/tg/Station 13

When and where this incident occured (Game Server, forums, Discord): Manuel Server, 25th May 2020
Byond account and character name OR Discord name: Ckey Timberpoes, in-game Rae Finkel
Admin: TheMidnightRose
ROUND ID HERE IF APPLICABLE: 137998
Detailed summary:
The round leading up to this was abysmal. Round 137992. Very rapidly, time dilation hit 550%+ thanks to https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/51282 on Icebox.

https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/137 ... e=game.txt

A restart vote was attempted. In total it took over 10 minutes realtime for the 1 and a half minute vote to resolve and passed unanimously 31 to 0 as a result. It then took a further 5-ish minutes realtime for the 1 minute restart timer to resolve.
There was no further time or opportunity to make a map vote to switch off Icebox. The game was literally unplayable in that state.

People were pinged on Discord. Supportmins. Admins. At least one ahelp was sent (mine) during this round, and I suspect more were, requesting admin intervention.

Nothing was answered. Not a single ahelp. No admins came online. Nada.

Following this, the infamous round 137998 followed. I shall not lie, the round was an utter shit show. People just wanted the round to end and the map vote, which passed in the lobby, to take effect. There was ick ocking. There was OOC antag sniping. There was ock icking.

https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/137998/

And, from the hearsay that I've encountered, it took someone DMing Rose directly to get an admin on the server to resolve our issues. What followed was a farce big enough to rival round 137998 itself. Rose came on, did her adminny magic and stuff. Then we get this message on the unique snowflake Manuel-specific discord server.



And what followed was accurately described as a Thanos snap in round 137999. Players who had not disconnected between rounds were banned without bwoink, without warning, without communication. The ban wave included the Captain, the acting RD, I believe the AI. Enough people were silently banned that the round was brought to a premature close from what I can gather reading the logs in retrospect.

https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/137999/

19 bans were issued in total for a minimum of 3 days per ban. This was a mass banning with no investigation beyond the minimal needed to form a metaphorical hitlist of people who could have potentially done something wrong.

No further investigation was conducted beyond this - This ban wave included people who were innocent and had to be unbanned after, because of Rose's negligence in investigating. This ban wave included people who just typed the word suicide into a white bar at the bottom of the screen and, without an IC or OOC communication, were banned for 3 days reduced to 1 day on appeal based on the location they suicided, because of Rose's negligence in investigating. There's people who got 3 day bans that have been escalated later, thanks to Rose's negligence in investigating. I could go on. Probably ever player banned by Rose for 137998 has their own unique story to tell, and this mine.

The entire handling of this situation by Rose was abysmal from start to finish.

Right now the range of bans for round 137998 stands between 1 day and [edit]<No permanent bans were issued, the permanent game ban was a OOC perma ban that was issued as a game perma ban incorrectly and has been rectified> perma depending on the person, what they did and whatever other arcane reasons sit in the background.

The context of the previous round has been all but ignored, just like the players including myself were when they sent ahelps, pinged supportmins and tried their hardest to resolve the situation themselves when all of that failed. There are massive extenuating circumstances and an argument all around for just fucking axing 137998 from the record books permanently including dropping all bans to notes. Even now my note incorrectly reads "Banned from the server for 3 days - Part of the Mass Suicide/Ghost Sniping/IC in OOC destruction of round 137998"

How the players handled that round was poor, but how Rose handled the aftermath was no better and in some ways just flat out worse. People just wanted to play the game on their preferred server with their friends, their community and the MRP ruleset.

For the above reasons, I am putting forward a formal complaint about the handling of this situation on my own behalf, although my title does include "& Others" because I would like to recognise that I was not the only person affected.

This is not a personal attack on Rose in any way, shape or form. I appreciate the work she's done on Manuel and I have shared many glorious rounds with her. However, her handling of this specific situation was so poor as to prompt me to enter in a complaint so that it can be properly investigated, the facts ascertained and a ruling made.

As much as I am not in the mood to deal with the admin complaint that I knew was coming. I was hoping to wait till all the appeals were either complete or bans were completed.

19 bans were issued in total for a minimum of 3 days per ban. This was a mass banning with no investigation beyond the minimal needed to form a metaphorical hitlist of people who could have potentially done something wrong.

There was infact investigation on what happened that round. It took me roughly an hour to gather names and go through the logs. Will I admit that I hit several innocents? Yes, the initial gathering of names for the lists for the banning were in two catergories. IC/OOC Ghost Sniping and Chapel Suicides. Quoting from Foxicide's appeal

The only reason I started issuing the 19 bans initially was the antag sniping with Ghost/OOC chatter that about half the bans from this were involved in.(Icebox)

.

The initial wave of bans was do to the first grab to ensure no one escaped it. The unbanning process after that was to double down and recheck my logs for locations which is why almost every appeal has had an more accurate note applied by either me or Beesting who helped me bunches afterwards.

And, from the hearsay that I've encountered, it took someone DMing Rose directly to get an admin on the server to resolve our issues.

Yes I did get a DM about a mass suicide pact and IC in OOC. Honestly should of screenshot it but if whoever did message me sees this, please post the screenshot of the conversation.

Right now the range of bans for round 137998 stands between 1 day and perma depending on the person, what they did and whatever other arcane reasons sit in the background.

There are no permabans from this. The only technical permaban that came from this incident was a OOC Permaban. There should of been a second one, but its way too late to do that now.

And what followed was accurately described as a Thanos snap in round 137999.

Yes that is pretty accurate on that. Either I had or Arm shoved through forced sextended while I finished up my logdiving for this round.

How the players handled that round was poor, but how Rose handled the aftermath was no better and in some ways just flat out worse. People just wanted to play the game on their preferred server with their friends, their community and the MRP ruleset.

If I had gotten on the server and you were not all participating in the largest mob mentality event I had seen in a long while, and just screaming to have me mapchange and reset the server. I would of token'd the wizard and this round would of moved on, no notes, no bans. Instead I had actually had to hard stop, look at the corner of my client to make sure I logged onto Manuel and not Event Hall. I was angry about this, beyond angry as I recognized several people as Manuel regulars in this mess.

Oh and the big point? The massive one that no one brings up in the appeals yet? The round time dilation was perfectly fine. It does not reach critical mass and destroy the server till about the 30min mark. Which was the reason why this round isnt being tossed in the trash by me.

This is honestly all I will say on R137998.

Edit: At the original time of posting this. There WAS a permaban on one player. It was not meant to be such. This has been fixed and the player will be notified. IT was to be a Permaban for OOC only.

Oh and the big point? The massive one that no one brings up in the appeals yet? The round time dilation was perfectly fine. It does not reach critical mass and destroy the server till about the 30min mark. Which was the reason why this round isnt being tossed in the trash by me.

I feel like this part is critical to understand why action was taken in the first place. It doesn't matter if the outcome was inevitable or not - this behavior was unacceptable.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:As much as I am not in the mood to deal with the admin complaint that I knew was coming. I was hoping to wait till all the appeals were either complete or bans were completed.

You banned 19 people. I've been trying to compose this since my own personal ban was served. I should have prefaced my post with this rather than ending my post with this:

This is not a personal attack on Rose in any way, shape or form. I appreciate the work she's done on Manuel and I have shared many glorious rounds with her. However, her handling of this specific situation was so poor as to prompt me to enter in a complaint so that it can be properly investigated, the facts ascertained and a ruling made.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:

19 bans were issued in total for a minimum of 3 days per ban. This was a mass banning with no investigation beyond the minimal needed to form a metaphorical hitlist of people who could have potentially done something wrong.

There was infact investigation on what happened that round. It took me roughly an hour to gather names and go through the logs. Will I admit that I hit several innocents? Yes, the initial gathering of names for the lists for the banning were in two catergories. IC/OOC Ghost Sniping and Chapel Suicides. Quoting from Foxicide's appeal

The only reason I started issuing the 19 bans initially was the antag sniping with Ghost/OOC chatter that about half the bans from this were involved in.(Icebox)

The initial wave of bans was do to the first grab to ensure no one escaped it. The unbanning process after that was to double down and recheck my logs for locations which is why almost every appeal has had an more accurate note applied by either me or Beesting who helped me bunches afterwards.

Emphasis in the quote is mine.

You were so focused on banning anyone that had the potential to be even remotely involved that you failed to do your due diligence as an admin and investigate every case fairly before issuing your bans.

You banned under a single blanket note that was not specific to any given player. You issued bans of unfair length and bans that weren't justified in addition to bans that were probably justified when void of context.

That is what I mean when I say only the bare minimum investigation was conducted. You investigated not to ascertain guilt or innocence and establish the facts unique to each player, but to simply expediate your mass ban. Whether a player was banned for 3 days at 04:00h on the 25th of May or banned for 3 days on the 27th of May, both players are still banned for 3 days in total.

You took a "ban first, investigate later" approach including banning people who were still online, had not been bwoinked, were not warned and had not been communicated with in any way, including innocent people that had to be unbanned later. I, personally, don't find that an acceptable course of action. You may disagree. There may well be a ruling on it.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:

And, from the hearsay that I've encountered, it took someone DMing Rose directly to get an admin on the server to resolve our issues.

Yes I did get a DM about a mass suicide pact and IC in OOC. Honestly should of screenshot it but if whoever did message me sees this, please post the screenshot of the conversation.

I am not disputing that it happened - I just did not want to speak on matters I had heard through Chinese whispers.

I would like to highlight in big letters that I believe this was a positive thing for Rose in particular, that Rose dropped what she was doing and came to the aid of the server when DMed.

But it goes towards the context of what went on - Extenuating circumstances I tried to cover in the original post. THROUGH ALL THE COMMUNICATION MEDIUMS, IT TOOK AN ADMIN BEING SENT A DM TO GET SOMEONE ON THE FUCKING SERVER TO ADDRESS ANY OF THE ISSUES THE PLAYERS HAD. SUPPORTMIN PINGS NOT ANSWERED. AHELPS NOT ANSWERED.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:

Right now the range of bans for round 137998 stands between 1 day and perma depending on the person, what they did and whatever other arcane reasons sit in the background.

There are no permabans from this. The only technical permaban that came from this incident was a OOC Permaban. There should of been a second one, but its way too late to do that now.

Emphasis in the quote is mine.

Please allow me to apply your own logic - I had to put in this admin complaint now. It would have been way too late to do it later.

This attitude in particular is part of why this admin complain has been written up. Banning is not a speedrun. You're not attempting to get the any% ban 19 people speedrun world record. It takes time to do a proper investigation. Why, through lapse of time and random chance as to who you choose to investigate and in what order, does one person get a permanent punishment and another person not get any punishment at all?

That is not fair on the player who got punished.

In addition - This may be wrong, so correct me here. And correct me on the specifics, not the generalities of what I'm about to say.

Why was Rose the only person involved in issuing the bans? Why were other admins not drafted in to help log dive and issue bans accordingly. Rose makes no mention of other admins helping with investigations. All 19 bans were issued by Rose. The only involvment of other admins I've seen is in Rose issuing mass rulings based on her 19 bans that Beesting has been able to follow in the wake of her bans.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:

And what followed was accurately described as a Thanos snap in round 137999.

Yes that is pretty accurate on that. Either I had or Arm shoved through forced sextended while I finished up my logdiving for this round.

No additional comments on this. Seems like a good and proper way to handle things.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:

How the players handled that round was poor, but how Rose handled the aftermath was no better and in some ways just flat out worse. People just wanted to play the game on their preferred server with their friends, their community and the MRP ruleset.

If I had gotten on the server and you were not all participating in the largest mob mentality event I had seen in a long while, and just screaming to have me mapchange and reset the server. I would of token'd the wizard and this round would of moved on, no notes, no bans. Instead I had actually had to hard stop, look at the corner of my client to make sure I logged onto Manuel and not Event Hall. I was angry about this, beyond angry as I recognized several people as Manuel regulars in this mess.

Emphasis in the quote is mine.

This is a very good reason where you take a step back and recuse yourself.

From my perspective, these were spite bans. You were so angry with what you were seeing that you just banned first and asked questions never. Know what I, as an individual, don't give a flying hoot about? What *OTHER* people were doing in the round. Punish me for what *I* did in the round. I KNOW you did no investigation beyond the bare minimum required to establish a list of people to ban BECAUSE I was one of the people banned for 3 days for WALKING INTO THE CHAPEL AND SUICIDING.

I didn't talk in OOC about the ongoing round, suiciding or anything other than one token line about the ongoing map vote. I did not speak IC. You just saw the word suicide in the logs somewhere near my name and banned me for 3 days. I had to appeal it. Even now my note is not fixed. In what universe is that deserving of a ban?

That's more an issue for the appeal, but it also goes to the very heart of this complaint.

You logged on, did the bare minimum investigation to start banning people, started silently banning people for expediency's sake, drafted no other admins to talk to players and try to establish what had happened or if you did, none of them talked to me before you did your Thanos snap on round 999. You were angry at the time and didn't recuse yourself of the matter, then issued a bunch of unfair and over-the-top bans, a number of which had to be reduced OR REMOVED. You banned people WHO HAD TO BE UNBANNED LATER BECAUSE THEY DID NOTHING WRONG.

You banned people by association in that round. You didn't ban people for what they did, you banned people for what OTHER people did. After I suicided, a whole bunch of things happened that I had no control over and were not caused by my actions and yet I got punished more harshly because of them?

You did not do your due diligence when investigating the matter.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:Oh and the big point? The massive one that no one brings up in the appeals yet? The round time dilation was perfectly fine. It does not reach critical mass and destroy the server till about the 30min mark. Which was the reason why this round isnt being tossed in the trash by me.

This is honestly all I will say on R137998.

Vekter wrote:I feel like this part is critical to understand why action was taken in the first place. It doesn't matter if the outcome was inevitable or not - this behavior was unacceptable.

I don't disagree (classic weasel words) that the behavour was unacceptable. I do infact agree.

However it should have been balanced with the context of what was going on.

550% time dilation due to a GitHub reported issue/bug affecting the Icebox map when the Icebox map should have been disabled. I CANNOT EMPHASISE ENOUGH THE BELOW TIMESTAMPS FOR THE PREVIOUS ROUND. The restart vote took 17 and a half minutes to process from the restart vote being started by Niko to the game restarting. This was all the same, singular restart vote.

During this the server was ignored. Ahelps were ignored. Supportmin pings were ignored. That it took a fuckin' admin being DMed to get ANYONE onto the server at all was stupid.

It doesn't excuse the actions, but it explains them. And it feels like that context is all but being ignored. The players have very limited tools to solve issues like this on their own. You were dealing with a server that had to sit through unplayable 550% time dilation while a 2 and a half minute vote took 17 minutes realtime to pass in the round before, due to a map specific issue, and they were on the same map again. And admins were not responding.

Players are not admins and should not be held to the same standards of knowledge as admins. They have limited tools available to them. 19 people got banned. I counted 41-ish logouts on round end of 998 (this is a low-ball estimate). Take into account observers and other things, and you probably banned half the people who actively spawned in 998.

Everyone seems to be ignoring the context of Manuel as a server. We've had papercode crashes, SQL crashes, the phrase "Manuel moment" exists to describe random Manuel crashes. People just want to play under the MRP ruleset with their e-friends. A buncha people wanted to play together, on Manuel, with the MRP ruleset, and the community. That's all they wanted. For the round to end before their enjoyment is cut short by some bug, crash or other round-terminating failure.

The fact that we progressed through this and to another round without an admin responding is a wholly different topic. This post has probably gone off the topic of this admin complaint at least a dozen times. There's a lot to unpack about the whole 998 scenario.

TheMidnghtRose wrote:Edit: At the original time of posting this. There WAS a permaban on one player. It was not meant to be such. This has been fixed and the player will be notified. IT was to be a Permaban for OOC only.

I am just re-quoting this for emphasis. There were no permanent in-game bans that arose from the handling of this situation and that section of my OP is now outdated.

To revive this from the dead, my ban appeal was closed before I could get a headmin's second opinion.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 34&t=26736

I would personally argue that even with the context of what was going on, I just silently walked to the chapel and suicided, and would also argue that a day ban for that even in the context of whatever else was going on is excessive.

If Rose is not with me on this then, although my ban will likely be expired by the time any headmin can address this, I would like to put this forward for a second opinion from a headmin.

So if possible, I'd like the appeal unlocked for my requested headmin decision on if, with my note (1 for accidental ick ock) and ban history (none), I should have been instantly day-banned for wordlessly suiciding in the chapel.

We believe TheMidnightRose acted appropriately in dealing with this situation. Mob mentality does not excuse breaking the rules, and notes/bans will be applied as normal in these situations. Given the amount of individuals involved, and the amount of time needed to look over these logs, some mistakes are understandable in relation to ban-times. These were amended well upon appeal. This complaint is not upheld.
Headmin votes:
Coconutwarrior97: Do not uphold.
Phuzzylodgik: Do not uphold.
TWATICUS: Do not uphold.