[RussEfarmer]

Good evening Dinks Gmod,
               I want to start off and apologize for ungagging myself a few times. As an admin I understand that other donors see this and then think that they can do it themselves but I did this for a few reasons and this is the only way I can get the point across. First off, staff shouldn't be gagging players just because they use a voice changers. There are players that want to disguise their voice because they have been bullied before just by talking. I have also seen players targeted all because they are a female and then player just stops talking. Voice changers help hide the innocent as well as are fun to use every now and then for a good laugh. My second point is staff are quick to use their power against players. I should be able to join a server and goof off a little and not have the book thrown at me. The point of staff member is to have some one there to herd the players and protect them against trolls, hackers, and players straying far from the rules. The rules are set in place for guide lines. They are there but are meant to be bent so that people can still can have fun. I myself do not get on the servers because I am an admin, I play because its fun and I want others to have fun and enjoy themselves. I conclude with this, I think the rules should be revaluated and voice changers should be allowed as long as the player using is not spamming/singing in the mic. On the staff side off things I believe the staff should lighten up and relax like Dinkleberg post not to long ago.
                                                                   Thanks, Dirty Daniel

I can agree with staff laying too hard with rules, staff being quick to punish has been a problem since the beginning of time. In an ideal scenario, staff members would be able to use their intuition to determine whether or not something breaks the rules or they should punish for it based on what's actually happening and what that person is doing.

However, that's an ideal scenario, and realistically, this cannot work on a server network with as many staff members as this one. Intuition is completely subjective, and identifying rule breaks and serving punishments being based completely off of a subjective factor causes confusion and frustration with both users and staff members when the numbers get big enough and everyone has vastly different styles of staffing. Having a solid pillar for users and staff to fall back to and reference (ie the staff guidelines and rules) gives a reflection of what should be happening, and gives users a lever to go against unfair actions made by staff.

I agree that some rules are tight and I have suggested them be changed before, but it's a slippery slope. Staff may seem hard, but all of their power comes from that rule page and staff guide page. I've seen many cases on other popular servers where staff reaction varies WILDLY from staff to staff, with all the same policy that "I'm just making the server more fun." Having a more sturdy set of rules and a definite guideline for staff takes away the situations like this where someone micspams: staff A does nothing, staff B gags him, and staff C bans for 12 hours. Cases like that is what makes people frustrated and leave, even more so than strict rules.

[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

Probably shouldn’t have gagged at the first sign of a voice changer or maybe he warned idk not the point. The self ungagging is the point. The moment we let certain donors and staff get away with things starts a ball rolling on favoritism. Again. And we all know how that goes.
Also tf happened to your rank, I’ll fix it

[Gabe]

Note that this self ungagging and additionally using powers to ungag others has happened with Dan before on TTT several times. He received a week ban at one point for it happening excessively. So he shouldn’t be a stranger to the tighter rules on the main servers ph and ttt. After this ban we were told it would not be a recurring issue again with Dan. So hopefully it doesn’t get to the point where it did on TTT and is limited to this one case. But again, he should know not to ungag himself even if the gag was a bit soon

[cherry (2)]

I was also there the last time this happened. 
Saying Dinkleberg doesn't mind really doesn't help because 1. IF this is true, then clearly the staff and Dinkleberg aren't on the same page and 2. Seems like you're just looking for leeway to do what you want since you've been banned for this before.
While I understand the argument being made on both sides, it's still clear that there's still a disconnect between personal beliefs and what Dinkleberg would like for his servers. I can imagine why. Being shot down can be disheartening, and having that over the course of a handful of years even more so.

Regardless, saying people want to hide their voice is a good argument because it leads up to harassment, but staff are supposed to negate that. If your argument of wanting to hide your own voice applies to you, then sure. I don't see that being the case though because last time you were trolling and continued to do it to the point of getting banned. Usually in the servers I've gone through voice changers are considered mic spam as most are obnoxious and cause overall problems like excessive rowdiness.
Not really a good excuse to abuse a second time imo.

[Pixie Pickle]

The main issue with you being gagged when I was on was that other players has just been asked to stop mic spamming and another for playing things over his mic and there was quite a lot of people using their mic at once, then when they calmed a bit, you then played a sound clip,  you had heard us tell everyone to chill on the mics a bit. How can we be telling staff one thing and players another. I don’t care who anyone is, you break a rule then the guidelines are followed or it gives other players the chance to do the same. You’re  always welcome to play and chill on PH but we get enough trolls and noise without a staff member adding to it.

[TheUltraFish]

Good evening Dinks Gmod,
               I want to start off and apologize for ungagging myself a few times. As an admin I understand that other donors see this and then think that they can do it themselves but I did this for a few reasons and this is the only way I can get the point across. First off, staff shouldn't be gagging players just because they use a voice changers. There are players that want to disguise their voice because they have been bullied before just by talking. I have also seen players targeted all because they are a female and then player just stops talking. Voice changers help hide the innocent as well as are fun to use every now and then for a good laugh. My second point is staff are quick to use their power against players. I should be able to join a server and goof off a little and not have the book thrown at me. The point of staff member is to have some one there to herd the players and protect them against trolls, hackers, and players straying far from the rules. The rules are set in place for guide lines. They are there but are meant to be bent so that people can still can have fun. I myself do not get on the servers because I am an admin, I play because its fun and I want others to have fun and enjoy themselves. I conclude with this, I think the rules should be revaluated and voice changers should be allowed as long as the player using is not spamming/singing in the mic. On the staff side off things I believe the staff should lighten up and relax like Dinkleberg post not to long ago.
                                                                   Thanks, Dirty Daniel

I have a few things to point out with this. First of all, you weren't using your voice changer to protect yourself from being bullied. You, like most people with voice changer, did it to play crap music and troll. So stop using actual people who get bullied to protect you. The ph rules have been reevaluated within the past year and were improved by your friend Dinkleberg.

With you specifically, this is a reoccurring issue that you have done on Prop Hunt as well as the TTT server. So much so on TTT that Gabe banned you for it. Just because you do not like a rule is not invitation for you to break it. A similar example would be if I decided to start using homophobic slurs because I was raised where using such slurs was commonplace (not really).

Anytime you do not get your way, you drop the line or a similar one, "Well Dink is my friend so it doesn't matter." This happened on more than just voice changers but also on racial issues as well in the past. If you had an issue with a rule, maybe try COMMUNICATING next time instead of going and doing whatever you want to get your point across. Doing it this way has just caused issues, if you haven't noticed with your ban on TTT and this abuse report from PH.

[Avi]

Good evening Dinks Gmod,
               I want to start off and apologize for ungagging myself a few times. As an admin I understand that other donors see this and then think that they can do it themselves but I did this for a few reasons and this is the only way I can get the point across. First off, staff shouldn't be gagging players just because they use a voice changers. There are players that want to disguise their voice because they have been bullied before just by talking. I have also seen players targeted all because they are a female and then player just stops talking. Voice changers help hide the innocent as well as are fun to use every now and then for a good laugh. My second point is staff are quick to use their power against players. I should be able to join a server and goof off a little and not have the book thrown at me. The point of staff member is to have some one there to herd the players and protect them against trolls, hackers, and players straying far from the rules. The rules are set in place for guide lines. They are there but are meant to be bent so that people can still can have fun. I myself do not get on the servers because I am an admin, I play because its fun and I want others to have fun and enjoy themselves. I conclude with this, I think the rules should be revaluated and voice changers should be allowed as long as the player using is not spamming/singing in the mic. On the staff side off things I believe the staff should lighten up and relax like Dinkleberg post not to long ago.
                                                                   Thanks, Dirty Daniel

I will chime in with some input about the whole ttt ban.  Looking back and finding the discussion/evidence from that time, you were banned for constantly using a voice changer/soundboard and ungagging yourself multiple times after staff gagged you and told you to stop, as well as gagging/muting staff.  Another part of your ban was that you were constantly ungagging another player after staff gagged them for mic spamming/singing into their mic.  I will also mention I find it a bit hypocritical that you're saying we should allow voice changers for females because they get targeted/harassed when part of your ban on ttt was because you kept gagging/muting a female staff member while they were being harassed by other trolls; as a female and a staff in the community I find this reasoning ridiculous (that's my own opinion) and if someone is getting harassed on the servers, then we as staff should handle it.  

We have rules for a reason, and breaking/bending those rules set a bad precedence for other players in the community (an issue that was happening more recently in ttt where things were relaxed a bit and players thought they were above the rules causing a lot of issues);  I would hate to see ph go down the same route.  While it's fine to want to discuss rule changes, breaking/bending rules and ungagging yourself for your convenience should never happen.  I would suggest going on from here, if you do want to see the rules change, make a new thread about it so the community can discuss it and propose something to Dink if the majority think something needs change.

[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

Closed pending comment

[Mother Nuru.]

I had this closed and asked to personally handle this. This caused some issues on many sides. Dan has been spoken to and realizes what he did was wrong. If it happens again, I request that people come straight to me so I can handle it.

The reason why he ungagged himself does not matter in this report, as this is an abuse report. He did abuse his powers. If you disagree with a staff punishment go to someone who can do something, do not take matters into your own hands. I don't care who you are, there is no favoritism here. I would make dink behave and lose my admin if I had to, on his own servers if he was doing things to cause issues. Everyone has the same punishments/standards.

Thank you for the report.