with any admins about any decisions.

This sort of willingness to take extreme measures based on very shaky information (and potentially just out of spite for me commenting on your admin app...) make me think that your mentality itself is not suitable for being in an environment where you'll face challenges like that sometimes, and see decisions made by staff that you don't always agree with.
--- --- ---
Unrelated to either, I should point out that I have only played 3 rounds, very recently, since this whole thing. Prior to this fiasco I was enjoying playing every day and coding new things for the server. So you aren't the only one affected by this for this length of time. Additionally, I'm not sure who told you the previous ban appeal was 'staged', but it's false. I don't necessarily agree with Ace putting the ban reason as only harboring the underage players and think he should have mentioned this whole event in it, but there was no 'planning' to deny your appeal from the start or anything. You appealed within a very short time after I had just explained what happened to the other admins. The deluge of hate was always going to happen... ban appeals are for you to type your feelings about the person, and that's what happened.
--- --- ---
Given the above, I'm not supporting your appeal at this time. This doesn't mean that it's denied, just that I personally don't think you satisfy those two aspects of what I would want to see in an appealing banned person. I should mention that I forgave you a long time ago. Whether that means I think you would be a good fit here, or ever want to speak to you again, is unrelated.

[SilencedMP5A5]

нет.

[Zalvine]

I'tha, DI.

It's taken me, a while to figure out what I actually want to say here. So, I'll stick to the important parts first - that is this appeal. I'm going to be blunt, I can't approve this. Even if I sit down and believe you whole heartedly on this matter, what you did was so extremely public and so extremely known. The aftershocks are still making their circles, I've yet to go a month where you aren't brought up in shall we say a very unpleasant way. The chances of you being chased right back out, or people taking anything you do with an extremely critical eye are exceptionally high. You nuked any good name you had, and you've yet to be forgotten. I have to take in consideration the effects of what would happen if you were returned to the fold, as of right now and it would not be beneficial. Not for you, not for the community. Simply, you're incredibly infamous and that's going to take a lot of time to die off. It's too soon for you to return, unfortunately. This is of course functioning under the assumption I whole heartedly believe you as well, which...I have my doubts.
'
Which brings me to point two. I have doubts. Reasonably so, through this mess it's no secret you managed to backstab me. It's not something I'm sure I've actually recovered from completely, you were a rather good friend of mine. I could go further with this, but to get back on target. I want to believe you, but you also gave me reason to doubt you. I do believe you've been miserable, and you've been hit hard by this. The major question I have is Why? I can't fully answer that. To reiterate, there's absolutely no argument that you've been miserable. What's the reason for it though? That you truly regret your actions--or is it because you got caught? Your wording, your explanation point toward the latter. Yet the fact you still remember the exact date I told you it'd be safe to contact me points to the former. Small things, but the devil is in the details. I'm torn between hope and cynicism simply put, you certainly made a monster out of yourself that's for certain. Six months is a long time...and yet so dreadfully short.

What I've left to say is this. You have potential, and you've quite the talents...if only you'd look past certain things, maybe instead of assuming from the get go, try to see it from another angle. I don't want you walking away from this, stagnating and carrying a chip on your shoulder. You made a hell of a mistake, that really only time and your own growth can repair. You say you realize what you did, how it was wrong, how it played out. Where do you plan to go from here? How do you anticipate to handle these situations in the future? What are you going to become? As it stands--you were canned and kicked to the curb, for ironically the very thing you'd become so obsessively convinced was happening with the admin team and Aronai. A conspiracy to remove others, and instill yourself as part of the command/leadership.

Finally. I'll say this. I forgive you, Indi. Shit happens. What you do after a mistake is what matters. I've unblocked you a while ago, balls in your court there.
However, as far as your ban itself is concerned. Ultimately, it shall be a Wah Stamp of Opposition.

[Demicus_Maximus]

Unless Ace or the other headmins object, I'd like to open this one up to the overall community as well. I feel that this is one of those appeals that deserves to let everyone be heard.

I'll post a reply of my own later on when I am not at work.

[LiquidFirefly]

HAH, No. Everything I'd wanna say has already been said above. You not only fucked yourself with the shit you tried to pull, but you nearly fucked quite a few other regular players here. Take your pity party somewhere else.

[Seiga]

I don't know you or much of the admin team on a personal level. But you went through a lot of effort to ensure your permaban was justified. It just represents so many things that we don't want our community members to ever do, not in the least general scumminess, but unregulated metagroups with no transparency to the admin team, especially those that might organise themselves to enact vigilante justice. To let you back in on the basis that you 'were misled' would demonstrate that you can just apply to get back in after you pull this sort of stunt. In other words, on a community scale, I think it will be more effective to make sure this kind of thing 'never happens again' by making good on the promise that the permanent ban that awaits you for doing it is permanent.

As a general comment, since this is now open to community discussion, people shouldn't be pulling this sort of stunt to begin with. If you no longer have faith in the administration, you shouldn't be here. It won't work out for anyone. If you have a problem or suspect foul play or want to complain about an admin we have channels for that. Going back to what I said at the outset, at least from what I know about the current state of affairs, not every admin is close friends with each other or controlled by the headmins.

[Aces]

for context, this was his last ban appeal - viewtopic.php?f=38&t=990

And here is my opinion - https://youtu.be/wvPgiNgjFD0

[Demicus_Maximus]

Sorry. I think you're a great person to RP with, and you may very well have improved over these past months... but I don't feel that you should return at this time. Try me again in another six months, or a year, make some personal appeals to the individuals you've wronged... then maybe I'll be more inclined to support an appeal. But I just cannot vote yes right now.