Approved Dani's Appeal

Your In Game Nickname:

Dani​

Your Steam ID:

STEAM_0:1:24719196​

Which Server:

EU2​

Why you should be unbanned:

You people are weeeeeirrrdddd

Related report: https://www.seriousgmod.com/threads/report-against-hongo.51955/

I got banned for ghosting. EVEN from this server I wouldn't have expected something like this because I thought that, even if you wanted to somehow ignore the reasoning behind our rules and the fact that nothing happened or could have happened, the exact wording of the rule shields me from getting banned for this.

"Providing current-round-related, game-influencing information to a player, or players, through means of communications other than world or team chat."

I didn't provide game-influencing information as it didn't influence the game.

"Just because it didn't end up influencing the round doesn't mean the information itself isn't influential" as Sticky Bandit put it makes no sense and you'd have to use moon logic to play with the English language like that. (And the word "influential" does not even appear in the rule if you wanna be a real nitpicker about this.)

What happened is that I messaged Hongo with "Tankor of Finland is a T" when Hongo was chat spamming every PM that I sent him to make him stop.
Hongo still kept spamming and gave everyone the message. (did he even get banned for ghosting because he provided this info to everyone intentionally?).

"Tankor of Finland is a T" was a completely nonsensical thing that I made up in my hand 3 seconds after I died from something completely unrelated. I did not know who was a T and who wasn't. Tankor was, as far as I can remember, propsurfing on the green car on Richlands with another person, so he was basically already doomed anyway.

Nobody killed Tankor for the KOS.

Even if someone had killed Tankor for the KOS, it wouldn't really have been ghosting since the information was as random as any false KOS or random deathmatch is.

The reason ghosting (that has the effect of one RDM) has a punishment of FOUR WEEKS and not 1 slay (let's say 5 minutes, which is 1/8064th of the punishment) is the implication that, by dying, I somehow gain an advantage and can give accurate information that I'm not allowed to give, thereby destroying the game systematically.

It was, however, basically just a random false KOS that nobody followed.
(A false KOS that nobody follows gets absolutely no punishment, by the way. So it's not about the intent. It's about the effect.)

However, I didn't even give accurate info. It was random.
And, again, it didn't influence the game, so it wasn't "game-influencing", no matter how you spin it.

You are literally creating problems where there were none. Nobody got hurt and I would even argue that nobody even COULD HAVE gotten hurt as a result of what I did (since Tankor was essentially dead). From getting punished for this act, I did not learn that I shouldn't do something like this in the future, since I know that, if I did this again under the same circumstances, absolutely nobody would get hurt once again.

I don't know what philosophical school you'd wanna quote here as a counter argument since neither the effect of what I did nor the action itself nor the intent behind it were negative in any way.

I don't know how coherent my points are, but I made some words bold, used some red font and underlined some stuff so the people in charge of this report might get the gist of what I said even if they don't wanna bother trying to understand it.​

Evidence of Innocence:

how about evidence of guilt bahahahaha​

 

@Sticky Bandit to address your ghosting ban!

 

@Lordyhgm because I heard you also had something to do with the interpreting of the rule and I don't wanna wait for Sticky to respond and then tag you and then wait even longer.

Here's a steam chat conversation that sticky and I had that you should check out to potentially accelerate this even more:

Spoiler: chat

Ignore the fact that there is some weird double-message in the middle. I awkwardly spliced 3 screenshots together and also didn't bother cropping the white away.

 

Before I go to sleep: Here's some more counter-arguments to potential things that staff might say (mostly taken from my convo with neutral on my profile). I encourage you to actually address this to prove that you are actually reading my posts. I don't wanna wake up tomorrow to an instant locking of the thread using arguments that I countered. xd

"Ghosting isn't just about whether the info really influences the game. It's about whether it has the potential to influence the game".

Well,

1. That is simply not what the rule says.
2. You don't punish false KOSes for the "potential" of harming a person either.
   
3. Whether the potential was even there still has to be proven. I personally don't remember the details of what happened and I do feel like it would have been a ballsy move of me to write that when there was a chance that someone could act upon it. We will see some proof concerning this from your side, I'm guessing.

"The MOTD states that ghosting is 'using private or third party chat to provide living players with round-related information they were not aware of, whether you are alive or dead'. It doesn't say anything about 'game-influencing' like the extended rules!"

Yes, but the extended rules do say that, and the more specific a rule is, the higher its priority is. That's basic logic and also the case in laws all around the world. If there's a rule that says "the info has to be game-influencing and given through other means than all-chat" and another rule that says "the info has to be given through other means than all-chat" then you can't just ignore the first rule and use the more general second rule.

 

guess what this appeal is also locked until the correct people reply - dani if you have more to add contact a staff member (il probably be at work though so not me)

 

I banned you for ghosting based on this screenshot:

Spoiler: SS

After interviewing you, I determined the person you sent this to was not a traitor (and alive), and the person you called out as a T was alive.
The extended rules can make it a little confusing, so let me do my best to clear it up here. In order for something to be "influencing", as the rules put it, it has to have the potential to influence. I wanted to stay away from wording my explanation like that in my PMs to you because the rules say "influencing", not "potential to influence". I didn't want to create more confusion around it by saying something that isn't on the rules. But those two phrases mean the same thing. So by this definition, you certainly ghosted. The definition I sent you in Steam PMs also said something similar, but worded a little differently. Same thing, though.
On another note, any information you send to someone in game who's alive and doesn't already have the information (ie, sending a list of the traitors to a traitor doesn't change anything), is influential in some way. It's impossible to tell the extent of that influence. Perhaps the person you ghosted to moved left to go toward the person you called out, when they would have gone right. Think about it like the butterfly effect: there's no way to tell how much you affected the round state by sending that PM.

Now, to address the points you made:
1) See above. I hope I did a better job at explaining this.
2) Correct, we do not punish for false KOS's that weren't acted upon. However, information that is ghosted changes the round in ways beyond anything obvious. That said, see below. The context of that PM is whacky, at best.
3) Potentially, Hongo could have found Tankor and killed him. He may have been propsurfing with some other guy, but even so, Hongo could have sniped him and caused both players to die prematurely (compared to when they would have died, had you not sent that information).

Considering the context of this PM, however, I will be unbanning you. The ban will not be voided, seeing as it is a valid case of ghosting.
In the future, please refrain from sending people PMs with round related information, even if the information is false and that person is trolling.

If you have any further questions, please DM me.