Completed Spud's Report

Report or Appeal:

Report​

Username of the reported player:

Destiny Blade​

Explain the case:

Since the appeal regarding this matter was closed by Destiny Blade himself but also regarded his own behaviour, I felt it was almost biased and ridiculous for him to lock the thread without addressing the points but perhaps it was my mistake for making my report part of the appeal rather than a seperate entity to be overseen by someone else - that's the same as being a judge in your own trial. Also, in the appeal I once again received an unsatisfactory answer that didn't actually detail why I was banned. from the shoutbox - instead it more or less repeated what happened without justification for why it happened. I had my ban extended for 'the way I acted', which is obviously unclear on the incriminating behaviour and does not state any actual rule breaking or reason for me to have my ban extended. Destiny Blade is stating that the ban was not revenge for the report but the reason for the ban is literally '+report'. Rather than attempting to retroactively change the reason he provided for why I'm banned for something that he can actually justify, it would be much nicer if Destiny Blade would actually justify why he thought me reporting him for what I viewed as improper administrating gave him the right to ban me for that report on himself. So my original points made in my appeal still stand.

Here I will reiterate my original message:
I was banned yesterday for an issue I appealed and later reported the administrator for - the reason being 'Told to stop making references to the Jesus crucifiction' and one that I argued and continue to argue was invalid grounds for a shoutbox ban, especially considering it didn't actually even happen and the administrator could not even provide evidence to show otherwise, apart from falsified evidence he has lied about.

I was then unbanned today at some point, and have been using the shoutbox throughout the day sporadically. Approximately 15 minutes ago at the time of writing, I was banned from the shoutbox for a week out of the blue despite having not sent a message for approximately 10 minutes, my first one for hours, and that one being completely innocuous and unrelated to the ban as seen in the ban reason.

I believe myself to have done nothing to warrant it, an idea I believe to be reinforced by the ban's reason itself:

"You have been banned from the shoutbox for the following reason: Told to stop making references to the Jesus crucifiction + Report
Your ban will be lifted on Sep 17, 2017."​

As can be seen in that exact quote, the reason for this ban is actually '+ Report' since the original ban had already happened and was expired; bearing that in mind, I was banned from the shoutbox not for any wrongdoing in the shoutbox but due to my report on Destiny Blade over his original ban against me which I believe to be invalid.

Essentially; Destiny Blade has banned me further from using the shoutbox for occurrences outside of shoutbox, none of which are rule breaking. While I was originally arguing that he was abusing his power as an administrator, this just further goes to illustrate my point. Destiny Blade has banned me, despite no wrongdoing on my behalf at the time of the ban, simply as an act of revenge due to me having reported him for his previous actions. I would hope it's clear to anyone that this is not a professional or respectable way to moderate; rather than enforcing the rules and keeping the server running smoothly, silencing any criticism and hiding your wrongdoings by banning the player's who point it out. That's more akin to the behaviour of a fascist dictator than than an impartial and fair administrator.

The entire point of the report system is to give players a venue to report wrongdoing by not only other players but staff themselves. When staff then punish players who report them it creates a climate of fear wherein players feel they are not able to report such wrongdoing in the future lest they then be punished for having done so. If such behaviour is allowed it will arguably lead to further abuse when the offending administrators feel a sense of invincibility as they not only get away with their initial misconduct but manage to prevent future misconduct from being reported on by silencing and threatening players who might do so. It also allows for petty retaliation over reports, the likes of which should not be seen from players who are supposed to not only represent the server in as good of a light as possible with their conduct but also act professionally and objectively in doing so. For a player to act vengefully and spitefully towards another player who has reported them would be bad. An administrator doing so is unacceptable and disgraceful.

Hopefully this report isn't seen as a problem- it's a report on a different issue to the one made yesterday regarding the same administrator; a continuation of the problem but a new instance that I felt needed to be addressed. I also hope this time the thread won't be locked with no actual explanation, reasoning or justification given, and with my points actually addressed rather than just responded to with an irrelevant ad-hominem attack and a thread lock to prevent further discussion of the matter.​

Related Evidence:

You have been banned from the shoutbox for the following reason: Told to stop making references to the Jesus crucifiction + Report
Your ban will be lifted on Sep 17, 2017.

https://puu.sh/xxpEd/d48b377ded.png - the ban in question occuring in the shoutbox and Destiny Blade admitting immediately afterwards that the reason was because of the report.

https://puu.sh/xwIFY/cdb217031e.png - Destiny's response in the original report stating his intention to further ban me as revenge for me reporting him.​

 

@DieKasta

I will say this Spud, this just looks bad on you that you repeatedly make appeals and then after it doesn't go your way you report.

 

The original appeal was really more intended to be an appeal and report on your behaviour combined, but since you locked it and only addressed the appeal part of it I figured that reports were supposed to be seperate. I mean, surely you can agree that a mod/admin shouldn't be locking and making decisions on their own report, right? And whether you view it as right or wrong to ban a player for reporting you, you must see how it would be problematic for you to suggest that not only should you not be reported but that, when you are reported, you should be the one to decide on the matter?

So while you have a valid point as far as pointing out this is a second thread following my earlier appeal which didn't go my way (due to your own decision), it's not a very sharp point when you wrongfully suggest this is a second appeal due to my report 'not going my way' rather than realising it's actually a report for the whole issue behind my ban in the first place. When the very appeal was arguing that you were being unprofessional and should not have been able to make the decision to extend my ban in the first place due to revenge clouding your judgement, for you to then make the decision on that appeal with what essentially amounts to 'hmm, nah I'm gonna stick to my decision' is rather missing the point.

Let's put it this way; if someone reports a judge for misconduct, and that judge then vengefully made sure they were punished just for reporting them for said misconduct, a different judge should be the one to decide on whether the extended punishment was right or wrong since there's clearly a conflict of interest. When the same judge makes the decision that they were right in their actions it should then be reported for another authority to deal with because clearly they're going to believe they were right and vindicate themselves. Essentially, you shouldn't be the one to decide on an issue of whether you're right or wrong to act in a certain way as you would have a blazingly obvious and inherent bias towards yourself. Since that factor was missed when you simply backed up your own decision in my appeal, I felt this was necessary to ensure someone else might be able to deal with the report on yourself since you're incapable of doing so for the aforementioned reasons.

Hope this clears things up.

 

The ban was my decision and I make the decision whether I felt you needed to be unbanned or not. I did not make the decision on my own report, I responded accordingly and then @DieKasta handled the report and marked it as invalid. If I am the only one to handle the appeals that I caused, why would someone else need to close it or make the final decision on that? Please answer that to me. Again I did not make the decision on the matter in regards to the report against myself nor will I on this one. I extended the ban due to your general behavior immediately after the ban (Your picture, your status, and your "Evidence of Innocence" from the last report you made against me.) then one of the first things you do when you are unbanned from SB is ask people on your picture that you made.

I don't see the point in saying that I was clouded in my judgement due to me wanting revenge. I have no ill intentions for anyone. I always try to make friends with most of the people I talk to and meet. I'm here to simply enforce the rules and make sure everyone is having a good time within said rules. I had asked you to stop and yet you continued to do so which brought up the original reason why you were SB banned. The reasoning behind the extension again was the fact of your general behavior after the original ban. The only reason you were unbanned from SB the first time was due to the fact of the 1st report not being finished when the ban expired. If the verdict of this one is valid, I will apologize to you personally on SB about the wrongful extension of your ban. If invalid, the ban will stand.

Staff members when dealing with reports are always going to believe that they are right. Take a report in game for example, I get reported for something I did, I think im in the right but I still investigate it. I have slain myself a good amount due to my own reports. With reports on the forums we have a superior handle the reports against us so that if we did mess up due to what we felt was correct we can learn from it. Take this report that @Opalium handled incorrectly, his first thoughts about the report was invalid. He was then checked by Highwon when he was reported as Rozboon thought that Opalium mishandled it. He does not make the verdict for himself but yet for one of his own mods at the time.

Thank you for taking the time to report me and hopefully this can all be cleared up soon and possibly even forgotten about down the road.

~Destiny Blade

 

I thought I did in my previous response, but I'll try again. Because the whole appeal was regarding the idea that your judgement is erroneous and not up to scratch for an administrator - I was appealing based on the merit that you should not have made the decision, have a conflict of interest and banned me when you shouldn't have. While you may disagree with that, it seems counter-intuitive for an appeal based on such an idea to be dealt with by you. Take it this way, if one of your parents does something that you think is unfair, you'd want the other parent to decide whether it's unfair rather than just tell the same parent and have them say to you 'nah it is fair I am right'.

So, despite the reason you yourself wrote as the ban reason, you are now retroactively changing it from it being because of my report on you to because of my picture, my status and my 'evidence of innocence'? Please tell me which of those warrants a ban.
Where in the rules or in past precedent has it ever been the case that you are not allowed to

1. State that you are going to return in a similar way to 'another famous messiah figure of history'
2. Have a profile picture involving Jesus
3. Quote the bible

Once again, as I have stated previously, you seem to be trying to enforce your religious views upon everybody else and are willing to literally ban a player for mentioning 'crucifixion' without even mentioning Jesus.

And yet here you are not enforcing the rules but instead enforcing your own idealized version of them which fits your dogma. You banned me despite me not having broken the rules.

That is just simply false. You did not ask me to stop, you deleted my previous messages, and I did not continue to do 'so'. I said I was being crucified, or something to that effect. You banned me for saying that, and then claimed that I was 'told to stop making references to the Jesus crucifiction' which is completely false. Firstly, I hadn't previously mentioned 'the Jesus crucifiction' and you had not at any point told me to stop making references to it (you couldn't have because, as I just said, I hadn't previously mentioned it). Secondly, I was banned for saying I face crucifixion for my ethereal messiahness - a common phrase meaning to 'criticize (someone) severely and unrelentingly'. While the term stems from the historical practice of literally crucifying criminals and dissidents in Ancient Rome, it does not exclusively refer to Jesus' crucifixion. Regardless, even if I specifically and exactly mentioned Jesus' crucifixion, how is that at all worthy of a ban? Since when has mentioning Jesus been banworthy?

I agree, that's why I stated that you would have a blazingly obvious and inherent bias towards yourself. That's not to criticize you particularly, I can't see many people who wouldn't believe they are right in such a situation - if they didn't, they wouldn't have acted in such a way in the first place. The problem is believing you are right when you are wrong. I'm glad we are on the same page regarding this.

Yes, that's why I made this report. So a superior can handle it. That's why when you stated "I will say this Spud, this just looks bad on you that you repeatedly make appeals and then after it doesn't go your way you report." you seemed to miss the point of it - to air my complaint in a form that you can't instantly dismiss yourself and instead have it looked over and handled by a superior. Your reference to Opalium being corrected by Highwon after a report detailing how he mishandled a case shows that you understand why a user would report an admin to their superiors, which makes your previous statement that it looks bad on me for reporting you to your superiors, because I wanted them to handle the issue rather than you yourself, hard to grasp.

 

I'm not handling it @DieKasta is in your example "the other parent"

Trollish behavior after the reason you got banned for was about a Jesus Crucifixion reference comparing you to himself shown here

I had said to stop and yet you continued and you have faced punishments before for it. This is the reason for extension. Rule isn't written in stone but if someone is asking you to stop and you continue, im pretty sure something will come about out of it.

Mentioned the crucifixion here and was told to stop here.

Didn't think I was wrong here and my lead agreed as he marked the report invalid.

Did not instantly dismiss the case as this report is open and I have felt that I have provided enough and the evidence for your last appeal can be found in your first appeal here. Next time instead of making it an appeal, make it a report cause it will just get closed again.

Tagging @DieKasta again.

 

I made an appeal in the first instance as I wanted to be unbanned and wasn't sure whether a report would accomplish that.

You still haven't addressed the main point of discussion in all of this and I'd appreciate it if you did. When has it ever been bannable to mention Jesus/Crucifixion/Messiahs etc.? Why are you enforcing your religious beliefs upon the shoutbox? How was anything I said worthy of a ban in the first place?

 

Not enforcing my religious beliefs onto anyone. Religion is a touchy subject and should not be mentioned in SB due to that nature ergo why I removed it, especially when comparing yourself to him as it offends anyone of the nature. When your asked to stop mentioning something, no matter what it is and you continue you will be banned for it if you have a history of said offenses or other offenses. Ban was put in place due to you mentioning it, me telling you to stop and you continuing. Extension was placed due to your trollsih behavior after the original ban, not due to revenge.

 

When has religion ever been such an issue in the Shoutbox before? While you claim not to be enforcing your own beliefs, you deleted messages you find personally disagreeable due to your dislike of comparisons to Jesus and you banned me when I hadn't even mentioned him. Why is it that it's so rare to see messages deleted in the Shoutbox, even when it's a controversial issue people are told to drop, but as soon as somebody made a comparison to Jesus you deleted it instantly despite no complaints from anyone? While you may claim that you were doing so for the good of others, it seems convenient that it worked in favour of yourself more than anyone else who even saw it. You then banned me, as I said, for saying the word crucifixion. But this was quite some time later, hours I believe, and completely detached from the original conversation. Nowhere had it ever been indicated that saying crucifixion was against the rules, nor has the same been true of comparisons to Jesus. No one at the time of my postings had aired offence at my comparisons except seemingly you when you banned me, and even if they had; when has it ever been policy to ban individuals who say something innocuous that another might find offensive? While grandiose and arrogant, a comparison to Jesus is certainly not malicious, harassing, targeting, or, I would argue, offensive to anybody except people who choose to be offended by it (and could also choose to be offended by any other statement in the Shoutbox). There's no precedent for comparisons to Jesus being rulebreaking behaviour and it certainly wouldn't be in line with the usual conduct present in the Shoutbox, as well as unfairly favouring Christianity in protection from offense while a comparison to, for example, Buddha, Prophet Muhammad or Guru Nanak would likely go unnoticed and uncensored. In this instance you chose to act purely because the statement offended your religious values, and in doing so you abused your admin powers. You prioritized your offence taken from my comparison of myself to Jesus over my right to make such a comparison and any offence I might take from having a comparison dismissed - thereby implying your beliefs are more important than my own.

That mostly deals with the deletion of the first message leading up to the ban, but the point still stands that you falsified evidence in my initial appeal and have not been able to provide evidence of a warning with context showing when it actually was and that it was related to that particular issue as well as the fact that the ban resulted from me stating I was being crucified despite that being a perfectly valid and inoffensive word in the context of what was being said. Had I said persecuted you would not have acted in such a manner but instead you made a religious connection and banned me because it offended you that I had previously compared myself to Jesus (an act which, as I said, is not harmful or against the rules).

 

But I'm an atheist.

Locking this up until @DieKasta can give the verdict.

 

Hey Spud,

Sorry for the delay in taking care of this report. I've been pretty busy over the past couple weeks and it's been tough for me to find time to actually sit down and run through this thing. Anyways, let's hop to it.

First off, I'm gonna commend you on the way you've worded your argument in the above report. Definitely one of the better presented reports/arguments I've seen on these forums.

Second off, I'm going to have to agree with you on a few of your above points. After getting some outside opinions on this situation, we came to the conclusion that @Destiny Blade jumped the gun when it came to deleting and warning you for your shoutbox post. That's something I've personally already talked with him about and something that he will be working on in the future. I can see where he was coming from in regards to how people can easily take offense to topics of religious nature, but your comments never really crossed that threshold.

However, you weren't completely innocent when it comes to this situation either. Poking fun by adding bible quotes at the end of a report regarding religion, changing your profile pic to Jesus with a potato for a head, and using the word "crucifixion" when describing how you were being treated definitely didn't help your situation at all. You've proven yourself to be a fairly intelligent person, you knew exactly what you were doing with all those actions. Also, your history here isn't exactly the best and you've been known to loophole your way around things and troll in the past. I'd like you to take this message as a final warning within our recently added Toxicity Policy that your behavior is often unacceptable and tends to cause issues for the staff team.

Your extended shoutbox ban wasn't because you reported an admin and he didn't like it, it was because you kept poking and prodding at the whole religious topic even though you were told not to. If you don't like how you are being treated by a staff member, it's always best to go to their superior rather than just continuing to do what got you into trouble in the first place, even if you feel you're in the right.

I'd like to reiterate that as the SGM staff team, we try not to censor too much when it comes to topics and posts anywhere on the forums. We really only want to step in when a post is completely innappropriate or when it targets/offends/harasses a user. Hopefully you've read through this and understand where I'm coming from.

If you've got any questions, feel free to send me a PM.

Report: Completed

~Kasta