[Jammin]

Hi GM Nate,
First, please accept my apologies for the delayed response. I was away on vacation when the appeal was filed, and anyone with Verizon LTE knows how great the internet isn’t when away in the woods.
Thank you for submitting an appeal to have your current ban on the discord server lifted or reduced.
TL,DR: Unban is denied, for somewhat obvious reasons. You may appeal on July 12th, in one month. For those who want a full explanation, please read below.

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Section 1: The current ban
The ban you are currently serving was issued on May 4th, by synthray. The ban was not for “racism,” but was for trolling – a result of a large build-up of strikes.
The Auttaja bot DM’s you the reason for a ban once the ban is issued. However, if your privacy settings don’t allow for DM’s from non-server members, the DM may not have reached you. The official reason for your ban, as issued by Synthray:
“You have been banned for trolling! but this time, permanently. A warning of permaban was given by an admin, as you can read here—https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/showthread.php?tid=13658.”
Discord logs are a bit funky but if I’m correct, the conversation goes as follows:
GM Nate: now that we got some new admins can i go back to talking about how vile whites are?
Jammin: No
GM Nate: typical white answer

This had resulted in a strike from B0T, for racism in #general chat.

Due to the number of strike accumulated by Nate, the Auttaja moderation bot automatically implemented a soft-ban, which is essentially a discord kick and auto-deletion of the past 24 hour of posts.

Under the discord guidelines at the time, the process for trolling bans is VSMKB – Verbal warning, Strike, Mute, Kick, and Ban (temporary before permanent). Since you previously got off of a 5-day ban for toxicity/harassment, and due to the amount of actions SINCE that ban (2 strikes and a mute, see section 2 below), Synthray saw the strike and made the decision to increase the punishment from a softban to a permanent ban.

Synthray and B0T acted on their own discretion. They did not do this on any action or request from me. – they instead felt the actions of Nate were in violation of our discord rules (specifically 2: be respectful; and 4: listen to the staff). B0T made the decision to make the strike solely based on the comment Nate made – and that comment alone. Synthray then made the decision to increase the strike to a permanent ban, given that there were 3 corrective actions taken prior to this action (but after his previous ban expired).

I occasionally checked into discord on that day but took no actions myself. I work as an election worker, and May 4th was an election day in my state (proof) I did come on to the discord to occasionally hang out during a lunch break, but I didn’t have the time nor desire to monitor the discord that day. I say this only to refute the claim that I was responsible for any action taken against Nate on this latest ban. Since you had been issued 3 punishments since your last ban, and I noticed you seemed ready to stir the pot again, I did alert the staff to monitor you in our watchlist, as you can see here. This was before you posted the comment in question:

Summary: You were struck, not banned, due to a racist comment. You were banned due to constant trolling – having 3 prior strikes since your “second-chance” ban before being edgy again. And I did not “order” your ban in any way, just alerted other staff members that a problem troll was posting in the discord – something we have to do every now and again.

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Section 2: The history

Literally all of my strikes have come from jammin beggin simpray to punish me. Not a single warn, strike, or ban has come from anyone but these two individuals lmao.

This is simply not true. While Auttaja doesn’t identify the staff issuing the punishment, in the interest of transparency I will open up the books to show each punishment GM Nate has received.
Nate’s punishment history on discord is as shown below:

Punishment 1: Strike
Date: 2021/01/29
Staff: Prince Nicky La Flama Blanca
Reason: “it doesn't matter if you don't like someone, there's no need for attacking other players. We all know who you're referring to”
Evidence: https://imgur.com/a/FtsbXrG

Punishment 2: Mute (2 days)
Date: 2021/01/31
Staff: Synthray
Reason: “inappropriate behavior and enticing drama in #ttt and #creations”
Evidence: https://imgur.com/a/2Ly6Ouk

Punishment 3: Strike & Mute (1 hour)
Date: 2021/02/06
Staff: Synthray (mute) & Jammin (strike)
Reason: “Inticing Drama”
Evidence: https://imgur.com/a/ROrSNgN
Additionally: I also DM'd you regarding this situation.

Punishment 4: Ban (5 days)
Date: 2021/02/09
Staff: Synthray
Reason: “You've been banned (5 days) for enticing drama and flaming. You can find more evidence here: https://postimg.cc/gallery/t4sxVzK. The current stage for 'Trolling/Flaming/Disrespect/Harassment/Enticing Drama' is now a tempban. Feel free to make an abuse report or an unban request if you think something is wrong.”
Evidence: https://imgur.com/a/heIV5ly

Punishment 5: Mute (1 hour)
Date: 2021/03/15
Staff: Nicol
Reason: “Arguing with staff and bringing up drama for the sole reason to cause drama.”
Evidence: https://imgur.com/a/dDki9IC

Punishment 6: Strike & Auttaja Auto-Mute (12 hours)
Date: 2021/03/15
Staff: Noire
Reason: slurs
Evidence: https://imgur.com/a/v80XGe2
Video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCqGjw-jS-Q

Punishment 7: Strike
Date: 2021/03/25
Staff: Jammin
Reason: antisemitic comment
Evidence: https://imgur.com/a/URGzdlY

Punishment 8: Strike & Auttaja Auto-Soft Ban
Date: 2021/05/04
Staff: B0T
Reason: Racism in #General
Evidence: (see section 1)

Punishment 9: Permanent Ban
Date: 2021/05/04
Staff: Synthray
Reason: You have been banned for trolling! but this time, permanently. A warning of permaban was given by an admin, as you can read here—https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/showthread.php?tid=13658.
Evidence: (see section 1)
Note: This ban reason may not have been DM’d to Nate due to privacy settings/not sharing a server with Auttaja bot

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Section 3: The thin line of racist comedy
First, to clarify – the words warn and strike are used interchangeably, as both commands do the same thing in our discord moderation bot.
Secondly, the rule in place here – rule 2d – is quoted as follows:

d)    Using offensive language (racism, sexism, etc) towards other people is NOT allowed in any form. Specific derogatory terms at discretion of staff are NOT allowed.

As of now, the rules as listed prohibit any offensive language of a racist nature directed towards someone. The strike in question presents a joke, within the context of someone’s ethnicity, being directed towards someone. Given this, discord staff currently use their personal discretion to decide if action is warranted. I won’t put words into B0t’s mouth, though I suspect Nate’s history of inciting drama, in addition to history of warns for offensive langage – both in the TTT game server and here in discord – may have played a factor.

The entire rules and moderation guidelines for our discord are currently under review. Overhauling a rule-set for a community discord cannot be rushed, and takes time to determine what to do. Once this is completed, the issue of what is warn worthy for racism, vs what is warn worthy for trolling, vs what is ok to leave be, will be made clear. When discord staff members are presented with the dilemma of a statement or joke that demeans or elevates one group of humans for qualities such as race, gender, mental deficiencies, etc – they have to do so based on little to no guidelines on what is acceptable vs what is not acceptable. Was the joke Nate made edgy, bringing race into the equation? Perhaps. Was it warn worthy? I would not have warned (and I didn’t do so). Another moderator decided it was warn worthy – and decided to issue the warning. Until we better establish guidelines on what is and isn’t acceptable, this will continue to be under moderator discretion.

This isn’t B0t’s fault – he did absolutely nothing wrong. He followed current guidelines exactly as they were intended – and issued a strike that ran along the fine line of edgy jokes. He used his discretion to determine the remark broke our ruleset on per our rules, and warned accordingly. That being said, this particular joke probably should have been set aside.

With regards to future race-baiting statements such as these, until guidelines are better issued, discord staff will continue to use their discretion. I’ve been monitoring the recent warns being issued by discord staff, and I feel that their discretion has to a large extent been appropriately applied. As of this moment, if someone decides to make a joke that COULD be termed as offensive – in terms of being a “discriminatory” joke – that person runs the risk of receiving a strike. If you don’t want to receive a strike, don’t make edgy jokes.

As of now we don’t have a blanket ban on discussions of a controversial nature. If we were to do so, the issue of discretion would be removed. Other discord servers that I’ve scanned have much stricter rules – often banning the very mention of race and other sensitive topics (religion, politics, etc.) to prevent these situations from arising. I don’t believe that is right – I am not about censorship of the community. None of us are. I wanted to mention that this is not on the table – this is why we use discord staff discretion instead of a ban on certain topic discussion.

Until the rule overhaul, please be considerate of your fellow humans – both the one moderating the discord and the one using it as their escape from reality for a bit.

As for the server’s questionable history with the N-word? I have no say in that matter. I don’t like any use of the word at all, by anybody. That being said, it has a higher than normal tolerance as that is the standard established by the community long before I got here. The only reason why it is completely intolerable in the discord is due to discord regulations – where allowing such words have taken down similar gaming community servers in the past.

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Section 4: The actual reason for the ban
All of that being said, after @”Battons” locked the thread yesterday while I was driving home from vacation (thanks for your help!), Nate DM’d me further to explain his side of the situation. Unlike past conversations with Nate, he was surprisingly cordial as he gave an honest explanation of his frustrations. I won’t put words in his mouth, so I’ll let his words do the talking. My understanding is that Nate’s biggest frustration is this:

Look if you want to ban me because I'm controversial and inflammatory just say that because I'm not a fucking racist and I got along with people of every race on dinks who could take a joke.

To paraphrase: don’t avoid the reason.
Your ban was, again, for “trolling” not for “racist post.” The full text of the ban is above.
I think there is a misunderstanding here. After the strike, you received a DM from the Auttaja bot explaining the reason for the strike (not the ban). Since that was your 5th strike, you were soft-banned, which included being kicked from the server.
Once you were kicked, since you don’t share a server with the Auttaja bot, DM’s with the updated ban reason were likely received. There is a privacy setting restriction on your account, since you were unable to DM me until we shared a separate discord server.
Your ban is not just for racism, and that comment alone does not justify a ban. Very few offenses result in an immediate ban – usually only discord TOS violations get an immediate ban from a first incident. However, your ban factors in all of the weeks of toxicity and drama that you continued to stir up in the discord. You were warned after your last ban that future incidents would result in a permanent ban, and that came true 4 incidents later.
TL,DR: You weren’t banned for the questionable post – you were banned for accumulating 4 strikes/mutes since the last ban, and were banned for general trolling/toxicity. In other words, your past punishments had a huge impact on your ban. The last, somewhat controversial punishment, was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.

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Section 5: Returning from Toxicity

As a quick aside I have no clue what you mean by 'positive change' but I'm not gonna turn into one of these humorless squares who are so terrified of anything offensive that thy genuinely believe that a brown man has white pride, so if that's what youre hoping for sorry charlie.

Several people have returned from toxicity bans in the past to become a well-valued member of the Dinkleberg community. However, those players made actual, genuine changes in their character.
They grew up.
Some people do change – that’s why we offer second chances to certain individuals. In our DM’s, you referenced “the mad shitter” as an example of someone given a second chance, after saying the N-word like 50+ times.
However, his second chance came after months of being restricted from the server, and a month-long trial period where he played on other servers without incidence. As a simple forum search will show, that second chance was abused enough to the point that he was rebanned, and is now currently forum banned and restricted from making future bans due to his continued toxicity.
Nate’s second chance also came and went – that came when he was banned back in February. He was given this advice by @Prince Nicky La Flama Blanca when closing out his last ban appeal:

We aren't trying to censor you or prevent you from having fun in Discord. You are always free to do this. This cannot, however, come at the expense of any other players, regardless of whether they are staff, regulars, donors, or guests. Most of our 4,000+ Discord members manage to do this. You should try to find a way to be able to do this as well.

If you are not able to change your behavior and it continues to violate the rules of our Discord, then you will likely find yourself once again removed from the server. This prospective next time, doesn't need to occur. But if it does, it will likely result in your permanent removal from the Discord.

Do I think GM Nate has a realistic chance of returning to the discord server? Frankly, no. I don’t. I don’t expect him to “kiss up” to discord staff/me to get you unbanned – I couldn’t care less what he says to me. What I need assurance of before unbanning someone is that their behavior is going to correct/change. In our discord server, there is an expectation that the rules established are going to be followed. If Nate cannot agree to change, describe how he plans to change, and apologize for past actions, then I don’t see any realistic chance of him returning.
To clarify – I’m not looking for someone to fake their way back in – and as GM Nate told me in DM’s, “The only difference between me and [other trolls unbanned] is i dont pretend i changed like they do.”

I do want to address something else, that is a major factor in getting unbanned: Community Support. While the majority of the staff team does not want Nate unbanned, Nate does have significant community support – as shown in this thread. One’s +1 vote to see a troll return is not diminished by their own trolling/behavior – every +1 and -1 vote of active community members is important. Multiple people have remarked that Nate is rather pleasant to talk to. I’ve been in voice calls myself with Nate where he was pleasant to talk to. Heck, in his last unban thread, Nicky also recognizes this.

That being said, although Nate may not be returning right now, a significant 180 in his actions and attitudes may allow some semblance of a pathway to return someday.

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Section 6: Other notes to address
Before getting into the decision, I wanted to address some minor points brought up here.

EDIT: just to be clear this isnt an alt evade Ive never been community banned but my main steam acct got hacked

This is correct, GM Nate is not community banned, nor is he banned from his main server (TTT). He only has a 1-day ban from almost a year ago for RDM and Leave. His only active ban is on the discord server.

Another issue that is very iffy are the issues revolving around you making pedophile jokes.

I could easily be one of the pedophiles that yall love to promote ( and i can name SEVERAL that arent ginger and rippe) but instead im choosing to stand out.Please invite me back even tho ive never touched a kid

If you are actually aware of another person that is a pedophile and is still active in our community, then this is something you should immediately report to members of the upper staff such as myself. That is not an accusation to be throwing around just on the fly. Please reach out to one of us with the names of these people and any evidence you may have so we can make this community safer for children and all players.

Nicky is right. If you have information on any staff or community members who are pedophiles, please share the evidence with an admin. The fact that you claim to have evidence but choose to withhold it just pushes further that you aren’t ready to return – that you are making up random allegations against staff members – allegations that could ruin someone’s life IRL – just for your own rise.
On the flip side, if you are aware of a pedophile and are intentionally withholding evidence, that’s even worse – that make you complicit. I feel this just another example of toxic trolling.
In any event, this really disgusts me.

Another point - discord staff team's actions.
I want to reiterate that given the rules and moderation guidelines our discord staff team is working with right now, they have all been doing a phenomenal job so far. It is currently, and always will be, my policy that any discord staff discretion applied, when discretion is warranted, will be supported - even if the punishment/actions are overturned later. Actions taken by discord staff are necessarily spur of the moment - often, they act as the events happen, and have to be quick on their feet. As such, even if it is later determined that their discretion may have been too harsh or too lenient with punishment, all that will happen are simple corrections to the punishment. I want my staff team to know that I appreciate what you do, and as long as you act within the guidelines, I have your back.

Finally, regarding synthray: I was planning to announce this as part of my next discord update, but synthray has decided to resign from the discord staff team. He has decided to delete his discord account - which is why it appears as "deleted user." Any issues of past actions taken by synthray will be taken directly to me, as he no longer wishes to be involved.

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Section 7: Conclusion
Ultimately, you aren’t ready to come back. Your actions and attitudes in this thread alone speak volumes. You continue to reference some form of personal vendetta that I have against you – something that couldn’t be further from the truth. You used this thread to stir up drama once again – the type of drama that makes the discord a toxic hellhole. My job is to make the discord enjoyable for the average playerbase, not to service a few trolls that a lot of people like. Community support is important, but that’s not the only factor here. With all of the factors described above, you are far from returning to the community discord. While the final “strike” may be questionable, your actions and attitudes in this thread, as well as your lengthy discord punishment record, justify the ban to remain. For now, I will continue the ban to ensure the community is free from the toxicity and drama that you bring upon us.

After consultation with the current discord staff, the team has recommended in a unaminous vote that this be denied. Admins who voted also were unaminous.

Your unban request is DENIED.
You may appeal again on July 12th, 2021 – but I suggest you wait longer than that, and work on yourself, before trying to appeal again.

Dislikes are to the right. Have a nice day.