[Scree] Heroman3003 - Discord ban

[Heroman3003]

Byond account and character name: Heroman3003/Lauren Zackson and some barely used others
Discord ID (if applicable): Heroman#3003
Banning admin: Scree, I presume. At the very least the message about reason was from him
Ban type (What are you banned from?): Discord ban
Ban reason given: "You're getting a time-oput for your completely uncalled for sniping out of nowhere in servive chat. It's getting toxic and I'm sick of other developers having to put up with your completely unconstructive critique."
Ban length: Indefinite
Approximate date that the ban was placed (including time zone): 1 AM on 16th of july (approximately, it was at some point overnight).
Your side of the story: During discussion of Pip's changes to service the topic ended up being slightly derailed towards xenobio mapping and I took the opportunity to do a jab at Rykka's personal overdefensiveness when the topic comes up. Pip requested then we stop and get back on topic, which I did, not contuing to talk about either xenobio and not returning to said jab further. Next morning I found myself not on discord with a single message from Scree containing the ban reason.
Why you think you should be unbanned: Regarding the first part of the ban, I entirely admit that it was a shitty and wrong thing to do, especially in unrelated discussion. I normall avoid any sort of discussion related to other people's behaviour while arguing or debating topics that are unrelated to that and will continue to do so regardless. For second part of the reason, I simply do not see it as true. While I won't deny that I myself am usually talking about negative aspects/possibilities, I also try to avoid presenting it as 'overall critique' of any given suggestion, idea, etc (unless it is, which isn't common), but rather as mostly just listing out potential issues I can see in hopes that whoever is working on it can either prevent them before it's too late or at least address them in some form. I also don't often end up giving positive praise to ideas/things either, but that is mostly on account that I prefer to try and not repeat things that were already said by others, and there are often a bunch of people already having given general approval of idea/proposal vast majority of the time.

[Scree]

This issue is, this isn't the only time you've resorted to passive-aggressive sniping at people in the discord. It's not even the worst. This is just the straw that broke the camel's back. You've got a reputation for doing nothing but complain. There's been occasions where the complaining has escalated into taking things into people's DMs and bitching at them because you blame them for you not getting a scene or something.

You were personally responsible for me making an announcement not a couple of months ago telling people to take their critique to modmail so that our nicer staff wouldn't have to be subject to harassment in their DMs, specifically over an incident where I know damn well you wouldn't dare to speak to me or Dragor in the way you did.

And when people ask for help in the coding discussions, you come out with remarks like this:


This is without going into the longstanding trend of arguments kicking off in spacelobby or one of the off-topic channels and finding you in the middle of them.

Long story short, I've had a pleasant few days not having to hear your name attached to yet another argument happening somewhere. If I were to let you back in, I'd prefer not to see any more flare-ups with you in the middle of them. And I don't want to hear any lawyering on this either. The technical letter of the rules is far less important than the spirit of them.

[nerdass]

no support

in fact the only way i'd be comfortable with you coming back is if you were banned from commenting on github, and permanently blocked from participating in any of the development channels, because it feels like all you're here to do is actively sabotage the confidence of people who just want to volunteer their time and enthusiasm to helping out with our project.

[Nanaki]

Support, but...

While what Heroman did was wrong, I do feel that a lot of the issues that brought things up to this point was that, at some point, Heroman started being the designated punching bag for some players as Resh pointed out. You cannot really expect a player to be at the receiving end of barbs and criticism and not lash out at some point. While a lot of this was a consequence of Heroman's negative behavior in the past, at some point negativity begets negativity and it just becomes a self-feeding cycle of destruction. While banning Heroman from development channels would probably break the cycle as well, it is akin to dealing with two feuding players by banning one of them, when both of them have done shit to each other.

[Mr_Signmeup]

Support.


What Heroman did to warrant this ban from the discord wasn't right. However, I agree that with Heroman's reputation as the 'bad guy' of development, people have seemingly being able to get away with similar behaviour. But, with Heroman's reputation, any wrong-doings against him are overlooked because it's Heroman and he's always wrong.

I ain't asking for special treatment of him. What I'll be looking for is equal treatment. If someone does something similar, they should be punished for it in a similar manner not just because they're someone.

[rotago]

I support heroman coming back under the condition that he works on his behavior. Unpromted snipes towards other players because of personal grudges is not something that is supported on this server, regardless of how small the snipe is. Ultimately the straw here was a microtransgression, but that doesn't really excuse it. And I understand the notion that heroman shouldn't be the punching bag of development because "heroman is always wrong" or because we have some form of bias against him. I personally find the advice heroman provides to be useful, he can give very well constructed, concise, and constructive criticisms and requests, but this repeated behavior taints that quite a bit.
I approve of this appeal, especially because he stopped when asked, and continued on to have a constructive conversation. But again, I'd like to personally see an improvement on this sort of behavior.

[Heroman3003]

This issue is, this isn't the only time you've resorted to passive-aggressive sniping at people in the discord. It's not even the worst. This is just the straw that broke the camel's back. You've got a reputation for doing nothing but complain. There's been occasions where the complaining has escalated into taking things into people's DMs and bitching at them because you blame them for you not getting a scene or something.

You were personally responsible for me making an announcement not a couple of months ago telling people to take their critique to modmail so that our nicer staff wouldn't have to be subject to harassment in their DMs, specifically over an incident where I know damn well you wouldn't dare to speak to me or Dragor in the way you did.

And when people ask for help in the coding discussions, you come out with remarks like this:

For most of Scree's points, I would like to believe that I've already been improving even at the time of the ban. I've reigned back my 'casual' complaints about scenes or what have you severely. The issue with staff harassment was a one-time situation and it won't repeat either, as I got the message perfectly clear (and tbh I probably would have went to modmail directly if I was actually used to it. Pretty much two years of constant "go to staff directly if you have problems" made me too used to that idea so I only thought of modmail as 'ahelp but for discord stuff'). And the 'attacks on other developers' aspect, I've been trying my damndest to only critique and/or bring up points related to the idea, the PR, the code, whatever, and not person behind it. Sometimes arguments do tend to get more heated, although even then I try to maintain my focus on the discussion/argument and not on people involved. But it does get hard when on regular basis in return to arguments about specifically idea, implementation, concept itself, I get arguments about my personality or the type of argument I tend to present. Which I just try to suck up and move on, usually, since I know that if I respond, I only invite argument to get even more personal than other people are making it by targeting me instead of my points.

As for the final part of the points brought up...

This is without going into the longstanding trend of arguments kicking off in spacelobby or one of the off-topic channels and finding you in the middle of them.

Long story short, I've had a pleasant few days not having to hear your name attached to yet another argument happening somewhere. If I were to let you back in, I'd prefer not to see any more flare-ups with you in the middle of them. And I don't want to hear any lawyering on this either. The technical letter of the rules is far less important than the spirit of them.

This really seems to not point any issues actually related to me... Beyond me just being part of discussions that end up going sour, whether I started it or not, whether I was reason it got sour or not. Which, I'd argue, is not too fair a point. Unless there is a different implication behind those words beyond just "not liking to see this person specifically be part of arguments" while not having issues with arguments of same tone happening without them involved, at which point I'm sorry but I don't see it here.

in fact the only way i'd be comfortable with you coming back is if you were banned from commenting on github, and permanently blocked from participating in any of the development channels

This just seems like "trade ban in one place for ban in another" type of deal, which is something I'd argue is straight up unfair, regardless of circumstance.

general points related to me being targeted as well

I appreciate the support and I do still hold firm belief that people were pretty much enabled in making the microaggressions on exactly same level as the 'straw' that led to the ban towards me on regular basis, so while I won't deny in a bit that what I did was a dick move and wrong... I would also argue that normality of those dick moves towards me shouldn't be treated as normal. People say I'm contrarian for sake of being contrarian, but I just prefer looking at things from negative lens if only because it allows to actually discuss and notice both ups and downs of things, not just gush over how good it will be.


In general, I reiterate what I said in the OP. I don't deny any wrongdoings that I did, and I would not repeat it again or at least do my best not to. But to add to that, I feel it really should be a two-way road in that regard. Because it honestly got to the point where I regularly have to specifically stop myself from making a light snap towards someone's personality or general way to conduct a discussion or argument, in part because of how often I am on the recieving end of such, it just starts to feel normal. The situation that was 'the straw', I just didn't in time. I don't conciously want to attack people personally and never have active intent of doing so. And I have been trying to improve on way I conduct myself during discussions or arguments, to not appear like I do intend to personally target a person. But fact that I still regularly get tiny personal jabs that people are perfectly allowed to get away with does not make it easy.

[Scree]

Okay, I'll make things clear: I don't want to see you cropping up in any more arguments. I certainly don't want you showing up to leap into discussions that don't involve you to rules lawyer when the admins are trying to tell people to stop being assholes, because that just drags the argument out further. That incident that lead to off-topic being removed was pure rules-lawyering - it was abusing the strict letter of the rules, being disruptive to make a point, and when we told them to knock it off, heroman came charging in through the window to stir it up even more.

I want none of that. I don't want any more hour long arguments because an event happened that you didn't participate in but you decided was the reason you didn't get a scene. We're not 4chan or a court of law, and you are one of the worst offenders for not shutting up after the admins have stepped in to say "this is getting heated, everyone shut up".

If you think you can do that, sure.

[Heroman3003]

Okay, I'll make things clear: I don't want to see you cropping up in any more arguments.

That specific part I cannot vouch or guarantee. While I won't deny that sometimes I join mostly unrelated arguments just to state my point/opinion, sometimes even if unwarranted, just as often I am simply part of dicussion that evolves into an argument as people get more heated/different people join in, or discussion I'm part of is even unrelated, but then an argument sparks in same channel.

I certainly don't want you showing up to leap into discussions that don't involve you to rules lawyer when the admins are trying to tell people to stop being assholes, because that just drags the argument out further.

And that is specifically the thing I've been trying to avoid doing in general, stopping when told to stop. The situation with off-topic felt pretty different mostly because discussion was already sparked around whether or not the rule actually conveyed its intent well enough or not, and was definitely not the only one who suddenly appeared as part of conversation when discussion shifted from politics to the rule, and at least I was, even if silently, watching the channel and conversation before it went down.

In general, I cannot say that I will simply cease showing up in arguments completely forever. That would be near-impossible in the chat like Virgo. Trying to be more civil, not involving yourself when not necessary and stopping when you are told? Now those aspects I can promise that I will continue, as I already was trying to, improve upon.

[Scree]

Alright. Ban lifted. Cause no trouble.