Completed Report against Wink, and Pop Star

Name of Staff/Player:

Wink, and Pop Star​

Steam ID of Staff/Player:

They're both Staff, not hard.​

Your Steam ID:

STEAM_0:1:18359902​

Which Server:

West 1​

Which Map:

lifetheroof, something like that​

Which Round:

Over various rounds, and other maps too.​

Time of Occurence:

Around 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM PST​

Reason For Report:

I was playing on the servers after a while today and was helping this new player that joined. As the admin team was for whatever reason ignoring this player, that's fine I guess. Things are good, everything is okay and I say 'faggot' to him as a joke. Clearly he understood it was a joke and wasn't offended and then received a warning later on by @wink that this is considered harassment. Now since when was saying faggot in a light manner where both parties are okay with it considered harassment? No one in the whole server except for this admin deemed it was harassment. Things are okay, I ignore him and continue playing the game with the people on the server. I guess you can consider this a first warning for harassment, when it really wasn't.

I get warned for promoting mic spam by a moderator (did you even get admin discretion for that? I'm assuming you mean promoting toxic gameplay, which is out of bounds for a moderator. Unless they got admin discretion for that. Seems like you didn't from how quick you were to reply to what I was doing.) Regardless I understand where he was coming from and was arguing my side and then wink decided to chime in agitating me from earlier.

Spoiler: Wink-1

I mention the same point again as he clearly was mistaken, however @POP STAR decides to jump in and help me solve this issue.

Spoiler: Pop Star

I disagree completely with what Pop Star said, how does the word faggot get considered as general harassment? Especially when both parties are okay with that word being used and don't consider it as harassment. On top of this no one in the server took offense either. This is just reiterating what I said earlier, so no need for me to waste time here.

Spoiler: Kick

So I decided to just say the word faggot in chat, not directed at anyone which can be clearly established. No one took offense before, and it wasn't ever a problem before and then I get kicked for harassment. Sure he deemed it as harassment, and I was warned before it's a second warning. Cool I join back looking to clarify it further and then stop arguing but before I could I get banned...

Spoiler: Ban

I just joined the server got my role as innocent and then died to a traitor as I was typing to Pop Star in admin chat. When I finish submitting that I get banned immediately. There was nothing I said in between the kick and the ban that constituted a third warning for harassment (ban.)

Whatever just happened was a joke, both you guys have been on the staff team for a while and been apart of it before as well. Saying the word 'faggot' to someone as a joke when NO ONE takes offense should not be considered harassment. When I was an admin/staff this was never an issue before, what happened? This report was more so directed at Wink since I don't agree however since Pop Star decided to jump both get reported.

I wasn't given an opportunity to argue this, as this is bullshit. People say it all the time in shoutbox, in servers, etc. But when I say it as a light-hearted manner, and no one takes an offense it's harassment? I didn't even deserve a third warning? Is this abuse of discretion, or something I'm missing out here? I'm here to argue this dumb definition of harassment that is made up by shitty admins and moderators. The second time I used faggot wasn't even directed at anyone, how could that be harassment towards someone?

Please get your head out of your asses' guys, the state of the staff team gets disgusting each day I take a look at it.​

Evidence And/Or Witnesses:

Shouldn't be required, leads please realize that this is just blatant abuse. ​

 

I have seen this, and will respond with my piece after @POP STAR says his.

 

@POP STAR will respond with his side and his admin, @Sith Master will finish off his side of the report. @wink will also respond and his lead, @Falcor , will finish that part of the report off.

 

Hello,

Allow me to enlighten you on the rules of the server, as you are clearly misinformed. Harassment is dealt with on a case by case basis and differs on intensity based on the staff member. Yes, if no players are uncomfortable or feel harassed personally, slang that can normally be used to hurt others would be treated as banter. However, there is a handful of words that are not tolerated towards the mass. If you felt the need to say that word to your newly acquired friend, then you should have done so via PM's. Just because a player did not express discomfort to you, does not mean there were not those who were in fact uncomfortable.

Your argument about general harassment is incorrect. While it might not be listed, it would be classified as common sense. To most, the word you exercised, with ignorance, is on the same level as the N-word.

To cross-reference your evidence, I will also post my own.

Spoiler: Chat

And immediately after this discussion you felt the need to ignore our warnings.

Spoiler

In plain sight, without regard to what we were telling you; even if you don't respect the rules we have, it is not grounds to flat out ignore them especially after two warnings.

Addressing your statement about the promotion of mic-spam. You were informed that asking players to sing into their mics would not be tolerated. We have different thresholds for spam that differs between each staff member, but blatantly promoting it would be deemed toxic gameplay. You were ultimately only warned for this, but please refrain from doing so in the future.

I might not have been around while you were, however I have the ability to inform you that we've improved drastically as a staff-team to not tolerate such behavior.

You were in fact given a valid chance to cease immediately. As shown above, after you ignored two warnings, you decided to persist. Your claim here is also not valid.

I urge you to review our !motd and extended rules for a better understanding on how things work here. Thank you for being patient with us!

Regards,

POP STAR

 

I will say my piece:

Spoiler: My Warning

Since this homophobic slur was clearly directed at someone but had no clear context of usage, I decided to warn you for your first offense of harassment, as I felt offended by the usage in this manner.

Spoiler: Additional Screenshots Already Provided

Sorry for backtracking here, but in the above screenshots you can see the consecutive warning and kick POP STAR gave to you on his own behalf, without consulting me. Once you arrived back on the server, he notified me of what happened, and based off the fact you did receive two warnings and one kick effectively for blatantly using the word, I decided to go ahead and issue a 1 day ban for harassment, the proper area of punishment this behavior lies under.

I'll tag @Sith Master and @Falcor to look this over and reach verdicts on punishments given by their respective staff members.

 

This is what Falcor posted in a report relevant to this:



Now, I do admit the first time you can consider that directed at someone, however it was very clear that no one took offense. As you decide to bring it up a good minute after. If you would still think that's harassment, that's fine but the second one wasn't even directed at anyone, and didn't even cause any issues. This is the input of a lead admin here. It seems like the second was not directed at anyone, not causing issues and shouldn't be a kick as that's not harassment. Now as to your warnings, that's incorrect. How can you give me a warning for something Wink already did? What I mean here is I thought we were just talking about the rules, as I already received a warning from Wink about this. If you warned me here shouldn't you made that clear in the chat? Regardless my whole point of this report is to just say that if I put the word faggot in chat when no one takes offense/not directed at someone it shouldn't be considered harassment.

We had a discussion about this where @Highwon said this where saying if it isn't directed at anyone it isn't considered harassment something to which @Falcor can attest to. I don't want to go round and round and I'll let Falcor handle this.

Thanks.

 

Hello @Steve Mason,

After reviewing the evidence and responses provided in regards to POP STAR, I will be marking the report against him invalid. While you may not believe that general harassment is something that is punishable, it should have been apparent that POP STAR was not comfortable with you using a homophobic slur. It was clear that your intentions for using the aforementioned slur were intended to be toxic and promote harassment. Thus, POP STAR was completely justified in issuing the warning.

You then proceeded to ignore my moderators warning, and expressed another homophobic slur to once again promote toxicity or harassment. There was no proper context to warrant the use of a homophobic slur, therefore POP STAR was also justified in kicking you from the server.

Overall, I find that my moderator performed his duties to the fullest extent possible. He analyzed the situation adeptly and issued the correct response given the harassment that was exhibited.

Report: Invalid

Please remain patient while @Falcor finishes the report.

 

Hey Steve,

I have reviewed everything, so let's jump right into this.

First I'd like to mention my response to Agent's report does not apply here. Since you were not having a discussion where the use of that word would be deemed appropriate.
A few lines of my comment actually address this situation

When you say "You Faggot" it is directed at someone and can be seen as harassment. In most cases it will be seen that way.
They may have laughed or it was just a prank but it can still be seen as harassing another user. You are calling someone names, whether public or private, calling someone names can always be seen as harassment.
Addressing your friend in voice chat as a faggot falls under the same above.

Now to the random "faggot" in text chat afterwards. This were after your warnings.
Now why would a player randomly put a widely known offensive term in chat after being warned to not call people that. Unless calling more people names or simple trolling and trying to cause issues on the server/with the staff.
Which is not acceptable behavior on the server and will be seen as being toxic during that session in some form.
It may have been the word alone but that's the thing with name calling, there doesn't have to be a full sentence or a name associated with it to be read as harassment and directed at someone.
Saying faggot could be a response to anyone or just generally calling someone a name. So the warning were correct.

Wink warned you first before Pop Star was on the server. For text chat harassment. Valid warning
Pop joins and warns you for calling your friend a faggot in voice. Valid warning, but should have been a kick.
(understandable since pop wasn't aware of 1 warning already)
Pop then kicks you. Which should have been the ban which Wink corrected once clarified with Pop Star.


Due to everything stated above I will be marking this Report Invalid.
If you would like to talk about this further you can always message me here or add me on steam.
Thank you
Falcor


EDIT*
After talking to Steve, Wink and POP there are some conflicting stories with Pops first warning, that evidence can't be provided for.
Due to this, it's possible there was some confusion during this situation regarding warnings.
I will be Voiding Steves ban. As well as making this report Valid.

Although the warnings with evidence are for valid and appropriate warnings.
Communication is important when there are multiple staff on and warnings being given.
I will be talking to wink and POP about how we can avoid these situations in the future.
I apologize for my error when investigating and the confusion of how the events were broken down in this report. Something I will also be talking to wink and POP about.