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+-- Forum: Community (https://neus-projects.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=19)
+--- Forum: Unban Requests (https://neus-projects.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=21)
+--- Thread: Unban Appeal (/showthread.php?tid=7335)
Unban Appeal - ShouDorime - 11-02-2020
Game you were banned from: Sigrogana Legend 2
In-game name (key): PraxisPerson, BulletRebuttal, And more
Reason you were banned: Plagiarism
The length of the ban, if you know: 14 days
Who banned you, if you know: Unknown
Why we should unban you:
I decided to use Goku because it was a collaboration with Joltz and the Torgull family. We both concluded it would fit their playful and easygoing nature. They are a Human character, nor is he a mythical martial artist. While I can understand the reasoning, I was paying homage to the character archetype, rather than blatantly copying them. His name is Hyun Torgull, he is a farmer who grew up in a normal family. His purpose as RP was to be a conduit for new players to have a chipper friend. With combat being a hobby but not an obsession like Goku in the manga, or anime has. Also I am not the first Goku Playby to use Firebird and some form of Martial Artist subclass, but I wanted to use it because it was a combination I had never attempted and wanted to try it because it seemed fun.
I feel as though the ban is too harsh considering that I have not received a warning, or been spoken to by a GM in nearly a year. There are many characters that pay homage to the source material, or expanded upon it. You may ask @joltz#9968 or @Ricky#8409 for a witness of the character conception and of my character, and also for a witness of the RP scenario which led to the ban. Respectively.
In-game name (key): PraxisPerson, BulletRebuttal, And more
Reason you were banned: Plagiarism
The length of the ban, if you know: 14 days
Who banned you, if you know: Unknown
Why we should unban you:
I decided to use Goku because it was a collaboration with Joltz and the Torgull family. We both concluded it would fit their playful and easygoing nature. They are a Human character, nor is he a mythical martial artist. While I can understand the reasoning, I was paying homage to the character archetype, rather than blatantly copying them. His name is Hyun Torgull, he is a farmer who grew up in a normal family. His purpose as RP was to be a conduit for new players to have a chipper friend. With combat being a hobby but not an obsession like Goku in the manga, or anime has. Also I am not the first Goku Playby to use Firebird and some form of Martial Artist subclass, but I wanted to use it because it was a combination I had never attempted and wanted to try it because it seemed fun.
I feel as though the ban is too harsh considering that I have not received a warning, or been spoken to by a GM in nearly a year. There are many characters that pay homage to the source material, or expanded upon it. You may ask @joltz#9968 or @Ricky#8409 for a witness of the character conception and of my character, and also for a witness of the RP scenario which led to the ban. Respectively.
RE: Unban Appeal - TheRuffKnight - 11-08-2020
This may be unprecedented, and if that proves to be some sort of problem with those in charge of managing the forums then I apologize. However, I feel incredibly compelled to voice my concerns and frustrations surrounding this ban. I would like to start this post by stating that I am not in any way friends with Shou; perhaps acquaintances at best. As such, I believe that I am coming from a completely non-partisan perspective with my concerns.
My initial concern is that this ban strikes me as something motivated by bias. I'm aware that Shou has a track record of not getting along well with many community members, but disliking someone is a far cry from a valid reason to ban someone. The primary reason I'm concerned with this ban being motivated beyond breaking any rules is the dissimilar enforcement of "punishment" for said violation. I have known and seen multiple players who have created Gokus that played homage to the character in very much the same way as Shou had done with his character (remaining anonymous for obvious privacy reasons). I would go as far as to say that I am the most culpable of playing off the original character with my since-retired Goku playby Terry Leather, whom a vast amount of the community has interacted with on numerous occasions.
Beyond that is how this rule has been enforced amongst different people. Associates of mine (who again, will remain anonymous in this post) were contacted by GM's regarding conduct that was treading the line with this rule and discussed the issue directly with them. From everything I have gathered of this situation, Shou had received no such warning that his character was crossing the line of plagiarism. Instead, a ban was immediately placed on him while he was still in the middle of a scene with multiple other players’ characters. I feel it is important to clarify that both of these situations occurred within the exact same week. Where other’s received warning, discussion and compromise; he was punished with no deliberation over the rules that his character crossed.
One last concern I would like to raise, however mild, is that lack of response to this thread. I overlooked several ban appeals preceding this one and saw that the majority of them received same day responses. Understandably, the lack of response could likely be attributed to a different GM handling the ban than Slydria, who has shown themself to be quite on top of ban appeal responses. Beyond that, I also realize it could simply be a result of busyness. Regardless, I would only like to mention the slight distaste left in my mouth when seeing the unresponsiveness to his post.
I’m aware that this is only a two week ban and I hope posting this doesn’t put me at any odds with the GMs, Shou, Dev or anyone who I’ve mentioned above anonymously. I often make a stern effort to refrain from vocalizing most of my concerns for worry of the fact that it will offend someone, but this is one such occasion that I feel obligated to forego that worry and bring some frustration to light. Even if it were only a one week ban, I feel that there is a strong necessity to keep the enforcement of rules consistent and just. Along with that, I would like to finish by stating that I firmly believe this ban was unwarranted and avoidable; if not at the least, deserving of some attention on his appeal request.
tl;dr Justice should be blind, but that doesn’t mean it is. Shou’s ban comes across as far more personally targeted than the judgment would be on any random player.
RE: Unban Appeal - Chaos - 11-11-2020
Regarding your character, Hyun Torgull: We directly observed this character, and witnessed that they not only look like Son Goku, but also displays the behaviors/mannerisms of Son Goku. After convening on this matter, we, the GM team, unanimously concluded that this was a very clear violation of Rule 2a. ("You cannot a play a character from existing media that you didn't create...")
However, this alone is not why we came to the decision to give you a temporary ban.
You, Shou, have an extensive history of causing trouble. You have numerous cases of harassment (over which you've received two short-term bans), a few cases of bug abuse (and in at least one of those, you tried to play dumb when we approached you over it), as well as at least one case of copying a popular media character in the past. (Nero from DMC4, if I recall correctly) By all accounts, this list was enough, in the past, for us to hand you far harsher punishments over. Yet, we have given you the benefit of the doubt on multiple occasions. But there's one running theme that we have noticed over the course of the past few years: You don't seem to learn or change. Despite the numerous warnings we give you, despite the one-day and three-day bans, we keep seeing incidents with your name on them.
Then we see your character, which is an overt case of copying too much from a popular media character. You've spent far more than long enough on SL2 to know this rule, and this isn't your first time doing something like this, either. With this, alongside your notorious history and the constant burn of warnings and bans that you apparently don't learn from over the years, we came to the conclusion that you knew exactly what you're doing and didn't care. This is the kind of behavior we cannot condone, and with all of this in mind, not only were we unable to give you the benefit of the doubt, but we were forced to seek harsher punishments to get the point across. After all, if all those warnings and the two very short bans couldn't change anything over the years, why would they change anything now?
It's because of this behavior and these circumstances that we, the GM team, unanimously decided to hand down a two-week ban over this infraction.
Unfortunately, this behavior is further verified in this very appeal. Out of all the things you could've done in this topic, you:
1. Confirmed that you absolutely knew what you were doing.
2. Tried to pass the character off as a 'homage', despite the blatant parallels to Son Goku. (not to mention that this is definitely not a 'homage')
3. Tried to claim justification from other Goku playbys/'homages'. Putting aside that 'playby + class setup' is not what caused the infraction, it is completely unacceptable to claim a similar case as justification for breaking a rule.
In the end, our conclusions were correct; you knowingly and willingly broke a rule, just like you have constantly done in the past, and then you proceeded to act coy about it. This is where your argument of 'It's too harsh when I didn't hear anything for a year' falls flat: It's not the time that matters, it's the change that occurs overtime. We are very much willing to be lenient to someone who made an honest mistake, or realized that they did wrong and are trying to change for the better. But with you, neither of these are the case. it's not just that you have a history of being unrepentant, it's that you continue to break rules without care and then do whatever you can in order to squeeze by so you can repeat your behavior later. That is absolutely unacceptable, and given your storied background of harassment, allowing this mindset to continue is completely unfair to the other players that have to deal with your antics.
As such, your unban appeal is denied. If anything, I would suggest that you take this time to improve yourself; like we said in the reason provided with your ban message, if we have to discipline you again, we aren't going to be any more lenient than we are now.
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TheRuffKnight, while we do not discourage people from sharing their thoughts, you should not make a post on an appeal that you have no involvement in. You are more than welcome to raise a topic in SL2 General Discussion if you need to raise an opinion regarding a ban.