BlackMajor's (Durgit) Permaban appeal.

[BlackMajor]

BYOND Name:

BlackMajor.

Reason Banned:

https://i.imgur.com/UDDQb4Z.png

Admin who banned:

Raeschen.

Length Banned:

Permanent.

Appeal Reason:


Well. After some discussion around with various people, including Raeschen himself, i've come to understand why this ban was delivered, but there's been some disagreement over it being a permanent ban.

Alright so, no more than a week ago, i made some people upset with an incident involving a white ship RnD lab which came as a great aid to my own hijack objective when a wish maker got involved later on during an extended round, bringing forth a storm of ahelps as i attempted to off the crew to secure my hijack.
Shortly afterwards getting put on a watchlist for powergaming due to the constant roundstart blasting out an airlock to go start space building hermitage voyages with the white ship as an assistant, so i've been treading thin ice since then.

Since then, i've shelved my space plans as assistant since that was causing me trouble and instead took up a new outlook on assistant to just, round-start look at my PDA list and determine which department was the most lacking and how i could help.
Things such as walking over to medbay and asking the lone doctor if i could fill the chem fridge and then take my leave, basically just going to departments that are lacking, ask if i could do some of the unfinished work and then take my leave. Things that i thought was good assisting.

My view of assistant was to just be an empty slate to fill empty gaps around that needed to be done.
But apparently this was the wrong way to go about things since the process of doing various departmental jobs is powergaming, which i'll admit i find myself hard pressed to understand why that is, but i'm just going to accept it.

Anyway, on the event of the actual ban, i was a roundstart assistant during secret. The clown this round was a cool guy, so i wanted to order him some pies, so i went and asked the captain if i could be a cargonian since cargo consisted of one miner, and a QM who showed up while i was in the middle of getting the access. My ID still reads assistant however.
I walk into cargo, greet the QM, Rick Stessel, cool guy, surprised he doesn't spend more time on the RP server with how he uses me verbs in casual conversation. I start doing typical roundstart cargonia activities, discussing stocks and moving boxes. I call for how the miner's doing over the radio and notice the lack of response, so i check a GPS and see that his signal is stationary. I tap on the mining dock door and realise the captain gave me mining access too, huh, so i tell the QM i'm going down to rescue the dead miners.
And so i do. I find them dead and drag them up to medbay cloning, at which point i realise they, the only miner we have, is souless. So i dump their gear in a locker and leave the body and drop off the locker, open, by the cargo mining dock.
I go visit science knowing that they'll need materials and ask for gear, since the miner at least got some materials into an ore box before dying, which i brought in.
I rather begrudgingly admit that i'm going to have to be their miner now, not the job i was wanting since i just wanted to do cargonia things. I at least got the clown their pies at some point.
So i mine for a bit, no problems, i have the access for this and there's no living miners, i'm thinking to myself this is clearly my job now.
Come back up with a second load after acquiring diamond and bluespace for science, another miner showed up at some point around here.
The cargo requests console pings at me while i'm talking to the QM about the roboticist asking if any miners want a Ripley, i call for him over science channel asking if he can prepare that since plasma cutters at the current moment are bugged and non functional, so a ripley for mining is the next best thing.
A second miner shows up at some point around here while i'm going to retrieve the ripley to mine with, thinking full well that this is just... my job now.
The second miner ahelps about something involving there not being any gear for them, which seemed strange to me because i don't recall them even asking where it was, Raeschen bwoinks me asking me to return them their mining gear since they're here now, so i tell the second miner over supply that the locker full of the first miners gear is sitting open in the mining dock, which it was.
Little did i realise in my 4am stupor that Rae was actually referring to all my mining equipment, implicating that i shouldn't be mining at all now that there's two real miners. Something i did not pick up on.
As seen here: https://i.imgur.com/a2xjyuc.png
So, thinking full well that i'm just another miner now, i pass by the other two miners in the ripley the roboticist had prepared for me of his own volition and start strip mining lavaland with that sweet sweet drill.
To which, Rae is asking me to stop being a miner, as seen here: https://i.imgur.com/mbB4fZo.png
But i'm clearly still sitting in the mindset that it's just, my job to tend to now. I find myself disagreeing with him.
Rae explains to me how i should properly go about doing other jobs https://i.imgur.com/M9OiT6R.png and i tell him exactly how i felt about playing assistant.
It would seem at this point, my view of an ok way to play assistant is flawed, which i'm not understanding. I ask Rae if i would've even been bwoinked at all if i had at the start just asked the captain to, in addition to giving me those accesses, changed the ID card title to "Shaft Miner" or some variation. I am told that none of these bwoinks would have happened if i had done that, to which i tell him that's kind of a petty reason then, that the difference between the bwoinks or not was teetering on the fact that i didn't ask for the ID name changed too.
Hell in the very same round an assistant was given engineering accesses to set the engine but didn't have their ID's job name changed.
Shortly after my statement i'm dealt the ban for extreme powergaming, Rae clearly realising that i just wasn't understanding what he was getting at.

After some discussion with Rae himself later, apparantly the ban was more so a rule 3 violation in that i wasn't listening to him about hanging up my job as shaft miner and that i had lied to him about saying the captain OK'ing what i was doing.
Knowing myself, i was probably either paraphrasing, or thinking of a discussion i had had with the scientist earlier about having to begrudgingly be their miner now, or just going off of the heavy implications that i should be mining. Either way, not sure why i responded with something so simple rather than nudging at the overbearing implications to myself that i should probably fill the gap with the access i had.

Now. I know that i was already on thin ice so to speak what with being on a watchlist for powergaming, but was any of what i was doing powergaming? The ban reason is kind of invalid there, but as said it was aparantly more so the other factors, but i still don't see what harm i was really doing, afterall i was really just wanting to help fill empty workspace in a lowerpop circumstance.


So that's why I am here pledging my case and appealing. Under the circumstances, I find myself disagreeing with the validility of this instance warranting a permanent ban, or hell, if any action needed to be taken at all.


If my viewpoint of what is ok for an assistant to do is so flawed, hell, unironically give me an assistant ban, as outlandish as that sounds.
Regardless of the outcome, i'm just going to dunk going round-start assistant into the damn trash since it seems to bring out my worst.
Aint nobody ever complained about my AI or Clown game, even regarded as one of the best at those roles too.

[Tekoro]

Holy, this is a long one. Well, right now I'm too tired to write an articulated response, which I have to make since I was partially involved in the investigation that lead to Rae's decision, so I'll write it when I wake up or so.

[Raeschen]

Like, if you're gunna stick true to what an assistant is supposed to be....

https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Assistant

"If you are an assistant and wish to actually assist people, you can try asking over the radio if anyone needs help with anything."

"The HoP can promote you to a position if you ask nicely and convince them that you're not a traitor (this is particularly useful if you are, in fact, a traitor). It helps if that job is urgent, like doctors when the crew is dying or engineers when the station is a hole in space."

You kinda need to directly assist someone or otherwise, like i said, get your job changed. My issue with you was that you kept refusing to do things i was asking you to do (Yes i didn't phrase it as orders but i kinda don't wanna seem like an asshole). I had seen you several times before being this incredible jack of all trades with setups on the white ship and private R&D/cloning - that's kinda pushing it.

Also, this started because a miner ahelped about you doing their job and were a bit angry. This is understandable in my opinion.

I kind of agree with you that the ban reason was weak, but in my opinion, if you get flagged for 'extreme powergaming', you lose the right for admins to ignore light powergaming that no one really cares about.

That said, you are a good player. If you can give me assurances that you understand why a job is confined to the roles they perform UNLESS IT'S AN EMERGENCY and give me an example of those situations, i'll consider temp-ing it.

it's just the "Doing all the jobs on the station" thing needs to stop

[Sylas]

To be completely honest, durgit's a nice member of the community, annd this frankly seems a bit petty a reason to ban him.
Im aware he's got previous offenses for powergame, but really, banning him for a really tiny instance of 'powergame' when it was legitimately intended to help people out seems pretty bogus.

Keep in mind, afaik, the definition of powergame is abusing resources to one's own advantage. He was just trying to play the game.
Personally, I'd love to see him unbanned outright, but alas, he /has/ been warned several times before, so the old geezer former staffer in me says lynch him with a 3-5 day ban. but that's just me.

[Raeschen]

To be completely honest, durgit's a nice member of the community, annd this frankly seems a bit petty a reason to ban him.
Im aware he's got previous offenses for powergame, but really, banning him for a really tiny instance of 'powergame' when it was legitimately intended to help people out seems pretty bogus.

Keep in mind, afaik, the definition of powergame is abusing resources to one's own advantage. He was just trying to play the game.
Personally, I'd love to see him unbanned outright, but alas, he /has/ been warned several times before, so the old geezer former staffer in me says lynch him with a 3-5 day ban. but that's just me.

Was more for ignoring an admin and lying to an admin than the powergame

[Ragolution]

Full support, this ban is ridiculous, and let me emphasize full, especially as a perma. I really fail to see how trying to mine when nobody else was doing it should warrant a ban. I was tempted to let this follow the natural course, but I'm a little miffed at how this entire ban has no precedent, and is, in-fact, pretty much baseless.

For starters, Assistants are a stop-gap measure that are there to be promoted to fill in the gaps of the roles that are missing and the fact that you were punished for that very thing is almost laughable, if not for the fact that you were permanently banned. Every definition one could find for an assistant, is that they exist to help every other job. You were not doing anything outside of that scope, not even remotely. The bare precedent could be made if you fucked off into space to 'explore', but you did not.



I don't understand how the player is expected to have ESP, nor do I understand your purpose in taking action against them. What rule were they breaking, by having the miner's gear when aiding the station, on the whole, and more directly, the Scientists and the Quartermaster? Where is he truly 'at fault'. Is it because fresh miners joined? Because he was doing their job. If two miners joined and the third slot was 'filled' by Durgit, there was no shortage of equipment. I 100% get the frustration when there's 3 suits and 4 miners, but this was not the case, either.

I'd like to highlight that we are not /tg/station and, on the obverse side of playing an assistant, the role seems to be purely relegated to ERPing, getting in the way, or dying. And this ban only serves to reinforce that stereotype. The basis of this being 'powergaming' is so inherently flawed that we may as well ban any assistant who dares to use a mop and bucket to clean the halls, or god forbid, perma any miners who decide to come up to the station and break into the genetics lab. They're not the geneticist.

if you get flagged for 'extreme powergaming', you lose the right for admins to ignore light powergaming that no one really cares about.

Let's review the rules that define what powergaming is, shall we?

RULE 9:Don’t powergame.

1. Don’t steal ID’s or upgrade your access for no reason.
   
   Okay, so he didn't steal anyone's ID, nor did he upgrade his own access. He went to the appropriate ranking officer, as he should, and asked them for an access improvement. No problems here.
2. Don’t steal items or equipment you don’t have a valid reason to take.
   
   Didn't steal anything so that's fine, too. He was perfectly authorized to go into Mining since the Acting-HoP gave him access and there were no miners doing their job at the time.
3. Don’t break into areas you’re not supposed to be in for no reason.
   
   Didn't break into anything, anywhere. He had legitimate access with his ID card.
4. Do not attempt to gain every power or enhancement that you can solely in an attempt to become as powerful as you can.
   
   I don't believe he had any powers or enhancements, I think, at best, his ID card had access to Mining as an 'enhancement' but there's nothing here really contesting the fact.
   
   So, what definition are we using to say that he 'powergamed', exactly? /tg/'s, or Raeschens? Because in either case, they are not part of Citadel's rules, nor should we be punishing someone for actually trying to be forward and productive on a fucking EXTENDED round, when all they were trying to do was mine because the role was nearly empty.
   
   Even if one were hunting down someone to punish, at best, the captain is at fault for not understanding that giving high amounts of access to the Assisstants is a bad idea, but you wouldn't ban him, would you?
   
   The ban itself seems like a gross overeaction and a grisly kneejerk to someone adminhelping the fact that 'hey an assistant is doing my job', and were it the case that Durgit had been breaking into mining and forcibly moved himself into a Shaft Miner role to do the Miner's job without some kind of access enhancement or the permission of someone appropriately outranking him on the station, I might more logically defend the fact of him being banned.
   
   Yet, in this case, none of this is true. There is no precedent here, for this ban, and the more I look at it, the more confused I get to why it was instituted in the first place.
   
   If we're perma-banning people for 'getting snippy' without any other reason, I may as well just ban myself before I call someone a big stinkin' nerd. Acting like we're fragile snowflakes who can't stand being argued with is a great way to remind the playerbase that they have no control whatsoever, and reminds that there is no real rule being enforced here- just a player's personal grievance.
   
   Next time I see them, I'll have to ban everyone I dislike, and bait them into saying mean things to me because it's a Rule 3 violation.

[cebutris]

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, while you definitely has been a powergaming shithead in some cases, this specific instance just seems like an assistant being an assistant, which doesn't really warrant a ban. However, the lying to admins DOES warrant a ban, but assuming this is your first time, and since you've been here for so long and are not an obvious griefer, this probably shouldn't be a permaban

[Raeschen]

i've repeated myself about 10 times on this, the permaban was for the history plus lying to admins plus not doing as an admin asked

---

Alright, i'm going to take the severely negative staff response in this as "i fucked up", i mean, it feels like not doing as an admin instructs you to do and also lying to them is a pretty bad thing to do but apparently i seem to be over-reacting.

I'm gunna go ahead and just undo it entirely, but i'll leave the appeal up for @kenzie to review if she wishes, since i seem to be at fault here

apologies for "Kneejerking" i guess

[Kenzie]

yeah i would not really call this powergaming and although there was slight discrepancy between what you said happened and what actually happened (wrt to being told to mine or w/e) i think a ban for lying over that would be extreme. this has been lifted anyway but really sounds like an ic issue.