[Scree] TealZone Permaban Appeal / Name Clearing

[Aquajazz]

Byond account and character name: TealZone, CKE-210 / maint drones
Discord ID (if applicable): Bluehaus#8171
Banning admin: Scree
Ban type (What are you banned from?): Server ban, Discord ban
Ban reason given: Banned by host: Reason: You, or another user of this computer or connection (tealzone) is banned from playing here. The ban reason is: Running a bot that connects and observes every shift 24/7 with ghostears/eyes on and evades AFK kicks to observe and log everything that happens on the server. For months. Including people's private scenes. Was evasive about it when asked what they were doing. Even joined before server start so their ghost wouldn't have a sprite visible to the players. This ban was applied by scree on 2020-04-16 17:19:34
Ban length: Permanent
Approximate date that the ban was placed (including time zone): April 16, 2020, 5:19 PM EST
Your side of the story: The ban reason given is correct, I was using an autohotkey script to rejoin and observe in rounds when I was asleep for the purposes of saving logs. The round where I was banned, like the majority of rounds, I had reconnected manually then minimized dreamseeker to go back to playing minecraft. Aronai attempted to contact me in-game three different ways (deadchat, subtlenarrate, LOOC), none of which made any audio like a bwoink to get my attention. Then they confronted me on discord about it, and I said dumb things because I was too nervous to admit "yes, I'm saving rounds so I can read through them later like some sorta weirdo", so I was banned. Aronai blocked me afterwards, and about two hours later I was kicked and presumably banned from the discord.
Why you think you should be unbanned: I'll accept the ban if the reason is for the use of a script or violating privacy, but it looks like there's a rumor floating around that I was blackmailing people?? I want to make it clear that I have never, and would never do anything like that. I've been hanging around here for about three years at this point, and wouldn't imagine trying to harm the community or anyone in it. The majority of my messages on the discord were answering questions in #cadet_academy and job channels before that existed, trying to help people. I did some coding before burning myself out on a too ambitious project, to try and make the server better. I'd regularly join as a maint drone to set power on deadpop shifts at 3 or 4 in the morning, to not inconvenience people. I'd often join as an engiborg to do repairs after teslooses/delaminations/surface plasma leaks, to help out. The only negative thing has been semi-minor disagreements about sprite direction in #development and PRs on github. Nothing I've done here has ever had a malicious intent, and this was no different. I'm just someone who wanted an archive of past rounds to go through and experience them later, not a criminal mastermind looking for dirt on people. I am not, and have never been, a blackmailer. I was going to wait longer before appealing, but I wanted to try and stop my name from getting dragged through this crime mud.
Additionally the lack of ghost sprite had nothing to do with joining before server start, it's an option in the ghost tab to select your sprite, one of which is 'clear'. I've always tried to make my ghost sprite as unobtrusive as possible, on every server I've observed. When I'm watching stuff actively, usually because of a command announcement noise and Stuff Happening, I get bothered by having a sprite glued in the center of the screen and the 'toggle ghost vision' option only hides other ghosts but not your own.

[arokha]

Just to clarify, the reason I avoided using adminpm to contact you was in case you were, in fact, using a bot and had the client unmuted. If that were the case, you could hear the bwoink, and say 'oh yes I'm here'. I used the other methods instead, while verifying that your client.inactivity var was indeed dropping to 0 repeatedly, indicating you were not AFK (or your bot wasn't, anyway). That was intentional.

[Scree]

I have no idea where the blackmail thing came from. If I thought you were blackmailing people with ERP logs I wouldn't even be entertaining this discussion right now. That's something that the rumour mill has churned up.

There have been past incidents with players that have been ejected for sharing logs around, but those players aren't around any more.

[Aquajazz]

I assumed the idea of blackmail was considered true because of the discord ban, to hypothetically stop me from collecting more from there. I had never intended to make anyone uncomfortable or violate their privacy.

[Mr_Signmeup]

Considering you have been doing it for quite a long time without going unnoticed until now. I believe I can safely say you haven't been collecting these logs for malicious intent or else we would've seen these effects waaay back then.

However, IMO, if you want to get back into the community, this bot-log collecting will need to stop because even if you don't have any malicious intent behind it... It's creepy as, dude. Specially since the dedication to program such a thing.

To get my support, you need to promise that the bot will never be active in this community again.

[DrYeehaw]

I presume when you refer to blackmail you heard it through Jayda? If so, my point was misunderstood. I was saying that there had been a case of that in the past, but in general the far more pertinent reason was it was just plain weird, man. I never ONCE mentioned the idea to anyone else and it floated it out there, it was solely through them asking why you got banned and I listed reasons.The blackmail thing is completely irrelevant and you have not been accused of that, I assure you.

[JoanRisu]

I assumed the idea of blackmail was considered true because of the discord ban, to hypothetically stop me from collecting more from there. I had never intended to make anyone uncomfortable or violate their privacy.

I believe when we (as in, the community) were talking about our changes to how ghosts hearing/seeing worked in our public channels, this ban came up (either in the background or in the actual discussion) along with other issues we've had to deal with, and the implications of allowing bot logging. I apologize for our discussions muddying your actual ban reason during a wider discussion and how that is currently reflecting yourself and this case.

Just to clear the air and for the record, Your ban specifically was over the bot logging and using scripts to circumvent our AFK system.

However, IMO, if you want to get back into the community, this bot-log collecting will need to stop because even if you don't have any malicious intent behind it... It's creepy as, dude. Specially since the dedication to program such a thing.

I would also like this stipulation. If you want back in, you need to ditch the bot. I don't necessarily think this situation was malicious, I just can't open the door and allow this method of logging to happen as a matter of policy.

[Aquajazz]

I am absolutely willing to ditch the script if that's what's needed. I'll send a copy to an admin and delete it, if anyone cares to look at it. It's really pretty garbage, all it can do is click a button from the lobby and send like five commands to get the ghost out of the way before pinging every once in a while to stave off the AFK kick.

Sorry for being the weirdo that caused a rule to be clarified.

[JoanRisu]

I appreciate the apology and, for the record, acknowledge the terms being accepted. I've been informed it wouldn't hurt to have a copy of the script so send a copy of it either through the forum messaging system, through modmail after your discord ban is lifted, or to an admin/dev's DMs in discord.

I'm going to leave the unbanning to Scree as per our procedures for these appeals, I'll let him know to take a look as soon as possible.

[nerdass]

this incident is legitimately one of the creepiest things i've ever seen.

neutral tending towards no support.