Toribash
Hello hello I feel like I have to respond to this because I was the one who banned your alt mouth for this.

First off, I know this has already been cleared up, but I apologize for thinking you were BoS. It was my mistake that I didn't double check after asking another staff member and I accept full responsibility. But let me make this clear: wheather you are ZT or BoS has little effect on the ban I placed on mouth. As a rule of thumb, alt accounts of users on ZT generally get stricter punishment, especially for repeat offense, which is the case here. We've been over this plenty of times so I feel no need to reiterate.

That being said, I acknowledge that I made a mistake, and if you had actually made a proper appeal the second time around, it maybe wouldn't have gotten closed immediatly.


Now, to address your points:
Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
https://pastebin.com/MKwcMAYf

So my ban appeal got instantly closed, meaning I have absolutely no way to give my side of the story or talk about my own ban, and I noticed Diamond was being shut down as well so I figured i'd post this here. The whole issue is because of what I said in the chat logs above


For context I was dueling Fire and the worst things I said were "19:24:20 <mouth> lets duel you fat pussy", 19:39:44 <mouth> thats what i thought pussy bitch,19:49:55 <mouth> dumb bitch"


First of all in those same chat logs people have said the same thing and they are just fine. It's only because i'm being targeted by certain members who dislike me. Don't forget fire's belt literally says 'Fat belt', so to quote Tyzi,

Ok first off, the reason I didn't explicitly state what got you banned is because I was 100% sure you knew and just wanted to do exactly this, try to weasel your way out of it.

Had you shown any actual intention to apologize or compensate for your actions, I would have told you what you said that got you banned, but the fact is all you did following your ban was to call me slurs repeatedly and express your wish for me to commit suicide. Not a showing of any goodwill, so I didn't feel it necessary to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
And I don't think anyone on the planet, especially a dueler on TB, would be offended be being called a bitch, especially after he's called me much much worse in previous duels. Here's some of what other people have said in those exact chat logs.

  • 18:36:49 <Cizors> what you gonna do take those screen and report me like wounder?
  • 18:36:49 <[Tribe]watermagic> hurt bad
  • 18:36:50 <Cizors> bitch


    18:35:48 <Cizors> you bitch over dueling 15k
    18:35:49 <Cizors> tc
    18:35:49 <[Obey]Dior> you
  • 18:35:44 <Cizors> i am the toxic one

    18:33:22 <[Obey]Dior> Whimper you a bitch

Second of all, Fire was not even the person who reported me even though I was talking to him. I know this for a fact as Creati0n told me on Discord here: https://imgur.com/br0Oanm

Sure I did use profanity, but let's not act like Fire has never called me anything either. I'm not trying to ruin the kids week so I didn't report him when he called me -snip- and other slurs during our previous duel sessions.

I'd like to get others opinions on this.

There isn't a very distinct difference between banter and harassment, and the first call on what is harassment or isn't is not yours to make, the first one to make the decision is the user who files the report. If they feel that someone is being harassed, they have every right to make a report.
It has absolutely nothing to do with who you were actually talking to and who reported you, and the fact that it wasn't fire who reported you makes your situation neither better or worse.

Now the reason why you got punished for your profanity and toxicity is because everyone else who was being toxic in chat was not on ZT. This is what being on ZT means, you get Zero Tolerance.

You have proven, time and time again, that you think nothing of slurring and insulting community members in the most annoying and disruptive way possible, including staff when you feel safe (like on the win discord).


Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
I just looked at the pastebin and this is the person who reported me:
  • Connected to 144.76.163.135:20249
  • 19:44:34 * Logged in as zpEmzqk
  • 19:44:34 * Created by: zpEmzqk


This person was following me around and harassing me constantly, his main is Whimper (who in my main post was calling people bitches which is what got me perma banned lol)
He joined in on that alt and kept bothering me and others as you can clearly see in that pastebin link, then proceeded to enter the game and cause it to glitch making me space my turn, which could have caused me to lose that game.


It's ridiculous someone can come in on alts and physically cause me to lose duels and I can't say or do anything about it. Fire wouldn't ban him because he knew this person was bothering me. The duel had started so I can't spectate as that's a loss, I can't leave the server to make my own because i'd have to spectate to do that and it'd be a loss. What am I supposed to do?


If you're going to ban me, you might as well ban him too because all the evidence he posted incriminates him as well.

Whimper has been, just as you have, repeatedly punished for harassment. If he's been harassing you, all you have to do is report him. I never understood this weird duelers thing where you refuse to report people who annoy/harass you, and then when you get banned you turn around and say "why don't you punish them, they were mean to me too".

Having dealt with Whimper myself, I believe you when you say that he has been harassing you too, but I can't really do anything unless he gets reported. You wouldn't want me (or any staff member) to sit in your duel rooms and police the chat now, would you? If you want someone punished for being a toxic POS, report them. Just like they report you.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
This is just a case of me being targeted by people who dislike me, including staff. I do have anger issues and that's very relevant, and I highly doubt i'll get unbanned but I want my feelings on this matter to be known.


In fact here's a screenshot of my recent PM's from this account. Quite funny how i'm the one perma banned though.


https://imgur.com/pBqo02m

If you open that PM and read it, you will notice a handy little button saying "report".
Super Moderators (or most staff for that matter, despite what you think) can't actually read your PMs, so unless you report it, we can't do anything. Ironically since you seem to be so adamant to claim that fire wasn't actually offended on the behalf that he didn't report you, I can just as well claim that you weren't actually offended by that PM and are just trying to throw other people under the bus.

In summary, your situation and Diamonds are nothing alike. There is no actual proof yet that Diamond did anything wrong, wheres there is proof and plenty of precendent for you harassing users. The only point I would be willing to argue on is the severity of the harassment taking place and, to be honest, I am always willing to have a civil discussion on ban lenght as long as I don't get called slurs or asked if I've killed myself every day.
Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
Ok first off, the reason I didn't explicitly state what got you banned is because I was 100% sure you knew and just wanted to do exactly this, try to weasel your way out of it.

Your first mistake here is assumptions, because I legitimately had no idea what I had done. But I knew that it had to be something minor because i'd know when I was actually trying to hurt someone. So no I did not know what I had done to get me banned, you can believe what you want though.

Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
Had you shown any actual intention to apologize or compensate for your actions, I would have told you what you said that got you banned, but the fact is all you did following your ban was to call me slurs repeatedly and express your wish for me to commit suicide. Not a showing of any goodwill, so I didn't feel it necessary to give you the benefit of the doubt.


Actually my first ban appeal was extremely timid, I didn't put much effort into it because I knew you'd just curse me out which you ended up doing. Here's the ban appeal, you can see the difference in emotions between you and I. https://imgur.com/ZrtJvk2


Afterwards, after you had cursed me out for the 3rd or 4th time I decided to illustrate to you what actual toxicity would be like via discord. I'm sure you saw the difference between that, and being called a 'bitch' during duels. Of course I shouldn't have done that but when i'm being cursed out by one of the lead staff, what's really the point in trying to be nice?





Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
It has absolutely nothing to do with who you were actually talking to and who reported you, and the fact that it wasn't fire who reported you makes your situation neither better or worse.


Actually it totally should matter who's being harassed and who's reporting. Fire and I were dueling and talking shit to each other like usual. The guy who reported me was targeting me specifically the entire time, and in my opinion it was taken out of context. Unfortunately it seems nobody who's staff on this game actually understands what it's like to be dueling in high stress situations, and I believe the screenshots were taken out of context. I didn't just follow Fire around and call him names, he asked me to duel and we were BOTH talking shit to each other. If Fire had a problem with that and HE reported me himself then sure I could understand it, but he didn't report me because he didn't care. The guy who was harassing me and interrupting my dueling session to purposely set me off was the one who reported me. So I feel the screenshots were taken out of context given the situation me and Fire were in.

Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
Now the reason why you got punished for your profanity and toxicity is because everyone else who was being toxic in chat was not on ZT. This is what being on ZT means, you get Zero Tolerance.

You have proven, time and time again, that you think nothing of slurring and insulting community members in the most annoying and disruptive way possible, including staff when you feel safe (like on the win discord).


I still don't understand how that warrants a ban even if i'm ZT. It was banter between him and I and nothing more, would you ban me for calling one of my friends a bitch as well even though it's a joke? There's context to every situation, it's not just black and white. This is literally casual duel talk that every other dueler does as well, believe it or not it's a normal part of the game, go hop in a bet server and you would have a reason to ban half the people in it.


Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
If you open that PM and read it, you will notice a handy little button saying "report".
Super Moderators (or most staff for that matter, despite what you think) can't actually read your PMs, so unless you report it, we can't do anything. Ironically since you seem to be so adamant to claim that fire wasn't actually offended on the behalf that he didn't report you, I can just as well claim that you weren't actually offended by that PM and are just trying to throw other people under the bus.


I did report Cicada3301 and he got a very short ban. I only used that screenshot to illustrate what I personally go through when playing this game, and how I will get banned when i'm reacting and responding to people like that. Of course i'm not going to be interacting with these people ever again.


Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
In summary, your situation and Diamonds are nothing alike. There is no actual proof yet that Diamond did anything wrong, wheres there is proof and plenty of precendent for you harassing users. The only point I would be willing to argue on is the severity of the harassment taking place and, to be honest, I am always willing to have a civil discussion on ban lenght as long as I don't get called slurs or asked if I've killed myself every day.

I never once compared my situation to Diamond's, our situation is different. I only meant i'd have to take his approach to handling a ban because I get shut down and cursed at if I talk to you one on one. Now hopefully you see my side of things and will understand why I was upset afterwards.



In summary I feel the chat was taken out of context, and if anything I was being targeted and harassed myself.
Last edited by McFarbo; May 24, 2020 at 09:37 PM.
Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Your first mistake here is assumptions, because I legitimately had no idea what I had done. But I knew that it had to be something minor because i'd know when I was actually trying to hurt someone. So no I did not know what I had done to get me banned, you can believe what you want though.

It's easy to claim you had no idea after the fact, but arguing about this is moot at this point anyway, since you now know what got you banned, and just as I had predicted, are trying to weasel your way out.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Actually my first ban appeal was extremely timid, I didn't put much effort into it because I knew you'd just curse me out which you ended up doing. Here's the ban appeal, you can see the difference in emotions between you and I. https://imgur.com/ZrtJvk2

Not pictured in your little screenshot is the extensive history we two have arguing in ban appeals, and it's always the same pattern: You get banned, then ask for why specifically you got banned, and then try to talk yourself out of it. Never once have you actually shown any inclination that you might be learning from your constant bans that your behaviour is simply not welcome, no instead on previous appeal you tried to justify how you managed to accrue 6 harrassment bans on a single account.

And I would be careful calling attention to the "emotions" of our posts. I can tell you that the only "emotion" in my post on your ban appeal was irritation, while you seemingly got so hurt by me banning you yet again that you failed to reflect and instead had to resort to harassing me, too. I wonder who really is more emotional about this?

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Afterwards, after you had cursed me out for the 3rd or 4th time I decided to illustrate to you what actual toxicity would be like via discord. I'm sure you saw the difference between that, and being called a 'bitch' during duels. Of course I shouldn't have done that but when i'm being cursed out by one of the lead staff, what's really the point in trying to be nice?

The difference between you calling your friends "bitch" during a duel is that your friends wont report you. You can call your friends anything you want as long as nobody else sees it. As i've told you literally hundreds of times by now, if you keep getting harassed by the same users or the same users always provoke you, stop dueling with them, start reporting them, put a password on the room or hell even stop playing for all I care. Literally almost any other approach to this you could take would not lead to you getting banned, yet you always take their bait, and end up getting reported. It's not my fault you never learn, although it does make this a lot more tedious.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Actually it totally should matter who's being harassed and who's reporting. Fire and I were dueling and talking shit to each other like usual. The guy who reported me was targeting me specifically the entire time, and in my opinion it was taken out of context. Unfortunately it seems nobody who's staff on this game actually understands what it's like to be dueling in high stress situations, and I believe the screenshots were taken out of context. I didn't just follow Fire around and call him names, he asked me to duel and we were BOTH talking shit to each other. If Fire had a problem with that and HE reported me himself then sure I could understand it, but he didn't report me because he didn't care. The guy who was harassing me and interrupting my dueling session to purposely set me off was the one who reported me. So I feel the screenshots were taken out of context given the situation me and Fire were in.

I still don't understand how that warrants a ban even if i'm ZT. It was banter between him and I and nothing more, would you ban me for calling one of my friends a bitch as well even though it's a joke? There's context to every situation, it's not just black and white. This is literally casual duel talk that every other dueler does as well, believe it or not it's a normal part of the game, go hop in a bet server and you would have a reason to ban half the people in it.

This is the only part where you might even have a point. As I've said, I am well aware of the relationship between you and Whimper, and I am willing to believe that he is purposefully setting you off most of the time.

HOWEVER, this is not the case on this most recent ban. If Fire reported you instead of Whimper, the only thing that'd changed would have been the title of the ingame report. Your toxicity and provocations would have been the same, and you would have still been banned. Your arguement makes no sense, because there were no screenshots that were taken out of context, it was an entire chatlog that went back all the way to Whimper joining the room an entire hour before you said the things that got you banned. And before you ask, no, Whimper didn't say anything to provoke you, he was a bystander in this report and just witnessed you harassing Fire and decided to report you.

Do I think he reported you specifically because he dislikes you, and not because he was actually offended? Yeah probably. But as I've said, his intentions when reporting you don't matter, as it's about your behaviour and not his. In this report, your toxicity towards Fire came from yourself being worked up and having no filter, whimper was simply the one who reported you.


Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
I never once compared my situation to Diamond's, our situation is different. I only meant i'd have to take his approach to handling a ban because I get shut down and cursed at if I talk to you one on one. Now hopefully you see my side of things and will understand why I was upset afterwards.



In summary I feel the chat was taken out of context, and if anything I was being targeted and harassed myself.

You compared your situation to diamonds in the way that you claimed to have been unfairly banned and ignored, despite that not being the case. Your ban appeal was responded to, you dropped it, then made the exact same appeal a few weeks later and it got closed immediatly. If you weren't statisfied with my answer to your original appeal, you could have voiced your opinion but you did not and so it was eventually archived.

edit:
Tell you what, if you still want to discuss this most recent ban, make a new ban appeal or tell me here that you want me to reopen your last one, and we can discuss unbanning mouth, as this is not the place for ban appeal talk. Otherwise I don't see this thread serving any purpose
Last edited by Chirs; May 25, 2020 at 12:30 AM.
I just want to take a moment to applaud Chirs' mature handling of this situation. Now to add to my post so i'm not frac'd for useless post even tho i feel I added to the discussion, it's happened before lol. The point being that I support seeing staff publicly admitting mistakes and standing firm on other points. It's important that the community is able to see sensible handling and explanation of reports/bans as there is a general lack of trust in the reporting system and so on.

I don't agree with every point Chirs made, but at least I can better understand his viewpoint and the system/process of this kiindaaa thangy, and it's a stretch to claim this is a completely unfair moderation.
Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
It's easy to claim you had no idea after the fact, but arguing about this is moot at this point anyway, since you now know what got you banned, and just as I had predicted, are trying to weasel your way out.

Well I wouldn't say i'm trying to 'weasel my way out', I was at first simply trying to grasp the situation. Ban appeals are a thing for a reason, so of course i'm going to try and attempt to use them as intended.




Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
Not pictured in your little screenshot is the extensive history we two have arguing in ban appeals, and it's always the same pattern: You get banned, then ask for why specifically you got banned, and then try to talk yourself out of it. Never once have you actually shown any inclination that you might be learning from your constant bans that your behaviour is simply not welcome, no instead on previous appeal you tried to justify how you managed to accrue 6 harrassment bans on a single account.


I was trying to figure out why I actually got banned in the first place. Pretend I legitimately had no idea why I was banned, don't you think i'd try to figure out what exactly I did before I tried to come to a solid conclusion on how to resolve it?

Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
And I would be careful calling attention to the "emotions" of our posts. I can tell you that the only "emotion" in my post on your ban appeal was irritation, while you seemingly got so hurt by me banning you yet again that you failed to reflect and instead had to resort to harassing me, too. I wonder who really is more emotional about this?


Of course i'm upset by the ban. I feel I was being treated unfairly in this case, especially since I am truly trying to be a better person on this game and outside of it, some real proof of that is the fact I haven't scammed anyone. I haven't said anything about my problems because it's very personal, but i've been doing lots of self reflection about how and why I do things I do.

Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
The difference between you calling your friends "bitch" during a duel is that your friends wont report you.


The person I was addressing didn't report me, which is essentially the same thing. Someone else, who I wasn't even talking to until he was physically causing me to lose the duel by entering and spectating did.

Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
You can call your friends anything you want as long as nobody else sees it.



Now this is a very slippery slope for multiple reasons, one being it actually harms the atmosphere of the game when you can't even horse around with your friends without worrying about someone reporting you. Of course racism isn't ok, but trash talking in duels is honestly not only part of this game, but part of any other competitive game that exists. Now I'm not saying I was messing around with my friend, but I feel if the person I was talking to didn't report and there was no harm done to anyone, there shouldn't be an issue.


Now I just gave the ingame rules a read and came across

this


The last part is very important. Not once did the person who reported me ask me to stop, in fact as i've said many times he egged me on and was literally trying his best to set me off. I believe if someone is truly offended, they would at least ask me to stop, not continue their disruptive behavior, and as you said he's clearly just a troll and wasn't offended by anything I said. In fact nobody in the server said anything about my behavior except for the one person who was purposely trolling me.



Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
As i've told you literally hundreds of times by now, if you keep getting harassed by the same users or the same users always provoke you, stop dueling with them, start reporting them, put a password on the room or hell even stop playing for all I care.



The issue is this is the first time I can recall having issues with Whimper, and in the moment I was struggling to balance ignoring him and trying to win a duel that I was getting destroyed in. I didn't even think about reporting him, and I wouldn't have unless I knew he'd actually report me and make a small issue a huge problem.


And for fire I don't really have issues with him, it's just part of my mind set in dueling which I agree needs to change. I've just adapted the trash talk mind set from other users i've seen duel honestly.

Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
Literally almost any other approach to this you could take would not lead to you getting banned, yet you always take their bait, and end up getting reported. It's not my fault you never learn, although it does make this a lot more tedious.

No argument out of me, you're right there. It was just a high stress situation and I'm trying to balance multiple emotions at once. I am trying to learn, as I said previously I haven't even scammed anyone in forever. The only issue is i've been playing for 10 years and all of a sudden there's new rules like a private server isn't considered private unless there's a set password, and the only reason I found that out is because I got banned because of it. In the future I hope you guys will try to announce when there's new rule changes that can affect the game and how people communicate.




Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
This is the only part where you might even have a point. As I've said, I am well aware of the relationship between you and Whimper, and I am willing to believe that he is purposefully setting you off most of the time.

To be honest I don't even know who Whimper is, that was the first instance I can recall meeting him.


Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
HOWEVER, this is not the case on this most recent ban. If Fire reported you instead of Whimper, the only thing that'd changed would have been the title of the ingame report. Your toxicity and provocations would have been the same, and you would have still been banned.



It'd be totally different if Fire himself had reported me instead of Whimper. I can't understand how you feel it's the same exact scenario when it's not. There's a huge difference between me talking to Fire and him reporting me for being personally insulted, and someone who is clearly trolling me reporting me. That's also where context comes to play, because it's clear as day his only intention was to get me banned, there's absolutely no way he was upset and I'm sure you know that.




Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
Your arguement makes no sense, because there were no screenshots that were taken out of context, it was an entire chatlog that went back all the way to Whimper joining the room an entire hour before you said the things that got you banned. And before you ask, no, Whimper didn't say anything to provoke you, he was a bystander in this report and just witnessed you harassing Fire and decided to report you.


Whimper was definitely one of the main reasons I lost my cool. He wasn't just a bystander, he was entering the duel and spectating and caused me to space, constantly saying things to bother me, and Fire refused to op me or ban him. Now what can I really do in that situation? Report for making me space? Report him for calling me bad? I don't think that would hold any ground as it's difficult to even prove that he did anything at all. And I can't spectate to grab a staff member because that'd count as a loss due to the poor dueling rules that are currently in place. And the chat was taken out of context because I wasn't just joining a random server to harass Fire, he asked me to duel and we both talk trash to each other, we don't report each other because there's simply nothing wrong with it.



Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
Do I think he reported you specifically because he dislikes you, and not because he was actually offended? Yeah probably. But as I've said, his intentions when reporting you don't matter, as it's about your behaviour and not his. In this report, your toxicity towards Fire came from yourself being worked up and having no filter, whimper was simply the one who reported you.


Sure I got worked up, but what I said wasn't personally insulting to anyone, and I did somewhat filter what I said. But I do understand how what I did was considered toxic and I shouldn't have said anything. I just want you to understand that to me and other duelers that play the game, it's typical trash talk that we all do, and that's why duelers never really report each other. Ironically enough if I said the things you said to me in the Ban Appeals that'd be about the same as what I'd said to Fire.


Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
You compared your situation to diamonds in the way that you claimed to have been unfairly banned and ignored, despite that not being the case. Your ban appeal was responded to, you dropped it, then made the exact same appeal a few weeks later and it got closed immediatly. If you weren't statisfied with my answer to your original appeal, you could have voiced your opinion but you did not and so it was eventually archived.


I do believe I was being shut down anytime I made an appeal which is why I put less and less effort because i'd just get called names, but hopefully now that we have more of an understanding we can actually have a conversation like we are doing now.

Originally Posted by Chirs View Post
edit:
Tell you what, if you still want to discuss this most recent ban, make a new ban appeal or tell me here that you want me to reopen your last one, and we can discuss unbanning mouth, as this is not the place for ban appeal talk. Otherwise I don't see this thread serving any purpose



Sure, open the appeal on Mouth. And I feel the thread did serve the purpose I intended which was to have a more civil discussion, gather other people's ideas, and understand what I should change about myself, which we are doing.

I did every point one by one so I don't know if I messed anything up, but try to read my points with an open mind because i'm shot.






Originally Posted by DrGonz View Post
I just want to take a moment to applaud Chirs' mature handling of this situation.

As for your first point Chirs was insulting me in my ban appeals so I wouldn't say he handled it maturely until now, albeit I definitely didn't handle it well either, in fact I was way worse, but only after I attempted to gather an understanding on why I was banned in the first place and not being given a proper answer.


Originally Posted by DrGonz View Post
The point being that I support seeing staff publicly admitting mistakes and standing firm on other points. It's important that the community is able to see sensible handling and explanation of reports/bans as there is a general lack of trust in the reporting system and so on.


I agree, it's a step in the right direction when staff, me, or anyone are able to understand their own mistakes, it gives me hope the game will have a better future.

Originally Posted by DrGonz View Post
I don't agree with every point Chirs made, but at least I can better understand his viewpoint and the system/process of this kiindaaa thangy, and it's a stretch to claim this is a completely unfair moderation.


I would like to know what points you don't agree on, and it definitely wasn't completely unfair moderation but I don't think it was something worth being banned for.
Last edited by McFarbo; May 25, 2020 at 03:45 AM. Reason: <24 hour edit/bump
Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
I was trying to figure out why I actually got banned in the first place. Pretend I legitimately had no idea why I was banned, don't you think i'd try to figure out what exactly I did before I tried to come to a solid conclusion on how to resolve it?

A fair point. I do admit that my knee-jerk "oh he's tryna bs his way out of it" reaction to your appeal was probably misplaced, and I apologize for that.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Of course i'm upset by the ban. I feel I was being treated unfairly in this case, especially since I am truly trying to be a better person on this game and outside of it, some real proof of that is the fact I haven't scammed anyone. I haven't said anything about my problems because it's very personal, but i've been doing lots of self reflection about how and why I do things I do.

I have realized from your posts on this thread that you've at least calmed down enough to stop hurling insults at me on discord, so I am willing to listen. If you are trying to better yourself I feel like you still have some ways to go, but it is true that you've stopped scamming people.


Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
The person I was addressing didn't report me, which is essentially the same thing. Someone else, who I wasn't even talking to until he was physically causing me to lose the duel by entering and spectating did.




Now this is a very slippery slope for multiple reasons, one being it actually harms the atmosphere of the game when you can't even horse around with your friends without worrying about someone reporting you. Of course racism isn't ok, but trash talking in duels is honestly not only part of this game, but part of any other competitive game that exists. Now I'm not saying I was messing around with my friend, but I feel if the person I was talking to didn't report and there was no harm done to anyone, there shouldn't be an issue.


Now I just gave the ingame rules a read and came across

this


The last part is very important. Not once did the person who reported me ask me to stop, in fact as i've said many times he egged me on and was literally trying his best to set me off. I believe if someone is truly offended, they would at least ask me to stop, not continue their disruptive behavior, and as you said he's clearly just a troll and wasn't offended by anything I said. In fact nobody in the server said anything about my behavior except for the one person who was purposely trolling me.

I do understand what you mean when you say you think the report is only valid if it comes from the one you are actually trash talking, but think about it this way; If Fire made the report, your words wouldn't have changed, the context of what you said wouldn't have changed, only the motivation of the person who reported you would have been different. I agree that it's probably incorrect to speak in absolutes about this like I did, there is definitely some cases where it matters who actually reported it and how that affects the context, but I still don't feel this is one of those situations.

About the rule you quoted, I don't actually know how much I'm at liberty to give away here but since I doubt Whimper is actually reading this thread I'll just tell you anyway;
The reason I had assumed you and whimper knew each other was because, and you're going to have to take my word for it, he's reported you specifically maybe over 20 times already. A lot, and I mean like 90% of those reports were dismissed because they were basically like this but tamer, often only a single "bitch" or something trivial. The reason this last report was finally acted upon was, like I said in your appeal, the fact that it was the 21st of many, and it seemed at least to me like this went beyond just simple banter.

However I admit i failed to consider that Whimper was probably cherry picking, reporting every little thing to give staff the impression that you were constantly harassing everyone in every server. Your behaviour in wibbles and other places and your extensive ban history probably didn't do you any favors either, so I'm willing to give you another chance based on the civil respondance we've had so far.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
No argument out of me, you're right there. It was just a high stress situation and I'm trying to balance multiple emotions at once. I am trying to learn, as I said previously I haven't even scammed anyone in forever. The only issue is i've been playing for 10 years and all of a sudden there's new rules like a private server isn't considered private unless there's a set password, and the only reason I found that out is because I got banned because of it. In the future I hope you guys will try to announce when there's new rule changes that can affect the game and how people communicate.

I also have to apologize again for the fact that we didn't properly communicate this rule change and that some users like you were caught with your pants down like that. I do admit it didn't fully sit right with me back then and it still doesn't.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
It'd be totally different if Fire himself had reported me instead of Whimper. I can't understand how you feel it's the same exact scenario when it's not. There's a huge difference between me talking to Fire and him reporting me for being personally insulted, and someone who is clearly trolling me reporting me. That's also where context comes to play, because it's clear as day his only intention was to get me banned, there's absolutely no way he was upset and I'm sure you know that.

Yes I do know that Whimper was probably not offended and was weaponizing the report feature. However I want you to realize that who reported you in this specific instance would have made little difference.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Whimper was definitely one of the main reasons I lost my cool. He wasn't just a bystander, he was entering the duel and spectating and caused me to space, constantly saying things to bother me, and Fire refused to op me or ban him. Now what can I really do in that situation? Report for making me space? Report him for calling me bad? I don't think that would hold any ground as it's difficult to even prove that he did anything at all. And I can't spectate to grab a staff member because that'd count as a loss due to the poor dueling rules that are currently in place. And the chat was taken out of context because I wasn't just joining a random server to harass Fire, he asked me to duel and we both talk trash to each other, we don't report each other because there's simply nothing wrong with it.

This is pretty hard to prove or disprove based on chat logs alone, and also because it's been quite a while, but I personally still think you are trying to blame losing your cool partly on him when it is probably something you also have to work on yourself. But you seem to realize that at least so good job.

About what you could be doing in a situation like this, I have some suggestions:
- Stop joining duel servers made by other people who don't respect fair conduct such as op'ing you too or allowing you to cool down when you get worked up.
- Make your own duel server and just allow in the people you want, and ban/mute everyone else. Set a password too if you feel like it. You are still allowed to pick and choose who is in your server as long as you don't absue your OP to give you an unfair advantage.
- Taking a break from dueling altogether. It's probably the main reason for your recent toxicity and I fail to see how it's worth it

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
Sure I got worked up, but what I said wasn't personally insulting to anyone, and I did somewhat filter what I said. But I do understand how what I did was considered toxic and I shouldn't have said anything. I just want you to understand that to me and other duelers that play the game, it's typical trash talk that we all do, and that's why duelers never really report each other. Ironically enough if I said the things you said to me in the Ban Appeals that'd be about the same as what I'd said to Fire.

I do understand that trash talk is pretty much part of the dueler experience, but I feel like you also need to understand that your history, even if you are trying to better yourself, paints all that banter in a different light. As I've said before, it doesn't take much to turn harmless trash talk into harassment, and especially when someone reports everything you say, it's possible for staff to get a warped impression on things that have been going on.

Originally Posted by McFarbo View Post
I do believe I was being shut down anytime I made an appeal which is why I put less and less effort because i'd just get called names, but hopefully now that we have more of an understanding we can actually have a conversation like we are doing now.

Sure, open the appeal on Mouth. And I feel the thread did serve the purpose I intended which was to have a more civil discussion, gather other people's ideas, and understand what I should change about myself, which we are doing.

I did every point one by one so I don't know if I messed anything up, but try to read my points with an open mind because i'm shot.

I have reopened your ban appeal, and yeah I guess we can leave this thread open if you really want other's opinion on the matter.