Discord ban appeal - zombie (I was banned for speaking in favour on anti-racist policy?)

Discord account: zombiedude101

Date of ban: 27/08/23

Events leading to the ban:   I was referring to the old ss13 racism, and had was explicitly stated it was a good thing it has been phased out here, and that slurs like “ligger” were usually just used as a thinly veiled excuse to use the hard n without without actually using it. I’m not sure why this = ban (I assume as much as I can’t join) - surely context is key here?  It’s difficult to say as nobody actually told me what I was being banned. I mean I get the rules state that racism is not allowed, but does that extend to discussing  / speaking in support of the rule? Does that mean we can’t talk about round griefing here? It seems kinda unreasonable to be to someone who obviously isn’t trying to harm anyone.

Reason the ban should be removed:  Considering I was speaking in support of the policy on racism  (or specifically, not allowing it) I think it is a little ridiculous to be banned with zero warning. It kind of rings in the same vein as when German officials considered prosecuting anti-Nazi demonstrators because they had signs which harboured a swastika (even though it was crossed out). Again I’m not sure what’s to gain out of banning me for that as I explicitly stated I’m against it (and species terms should be restricted to ingame chatter and ribbing like “screw you fleshbag” or “cmon you scaly old fool”) and that it helps deplatform nazis and kkk wannabes looking for an excuse to push horrible behaviour. Surely some context / common sense could be applied here?

To be clear, I am explicitly against real world bigotry of any form including people using games as an excuse to shit on others. 

I am trying to contain my frustration here but it upsets my sensibilities as a player and as an admin elsewhere. I go with the approach of - are they being malicious? Are they harming anyone? What action best serves the community? And it doesn’t feel like that really matches up here.

 

 

The primary issue that resulted in your removal is apparent attempts to circumvent an in-place slur filter. This was also combined with most of your conversation being generally unsavory topics. This included

  • Talking about ERP servers and how they have “sex mechanics where you get digested and converted into cum” (you were personally warned to keep everything related to this out of the discord)
  • Talk about your ban, at great length, despite being told by other users and moderators to drop the topic, until you had to be muted
  • Continually talking about how other SS13 servers use words closely-adjacent to slurs

image.png

These topics are not new information. We do not want them centrally discussed in the middle of the public discord. Just because you backpedal and say “well I am against it but I just thought everyone should know” does not absolve you from trying to evade the filter to post it or continually trying to talk about it. 

32 minutes ago, lonesoldier55 said:

The primary issue that resulted in your removal is apparent attempts to circumvent an in-place slur filter. This was also combined with most of your conversation being generally unsavory topics. This included

  • Talking about ERP servers and how they have “sex mechanics where you get digested and converted into cum” (you were personally warned to keep everything related to this out of the discord)
  • Talk about your ban, at great length, despite being told by other users and moderators to drop the topic, until you had to be muted
  • Continually talking about how other SS13 servers use words closely-adjacent to slurs

image.png

These topics are not new information. We do not want them centrally discussed in the middle of the public discord. Just because you backpedal and say “well I am against it but I just thought everyone should know” does not absolve you from trying to evade the filter to post it or continually trying to talk about it. 

To address each of your 3 points

1 - I was discussing it in a critical context, admittedly poking fun / expressing horror at the existence of these servers. Once asked to stop, I did. Bear in mind this was my first day on the discord at the time and I was not necessarily as familiar with the server culture as others would be to know that even discussing it was a bit of an issue.

2 - This I will admit is on me, I won’t go over it again save that I was expressing my frustration at hoe the ban was handled, and had moved on. I was muted for this for 24hrs, and the matter ended there.

3 - I don’t see how this should equate to a punishment when I was talking about it in criticism of it ever happening. Common sense would dictate that if someone said “‘X’ is bad, and used as a thinly veiled excuse for Y” you qould recognise it as a good faith statement and not penalise them unless they were being facetious. If it was an issue, I would have stopped discussing it further but nobody said anything to say I was making anyone uncomfortable. Would you ban someone for bigotry if they were using a phrase in a quotational context the one time (eg “I’m fed up of seeing my family casually use X to refer to Y”) and you can even in my screenshotted message I was calling the slur out for what it was. Not celebrating or encouraging it.

I want to stress here that I was never acting in bad faith, and with points 1 and 3 I’d have stopped if asked. Again, it won’t be an issue going forward, but I don’t feel like a ban was appropriate here.

I’m sorry if it was a problem, and it won’t happen again, to be clear - just needed to say my piece.

Consensus is to decline this appeal. You can appeal again after at least 2 weeks.

Discord doesn’t communicate the fact that someone was banned or the ban reason well, but, as lonesoldier said, the thing that directly led to your ban was you attempting to bypass the automod after hitting it. Regardless of the content of the discussion you were using it in, a clear attempt to bypass automod filters is often interpreted poorly, not just by SS14 staff, but by many groups which use filters. While context is important, it’s important to remember that part of the context of the situation was that you modified the slur in an attempt to bypass filters after having been blocked by automod earlier for quoting it without any modification. This initial automod hit would be sufficient communication to most that use of the word was not welcome in the community, not that it’d be acceptable to attempt to bypass the filter if it was done in the context of criticizing use of the slur.

You were in the SS14 discord for a relatively short time during which all of the things pointed out by lonesolder occurred. While I’m sure staff appreciate that you haven’t brought up the stuff about ERP servers since being told to stop and thing about your game ban after your mute ended, this rate of issues is significantly above the typical rate of issues by other members. Staff cannot be expected to need to continuously address a specific person so far beyond what is typically required to prevent issues, and there are still concerns that there will continue to be abnormally frequent issues if you were unbanned, even if no issues repeat.

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