I just got banned for no reason by WildX

[raz]

I just got banned for no reason by WildX

I follow the rules.

There is no expectation of privacy as long as one side is a part of the conversation, unless stated otherwise, which it was not stated.

I would have PM-ed this, but new accounts cannot PM. And I cannot PM on my banned account.

Re: WildX, his rage and thin skin
Post by WildX » 13 minutes ago

Blackrazor has been banned for publishing a user's private messages without their consent. I also charge him of failing miserably to prove a point.

It's not a private conversation if I was a party to it, which I was. There is no expectation of privacy in this regard.

[WildX]

I would not allow any user to publish another user's private messages. It's in the name: PRIVATE messages. You don't post PMs to the forum board. To me that's forum moderation 101. I will see what others say.

[raz]

By this boards own design, it cannot be private. I made sure to mass-send every iteration of the conversation to the entire group of TMW-Team and Staff. It was never, at any point, private.

[WildX]

1. Posted PMs to the public board
2. Used those PMs to start a flamewar
3. Even before this, you picked a fight with the 16 people you repeatedly spammed with the nonesense that can be seen in the messages you have published yourself.

The only forum admin who wouldn't ban you is one that enjoys the drama you create. Everyone here is pretty sick and tired of it.

[raz]

Did I break a bannable rule? Please post a screenshot or quote of a specific rule you think I broke. It cannot be your opinion or feelings. To ban someone like that, without warning or communication, requires that they transgress a clearly stated rule; a rule so severe, that the normal punishment would be an immediate ban, without warning or communication, for a first time offence of it, specifically.

[WildX]

I don't need to communicate to you my intention of terminating an argument on the forum. I just do it. It's my job. Your ban will terminate in 7 days.

[jesusalva]

So, first of all, thanks for giving me enough time to get home and get the arguments in order.
This will be A very lengthy post, as I go over everything which happened.
I do not plan in posting anything else regarding this after this post; However, you can still look for me, ingame or on Discord or wherever you find me, and ask me to explain specific parts.
I'll be glad to be of service.

---------------------------------------------

This ban was discussed with TMWT; As usual, it was not decided alone.
As for posting parts from private conversation, please keep in mind people come from different parts in the world. Where in Brazil and US, for example, there are only safeguards so the government don't peek on your private life, in Europe (and in special UK), there's a Letter Secrecy principle. So disclosing contents of a private message is a crime against the constitution, where the Fourth Amendment from US only safeguards against the government.

As you can probably guess from the above, it is not because "you violated a law!", but by a disrespect to the Social Convention.
The Social Convention is actually there in hopes to be useful to mitigate Player Abuse; So yes, it is a rule, even if not of literal interpretation. Which is why WildX said "Moderation 101".

As every rule, first offense is a seven days ban and this would be no exception.
Which is what actually got you banned; Not what made the topics get locked, nor why you were banned twice. (Forum logs says you were banned twice)

So, why was the topic locked?
Forum Rule nº 2, do not spam.

It's not on the rules, but on TMWT Constitution, that moderators (Game Masters, more specifically), are responsible for interpretation of the rules.

So, Game Masters, in private, four years ago or so, decided what kind of adverting is considered spam.
That's a directive left for reference of future Game Masters, so do not expect to be able to enforce it - it never got the standing of a rule or whatsoever. I'm sharing here only to show that they are roughly following the same they did on the past (which is why they mentioned Platyna, by the way):

To be acceptable adverting, it must not be spammy, trolling, serve purely adverting purposes, and should follow the standard security praxis (don't reuse passwords etc., you know the drill). Acceptable vs Unacceptable are solely upon Game Masters discretion.

Do note that at no moment it mentions "Free Software" or "Open Source", but we know GMs used to be more lax when Free Software was involved.

And while I'm here, and as an admin it is kinda my duty to inform this, but the limit of 3 screenshots per post exist for a reason. Actually, several reasons. Anyway, I'm not here to explain every single button and limit of the software.
But given this limit is not a bug, but a limit, by circumventing this limit, you risked yourself to step both on spam and even to have the threads deleted in name of server health.

So yes, the thread was locked and you were banned (the first time) by spamming. Because at some point there were a lot of posts following one each other with images from a different off-topic game, and moderators decided it was crossing the line of spam.

That's the main reason why the original post was parked.
The other reasons involve the original purpose of the post itself; it was done in hopes to lure TMW players away. We've been meaning to lock and park it for a while, but as it ended up becoming a friendly talk about other games players were enjoying at the moment, it was not.

Because these "other reasons', you probably did not receive not even a warning. Which is why you weren't banned for this first thread.

Your second topic, however, was a bit more aggressive.
Although the "parting message" was flawless, in the meaning at no moment on it you actually offended WildX... It was exactly what trolls do. Lie without using lies. Offend without offending. That's what trolls do, and explains fairly well Prsm's reason on your third thread.

So, for the third thread.
WildX, his rage and thin skin.

It's within your rights to complain about both parking decisions. You should have done it on Court House since the start, not in Offtopic, but anyway.

Most of the things you've wrote on the private messages are correct. They really should have mentioned to you the relevant rules (Rule 2, Spam and Flood). By the way...

I did receive 11 emails about it though, which also counts as spam. To be sure no one accidentaly gets banned for spam by sending a PM to the groups, I've removed them from the mass PM list. Except for GM group, because I believe you may need to, at times, contact every GM about an issue worth Court House but which you need to be treated in an anonymous way.

Carrying on... The 11 emails are spam but then even Prsm would be banned. Also, we had no reason to ban anyone for accidentaly stepping on a bug without realizing.
So we did not consider it, we only took due providence on techincal side to prevent it from happening again. We may add the groups again in future, if we believe there'll be no abuse.

You're entirely, absolutely, undeniably right when you said:

I must be specially moderated, and my actions specially interpreted, in a way that other players, who have not offended your feelings, do not have to concern themselves with.

In fact, we don't want that, moderation to be a sole moderator's opinions and feelings. That's why we discussed this before with the team. At the end of the day, there were no objections. We had a Consensus, so we did what we deemed the best in the community interests.

Of course, you can complain in Court House. Which is what that thread was for, even if misplaced.
Actually, you could and it would be within your right to open on court house that WildX was abusing you and etc. There's even a gaudy report button at the right of each message.
Which is almost what you just did!
You could actually have had luck with that. WildX could even be banned for seven days instead of you. After all, the rules applies to everyone equally. Why would he be an exception?

That being said. You lost the reason when you insulted him in the forum title.
And when you tried to expose him. More specifically, when, with the forum title words effect, you subtly try to rally people against him.
Even if it wasn't your intention, that's what is there.

You know, victims which have robbed villains are also villains. (Yes, Robin Hood, even if you say he have a noble heart, is actually a criminal. Maybe a good hearted one. But still a criminal. How can he judge nobles from stealing the people, if he also steals?)

Which, finally, is why we did not stay to listen about you complaining about WildX.
WildX's motive, "Player Abuse - Divulging private message contents" (with or without intention to expose the involved parties), may be a weak motive by itself.
But what you did was still seen as spam.

You know how Al Capone went to jail. You can never be caught in a big problem because you managed to excuse yourself (the spams for you, the mafia for him). But this doesn't means all those won't be taken in account when they get you for something else. Player abuse in your case, and... Tax Evasion on his case.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope this somehow sheds a light on what exactly happened, why you were banned by seven days, why WildX and Prsm were not banned (and probably will not be, but please amuse me, “that's why I pay internet” as they say on Brazil), as well as to explaining which rules you broke exactly, how it was analysed, and what you should avoid doing in order to avoid further bans.

If you still have any questions, or if after the seven days have elapsed you find yourself to still be banned, do not hesit on contacting me.

But be ready to wait a few hours for a huge wall of text.
This is a text written by myself and my signature is on the bottom. You can use this text against me, but you cannot use it as an official understanding or position of TMWT.
This is what I observed from the best of my capabilities as a neutral, third-party, external observer.
There is no objective to figure out or reveal the real intentions behind the parties involved.
Whenever you see “X did Y”, please automatically correct on your mind to read as: “X did Y, even if it was not X's intention to do so”.
This could be even bigger if I go in Prsm's and WildX's messages, or even gumi's message, or if I tried to reply Livio, so let's leave that for another conversation, 'kay?

“Thanks for the show, flamewars are always fun to watch” ~ Whoever wrote that certainly is NOT a moderator.

[Livio]

This could be even bigger if I go in Prsm's and WildX's messages, or even gumi's message, or if I tried to reply Livio, so let's leave that for another conversation, 'kay?

I've simply asked what happened and why. Then I've tried to suggest a possible solution for it, despite my lack of power, to attempt to fix problem. But of course if nothing can be changed wasting time to start a flamewar it's useless and it's only good to worsening relationships in game and forum dealing damage to community for nothing.
I've broke a guild and a game rule without being aware of that and got a week-ban even without notice.
After few days contacts were made possible again I've explained that my violation wasn't intentional, apologized for that and then promised not to do it again.
But after I told that anyone shouldn't take action without warning without trying to stop me first if I'm about to do something wrong but that's not blackrazor's case so under a different point of view he was lucky.
Another problem about those cold technology communication is that almost nothing else comes out from words itself so usually it's not possible to understand what happens behind the screen.
WildX surely has his amount of work load and he will probably get mad (as anyone else I believe) when worthless job has to be done to keep things up and running without improving game and without any satisfaction.
I believe that anyone of us has something wrong to be fixed but talking about it without positive intentions, offend the others even indirectly, and keep pointing fingers will lead to nothing good.

To make it short I don't care about who is right or wrong: community and game only need solutions to their problems.