[Distrilul] Projectzomboidplayer - Evader?

[Projectzomboidfan]

BYOND account: Projectzomboidplayer

Ban/note type (Check what applies):
Server ban

ban/note length: Forever
Ban/note reason: Ban evasion alt of longestarmlonglaw
Time ban was placed: 2025-06-21
Server you were playing on when banned: Manuel? I believe i was offline when this was placed
Round ID in which ban was placed: 76374

Why are you making this appeal?(Check what applies):
(X) - The ban/note is factually incorrect


Why should this appeal be accepted?:

BingusDingus pointing a bunch of coincidences together should not meet the bar for convicting me as a ban evader. I have been playing for several months, have had no upheld bans, and only a few notes. If i truely was an evader, I would have been caught months ago. But i haven't. A couple of forum shitposts on players club should not be sufficient for convicting someone as an evader.

[distributivgesetz]

Hi, I am going to jump right out the gate here: do you have any connection to longestarmlonglaw at all?

[Projectzomboidfan]

So far, The only connection to me and longestarmlonglaw is bingusdingus going. "Oh these two both ironically hate mrp" this guy must be longestarmlonglaw.
Or as in literal connection? ISP? Wifi? If i was actually evading, i would have been caught long ago. but it's been months of me playing regularly.

[distributivgesetz]

The post by bingusdingus is not the actual reason you were banned for evading. A few other admins and I started our own investigation and discussion about whether or not you are playing here legitimately, and given the private info available to us we came to the conclusion that the PZP account is not legitimate.

Therefore I am denying your appeal of this account and I will ask you to appeal the ban on longestarmlonglaw if you want to continue playing here. If you have questions or if you believe to know of a way that proves that you aren't an evader then you can post it here, otherwise you can request a headmin review where they will take a look at the evidence and decide if it's robust enough to uphold my decision.

[Projectzomboidfan]

Does my forum posting and threads constitute a portion of the private information? If so then i believe the evidence is bad.
Also the problem with proving a negative is because i have to publicly post personal information such as my ip address to "Prove" im not evading. What would constitute something that would prove im not an evader? Bingus's accusations are clearly wrong as my account was made on march 18, which i believe to be long after longestarmlonglaw's ban.

[distributivgesetz]

No I don't expect you to post your IP address or any other information that will dox you. We have that info already. Despite me being very sure that you are evading I am always open to any proof that you might not be

And your forum behavior wouldn't change my decision to keep you banned, no. I have proof that I cannot share with you that makes me believe you are not a legitimate player.
You can ask headmins for a fact check on the evidence though

[Timberpoes]

Distrilul retired from admin earlier today, so they won't be able to continue this appeal.

I was involved in a lot of the debate and deliberation around the evidence collected and whether it met the barrier to place a ban, so I'm going to step in and take their place here.

And as a huge tl;dr - I'm going to be escalating this to the headmins myself for them to review what evidence was gathered and come to a conclusion on if they agree you're longestarmlonglaw. I have had eyes on the totality of evidence and investigation. I was one of the admins advising Distrilul to place the evasion ban because I believed the evidence was enough to be pretty much certain you're longestarmlonglaw and that such evidence would also stand up to headmin scrutiny. There were no admin voices in dissent of this conclusion.

So if that's all you're intested in, you can stop reading there and just wait for the headmin response. Otherwise, let me take the opportunity to talk to you directly, and perhaps to the community as a whole since I love my little soapbox sessions.

Here's the craic. Bingus' comment made lightbulbs of "ohhhh, wait, they could actually be correct, that makes sense" ding above the heads of a few admins. Our admin team are basically comprised of some of the internet's top autists and suspiciously wealthy furries, trained by other top autists and suspiciously wealthy furries, to build conclusions based on trails of breadcrumbs through investigating data, talking to players and talking to other admins. So when those investigative lightbulbs ding, thrse sorts of investigations are the outcome.

Despite Distrilul's invitation for you to prove you innocence, I've handled appeals like this for many years. What Distrilul asked of you is simply not possible. You cannot prove you aren't who we think you are. We're not going to give you the intricate details of our investigation and even if totally innocent you will never be in a position where you could prove that innocence.

As the banned party, all you will ever see with evasion is the conclusion that we think you're this other person. That can involve some level of conclusive evidence and or it can involve a collection of circumstantial evidence which taken at its whole means the banning admin is absolutely sure the only possible way to explain all that circumstance is that you are the person we think you are.

On principle we don't share how we catch evaders because we're in a perpetual arms race of evasion-discovery-ban-evasion where we're constantly trying to find new ways to track evaders and evaders are constantly trying to find new ways to stay hidden. And I like evaders that stay hidden. If you can't tell someone is an evader then there's a pretty good chance that means they're following the rules, causing no issues, generating no drama and invoking no grief. And that's all we ever wanted to from that player in the first place.

If evasion and the fear of being caught evading is what it takes for someone to become a reformed community member then so be it, it's a valid route to take and I'm thankful when it happens. And for that to work, we need secret methods that can't be bypassed by changing your CID and using a VPN. Or, if not secret, at least methods not widely known so that we can continue to identify ban evaders and keep 'em scared they'll be caught, so they stay in line and stop breaking the rules or shitting up the community.

So I understand your frustration if you aren't actually longestarmlonglaw. Because no, you cannot prove it to us. And we're not going to give you what you need so you can prove what you want to prove. And when bans like this go out, we just have to hope that our track record as an admin team allows the community to trust that there's no skullduggery or fuckery going on in the background to pin an innocent player as a mastermind evader.

That aside, I don't think it's particularly private at this point to state that your forum interactions are but one part of the puzzle, I think even the dullest of people could still draw a conclusion that when Bingus says "this guy might be this other guy cuz he posts like him" then you get banned, that we probably looked at your forum posting at least in part. But like I said, one part of the puzzle. Even removing one puzzle piece from a jigsaw can still allow you to complete the puzzle to the point you can grok exactly what the jigsaw puzzle's picture is. And that is where we stand.

So I'm going to ask the headmins to investigate our evidence, also in private, do their headminly discussions, make their headminly decisions and give you that conclusion as soon as they grace us all with their appearance in this appeal.