Completed Report against Lone Wanderer

Name of Staff/Player:

Lone Wanderer​

Steam ID of Staff/Player:

Unsure due to special character making it hard to search up​

Your Steam ID:

STEAM_0:0:21153070​

Which Server:

West 2​

Which Map:

InnocentMotel​

Which Round:

Unsure, I was only on the server for one round before hopping due to this mod.​

Time of Occurence:

10:50 PM PST​

Reason For Report:

Reporting for improper moderation practices and making up reasons to warn someone.

The situation: I died, and I heard two players(Maple and Donald something) arguing about a supposed case of RDM. Donald was talking about how Maple was an asshole for reporting him, because he didn't "blatantly rdm him intentionally" and that the mod wasn't slaying him because he knew it wasn't intentional, to which other people including me were saying that accidental RDM is still RDM.

That's about the extent of it, I was telling the person that even if you make a mistake, it's still RDM which is slayable, and I was also telling him that the mod doesn't have a choice other than to slay him if he did RDM because mods cannot go against the rules no matter what their feelings on the issue are-- he was clearly new to the server and didn't understand this.

Then I got gagged by the moderator on the server:


for "backseat moderating" which is absolutely ridiculous, because I was just trying to explain the rules and that this server takes RDM seriously, accidental or not(plus I used to be a moderator myself, so I think I have the right to clarify rules since I *know* the rules)

His excuse for this gag was that he told me over voice comms to drop it during the conversation when 5 other people were talking, including myself, and it was hard to make anything out. I checked the entire chat log for any text warning about dropping it, and I didn't find any.

My main complaint though is that it's not justified to tell someone to drop that conversation and pick them out of a crowd when a large group is talking about it. Nothing I said or did broke the rules, I was not mic spamming in any way, and I was in the conversation for about 30 seconds, yet apparently I was supposed to just not speak up when I hear someone talk about his "RDM being a mistake and not intentional"

I don't want this mod punished, just talked to about enforcing the rules properly and fairly, because I feel extremely slighted by this experience of selective punishment for very lame reasons, because "backseat moderating" does not mean clarifying the rules. I was not demanding a slay on someone, I was not pressuring anything to happen, I was talking to a new player about the rules and enforcement of rules on this server.

That's an extremely liberal interpretation of "backseat moderating" just because Lone Wanderer was bothered with the conversation, and the selective gag when there were at least 4-5 other people actively talking about it also is extremely annoying.

In this scenario, any person who actually cares about following the rules would and should speak up to someone making the excuse of accidental RDM being the reason they're not being slain, whether a moderator is on or not, because people should not get the idea that RDM is not punishable just because it was an accident, and Maple should not have been insulted by that guy for reporting him for accidental RDM.

The entire situation was handled poorly, and the reason for this report is because I don't want a similar situation of rule mishandling to happen again because it's very aggravating when it does.
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Evidence And/Or Witnesses: I doubt Lone will disagree with anything I said here happening, but if you need to ask people of a third party, I know Maple, alius, and Toastyful are a few names that were present at the time of the conversation.

​

 

Tagging @Lone Wanderer and his admin, @Mr. Rogers . Please be patient.

 

Hello @Wolflord.

As you mentioned, I gagged you and warned you for backseat moderating on the server today. I'll explain my side of the situation and the scenario during which it occurred, and clarify why it is that I issued you a gag and warning for backseat moderating and didn't do so for others.

A player named Donald something (I don't remember the ending of his name off the top of my head, either) killed Maple, and Maple promptly reported Donald. Donald replied to the report, saying that he killed Maple because he witnessed Maple killing another player. While this player Maple killed ended up being a traitor, it was within the 5 second grace period allowed on our servers, so the report was invalid as the case was not RDM.

Not long after I reached this verdict, Maple and Donald were arguing about the killing, with Maple accusing him of RDM and Donald trying to defend otherwise. I don't remember the specifics of the conversation, as, like you said, there were a lot of people talking at once, both about the specific report, the rules in general, and other game related chat. You were one of these players; I heard a lot about you trying to explain that accidental RDM is still considered RDM, and explaining some of the rules of the server. This part was fine, and I did not consider this as backseat moderating in anyway.

Due to the mass amount of people talking at once, and given that there was no reason for Maple and Donald (and others who may have been involved) to argue about whether or not Donald should be slain, I gave numerous warnings over the mic that the topic needed to be dropped. I did this over a period of about a minute, and gave this warning at least 3 times.

Now for what I actually gagged and issued a warning for backseating moderating for: after I had given these warnings over the mic, the conversation started to die down. I was in the middle of issuing a final warning to drop the topic when I heard you say something along the lines of "if you RDMed accidentally, man up and take the slay". I took this as you backseat moderating in the context of you continuing to try and argue with Donald about the report and the killing related to that, because you were trying to tell him to accept a punishment. Keep in mind, this was after numerous warnings that I had given over the mic to drop the topic and stop fighting about the report.

It's my job as a moderator to handle reports given the evidence and testimonies given in the responses, and I did that, as per protocol. You're right in that others were doing the same thing that you were, and they were not issued gags and individual warnings. However, the reason why you in particular were gagged was because of the specific nature of your comment in how I felt it was directed in trying to determine the outcome of the report, along with the fact that it occurred as I was giving out my final verbal warning to those involved in the argument. After I gagged you, I said again to drop the topic, completing my final warning, at which point no one else continued to argue about the topic or the report.


I will acknowledge that I should have given a text warning to drop the topic given how many people were talking on the mic. I do have a problem with this on occasion, so I do need to work on that. However, I do still feel that I gave ample warnings to drop the topic over the mic. I also do not feel that my warning towards you in regards to backseat moderating was out of place; I felt like the last comment you made before I issued the gag was directed towards trying to impact the outcome of the report, because you told him to take a slay given your interpretation of the rules and the situation. I took that as an instance of backseat moderating, and gagged you and gave you a brief, personal warning to not backseat moderating.


That's my side of this situation. If there's any further questions/clarifications I can make, I will respond to this report as they come/I see them. I'll leave my admin @Mr. Rogers to review this report and decide on a verdict when he's available.

 

We don't actually issue warnings or gags for backseat moderating. We never have and never will. It's an annoyance to the Staff Member on the server sure, but it's not something we have a protocol for gagging or warning for. I understand that Lone was trying to keep the server calm and keep arguments from flaring up, but his handling of the situation was incorrect. The most that can be done with backseat Moderating is asking the player doing it to stop calmly, however an official warning / punishment can never be handed out by a Moderator without asking an Administrator at least, but even then it's rare punishment will be given.

Now, consistently arguing with players / contributing to an argument that players are having can be considered Mic Spam as it is causing an annoyance to the entire server, but from what I understand you chimed in with a comment or two and were not gagged for Mic Spamming, but rather Backseating.

Because of this, I'll be marking this Report as Valid and talking to Lone about his handling of the situation, but I assure you @Wolflord his intention was only to keep the server calm and keep from having to dish out warnings / bans for harassment and such. I'm sorry for any inconveniences this situation may have caused.

Best Regards,
~Mr. Rogers