Discord account: Richørd#0256
Banning admin: mirrorcult
Ban reason: Banned me for “instigating further” and “accuse her of gaslighting”
When was the ban: Less than 20 minutes before posting this appeal.
Your side of the story: I come into the Discord after an unpleasant IC experience which involved me being the only one stopping from some wizard dude trying to break open a security locker they stole by using cargonia’s emitter. Most people watched just and cheered the wizard on, finally a guy killed me with a flare pistol out of nowhere and that was it, I quit the game. Went onto Discord to ask in vague terms (was not referring to current in-game events at all) about the rules surrounding this kind of case. Multiple misunderstandings happen. I try to grasp for more clear ways to explain the exact circumstances of what I am talking about without accidentally disclosing current in-game events. I then simply realize that I need to be more specific and say so. Mirrorcult then detects sarcasm which I wasn’t even my intention. Accuses me of such. Says I should add an “my bad” before it. I got the extra mile and say something like (can’t blame me here, got discord banned and I don’t keep logs of normal conversations) ULTRA MEGA SUPER DUPER SORRY before that I should have been more specific. I get chat muted for a whole week by mirrorcult. I message mirrorcult directly. The conversation shown in the attached screenshot happens. I get banned. Idk how long, perma I guess. To me this is pretty much BS and I ultimately ended up banned for not just keeping my mouth shut and submitting to someone who happened to be in an obviously pissed off mood while dealing with me.
Why you think you should be unbanned: I report bugs, talk about things that I think need changing from the perspective of new blood, not some old-seated veteran who might just be super jaded with the way things are. Plus mirrorcult seems to simply not know the definition of gaslighting, which is understandable as the word is widely misused in today’s internet lingo. In most simple terms, it means turning someone’s own words and intentions around on them, making them question their sanity. In this case in particular it was trying to say that me saying “I should have been clearer” was just sarcasm and full of hostile intent, even though it wasn’t. I for one at least do not understand how someone can honestly make that assessment through a discord chat window with only text in it, but okay. And even if mirrorcult was not intentionally gaslighting me that’s nonetheless what they ultimately did.
Anything else we should know:
The DMs between me and mirrorcult. What could I have done better? Start off the first messages less confrontational.
What mirrorcult could have done better? Instead of immediately pulling the banhammer they could have stopped typing and reflected for a moment, like someone in an admin position should.
EDIT: Just want to say that it’s also clear here that I was going to stop further communication because I saw from the immediate response and wording of it that I would get nowhere with mirrorcult.
Gaslighting
manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.
“in the first episode, Karen Valentine is being gaslighted by her husband”
Gaslighting is a form of abuse and an extremely serious accusation to levy on someone, especially over basic discord messages.
For the record, this is the message which I pointed out as being overly sarcastic, hostile and unhelpful, and which Richord is claiming was not intended to be sarcastic in any way:
I think any reasonable person sees this as a sarcastic statement. I don’t appreciate it being framed as simply you saying “i needed to be more specific”. Claiming I am gaslighting you by calling this out is frankly abusive behavior that I don’t have any intention of harboring in our discord.
As for the initial timeout, you were being extremely confrontational and hostile to multiple users in the discord. After being told to stop and phrase your criticism in good faith you persisted, and as such were timed out.
The ban was given for continuing to instigate in my DMs and accusing me of abusive behavior.
Gaslighting is used in abuse situations. That does not mean that it is abuse. Let’s say two people stand on a podium and have a debate and one gaslights the other. Hardly anybody would see it as abuse. Especially in such situations it is merely a conversation tool, not some form of abuse.
Ultimately this is really a silly argument between the two of us. I don’t want to end up muted and / or banned over something like me ultimately firing critique at the rules and not you. But my arsenal is already exhausted, I can’t do more than say that I was not being sarcastic.
Meanwhile If you keep on thinking that every inch of ground I give is just filled with landmines I am doomed if I do and doomed if I don’t. I even said sorry with extra spice and in fat print but that too was taken as sarcasm. You are in the position of power here, not I.
Other snippets from the same conversation. I was not the only one upset with your behavior here–multiple others expressed the same thing to me publicly and privately.
(for the record, i called veritius out for what I saw as an overly rude comment as well)
Above was my response to your first post. This is now to the second.
I was, at least it felt like this, being swarmed by people who either did not bother reading what I wrote or I was not being clear enough. Initially I went with the former. Then upon more resistance my malding mind cleared up a bit and I went with the latter. At that point the accusations of me being sarcastic started kicking in.
Gaslighting is used in abuse situations. That does not mean that it is abuse. Let’s say two people stand on a podium and have a debate and one gaslights the other. Hardly anybody would see it as abuse. Especially in such situations it is merely a conversation tool, not some form of abuse.
…I can’t do more than say that I was not being sarcastic…
…I even said sorry with extra spice and in fat print but that too was taken as sarcasm…
Gaslighting is absolutely a form of abuse on its own. It’s not a word people use for things like political debates, it’s not a conversation tool, it is pretty widely considered a form of abuse.
I’m unsure if this is a language barrier issue or something but I don’t see how you can possibly say the remarks you made were not sarcastic or hostile in any way. Any reasonable person would see it as such. This one, for instance, is one you claim was just ‘saying sorry with extra spice’ but was ‘taken as sarcasm’:
Third post replying to your third post now. This is starting to get messy now, please be less impulsive about trying to justify a permaban.
I am seeing lots of messages there missing. Ultimately nothing bad there that justifies a 7 day chat timeout followed by a permaban. I get asked questions, I respond. The only blatantly aggressive part here is me saying stuff such as “valid hunting” , “skill issue” and “#hashtag”.
Third post replying to your third post now. This is starting to get messy now, please be less impulsive about trying to justify a permaban.
I’m responding to your messages as I see them to explain my conduct in a collected manner. I don’t see how this is “impulsively trying to justify a permaban” and I don’t appreciate your attempted framing of me in that matter.
Gaslighting is absolutely a bad-faith conversational tactic. Again, it in itself is not a form of abuse. I in fact am powerless to abuse you because you are in the position of power, as you have clearly proven here. The power dynamic is clearly in your favour. Everything I say can be wrong just because you say so and neither do I even have access to show logs myself. Any sort of log that can be seen her, aside from the DMs, comes only from your side. If this were a battle I’d be fighting it uphill with the sun in my eyes.
And yes, I am European. Yet it does not mean that this is an issue based on any language barrier, rather it is based on fundamental understanding of principles.
You may not like it but that is exactly what it currently looks like from my point of view. I couldn’t post a single reply to one of your posts so far without you already making another. Look, I went and grabbed a cold beer and took a breather for five minutes. Got off the screen before coming in here to make my appeal case. I am cool.
I don’t even care about the 7 day chat restriction on the Discord anymore. I just would like the Discord ban lifted because it restricts me from keeping in touch with the github updates and what bugs get reported in an easy way. Github itself is completely foreign to me and I quite hate navigating it.
I’ll preface this message by saying I have no idea who you are and was not involved at all. I’m also a Euro so can offer a different angle on the whole “language barrier”.
Firstly you should not message game staff / discord mods about your ban. You post an appeal here in the first instance or if you feel like it was abuse or mishandling, message a project manager who was not involved (a red name). Taking the argument to DMs is always going to end bad.
I have no opinion on gaslighting so I’m not even going to bring it up.
Your messages do come across as sarcastic. There’s 3 specific messages in those screenshots with words like “My bad” and “sorry” which you obviously didn’t mean because you were being sarcastic in those messages. Also being plain obtuse. These things aren’t against the rules so again, no bearing on me here but trying to justify yourself that you were not being sarcastic is just silly.
If you do have an issue with the rules there are means and ways to go about discussing them. Likewise if its in a current round you just wait till the round is over, ahelp it with full information and if nobody is on, ask in general if there’s an admin free to discuss it (don’t ping) or just get on with it after ahelping and discuss it after.
And finally, I hope you realise that this would not have escalated this far if you had of handled this in the correct manner. Again from these small exerts I can’t see anything egregious in my opinion, but all of our rules are consistent in not being an ass or deliberately causing issues. Not implying that you are but this whole thread stinks.
I’m proposing that you don’t get a perma ban and just settle with a time out but this is above me as I’m not a discord mod. If this is the case all I can say is I except you to reply to this message saying you’ll take it on board and on the chin and move on.
If the words “my bad” and “sorry” can only be seen as sarcasm nowadays it takes all meaning out of them and again, there’s no way for me to convince you otherwise.
EDIT: And yeah, I do realize now, as I said before, that I should’ve had a different tone. I still don’t see how these interactions, not the tone but just the actions themselves, seemingly make me worthy of a one week mute, followed by a what I can only guess to be a permanent ban from the Discord. It all really escalated quickly.
If the words “my bad” and “sorry” can only be seen as sarcasm nowadays it takes all meaning out of them and again, there’s no way for me to convince you otherwise.
EDIT: And yeah, I do realize now, as I said before, that I should’ve had a different tone. I still don’t see how these interactions, not the tone but just the actions themselves, seemingly make me worthy of a one week mute, followed by a what I can only guess to be a permanent ban from the Discord. It all really escalated quickly.
If that’s your idea of genuine I’d hate to see what your sarcasm looks like.
If that’s your idea of genuine I’d hate to see what your sarcasm looks like.
I was asked to apologize on top of admitting that I should have been more specific (which in itself is already apologetic) and that’s what I did, with some extra sauce on top.
As I said before. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
I think a 1 week timeout in the initial instance was a little forward. That being said, you’re extremely condescending.
> Accusing mirror of gaslighting multiple times
> “have stopped typing and reflected for a moment”
> "This is starting to get messy now, please be less impulsive about trying to justify a permaban. "
> every post “FiFtH pOsT rEpLyInG tO yOuR fIfTh PoSt”
> “Look, I went and grabbed a cold beer and took a breather for five minutes. Got off the screen before coming in here to make my appeal case. I am cool.”
The reason behind our rules is simple. We want people around who don’t make other people miserable. We are working on a game, and we want people to be happy, and enjoy it. You made people miserable, and got banned from the discord server. It is easy to see you are still going to make people miserable based on your posts in this thread. Arguing with an admin in an appeal is normally fine. This process partially exists to deal with mistakes, and to figure out what happened, but the way you are doing it is very toxic. The only thing you have managed to do in this appeal is convince the rest of us that the ban should be permanent.
You can post a new appeal again in two months (2022-08-02). If you post sooner then two months, somehow get a message to us, or otherwise attempt to bypass the wait period in any way you will be banned from our services permanently. The original ban is irrelevant, the new appeal you should make is for a ban I am giving you for being toxic in appeals. When you make your next appeal, it should be addressed to me. Any hint of being toxic will result in your new appeal being denied.
