[poop MANIAC(fecal frenzy!!!!!!!!]

Offender's Name: Jammin

Offender's SteamID: STEAM_0:1:243663343

What Server(s): Dink's TTT

Offender's Rank: moderator

What They Did: Unfortunately, Moderator jammin abused the awarn system to issue 8 erroneous six-point trolling warnings and four false warn level 1 bans. This report will have two parts; first will be the miscategorization of the 6 point Trolling warning, why it was wrongfully employed in this case, and how it led to four wrongful bans. Then it will discuss the position of the loud door feature which is included in some maps whose enjoyment is currently not against any rule in the Dinkleberg's TTT guidelines.


The TTT warning guidelines listed here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wzuX...skblnitkuj) give a clear and concise description of what the 6 point trolling warning is defined by.

Trolling is when someone either says or posts a provocative, antagonizing, irrelevant or offensive statement in order to bait other players' reactions for a laugh.

None of the players affected by moderator jammin's had been trolling any other player as established by these guidelines. The use of ttt_bikinibottom's squeaky door feature in the Krusty Krab location does not match the definition of saying or posting something to provoke or antagonize another player, nor was it an offensive or irrelevant statement. Furthermore, the community members jammin targeted were opening and closing the door as an amusing diversion and had no malicious intent. The 6 point warnings given to the community members involved were therefore entirely erroneous, which invalidates the subsequent related bans on each affected community member. At worst, in a generous interpretation of the rules this could be considered a 2-point spam warning.



We will now further discuss how any warning at all for this activity would have also been erroneous as using the squeaky door feature on certain maps does not fall within the guideline's explicit statement on what defines spam. We know that the TTT Rules post that is the server's MOTD (https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho....php?tid=4) follows as such:

4. Do Not Spam

Chat and mic spam are never allowed. Singing, yelling, voice changers, and excessive speaking are all mic spam. Arguments that prevent others from enjoying the game are also prohibited.

To quote directly from the guidelines (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wzuX...vi5tp5pvct) "The server’s definition of spamming is unnecessary words or sentences that are being excessively repeated in the in-game chat or voice chat. Mic spamming can also be defined as singing into the mic, playing music, yelling, excessive use of soundboards, annoying voice changers and excessively speaking. Chat spam/mic spam is NOT allowed, even during pre-round or post-round."

None of the community members affected were flooding either chat feature, not with text or microphone. In the past certain staff have accidentally misinterpreted the guidelines for spamming to erroneously punish community members for enjoying squeaky door features, which has established a precedent that as of now goes against the rules. I personally believe that this being a precedent should be a mitigating factor for the staff members who accidentally make this mistake, but think it is important to clarify for them so they don't continue to pronounce false sentences against community members who are not breaking any actual rule.



Now the guidelines do give some leeway into staff discretion for the severity of a "Trolling" offense, however we can see from the aforementioned trolling section that the discretionary note reads as such: "Use staff discretion when dealing with different levels of trolling, flaming, harassment and targeting as this is just a general guideline. Please ban fairly and appropriately based on severity. " This means that a staff member is entilted to some level of discretion on the severity of the punishment given for trolling offenses, however it does not provide leeway as to actually defining a trolling offense. Furthermore, the MOTD states: "Note that the punishments for these offenses are listed in the staff guidelines, but staff may issue punishment with some discretion depending on the context of a situation." This protects the community from abuse where rules are not quite so clear as to what is and isn't allowed, however as we have already discussed we know there is no prohibition to enjoying the squeaky door feature. The only mention of what may be colloquially called "door spamming" is in the MOTD post where a KOS is valid for:

Door Spamming after a warning+ample time is given.
This refers exclusively to rules of engagement for what is and is not valid for player-vs-player combat, not any sort of staff punishment for community members. Nowhere else is "door spamming" mentioned in any of the TTT guidelines, even in an offhand way, so from a rule-centric standpoint the act is decidedly within a community member's right to enjoy and cannot be subject to penal operations from a staff member.

Affected community members:
XeV
a whole tribe of piss goblins
Mr. Proto
and myself

When They Did It: 10/27/2022

Potential Witnesses: XeV, a whole tribe of piss goblins, Mr. Proto, myself, shaye, SUPAH, yeat, I am a killah pls help, Kaiwan, LemonTiara, Nash, and a whole lot more. (It was a pretty full server)

Proof: in attachments

Other: Honestly, I hope this is a misunderstanding on my part, but after reviewing the rules and staff guidelines pretty thoroughly, I'm sad to say that I don't think it is. The last thing I want to do is get anyone in trouble. All I want is for us as  a community to stop punishing players for actions which are not against the rules. We all know jammin is a great moderator who really cares and never makes a decision lightly or without considering the innocence of the accused. I don't think he was acting out of malice in this instance, and I hesitate to suggest he acted in ignorance, considering the weight of his position as a community administrator. However, I do think that what we have on our hands is a mistake which we need to make sure doesn't happen again, so that innocent community members aren't attacked unjustly by the system which is supposed to protect them. In a perfect world, I think this accidental mistake would rather be an opportunity for education than a moment for punitive action against such an active pillar of the community. I like to think we live in a perfect world, or at least in something close to it. Do you?

[Deadpoolz]

can't believe it. I am so angered right now. I might throw my table

[Norm Minder]

is there a tldr

[lacer]

is there a tldr

tldr is mad shitter posted again

[EpicGuy]

I'll let Jammin post his reasoning behind banning you, but I would like to address a few things from your post. This isn't going to be too in-depth (I hope. I want to go to bed) because Jammin was the one who banned you.

First, I will say that the MOTD is very poorly written. I've said that for years now. The staff guidelines document isn't much better. Both the MOTD and staff guidelines have grammatical issues (one is actually in this abuse report, if your brain can recognize it), and the MOTD is very poorly formatted. But this is what we have, so this is what we're working with.

The TTT warning guidelines listed here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wzuX...skblnitkuj) give a clear and concise description of what the 6 point trolling warning is defined by.

Trolling is when someone either says or posts a provocative, antagonizing, irrelevant or offensive statement in order to bait other players' reactions for a laugh.

None of the players affected by moderator jammin's had been trolling any other player as established by these guidelines. The use of ttt_bikinibottom's squeaky door feature in the Krusty Krab location does not match the definition of saying or posting something to provoke or antagonize another player, nor was it an offensive or irrelevant statement. Furthermore, the community members jammin targeted were opening and closing the door as an amusing diversion and had no malicious intent. The 6 point warnings given to the community members involved were therefore entirely erroneous, which invalidates the subsequent related bans on each affected community member. At worst, in a generous interpretation of the rules this could be considered a 2-point spam warning.

That's great and all, but the sentence under the "Trolling and Flaming" heading says, "Trolling and Flaming are unusually [sic] non-malicious done for laughs and more of an unwanted annoyance to the player/players." You admit that, "the community members jammin targeted were opening and closing the door as an amusing diversion and had no malicious intent." The guidelines say that trolling is usually not malicious, and you say that the community members weren't malicious. So it looks like there's an agreeance there. I'd say that excessively opening and closely a loud door that can be heard across a map is annoying and constitutes as trolling. Furthermore, in the screenshots that you provided, one of the banned players said, "we do a little trolling." Now, the context of that sentence is unknown, but it looks like that was in response to other people getting warned for spamming the door. Nevertheless, it's not a good luck in this case.

We will now further discuss how any warning at all for this activity would have also been erroneous as using the squeaky door feature on certain maps does not fall within the guideline's explicit statement on what defines spam. We know that the TTT Rules post that is the server's MOTD (https://www.dinklebergsgmod.com/site/sho....php?tid=4) follows as such:

4. Do Not Spam

Chat and mic spam are never allowed. Singing, yelling, voice changers, and excessive speaking are all mic spam. Arguments that prevent others from enjoying the game are also prohibited.

To quote directly from the guidelines (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wzuX...vi5tp5pvct) "The server’s definition of spamming is unnecessary words or sentences that are being excessively repeated in the in-game chat or voice chat. Mic spamming can also be defined as singing into the mic, playing music, yelling, excessive use of soundboards, annoying voice changers and excessively speaking. Chat spam/mic spam is NOT allowed, even during pre-round or post-round."

None of the community members affected were flooding either chat feature, not with text or microphone. In the past certain staff have accidentally misinterpreted the guidelines for spamming to erroneously punish community members for enjoying squeaky door features, which has established a precedent that as of now goes against the rules. I personally believe that this being a precedent should be a mitigating factor for the staff members who accidentally make this mistake, but think it is important to clarify for them so they don't continue to pronounce false sentences against community members who are not breaking any actual rule.

I like how you purposefully chose to be obtuse and say that you were warned for door SPAMMING but under the rules, spamming is only via text or voice chat. That alone makes this abuse report completely useless, but I'll play your game. Under the "Do Not Exploit, Hack, Metagame or Otherwise Avoid the Game's Intended Limits" section of the MOTD, the first bullet point says, "Do not try to escape the map bounds or exploit map/server bugs." Doors being opened in this game are not intended to be heard from across a map. You are actively breaking the game. That should be an additional warning added to your account. See how silly that sounds? Trying to apply a, loosely related at best, rule to this situation is silly. It's clear that the rule is written about chat and mic spam, not actively spamming a door. Could that rule be rewritten or cleared up? Sure. Does it need to be? Probably not, because most people have an iota of common sense, and there's a door spam rule later on...

...The only mention of what may be colloquially called "door spamming" is in the MOTD post where a KOS is valid for:

Door Spamming after a warning+ample time is given.
This refers exclusively to rules of engagement for what is and is not valid for player-vs-player combat, not any sort of staff punishment for community members. Nowhere else is "door spamming" mentioned in any of the TTT guidelines, even in an offhand way, so from a rule-centric standpoint the act is decidedly within a community member's right to enjoy and cannot be subject to penal operations from a staff member.

Why does door spam have to deal with player-vs-player combat? Who ever said that? Where is that found? In fact, that rule wouldn't make sense in the context of combat because what fool would be giving ample warning to not door spam IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT? I'd wager a guess that most people are more worried about KOSing and shooting someone than issuing a door spam warning. I'd also say that most instances of door spamming occur during non-combative periods of gameplay. Door spamming is trolling. Trolling is, from the TTT guidelines, "non-malicious." What am I missing?

Honestly, I hope this is a misunderstanding on my part, but after reviewing the rules and staff guidelines pretty thoroughly, I'm sad to say that I don't think it is. The last thing I want to do is get anyone in trouble. All I want is for us as  a community to stop punishing players for actions which are not against the rules. We all know jammin is a great moderator who really cares and never makes a decision lightly or without considering the innocence of the accused. I don't think he was acting out of malice in this instance, and I hesitate to suggest he acted in ignorance, considering the weight of his position as a community administrator. However, I do think that what we have on our hands is a mistake which we need to make sure doesn't happen again, so that innocent community members aren't attacked unjustly by the system which is supposed to protect them. In a perfect world, I think this accidental mistake would rather be an opportunity for education than a moment for punitive action against such an active pillar of the community. I like to think we live in a perfect world, or at least in something close to it. Do you?

You and I both know that we don't live in a perfect world, and door spamming is clearly against the rules. You copied and pasted the rule from the MOTD. This is an absolutely silly abuse report. And rather than writing all of this crap, you probably could have gotten this sorted out with a few messages to Bryan over Discord. Absolutely silly.

[YourMateMurph]

im so glad for you or so sorry.

[Damien]

[dero]

literally me...

[Battons]

is there a tldr

People were doorspamming, got warned for it, is now arguing about it because it isn't explicitly stated in the rules. A dramatic oversimplification but probably close enough.

[(DEMON)Skullfire]

is there a tldr

People were doorspamming, got warned for it, is now arguing about it because it isn't explicitly stated in the rules. A dramatic oversimplification but probably close enough.

This is not even a new offense as Poop always door spams and is always being verbally warned for this. He has actually been warned in the past before warns were removed as well I am almost positive of that. I feel Jammin took the right procedures.