Username: icos999
What is your type of punishment?
Team Ban
Where were you banned from? Servers
What is your SteamID? icos999
Who has punished you?
Jim
Why were you punished?
freekill report
Why should we revoke your punishment?
I was permanently teambanned from guard team in the US jailbreak server.
I believe the teamban was unjust. I suspect that my teamban was applied primarily out of personal prejudice and a lapse of judgement rather than a good faith application of the rules.
I expect that anyone who will dispassionately go over the evidence and the facts presented here will agree with the conclusion that I should not have been teambanned for the stated reason, and that the admins responsible for my teamban have had a lapse of judgement.
I have felt a strong sense of injustice and bitterness about the situation since I've been teambanned. However, I don't wish this to be an appeal to emotion. Rather, I intend to explain the situation clearly and dispassionately.
For context, here are the relevant threads that I will be mainly referring to:
Freekill report, which resulted in Jim permanently teambanning me:
blackwonder.tf
First appeal:
blackwonder.tf
Second appeal:
blackwonder.tf
Both appeals have been denied by Jim.
A lot of what I'm going to discuss was already addressed in those threads, however, reading them is not required.
Here are the basic facts of the case:
1. I killed a freeday spy as warden.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report.
2. I did not specify that freedays should not get into my melee range before killing the spy.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report.
3. The freeday spy has repeatedly come up to my melee range and up to my back, repeatedly triggering the stab prompt for the freeday spy.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report.
4. The quality of my microphone was poor and had an unpleasant buzzing sound.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report
5. I presented a coherent interpretation of the rules as they existed at the time that I was teambanned.
Evidenced by: the "Why should we revoke your punishment?" section of my first appeal thread, as well as the second appeal thread. Reasoning for behavior being acceptible explicitly quotes and interprets the rules.
Here it is again:
One of the red rules is:
6. The interpretation was reasonable.
Evidenced by: the fact that CometPM, an admin at the time and still today, has explicitly agreed with this interpretation of the rules, which is in turn evidenced by the Discord screenshots provided in the first appeal thread. The chain of reasoning goes as follows:
A. If an interpretation of the rules is held by an active staff member, that interpretation is reasonable (although not necessarily correct).
B. A staff member has shared my interpretation of the rules.
C. (modus ponens applied to A and B) My interpretation of the rules was reasonable.
Very important point: just because someone's interpretation of the rules is reasonable, doesn't automatically make it the correct and only interpretation. An interpretation being reasonable is quite a weak standard to meet: two opposing interpretations of the same set of rules could both be reasonable. The point of the interpretation being reasonable is that it ensures that the person is not just making things up or lying, but rather using their faculties and engaging with the rules.
7. I explicitly inquired to staff about this kind of situation and got an explicit approval for my interpretation fo the rules before engaging in it
Evidenced by: the same Discord screenshots, including comparing the timestamps of the discord posts with the timestamp of the report.
8. I have been aggressive towards other players and staff members.
Evidenced by: the "Try reading the rules before submitting reports" comment in the report, calling StenRodd's response in the first appeal thread "almost too embarrassing to respond to", "just use common sense" (which is a rude dismissive comment), and many other comments both on discord and in game.
9. The reason for my teamban is a freekill report, not being rude or any other reason.
Evidenced by: the message attached to my teamban.
10. My playstyle as warden has been unconventional.
Evidenced by:
Jim's comment:
"and have gone out of your way to be disruptive on discord and the game servers to draw attention.
You should really reconsider why you even bother to play when you seem to enjoy annoying others more than participating in the actual gameplay."
As well as numerous other comments on discord and TF2.
I was accused of many untrue things. The following are some of them.
An often repeated claim is that I am simply too inexperienced and/or unintelligent to grasp the rules of jailbreak, which are said to not be ambiguous to most players.
This was said in the second appeal thread by Jim:
This response is inadequate in several ways.
1. Jim invites me to ask questions to staff about unclear situations until I am informed enough. However, that was exactly what I did, and I acted on the information given to me by a staff member (point 7). Thus the situation is as follows:
A. I ask staff if X is an appropriate react to Y.
B. Staff member says yes.
C. I do X in response to Y.
D. Get teambanned for it.
E. In an appeal, another staff member tells me that I am uninformed about the rules and should ask staff more questions.
This obviously is an incredibly dishonest and dismissive framing of the situation by Jim. Denying an appeal because a person did not do something when the person's whole defense is that they did that exact thing is so dismissive and obtuse that it borders on ridiculous.
2. The invitation to ask questions to staff about unclear situations rings hollow and dishonest given the facts of what has transpired shortly after the appeal.
This is a bit of a detour from the main point of the appeal but the situation has been described in detail and discussed in the following thread where I reported two members of the staff (Crikey and DaggerStable):
blackwonder.tf
I asked a legitimate and a reasonable question about jailbreak rules here:
blackwonder.tf
As a response to which I was banned from the forum.
Jim responded to the thread (with a non-answer to the question) so he was aware of the whole situation and was OK with me being banned for asking questions about jailbreak rules.
This is just another example of Jim's ridiculously hypocritical behavior towards the players of jailbreak. You are invited to ask clarifying questions about jailbreak rules, but if you do you will be banned and I won't do anything about it.
You may think that the question I wrote was inflammatory in some way or other, but this was not the case. I deliberately did not attack anyone and focused on the rules in abstract. I spent a lot of effort to explain the question in as clear of terms as I could. I deliberately did not include as specific example of the situation in question to not distract from the main point and to not come across as just me reporting things. I simply wanted to understand the rules better, and was severely punished, lied about, and accused of all sorts of false things for it.
Something to note is that in those threads, staff members explicitly contradict each other on the rules. That doesn't mean that any of them are wrong or stupid, however, it does mean that the question I asked is not an obvious question, and is not there to just stir up trouble, as some staff members dishonestly and uncharitably suggested.
I invite you to read the threads at this time. It is really ridiculous how unfairly I was treated in them by so many of the staff members.
First thread: https://blackwonder.tf/threads/jb-question-about-impossible-orders.37311/#post-138075
Second thread:
blackwonder.tf
This brief detour serves to illustrate that Jim has not responded to my second appeal in good faith and has been deliberately dismissive and obtuse towards me.
Going back to my teamban appeal. Given that the stated reason for my permanent teamban is a freekill report, I believe it should be revoked. I have repeatedly demonstrated in this thread and elsewhere that I have acted according to my best current interpretation of the rules, not trying to do anything I knew to be illegal. I have received an explicit approval for this behavior by an admin.
I believe that any impartial person would agree that a person should not be permanently teambanned for breaking a rule when the person in question has demonstrated that they had acted according to their best understanding of the rules and as well having had an approval from a member of authority.
It's been well over a year since my teamban (I was teambanned on August 12, 2023, meaning it has been over 574 days, or 1 year and 6 months).
It's well past the time that my injustly applied teamban was revoked.
I believe I make a great warden and a blu member, even if a bit unconventional. I think a lot of people did appreciate my playstyle, and personally during my time playing as red, I've noticed a significant lack of wardens who care about the rules but are willing to do unconventional things like myself.
As for point 4, I have since acquired a better microphone. As for point 8 (being rude), I accept that I have been more rude than necessary and I pledge to be more kind and tactful towards other players, which I think can already be noticed in my behavior.
Thank you for taking the time to read my appeal.
What is your type of punishment?
Team Ban
Where were you banned from? Servers
What is your SteamID? icos999
Who has punished you?
Jim
Why were you punished?
freekill report
Why should we revoke your punishment?
I was permanently teambanned from guard team in the US jailbreak server.
I believe the teamban was unjust. I suspect that my teamban was applied primarily out of personal prejudice and a lapse of judgement rather than a good faith application of the rules.
I expect that anyone who will dispassionately go over the evidence and the facts presented here will agree with the conclusion that I should not have been teambanned for the stated reason, and that the admins responsible for my teamban have had a lapse of judgement.
I have felt a strong sense of injustice and bitterness about the situation since I've been teambanned. However, I don't wish this to be an appeal to emotion. Rather, I intend to explain the situation clearly and dispassionately.
For context, here are the relevant threads that I will be mainly referring to:
Freekill report, which resulted in Jim permanently teambanning me:
Resolved - Report against icos (Jailbreak US)
Username: Dust Who are you reporting? icos What server game mode is the report concerned with? Jailbreak US What is the accused persons's SteamID? [U:1:98443700] What is the reason of the report? Freekill, LR Denial Files you have as proof File(s) attached Any other proof you...
First appeal:
Declined - icos999's Team Ban appeal
Username: icos999 What is your type of punishment? Team Ban Where were you banned from? Servers What is your SteamID? icos999 Who has punished you? Jim Why were you punished? Freekill Why should we revoke your punishment...
Declined - 's icos999 appeal
What's your username? icos999 What is your type of punishment? Team Ban Where were you banned from? Servers What is your SteamID? icos999 Who has punished you? Jim Why were you punished? Freekill Why should we revoke your punishment...
A lot of what I'm going to discuss was already addressed in those threads, however, reading them is not required.
Here are the basic facts of the case:
1. I killed a freeday spy as warden.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report.
2. I did not specify that freedays should not get into my melee range before killing the spy.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report.
3. The freeday spy has repeatedly come up to my melee range and up to my back, repeatedly triggering the stab prompt for the freeday spy.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report.
4. The quality of my microphone was poor and had an unpleasant buzzing sound.
Evidenced by: the video provided in the report
5. I presented a coherent interpretation of the rules as they existed at the time that I was teambanned.
Evidenced by: the "Why should we revoke your punishment?" section of my first appeal thread, as well as the second appeal thread. Reasoning for behavior being acceptible explicitly quotes and interprets the rules.
Here it is again:
One of the red rules is:
6. The interpretation was reasonable.
Evidenced by: the fact that CometPM, an admin at the time and still today, has explicitly agreed with this interpretation of the rules, which is in turn evidenced by the Discord screenshots provided in the first appeal thread. The chain of reasoning goes as follows:
A. If an interpretation of the rules is held by an active staff member, that interpretation is reasonable (although not necessarily correct).
B. A staff member has shared my interpretation of the rules.
C. (modus ponens applied to A and B) My interpretation of the rules was reasonable.
Very important point: just because someone's interpretation of the rules is reasonable, doesn't automatically make it the correct and only interpretation. An interpretation being reasonable is quite a weak standard to meet: two opposing interpretations of the same set of rules could both be reasonable. The point of the interpretation being reasonable is that it ensures that the person is not just making things up or lying, but rather using their faculties and engaging with the rules.
7. I explicitly inquired to staff about this kind of situation and got an explicit approval for my interpretation fo the rules before engaging in it
Evidenced by: the same Discord screenshots, including comparing the timestamps of the discord posts with the timestamp of the report.
8. I have been aggressive towards other players and staff members.
Evidenced by: the "Try reading the rules before submitting reports" comment in the report, calling StenRodd's response in the first appeal thread "almost too embarrassing to respond to", "just use common sense" (which is a rude dismissive comment), and many other comments both on discord and in game.
9. The reason for my teamban is a freekill report, not being rude or any other reason.
Evidenced by: the message attached to my teamban.
10. My playstyle as warden has been unconventional.
Evidenced by:
Jim's comment:
"and have gone out of your way to be disruptive on discord and the game servers to draw attention.
You should really reconsider why you even bother to play when you seem to enjoy annoying others more than participating in the actual gameplay."
As well as numerous other comments on discord and TF2.
I was accused of many untrue things. The following are some of them.
The staff member is accusing me of acting in a careless and an uninformed way. But this is directly contradicted by the posts in the same thread beforehand (specifically facts 6,7 in the list above). I explicitly clarified this exact situation with the staff members and got an explicit confirmation that my interpretation of the rules was reasonable before applying my interpretation in practice, which resulted in the teamban.
I acknowledged facts of the case, over which there was no disagreement. The whole point of the thread was to explain my thought process and reasoning behind acting the way I did. It was an attempt at communication, an attempt to clarify how exactly it was that I broke the rules. I tried my best to present my reasoning in a clear and an understandable way. However, this effort has seemingly not been reciprocated by the admin. The points I've made in those threads, which I still regard to be relevant and reasonable, have to the best of my knowledge as of today, not been addressed by Jim.
An often repeated claim is that I am simply too inexperienced and/or unintelligent to grasp the rules of jailbreak, which are said to not be ambiguous to most players.
This was said in the second appeal thread by Jim:
This response is inadequate in several ways.
1. Jim invites me to ask questions to staff about unclear situations until I am informed enough. However, that was exactly what I did, and I acted on the information given to me by a staff member (point 7). Thus the situation is as follows:
A. I ask staff if X is an appropriate react to Y.
B. Staff member says yes.
C. I do X in response to Y.
D. Get teambanned for it.
E. In an appeal, another staff member tells me that I am uninformed about the rules and should ask staff more questions.
This obviously is an incredibly dishonest and dismissive framing of the situation by Jim. Denying an appeal because a person did not do something when the person's whole defense is that they did that exact thing is so dismissive and obtuse that it borders on ridiculous.
2. The invitation to ask questions to staff about unclear situations rings hollow and dishonest given the facts of what has transpired shortly after the appeal.
This is a bit of a detour from the main point of the appeal but the situation has been described in detail and discussed in the following thread where I reported two members of the staff (Crikey and DaggerStable):
Declined - Report against crikey, DaggerSable (JBUS)
Who are you reporting? crikey, DaggerSable What server game mode is the report concerned with? JBUS What is the accused persons's SteamID? unknown What is the reason of the report? moderator/admin abuse, bad faith Any other proof you have I have made a thread asking two legitimate...
Answered - Two simple questions about jailbreak rules
Dear players and observers of blackwonder jailbreak, Yesterday I made a thread about a question I had regarding jailbreak rules (https://blackwonder.tf/threads/jb-question-about-impossible-orders.37311/#post-138075). The thread rudely dismissed with jokes and bizarre accusations of me posing...
As a response to which I was banned from the forum.
Jim responded to the thread (with a non-answer to the question) so he was aware of the whole situation and was OK with me being banned for asking questions about jailbreak rules.
This is just another example of Jim's ridiculously hypocritical behavior towards the players of jailbreak. You are invited to ask clarifying questions about jailbreak rules, but if you do you will be banned and I won't do anything about it.
You may think that the question I wrote was inflammatory in some way or other, but this was not the case. I deliberately did not attack anyone and focused on the rules in abstract. I spent a lot of effort to explain the question in as clear of terms as I could. I deliberately did not include as specific example of the situation in question to not distract from the main point and to not come across as just me reporting things. I simply wanted to understand the rules better, and was severely punished, lied about, and accused of all sorts of false things for it.
Something to note is that in those threads, staff members explicitly contradict each other on the rules. That doesn't mean that any of them are wrong or stupid, however, it does mean that the question I asked is not an obvious question, and is not there to just stir up trouble, as some staff members dishonestly and uncharitably suggested.
I invite you to read the threads at this time. It is really ridiculous how unfairly I was treated in them by so many of the staff members.
First thread: https://blackwonder.tf/threads/jb-question-about-impossible-orders.37311/#post-138075
Second thread:
Answered - Two simple questions about jailbreak rules
Dear players and observers of blackwonder jailbreak, Yesterday I made a thread about a question I had regarding jailbreak rules (https://blackwonder.tf/threads/jb-question-about-impossible-orders.37311/#post-138075). The thread rudely dismissed with jokes and bizarre accusations of me posing...
This brief detour serves to illustrate that Jim has not responded to my second appeal in good faith and has been deliberately dismissive and obtuse towards me.
Going back to my teamban appeal. Given that the stated reason for my permanent teamban is a freekill report, I believe it should be revoked. I have repeatedly demonstrated in this thread and elsewhere that I have acted according to my best current interpretation of the rules, not trying to do anything I knew to be illegal. I have received an explicit approval for this behavior by an admin.
I believe that any impartial person would agree that a person should not be permanently teambanned for breaking a rule when the person in question has demonstrated that they had acted according to their best understanding of the rules and as well having had an approval from a member of authority.
It's been well over a year since my teamban (I was teambanned on August 12, 2023, meaning it has been over 574 days, or 1 year and 6 months).
It's well past the time that my injustly applied teamban was revoked.
I believe I make a great warden and a blu member, even if a bit unconventional. I think a lot of people did appreciate my playstyle, and personally during my time playing as red, I've noticed a significant lack of wardens who care about the rules but are willing to do unconventional things like myself.
As for point 4, I have since acquired a better microphone. As for point 8 (being rude), I accept that I have been more rude than necessary and I pledge to be more kind and tactful towards other players, which I think can already be noticed in my behavior.
Thank you for taking the time to read my appeal.
