REVISED Ban Apeal

[Arsonova]

Name When Banned: [SLSH] λrsonova86 WTB SFRL
Steam ID: STEAM_0:0:20690614
Game: Team Fortress 2
Server: DARKLY | Toronto TF2 Trade/Idle #3 | darklytrade...
Ban Reason: Racism, ignoring admins

State your case: I was being racist/prejudice by calling someone a "Jew". I'm really sorry if I/ to of offended anyone, I saw someone advertising the buying of items at an extremely low price, and asked him"why he was jewing the guy out" referring to the person he was about to trade. I realize that was inappropriate, and I truly am sorry. I try to run a clean friendly steam group myself, and am fully aware of the difficulty maintaining a safe, fun clean environment. I AM sorry and I am NOT racist. I was using the word more as a turn of phrase then a direct insult. As for the ignoring admins, I'm now wondering whether this person WAS an admin. I remember asking if there were any admins present, (I believe the guy i harassed was a donor) and I got no response/was told there weren't any present. I'd really like to clear this up, as I love darkly servers....really didn't mean to insult the Jewish people, I just really had strong feelings towards a veteran trader taking advantage of people with 20hrs of game play. I hope e can clear this up, and although I DO agree racism should be followed up with a permanent ban, I would like greatly to NOT be loped up in that category of people. Racism is a disgusting vile poison that liters the online gaming communities, and I just want it known that I was not intending on being racist/prejudice, I must have just been in a mood that day... Thank you for your time.

 

[HappySticks™]

Thanks for appealing your ban Arsonova
A Team Fortress 2 Admin will review your appeal shortly; until then sit tight, any puerile posts and/or bumps may cause a further delay in the process.


You may refer to the link below as it will give the full details of your ban.

http://www.darklygaming.com/bans/index.php?p=banlist&searchText=STEAM_0:0:20690614&Submit=

 

[Hinouchi]

DARKLY Server Rules

Arsonova try to use this term instead from now on :P

Do you happen to remember the name of the person you called him out on his sharking?

T2. No Sharking.
Sharking is the act of targeting newer, uninformed players and uses deceptive tactics to convince or pressure the player into trading a high-value item for change a fraction of its value - is in all aspects considered scamming and will result in a ban.

 

[Arsonova]

Hinouchi

appreciate that man, but plz wait until an admin comments. I'm eager to get this resolved and they claim that many posts can tardy them. Thanks again though:)

 

[Gatherix]

Hi Arsenova86, thanks for filing an appeal.

I understand your concerns regarding the racism accusation, however that wasn't the primary cause of your ban.

A player's prices are his/her own business; furthermore, it's a player's own responsibility to verify prices of potential transactions. If you feel someone's prices are displaced enough that it's dangerous and others need warning, one simple message is fine. Repeated messages, accusing that player of scamming when no scam has taken place, and similar behavior is not an appropriate response; repeatedly spamming messages like

"CARDS CAN FETCH UP TO 1,50 EACH AND THE BACKGROUNDS CAN SELL FOR UP TO 50.00$!!! DONT BE FOOLED BYSCAMMERS BUYING FOR 1-3SCRAP"

and

 Fat cat is here lowballing on ALL the items hes quickbuying. Youve been warned

is obnoxious, unnecessary, and abusive, not to mention taking chatbox room from legitimate trades. That guy who stands by the hotdog stand with a megaphone yelling how overpriced they are makes the area unpleasant for others, and is effectively hijacking the hotdog stand's business.
If I want a hotdog, I'll buy a damn hotdog.

Furthermore, it was brought to my attention that, after being banned, you pursued the user over Steam and continued to harass them. Upon doing some brief research I found you've been banned from numerous communities for vulgar behavior and trading practices, including extortion, and I decided to up the ban from a couple days to a perm.

If any of the account of events is false or omits important elements, please articulate them accordingly.

 

[Arsonova]

I'm gonna start by saying THIS: The person in question Fat Cat, added me. As soon as I had left/was banned, I noticed his friend request. As SOON as I accepted he spammed me with "HA now I'm going to up your ban status to permanent for harrasment HAHAHAHHAAH FAT CAT ALWAYS WINS" and "Fat Cat always wins, you cant TOUCH this man I got friends in high places" as well as many many hahahahaha's. I thought nothing of it at first because when I was removed from darkly, I had seen website and it showed a 5 day ban. I just thought he was full of himself. Now I'm wondering about your sources saying I added him...The fact you are saying that, as an opening statement for reason to my ban upgrade leads me to believe you've spoken with him.I'm assuming he has managed to contact you/one of your admins personally and actually DID manage to manipulate the situation. I can't stress enough how mad he was for me inhibiting his profit margin. I understand he IS a donor, and he may get a certain level of trust amongst the staff, but this is a damn setup! He added me, and if THAT's the issue here, I say prove it!

I would be glad to explain how each of these non-relevant bans have also been unjust.

1) My "extortion" from SR: Guy I met through Outpost, agreed on a price, added him. Mid trade pressures me to double the offer, which i eventually do. Then says hell think on it. 3 days later I'm being asked to pay triple. Back when outpost had rep established, I had threatened him with relentless rep- from anyone I knew for his pressuring a trade after agreeing on a price. Plz ACTUALLY read the whole thing, with S.S's.

2) Outpost: I had an issue with an admin there. He abused of the ban system and banned me about 20 times perm, and temp, ALL of which were revoked IMMEDIATELY. I was then banned much later for miss use of the report system when my trade was spammed, and i decided to report the person BEFORE writing in chat " I will ban you if you keep posting". Final reason, too many bans. I'm good friends with sneeza's brother wikkix3 and has/is helping me clean my record due to the previous charges' irrelevance. This is not the first time this has inhibited me.

If you are going back and reading the logs, does his behavior not fall under sharking? Wouldn't HE be a more dangerous target worthy of your efforts? I am sorry if the term scammer was not YET accurate. I also made a solid attempt to type those quotes you've chosen, directly AFTER his own were shown. Making my posts no more spam then his, which if i recall were still spaced out enough.

If these are the reasons that my racist ban has been upgraded to permanent status, they are greatly unfounded. Where did I ignore an admin? Am I not charged for being racist/ignoring admins? I AM sorry for my remark about jews, but this has no relevance. Each of the instances you've mentioned can be explained thoroughly. My vulgarity was only ever directed towards those who are out to harm and profit WAY too greatly from people who don't know what they have.

Furthermore you have rules about sharking and you have the guys name.

Now I'm going to assume, what with vulgarity being the major cause of alarm here, that you did NOT intend to misspell my name now including the word "Arse".

 

[Arsonova]

I just want to add that again, i AM sorry. If I had just minded my own business and let the sharks do their thing, this never would have happened, and if allowed, I will watch my mouth in the future. I won't interfere with other people or the prices they choose to buy stuff at. Sorry.

 

[zackychuu]

Yeahhhhhhhh..

1) My "extortion" from SR: Guy I met through Outpost, agreed on a price, added him. Mid trade pressures me to double the offer, which i eventually do. Then says hell think on it. 3 days later I'm being asked to pay triple. Back when outpost had rep established, I had threatened him with relentless rep- from anyone I knew for his pressuring a trade after agreeing on a price. Plz ACTUALLY read the whole thing, with S.S's.

If a trader requests you to double, and then triple your offer, I agree, it is annoying.
But in no way is that a relevant reason to start acting like you did over Steam chat with that person.
You asked us to look at the screenshots, that was a bad move on your part. Your attitude towards that trader is absolutely appalling and quite frankly, I would love to keep you away from Darkly on that reason alone.

--
From looking at those screenshots, it leaves nothing to my imagination as to how you probably acted with this trader in reference to your current appeal.
If what you say is true, and Fat Cat did infact add you. Why accept?
If he started to pursue you and try to get a rise out of you. Why not delete him?
You do not and should not begin harassing traders in any kind of situation. If Fat Cat started it, block him. Don't let it get out of hand.
Quite honestly, you need to learn to take yourself away from these situations so you stop giving yourself a bad reputation.
If you are as decent a trader as you claim to be, you would know not to get involved in these types of situations, and you would definitely not act like you have done multiple times.

Your attitude as a trader and as a whole is awful, when you don't get your own way you take to threatening people.
Some how, you seem to think the way you act is perfectly fine. After seeing the screenshot of your conversation with [JAG] Taser, apparently your view is that harassment is a perfectly viable form of conducting trades (Yes, asking your friends to down-rep somebody because they wont trade you IS a form of harassment).


You are not the kind of person we want playing on our servers. If the decision was mine, you would stay banned.
But at the end of the day, Gatherix was the banning Admin and the decision is his.

 

[Gatherix]

The fact you are saying that, as an opening statement for reason to my ban upgrade leads me to believe you've spoken with him.

This information was never verified, and as such wasn't taken into a whole lot of considering regarding the ban time (nor was it an 'opening statement'). Rather, it prompted some more research and seemed to fit your supposed character. Thanks for clarifying.

Now I'm going to assume, what with vulgarity being the major cause of alarm here, that you did NOT intend to misspell my name now including the word "Arse".

This wasn't intentional, I just read your name, phonetically, as "Arse-en-ova" at first. My apologies. It's worth noting, however, that 'vulgarity' is not equivalent to profanity.

If you are going back and reading the logs, does his behavior not fall under sharking? Wouldn't HE be a more dangerous target worthy of your efforts? I am sorry if the term scammer was not YET accurate.

Vulgar behavior does not warrant vulgar behavior in response, as Zackychuu said. It's your responsibility to stay out of these situations, not get further entangled. It's difficult to firmly say whether or not someone is sharking (though I believe Fat Cat's prices were not at all low enough to qualify), but regardless of whether or not Fat Cat was sharking, the appropriate response is to report him and/or get a Mod's attention. Your response of public harassment doesn't help the server at all, it makes it worse; no Admin or Mod is aware of the problem and thus cannot deal with it nor can the alleged shark get dealt with, and the public harassment escalates the problems and makes the current server unpleasant. If your objective is the health and safety of the server and players, your response should be the steps I outlined. It is the Admins'/Mods' responsibility to deal with players violating server rules, not your own.

My vulgarity was only ever directed towards those who are out to harm and profit WAY too greatly from people who don't know what they have.

The kind of behavior you expressed is never warranted or justified on our servers. It doesn't matter what the other player is doing; responding in this manner is unwelcome and will result in repercussions. Again, it's players' own responsibility to verify pricing; if you believe a player is exploiting someone's lack of trading knowledge, a single polite post and reporting the player is the appropriate response. What Fat Cat was doing was irrelevant when the initial ban was issued; publicly attacking someone's pricing repeatedly is simply not permitted.

 

[Arsonova]

Sigh, I can agree my behavior has been rash. I can also agree to having gotten out of control on a few occasions regarding sharks. I will honestly stop these types of instigations (what with targeting them and making it my business). I'm not in the habit of being rude, and I do want to remain a player on your servers. I don't freak out and get vulgar at every pass guys, common. I'm not saying I'm a big ass trader either. These fat headed traits are not me, nor do they represent me. I HAVE been out of line on trade servers in the past, but 90% of these occasions didn't involve me. If darkly does not wish for its players to try to maintain a level of honest trading that's fine. I will not. I will however as suggested by Gatherix, let the admins deal with players violating rules. I'm really sorry for all this time and effort here guys, this just seems like its being blown up. My attitude towards random traders on other servers does NOT reflect the way i maintain myself on Darkly. I've always tried to keep a level head when on your servers, having spent so many hours using the servers for actual trading, and just overall fun killbox. I can't stress enough how much I will watch my step in the future if allowed the chance to do so. I'm accepting my charges, and any opinions that come along with them. I have a pretty good feeling that FatCat has made it a goal to accomplish exactly this. So good on him. I don't know what else to say other then I'm sorry and I won't do it again. It isn't in my power to uproot the conspiracy i believe to be in play here. So if this is in fact the end of my darkly days, well, that really sucks. I've met so many cool cats just hanging out, doing their thing. I don't make it a point to harrass people, I just have strong beliefs that anyone buying items at less then 1/2 price should be stating that they are quickbuying. I Really hope there's a way to resolve this in a way where I can attempt to show you I will change the way i compose myself. I'm not a bad guy...I had a moment of bad judgement, and I'm sorry.

 

[Gatherix]

If darkly does not wish for its players to try to maintain a level of honest trading that's fine.

It isn't in my power to uproot the conspiracy i believe to be in play here.

It's difficult to take your apologies seriously when they're lined with comments like these.

I just have strong beliefs that anyone buying items at less then 1/2 price should be stating that they are quickbuying.

Then make a suggestion on the forums. People have suggested changes to our policies before and we've changed them in response.

Please understand that the difficulty here isn't in what actually happened; while attacking someone's pricing is against the rules, it's certainly not an incredibly severe offense. The difficulty lies in that your go-to response to these problems -- pricing you believe to be unfair, 'conspiracy' targeting you, inappropriate behavior from another party, et cetera -- is this kind of behavior. I have little trouble forgiving what's already happened, but rather trouble believing it will not arise again.

 

[Arsonova]

I've gone back and read the ss's from my ban, and I can tell you those screenies are very one sided. Holy crap was i pissed. I was really out of line, but keep in mind it was 3 days of being jerked around and bled. I cant even tell what the item in question was, but i remember waiting a long time for it(probably a craft number #86 as I seemed so adamant) Still no way to of reacted and in all honesty, I was having a real, bad, day. Man, I CAN'T excuse it....All I can say is that was a year ago, and SR let it slide. I DO need to appeal that but I am not like that. That was an isolated incident back when outpost had a negative rep system that people were abusing of left and right. How could anyone trace back rep-? it was a flawed system and in all honesty it was a bluff. I never ACTUALLY went through with the rep- and it WASN'T to pressure a trade. It was out of spite. Pure spite. For his tactics of milking a trader collecting a certain craft number. (and here I am sounding like I'm justifying it)...I goofed guys, i did. You are not seeing the whole story that took place over days, but I DID goof. My lack of appealing that is based on the fact i hadn't planned on talking like that again. I need to realize when to just leave the game....That's my biggest flaw. I get too involved and just need to realize there are ALL types out there. I realize my actions, and am ready for judgement. Please allow me to better myself through this report. Let this be the wake up call i needed, but don't let it be the end of my days on darkly. There was a time(i think presently) where I had applied as an admin. I was still kinda hoping to see that through one day....again I don't know what is left to say. Non justifiable profanity/vulgar behavior is not what i want to be known for. I care a great deal for the community, and have been outrageously generous on many occasions. I constantly host in-server raffles for hats and paints and all sorts of stuff. I try to maintain a super friendly atmosphere in my mvm group, allowing new players to get to know veterans....I have really good intentions, and I'm not this villain I'm apparently coming off as. I will better myself regardless of the outcome here. Turns out this has been an eye-opener. I wanna thank Zachychuu for making me re-analyze the way i carry myself. All I ask is the perm ban to be removed. If it needs to be a few months even, I'm aware my actions merit punishment. Assuming that this is the end of my dream to be a darkly admin, I just wanna say it was a blast. Great community, worth ever second spent there. I don't hold any grudge if things need to be a certain way, it just kinda enforces my opinion of you all. Keep it clean, keep it safe and above all else keep it fun. Fingers crossed, but I'm not holding my breath....It's been a treat.



p.s. (just a ban downsize)

 

[Arsonova]

didnt see ya post yet, sry. Those interjections are not meant to come off wrong man. I was told after i was added, that it would work agaisnt me. I didnt beleive him, and here we are. I cant help but feel like happysticks has spoken to fatcat, and hes accomplished exactly what he wanted. And the comment about level of honest trading, was meant as "to enforce it upon others." Not as though ya dont WANT honest traders. Sorry for that. I shall not enforce it upon others .

 

[Arsonova]

At very best can i NOT be tagged as a racist?

 

[Gatherix]

And the comment about level of honest trading, was meant as "to enforce it upon others." Not as though ya dont WANT honest traders. Sorry for that. I shall not enforce it upon others .

Thank you for the clarification.

I cant help but feel like happysticks has spoken to fatcat, and hes accomplished exactly what he wanted.

HappySticks did not issue the bans. I did.

You keep stating how FatCat got what he wanted; that's just a continuation of the acrimony. As Zackychuu said, you need to remove yourself from the situation. The repeated concern in your appeal with what FatCat 'got away with' suggests to me that your attitude hasn't changed.

 

[Arsonova]

I'm not saying he got away with anything. I'm saying based on what he promised would happen and what happened, it makes too much sense to ignore. Also seems I made a mistake. It was you in fact you who first brought up the suggestion I added him. I just think it's a little odd that THAT was the exact thing he said would be the reason for the perma ban; the additional harassment. I'm not accusing you of anything but look at it from my point of view here. I hadn't been here to appeal due to assuming he was full of himself and did NOT in fact know anyone powerful enough. Then i check in a few days later to see I'm perma, and you've been notified i added him. I don't see why/how my skepticism of where you learned i added him, has to be a reason for thinking I won't change my ways. I did NOT add him, HE added ME! I was promised an outcome, and here we are. I'm NOT justifying anything I did. I can't stress that enough! If the issue of 'my concern towards FatCat's threat' is truly inhibiting you from concluding I'm not a malicious person, bear in mind it WAS a threat. I don't know him from a hole in the wall cept he's rich, offers way too little, and threatened me with a perma ban for accepting his request. All i want at this point is to show to you that I won't react the same way anymore. I'm honestly over the FatCat situation. It is what it is, and here we are. I'd like to move past all of this a little smarter and a lot more reserved, moving towards the goal of worrying less about sharks. These are as you said issues to be dealt with from within, it's just hard to palate those traders that can't caught in time to save someone getting ripped off. There were no admins present and I acted out in lack of one. It shant happen again. As an aspiring admin, I over reacted GREATLY in face of my morals. My intentions were for the well being of Darkly. Who wants to return to a server where you were ripped off? I don't want a bad image for Darkly, and I've tried way too hard to avoid one by assisting new traders. I overstepped. Again, I'm sorry. I will NEVER AGAIN INTERFERE WITH OTHER PEOPLES TRADES OR OFFERS.

 

[Gatherix]

In regards to your continued concern over FatCat's 'threat':

This information was never verified, and as such wasn't taken into a whole lot of considering regarding the ban time

Ban shortened to 3 months. No additional appeals are necessary.