Petition: Falcomist's ban

[bolsz1]

Well, racism is a sensitive issue, and Outspark has every right to ban a player for it. Not only do they have the right, they have the responsibility to keep racism out of this game. I don't think anyone disagrees with Uchi's ban for his racist comments. I do, however, think every one of us should reserve judgement either for or against this decision until all the evidence is available. Outspark obviously has screenshots of Falco saying SOMETHING racist. Certainly the screenies in this thread don't prove anything. Hopefully the person who filed the formal complaint will share the entire chat log with the community.

As for people saying he was justified because he was defending his friends...what planet do you live on? The opposing members didn't break any rules in the battleground, and even if they had, that doesn't give the wronged players and their friends the right to break even more rules. War them, 100% OK. Yell at them, fine. Swear at them, EULA violation which is selectively enforced. Make racist insults...PERMABAN. It's as simple as that. People "defending their friends honor" is how 10 year old kids get murdered in gang crossfire. I live in Chicago, and I see it on the news every day.

[Ivramire]

Thing is, it's a game, it's not the real world. All consequences and 'punishments' can be re-worked and even ignored. When someone dies in he real world. they don't conveniently 're-spawn' in the nearest town. Every rule and judgment is tinged by human flaws and error, not the hard-bound rules of reality. So you must question.

Comparing something in a game to something in real-life isn't even relevant and should'nt be. It's a virtual world, and the only rules and forces of nature are GMs and the people the GMs work for. Players are leaned on by GMs, GMs are leaned on by Outspark, and Outspark is leaned on by its profit-margin which leads back to the players.

I know I wouldn't just stand-by and do nothing if I felt someone I knew was screwed over/insulted. I hope you wouldn't either. In the end, there isn't any evidence that Falco actually said something racist (that I've seen so far) and the assumption that Outspark does have something concrete is not a leap-of-faith that I'm willing to make. There's been problems with that before.


In the end, it all comes down to your opinion and the opinions of those few who actually have/had any impact in the matter. Falco/the GMs/Mighty_Army and everyone else there that day, only they truly know what was said and done, and all that we few can know, we who weren't actually there, are a few screen-shots from one side of the matter that doesn't even incriminate him.

Sorry if it's a little hard to read, but that's my two cents~

[+Tequila+]

Well, racism is a sensitive issue, and Outspark has every right to ban a player for it. Not only do they have the right, they have the responsibility to keep racism out of this game. I don't think anyone disagrees with Uchi's ban for his racist comments. I do, however, think every one of us should reserve judgement either for or against this decision until all the evidence is available. Outspark obviously has screenshots of Falco saying SOMETHING racist. Certainly the screenies in this thread don't prove anything. Hopefully the person who filed the formal complaint will share the entire chat log with the community.

As for people saying he was justified because he was defending his friends...what planet do you live on? The opposing members didn't break any rules in the battleground, and even if they had, that doesn't give the wronged players and their friends the right to break even more rules. War them, 100% OK. Yell at them, fine. Swear at them, EULA violation which is selectively enforced. Make racist insults...PERMABAN. It's as simple as that. People "defending their friends honor" is how 10 year old kids get murdered in gang crossfire. I live in Chicago, and I see it on the news every day.

I think those screenshots are the screenshots the complainer turned in. So based on those screenshots Falcos banned is'nt justified. Racism has been going on in Fiesta since CB and on more then occasion Outspark has been made aware of it. They acted on these screenshots without doing a proper investigation which is why most people are bothered about this. If people dont say something about this what will Outspark not handle correctly next time? I'm sure if you were in Falcos situation you'd want a proper investigation done not some half-arsed ban by the GM's.

[Ivramire]

I hope you come back to post and not only in this thread bolsz1.


You're one of the few who's going against the general response and had a plausible point.

[O-mie]

The only thing I saw that falco might have gotten reprimanded for was the "I'll rape them all" Comment, because in the ToS its stated that derogatory speech such as "Violent sexual acts" or whatever, those are against too. But a ban for that? People have said and DONE much, much worse.

[Ivramire]

What happened to the others who were supposedly banned for defending Falco?


Was that even true? If so, I don't see how that is justified, especially if defending is all they did.

[Spirit]

People have said and done much worse with better screenshots and was reported to ALL the GMs and nothing was done. I still have the screenshots. If Outspark is going to enforce a rule, then they need to enforce that rule for all situations that revolve around those same circumstances. If a perma-ban was good enough here, then it should be good enough for other situations that I know were reported and NOTHING was done.

[Lilian]

Voted absolutely no, he shouldn't have been perm banned.

Trying to justify either side in the events that led to this whole thing (the abyss etc) is fruitless, not only because of what was said about the battlegrounds being PK-intended, but also because it takes two to tango. Also, stuff like this happens all the time. Handle every separate situation ingame in the same way, and you will end up banning like half the population, if not more.

Having said that, my opinion on this remains the same: don't aim to achieve a robot-like system that SEEKS out words in the chat and then bans the person in whose chat line the word is in. Handle each case as separate, look at the context. Pulling the "any kind of second chance is showing we allow it" is unjustified in my opinion because you're NOT allowing it, what you are allowing is room for human error. Same thing happens after being warned, OR if the first offense is blatantly clear abuse, (meaning there can be no room for speculation that the offender had any other reason to do it than just for the sake of harassment) then go for it, let the banhammer swing.

[bolsz1]

SerodinSilver: That's such a well thought out and masterfully articulated argument, I can't believe you don't have the entire community agreeing with your every word.

Aerythia: Yes, Falco was an "example". No, he was not any kind of scapegoat. He was banned because he allegedly broke a big rule in a very public way, and Outspark was, presumably, forced to act. Obviously Outspark can't "ban half the server" because they'd have no client base. What they can do is exactly what they have done - make a public example of someone so as to discourage others.

Walnut: While you do have a point that a permaban may have been harsh, that's not your decision to make. We all agreed to the EULA, and that says Outspark, not the community, decides all punishment for rules violations.

+Tequila+: Even if those are the screenshots that were turned in, Outspark does log all chat that happens on their servers. I know this for a fact, as I had a very long discussion with Dakkon trying to get back an item belonging to a guild member of mine that was scammed away from her by a fake enhancer. Because of these chat logs, and player trade logs, Dakkon took the item away from the scammer and gave it to me, then permabanned the scammer's account.
My point is, the evidence that was delivered to and, presumably, gathered by Outspark may never be presented to the community. Outspark is in no way obligated to do so. This issue is between Falcomist and Outspark. I think the only way we will see such evidence is if Falcomist chooses to disclose it.

Ivramire: Thanks for the encouragement. I've always enjoyed playing devil's advocate in heated situations. That said, I don't think you understood my comparison. I wasn't comparing killing people in real life to killing people in a computer game. There, as you pointed out, is no comparison. I was comparing rule breaking and how it escalates out of control and needs to be ended with swift justice before there is unreparable damage.
If Outspark only concerned about their bottom line, the outcome of this incident would have been much different. Uchi and Falco were both cash shop users, and as such would have been given a slap on the wrist. The decision to ban them actually HURT the profit margin.

Again, I am in no way, shape, or form saying that Falcomist's ban was justified. I'm saying that we don't know the circumstances of what happened. We've heard only a very limited portion of one side of the issue. The screenshots in this thread have Falco saying some insulting, but not overly racist things. Perhaps Uchi's stigma of blatant racism enveloped Falco as well, or perhaps Falco said things equally as racist that weren't captured in a picture. In either event, we don't know.

Just for the record, I voted yes to the ban, but not because I believe he should have been banned. I did it to express my divergent viewpoint.

[Sero]

SerodinSilver: That's such a well thought out and masterfully articulated argument, I can't believe you don't have the entire community agreeing with your every word.

Thank you...

Outspark does log all chat that happens on their servers. I know this for a fact, as I had a very long discussion with Dakkon trying to get back an item belonging to a guild member of mine that was scammed away from her by a fake enhancer. Because of these chat logs, and player trade logs, Dakkon took the item away from the scammer and gave it to me, then permabanned the scammer's account.

Holy f**k... Logs?! Once they find everything with SerodinSliver in it... *hides under table*

...

*comes back up* does that include whisper?!

Again, I am in no way, shape, or form saying that Falcomist's ban was justified. I'm saying that we don't know the circumstances of what happened. We've heard only a very limited portion of one side of the issue. The screenshots in this thread have Falco saying some insulting, but not overly racist things. Perhaps Uchi's stigma of blatant racism enveloped Falco as well, or perhaps Falco said things equally as racist that weren't captured in a picture. In either event, we don't know.

Just for the record, I voted yes to the ban, but not because I believe he should have been banned. I did it to express my divergent viewpoint.

Cool.