On Thursday night Skuhoo saw a town betrayal report from tracklol that claimed VinovianFemboy (Dae) had turned on friendly-fire, killed tracklol, and took his stuff including a hex lore sword. Skuhoo told him both in the ticket and in-game that for instances of town betrayal the full owner of the town must report it, not a subowner. He didn't get a response but a few minutes later the town owner Prodxgy messaged him in-game and the following conversation was had:
Code:
[Apr 06 22:47:52.416] Prodxgy -> Skuhoo: Hey, dae made a completely new zone killed track and took his stuff, i dont want him banned but can he just get his lore back or smth
[Apr 06 22:48:29.567] Skuhoo -> Prodxgy: Players don't get to decide who gets banned
[Apr 06 22:48:40.443] Prodxgy -> Skuhoo: :/
[Apr 06 22:49:26.599] Skuhoo -> Prodxgy: If you want admin intervention with a town betrayal we're going to punish for town betrayal
[Apr 06 22:50:24.632] Skuhoo -> Prodxgy: If you want my opinion Dae should definitely know better by this point so I wouldn't protect him
[Apr 06 22:50:33.510] Prodxgy -> Skuhoo: yk what
[Apr 06 22:50:34.511] Prodxgy -> Skuhoo: u right
To him, and quite frankly the rest of staff too, that response implied he changed his mind about caring if Dae got banned and wanted it to be dealt with as town betrayal (due to him agreeing with Skuhoo's statement). The sword was returned to tracklol and Dae was temp banned as they also had past town betrayal offences.
The sword was in his echest and his inventory was full of shulkers containing all of his stuff so presumably, he logged off that night prepared for retaliation either by tracklol or the rest of the town.
- Dae was banned at 10:55pm.
- Prodxgy discovered he was banned with /find at 11:01pm.
- Dae messaged Skuhoo at 11:06pm
- Prodxgy messaged Skuhoo at 11:10pm.
The fact that Prodxgy did not immediately message Skuhoo explaining that the message was misinterpreted, as was later claimed, immediately rang alarm bells. This was compounded by the fact that Dae had reached out first, implying Prodxgy had told Dae, who was unhappy with the outcome and formulated a story claiming it was a misunderstanding. Even now we are still unsure why Prodxgy didn't simply let staff know that there was a misunderstanding straight away. During the conversation with Skuhoo, Dae accidentally sent dms between himself and Prodxgy (which were promptly deleted) showing him confronting Prodxgy about it. As a result of all this Skuhoo and 2 other staff members believed Dae was pressuring Prodxgy to change their mind to get him unbanned. This is obviously very problematic and can easily cross the line into bullying and harassment.
Since then we have all gone over the evidence and spoken to Prodxgy. Due to the initial report not being 100% clear and the lack of hard evidence of the full interaction between Dae and Prodxgy, we do not feel it is right to keep the ban in place and it will be lifted immediately.
While this was an edge case, miscommunication takes two to tango, so going forward staff will be extra careful confirming with players exactly what their request/intention is. As with all town betrayals, we may take into account that a town owner doesn’t want someone punished, but if they need admin intervention the punishment will be consistent with similar offences while factoring in their history and not what the town owner wants it to be.
