Message from Diarouga

[deleted_user0]

In that case, why ban him at all? Since you ban him, he will threathen to do some silly things to undermine the community he apparantly works so hard to create, and you will meet him halfway. Might as well not bother to make any rules at all.

No, that's not a serious argument so please don't treat it as such.

[bwinner]

So what did diarouga bad ?

1)hacking the site : that's totally false and ridiculous, knowing him he has no clue how to do that

2)calling umeu a nigger : I know a lot of people who insulted me too on aoe3, including umeu , that's not a big deal for sure... And to show how stupide it is, diarouga has a lot of respect for Umeu. I can't prove that ofc, but everytime he has talk with me about other top players, he has said that Umeu is a very smart player that only lack a bit of mechanic to be the best.

3)posting image to bully H2O : poor waterboy ;-(. Even H2O himself agree to let diarouga play...

4)having arguments with media team. Totally personnal, so irrelevant.

5)spreading cheats on eso : OK this one sucks, but he has been ban for one year from forum and from the 2v2 tourney for this reason, so I think that's enought...

There are also a big part of diarouga that internationnal community ignore. He has helped the french community like nobody did. He has shared entire guides of every civs of aoe3 in french (saddly gone for most of them with the destruction of armag community). He is also helpfull like no other amoung of the top players. Even at a time were I used to behave like a real mother fucker with him, he has always taken the time to answer each of my questions about aoe.

I know this won't lead to anything because the dutch team don't care about what the community thinks and won't come back on his decision know (there are a french saying : only stupide people never change their mind), but I still wanted to give my vue.

[deleted_user]

Well it's a poorly constructed and ill-conceived vue ^

edit: I mean, just read this:

2)calling umeu a nigger : I know a lot of people who insulted me too on aoe3, including umeu , that's not a big deal for sure... And to show how stupide it is, diarouga has a lot of respect for Umeu. I can't prove that ofc, but everytime he has talk with me about other top players, he has said that Umeu is a very smart player that only lack a bit of mechanic to be the best.

...it's just.. the more I try to comprehend the words you've written the more I find it hard to believe you are capable of rational thought.

[Dolan]

I think this subject is kind of a dead horse now. Signups have ended, so I don't expect anything will change until the next tourney.

And anyway, nothing can change until the rule which says:

Members banned for the period of such events are prohibited from taking part in them as well. Furthermore, the ESOC Tournament Staff reserves the right to disqualify any participant at any time as a result of tournament or site rules violation.

is changed. And that can only change if the site's business team and the forum administration decide to change the rule. Because I assume this rule wasn't made by moderators or the media team, it's just being enforced by them. Normally the rules are made by the site administration and I suppose that's Mitoe and H2O at the moment. And they find it too inconvenient to risk losing the media team and have to find other contributors to fill in any potential vacancies.

I hope that they will listen more to donors and what the actual community says, because you can't enforce some random rules as you want, if the community doesn't believe those rules are fair.

[deleted_user]

I would be open for the staff to take a really hard look and revisit his ban before the next tourney given diarouga doesn't smurf this one with 6 accounts like he said he would.

Personally it just feels premature right now to allow him to play but that could be entirely different next tourney.

[bwinner]

Well it's a poorly constructed and ill-conceived vue ^

edit: I mean, just read this:

2)calling umeu a nigger : I know a lot of people who insulted me too on aoe3, including umeu , that's not a big deal for sure... And to show how stupide it is, diarouga has a lot of respect for Umeu. I can't prove that ofc, but everytime he has talk with me about other top players, he has said that Umeu is a very smart player that only lack a bit of mechanic to be the best.

...it's just.. the more I try to comprehend the words you've written the more I find it hard to believe you are capable of rational thought.

When the only thing to critisize you find is the english of a non-english nativ, you have really nothing to say...

[deleted_user]

That's not what I was criticizing lol

[fightinfrenchman]

It's a bit ridiculous for the media team to threaten to quit if they don't get their way. Doesn't sound like they are really doing this to help the community.

[Goodspeed]

Might as well not bother to make any rules at all.

Now you're getting it

[bwinner]

That's not what I was criticizing lol

Oh ok I see, sry I missunderstood your post. Well, that's clear for me, diarouga was just angry and insulted Umeu without really thinking of it, but that's like when you say motherfucker, that's just a word...

[deleted_user]

That's not what I was criticizing lol

Oh ok I see, sry I missunderstood your post. Well, that's clear for me, diarouga was just angry and insulted Umeu without really thinking of it, but that's like when you say motherfucker, that's just a word...

I'm open to the (probably weak) argument this word possesses a different magnitude of severity in European countries as it does in the USA.

[momuuu]

That's not what I was criticizing lol

Oh ok I see, sry I missunderstood your post. Well, that's clear for me, diarouga was just angry and insulted Umeu without really thinking of it, but that's like when you say motherfucker, that's just a word...

Thats not really true. None of your post is.

[deleted_user0]

Well it's a poorly constructed and ill-conceived vue ^

edit: I mean, just read this:

2)calling umeu a nigger : I know a lot of people who insulted me too on aoe3, including umeu , that's not a big deal for sure... And to show how stupide it is, diarouga has a lot of respect for Umeu. I can't prove that ofc, but everytime he has talk with me about other top players, he has said that Umeu is a very smart player that only lack a bit of mechanic to be the best.

...it's just.. the more I try to comprehend the words you've written the more I find it hard to believe you are capable of rational thought.

When the only thing to critisize you find is the english of a non-english nativ, you have really nothing to say...

You are not the one to decide wether thats a big deal or not. The sooner you get that through your skull, the better. Also i have no clue what notion of respect you have. But calling people racial slurs with the intent to insult them shows absolutely 0 respect.

[deleted_user0]

That's not what I was criticizing lol

Oh ok I see, sry I missunderstood your post. Well, that's clear for me, diarouga was just angry and insulted Umeu without really thinking of it, but that's like when you say motherfucker, that's just a word...

Nah you werent there, u dont know what youre talking about. He wasnt mad. And it wasnt just once. I dont care about the word either. I care about his intentions only.

[pecelot]

I think, just like in law, there should be a separation of concerns as to punishment (like the Double Jeopardy Clause for the 5th Amendment). Nobody should be doubly punished for one offence.

• If Diarouga misbehaved on the forums, he should be banned/warned on the forums. (The ban should have a definite term, after which it should be lifted. Indefinite bans should only be given to forum members who did something illegal.)
  
• If he misbehaved in a tourney, he should be banned/disqualified from that tourney.

There shouldn't be any crosstalk between these two jurisdictions. That's why (at least that was the case when I was admin) a tourney admin is a separate function from site admin, with totally different responsibilities. A site admin has no business whatsoever to decide on tourney issues and vice-versa.

So it makes no sense to suppress someone's right to participate in a tourney for offences brought to the site members and staff. Even though the site was created around the concept of organising tourneys, still they are two separate things altogether (and have separate staff and regulations). I don't know who even decided to mix tourney issues with site issues?

Ultimately, if ESOC staff cannot solve a decision-making deadlock, I think it's fair to pass the decision to the donors. If donors vote to allow Diarouga to play, then so be it. Maybe donor votes should be weighed according to the amount of their donation. It's fair to consult donors, since tourneys are alive thanks to them, not only to ESOC staff.

I don't know why you bring your opinion on how bans' lengths should be like to your list of alleged principles — it seems inappropriate.

You distinguish the organisational part of events and the site, whereas here we're talking about discipline. Tournaments are run by ESOC exclusively — if one is banned on forums for whatever reason, it's fair to assume they should not be allowed in championships, either. In Polish football league, for instance, to give a close example (at least for me!), in an ending-season rally a couple of players sang insulting chants about other football team from the league. Despite the fact that that event wasn't related to on-pitch actions whatsoever, they were all fined and couldn't play in the first six league matches (out of 30) next season.

Apart from that, it was made clear recently in our Forum Rules nad Guidelines:

Members banned for the period of such events are prohibited from taking part in them as well. Furthermore, the ESOC Tournament Staff reserves the right to disqualify any participant at any time as a result of tournament or site rules violation.

The input of donors is not to be underestimated, though still, the vast majority of tournament work is on the staff (so dealing with stubborn players, scheduling difficulties, drama), which leads me to a conclusion that it should be resolved within it.

[Dolan]

You replied to an older post, in the meantime I found out that basically the media team is also tourney staff.

Also I addressed that rule you mentioned in this post.

[pecelot]

Iamgrunt was never part of the AOE3 community, ever. And still he participated in tourneys. What if he went on RTS Sanct and started flaming ppl calling them noobs? Should he have been banned from WCG tourneys? Do you think anyone at WCG would have even cared?

And site administration is and should be separate from tourney administration, which is a seasonal thing. When I was site admin and Mitoe and H2O were tourney admins, I just had no business whatsoever with what they decided on tourney issues. This seems to be a new thing at ESOC.

This is an entirely irrelevant example — in no way was WCG associated with RTS Sanctuary, whereas ESOC is naturally the only organiser of ESOC events.

The staff is sort of divided already, too. We have the board — the Business Team, who somewhat takes responsibility for the site as a whole, the Community Team, which takes care of the organisation of the forums, and the Media Team, whose task is to organise events and prepare appropriate coverage.

I'm not sure you can claim that something is fair or not as a 'fact' as though there can't be dispute about it. The staff does plenty of unfair things but just because they claim it is fair doesn't make it a 'fact'.

Just because you claim staff does unfair things, it doesn't make it a „fact"

This is how it works in every normal society.

I don't think you can expect ESOC to be like a normal society, and trying to be wouldn't be very constructive if you ask me. There are so many ways a small gaming forum/community differs from a real life society it seems rather pointless. And while in a "normal society" it shouldn't matter, Diarouga is a great player and many people want to see him play in this event. It should matter here because with the health of the community in mind we simply can't afford to be selective.

That's so contradictive! Even though we allegedly don't form a society, we should entirely abandon all society rules? I would agree that not everything from real life can be applied on sites like ESOC, but issues like law and order are very clear. And how would we not be selective if we allowed a certain banned player to participate in a tournament only because some people argued about that? Should we run an amnesty over all delinquents?

Its fine that hes doing stuff to redeem himself, and im not against second chances, but hes already past that.

How do you figure he's past that? Seems presumptuous. Besides, he's young, and we all do stupid shit when we're young don't we? Ironically, in your "normal society", Diarouga being a minor would actually count for a lot.

Because he was unbanned before? Sure, he's young, so am I, I'd imagine, though it doesn't have to justify everything — in fact, he acts as if he was a grown-ass man, let him take the responsibility for his actions then! Also, he's still young, does that mean we should not be surprised if he turns his rage-mode on again?

I think every particular situation requires a different approach, and having set-in-stone rules isn't necessarily the way to go for this community. You need rules to fall back on, but in the end strictly following a set of rules won't always lead you to the correct decision especially if said rules were conjured up on a sunday afternoon by 1 person. I think this situation called for Diarouga remaining banned on the forum but being allowed to play in the event (and yes, this is but an opinion). It seems he was told that would be the case. Do you think the way this decision was reversed would be acceptable in your ideal society? Did you read Bramboy's message? Press would have a field day, and rightly so.

Site rules would have to be changed for this to happen. Sign-ups are closed already, too. Above all: lex retro non agit.

Letting diarouga escape bans because he's good is like letting rich people escape jail time because they're rich.

And that shit happens all the time in a normal society

Is it something we should pattern ourselves on?

Sure awarding contribution encourages more contribution, as does punishing bad behaviour discourage similar behaviour, but you conveniently ignore that part

I'm not ignoring that, I just think a forum ban is enough punishment.

I dont see why this part of human decency should be handled differently here than in a normal society. You have any good argument to make this case? Because so far all youre coming up with is its so small...

The most obvious argument is that for an internet community allowing someone to play in an event is not disruptive. In a normal society, allowing a dangerous person to participate in sporting events would indeed be a risk. Here it is not.
Additionally, our government is not exactly normal and because they are not being held to the same standards a normal society's government would, neither should community members. Neither party was treated fairly in this particular case.
And yes, the community is small. Not having Diarouga play will lose us viewers, will lose us players, and keeping this community healthy should be all of our first priority. There are a lot of personal feuds here, and we shouldn't let them affect the community.

Forum ban usually equals a tournament ban, so...

To be perfectly fair, I could see lots of ways in which he could run his anti-ESOC or rather mainly anti-certain-people agenda when his game is streamed.

You weren't so certain about previous, rather obvious, actually, issues — how can you be so sure that not allowing diarouga to play will only lose us players? You say we're somewhat specific, not entirely like a society — fine, then do you take into account the possibility of rage-quits, shown already even by those who are in favour of unbanning that particular individual?

Ye, cheadar should be able to play too.

I heard bpds wants to play, too. What do you think?

I don't think we're talking about the same amount of people here but sure. At least if he plays you have the choice to either watch his games or not, if he doesn't you don't. Anyway, people forget quickly, especially the ones not personally involved in Diarouga's "crimes" in any way.

And yeah some ppl want to see him play. Many others dont want to see someone play or play with a person who behaves like he does when he doesnt get his way.

[...]
Hence, a lose-lose situation.

Winner: Diarouga for being allowed to play
Winner: The community for being able to watch him play
Loser: ??

It's so simple

[tedere12]

He called him a nigger, it's not like he wished he would die!

[edeholland]

I would be open for the staff to take a really hard look and revisit his ban before the next tourney given diarouga doesn't smurf this one with 6 accounts like he said he would.

Personally it just feels premature right now to allow him to play but that could be entirely different next tourney.

We will do that for sure. Like I said before, the last time the community team discussed this, we thought he could play again next tournament if he did show good behavior during this tournament.

[deleted_user]

Idk how I feel about Tedere becoming an honorary basement member.

[edeholland]

I think this subject is kind of a dead horse now. Signups have ended, so I don't expect anything will change until the next tourney.

And anyway, nothing can change until the rule which says:

Members banned for the period of such events are prohibited from taking part in them as well. Furthermore, the ESOC Tournament Staff reserves the right to disqualify any participant at any time as a result of tournament or site rules violation.

is changed. And that can only change if the site's business team and the forum administration decide to change the rule. Because I assume this rule wasn't made by moderators or the media team, it's just being enforced by them. Normally the rules are made by the site administration and I suppose that's Mitoe and H2O at the moment. And they find it too inconvenient to risk losing the media team and have to find other contributors to fill in any potential vacancies.

I hope that they will listen more to donors and what the actual community says, because you can't enforce some random rules as you want, if the community doesn't believe those rules are fair.

The forum administration is done by the group of leaders of each team. This also includes Eaglemut ,Bramboy and me. This rule was never enforced but was proposed and there was no opposition. Perhaps we can take another look at the rule if the leader group thinks that's neccesary.

[pecelot]

First of all let's acknowledge that there is no objective truth here, there is no "right" side.

And why is that!?

The practical purpose of the ban is to stop Diarouga from interacting with the community. Allowing him to play in the event would not undermine this.

I would say quite the oppostite

By being a strong contender, Diarouga is a source of both viewers and, indirectly, players.

While you don't really have proof for that, people already claimed that his appearance would vastly discourage from taking part in several areas.

You replied to an older post, in the meantime I found out that basically the media team is also tourney staff.

Also I addressed that rule you mentioned in this post.

Indeed, sorry, that's what I get for not keeping up with the most recent drama!

[dietschlander]

So the conclusion is that ESOC should let him play in that tournament, and if they both behave decently and respectfully, I can't see why we would have arguments. These issues are only a consequence of a snow-ball effect."

[deleted_user0]

He called him a nigger, it's not like he wished he would die!

And he's being banned from a tournament, it's not like he's being charged with a crime.

[Goodspeed]

First of all let's acknowledge that there is no objective truth here, there is no "right" side.

And why is that!?

There almost never is.
It's because both sides of the argument have their pros and cons, which one is the "right" one to any particular person depends on how much importance that person attaches to each pro and con. For example a clear difference can be observed between umeu's point of view and mine. In short, morality versus practicality. Set rules versus compromise.

The practical purpose of the ban is to stop Diarouga from interacting with the community. Allowing him to play in the event would not undermine this.

I would say quite the oppostite

A game lobby on a stream is not much of a medium. If Diarouga wanted to do damage, he would do it in twitch chat or by being anti-ESOC on ESO itself. Given that he has a loud voice and a good amount of friends he can indeed do damage that way.
More importantly if he was allowed to play in this event it would show him goodwill, which he has already shown by acknowledging his past mistakes and contributing in other ways, and he would not be in any mood to badmouth ESOC. While umeu brought up a good, albeit not serious, point about this earlier (indeed, in an ideal world this wouldn't matter) I can't ignore the benefits it would have to the community if Diarouga wasn't an "enemy of the state".