Message from Diarouga

[fightinfrenchman]

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

It's a great thing for him to do

[milku3459]

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

It's a great thing for him to do

He is troll enough

[deleted_user0]

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".

I've not in any way seen him acknowledge past mistakes, not to me anyway. Also asjerom said, there is a difference between admitting mistakes because you don't like the consequences and admitting to them because you see the wrong. Everything in the post of Noël Hints to the former imo. Not sure what point you refer to but it was probably serious.

[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...

Thats not really true. None of your post is.

Pffff

@deleted_user, ok that's not nice from him for sure and this racism make him a motherfucker on your eyes.
But in my opinion that's a lack of maturity rather than real racism. I mean, there are plenty of minor that come on the Internet and think they have all rights there. If you go to the french discution channel on aoe3, you will find dozens of them. Well, that doesn't make the behaviour of diarouga better, but it shows that he had bad circonstances that didn't helped him.


Furthermore I fail to see how insulting someone can lead to a ban from the community. I don't think there are players that have never flame their opponent.

[Kaiserklein]

Well there's a difference between flaming and using racist insults... Even if it's not "real racism" or if it's a "joke", you can't expect people to laugh about it like it was some random flames. And I also don't think it happened only once

[Goodspeed]

First of all,

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'm not sure if, with this, you are replying to the part you quoted but no, you shouldn't abandon all rules. Rather, in my opinion, you should treat the rules as a last resort, as something to fall back on if you can't resolve a conflict through talking to each other and finding a compromise.

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?

Issues like law and order may be very clear to you, they are not to me. They are quite complex, in fact. Things aren't always black and white, and this case is no different. You need to realise that the reason Diarouga feels so comfortable in his victim role is because you gave him all the ammo for it. He was not treated fairly or respectfully, and newsflash: Moderator 101: No matter how toxic someone is, always stay friendly and respectful. The fact that any staff member still has to be told this is, quite frankly, mindblowing. The snowball effect that we all witnessed was caused by both sides, something I'm sure you'll disagree with because the staff can do no wrong am I right? Lucky for you, the establishment has a monopoly on the truth as well. This is exactly why they say that with power comes responsibility and it is concerning to me that no matter how often I repeat this, no one on the "right" side of this argument seems to acknowledge it.

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.

As mentioned, to me site rules are a last resort and this situation doesn't call for that. It calls for all parties to sit down, calm down, and talk to each other about putting the past behind them and working towards keeping the community strong, which like it or not all of them, including Diarouga, have an important role in.

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?

It was a joke. Hence the wink.

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...

I don't care about usually. Nothing about this situation is "usual".

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.

And I can see plenty of ways he could do it whilst banned from the event, too. Perhaps your focus shouldn't be on removing his means to do damage, but on reconciling with him so that he won't have any reason to.

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?

Because I know how things work in this community. When top players are shunned by the establishment, especially when they have a side of the story that people can sympathize with, cliques form. Hostility, negativity all around. When people don't get along, people lose the will to play the game, and when top players stop playing the game so will everyone else, slowly but surely.

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?

Rage quits are always a possibility, I'm not sure what Diarouga has to do with them?

Ye, cheadar should be able to play too.

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

Bpdscolony is a known cheater. Evilcheadar and Diarouga are not. Besides, I'm not sure if you were around for it but bpds' toxicity is unmatched to this day

All in all to me, Diarouga being content with his forum ban and asking to be allowed in the event seems like a great opportunity to start a long-overdue reconciliation.

[deleted_user0]

Pffff

@deleted_user, ok that's not nice from him for sure and this racism make him a motherfucker on your eyes.
But in my opinion that's a lack of maturity rather than real racism. I mean, there are plenty of minor that come on the Internet and think they have all rights there. If you go to the french discution channel on aoe3, you will find dozens of them. Well, that doesn't make the behaviour of diarouga better, but it shows that he had bad circonstances that didn't helped him.


Furthermore I fail to see how insulting someone can lead to a ban from the community. I don't think there are players that have never flame their opponent.

i dont think hes a motherfucker, and its not the only reason why he got banned.

[pecelot]

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 are a lot of moral truths and law rules that are universal, I fail to reckon how this particular case is so unique we should not follow them.

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".

He showed that on Twitch chat numerous times. On ESOC he naturally can't now, not sure what was the point of that point.
Bare acknowledgement is rather easy, the follow-up is more crucial.
It's hard not to notice that his „propaganda" gets to you nicely. Enemy of the state, huh?
Now imagine diarouga keeping his anti-ESOC rhetoric during a stream that is watched by 500 viewers — it would make an impact, wouldn't it?

Furthermore I fail to see how insulting someone can lead to a ban from the community. I don't think there are players that have never flame their opponent.

Talk about standards

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'm not sure if, with this, you are replying to the part you quoted but no, you shouldn't abandon all rules. Rather, in my opinion, you should treat the rules as a last resort, as something to fall back on if you can't resolve a conflict through talking to each other and finding a compromise.

Sorry, I should have emphasised it — I focused on the word „selective" in particular for the first part; I answered it above, plus you're very on point here — these are exactly the circumstances for rules to be applied

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?

Issues like law and order may be very clear to you, they are not to me. They are quite complex, in fact. Things aren't always black and white, and this case is no different. You need to realise that the reason Diarouga feels so comfortable in his victim role is because you gave him all the ammo for it. He was not treated fairly or respectfully, and newsflash: Moderator 101: No matter how toxic someone is, always stay friendly and respectful. The fact that any staff member still has to be told this is, quite frankly, mindblowing. The snowball effect that we all witnessed was caused by both sides, something I'm sure you'll disagree with because the staff can do no wrong am I right? Lucky for you, the establishment has a monopoly on the truth as well. This is exactly why they say that with power comes responsibility and it is concerning to me that no matter how often I repeat this argument, no one on the "right" side of this argument seems to acknowledge it.

Indeed, they can be quite complex, though you're usually given a very clear set of rules deriving from ancient Rome. Severe punishment for recidivism, with which we basically have to deal with here, is also agreed on all over the globe. I don't think I have ever stated in this discussion that there was no mistake made from the staff side, I'm not sure why you try to imply that. You negate morality here — in this particular case it would turn „against" me, as your witty moderation tip can't be denied — however, I can understand the view of moderators who have to deal with diarouga again and again. Normally, after the first set of delinquencies (sic!), he would have been banned permanently, or at least for a period of time much greater than 3 months. After that, for me it's no wonder someone could lose his temper. The team hasn't always been united (I refer to the times before I was recruited) and I'd imagine people disagreeing with a controversial decision of the Business-Team-to-be still wanted to express their feelings. In my personal opinion, they were right.

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.

As mentioned, to me site rules are a last resort and this situation doesn't call for that. It calls for all parties to sit down, calm down, and talk to each other about putting the past behind them and working towards keeping the community strong, which like it or not all of them, including Diarouga, have an important role in.

Why? Are you against law equality? That is somewhat pathological nowadays, one of those universal rules I was talking about.

Nothing about this situation is "usual".

What makes it so unusual then?

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.

And I can see plenty of ways he could do it whilst banned from the event, too. Perhaps your focus shouldn't be on removing his means to do damage, but on reconciling with him so that he won't have any reason to.

To be fair, his options then would be almost non-existing. It's reasonable to assume it won't be enough, as — guess what? — it was tried before.

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?

Because I know how things work in this community. When top players are shunned by the establishment, especially when they have a side of the story that people can sympathize with, cliques form. Hostility, negativity all around. When people don't get along, people lose the will to play the game, and when top players stop playing the game so will everyone else, slowly but surely.

I meant mainly that possible removal of his punishment could trigger other people to leaving, I assume people as valuable.

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?

Rage quits are always a possibility, I'm not sure what Diarouga has to do with them?

See the answer above.

Ye, cheadar should be able to play too.

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

Bpdscolony is a known cheater. Evilcheadar and Diarouga are not. Besides, I'm not sure if you were around for it but bpds' toxicity is unmatched to this day

You missed the point

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[momuuu]

I have a few things to say about that. First of all, 'both parties were wrong' is an atrocious way to represent the truth. Diarouga was extremely wrong and esoc made some tiny slip ups would be the reasonable way to represent it. I've seen this argument many times, 'just unban him and if it goes wrong then you can just ban him again'. The truth is that esoc should have a certain amount of authority. If every ban can be lifted if you whine long enough, try to mislead the community long enough and literally harass the site long enough, then what's going to stop others from doing that. Rules are rules, and if you start making an exception to every other rule then you might aswell not have anarchy. If you don't believe me, I'd like to invite you to watch this. If you stop following the rules then those rules just disappear.

Anyways, Diarouga is honestly still absolutely failing to show any remorse. Just two pages back he actively tries to deny he was rightfully banned and tries to make the community believe the ban wasn't deserved when in fact it was the most deserved ban ever. I don't know about you guys, but I am not seeing someone that regrets what he has done and has learned from his mistakes. I am seeing someone that's going to pm umeu that he's a nigger, thats going to harass garja any chance he gets, that's going to try to sabotage shit if he doesnt get away with it, I see someone that's going to flame some moderator for even the tiniest thing and thats going to spam the entire forums if he gets a 1 day time out. I see someone that's very likely to fuck up shit in the tournament just to take revenge, someone that I consider capable of doing moesbar hacks in a streamed game, someone that has very recently even threatened he would smurf the tournament.

Yes, I'm all for forgiving and trying to make it work again. Diarouga doesn't seem to want that though. The reason you don't unban him now is because then you can't sustain any length of ban. We would have to unban bpdscolony and let moesbar play in the tournament then, if we were to be any consistent. While we're at it just mod breezebrothers, whats the worst that could happen?

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[momuuu]

While we're at it just mod breezebrothers, whats the worst that could happen?

bite bite bite?

Well it's not like I don't see your point. It's legitimate for ESOC to exert the right to enforce its rules. I can't help but point out two things however:

First off, ESOC both writes and enforces the rules. As such, you guys have absolute power over ESOC and its events. You guys have been alluding to society and morality and all that fun stuff. Remember that this just just a gaming community website. In real life, laws are written by one group and the trials/enforcement of said laws is handled by another, separate group. That throws off the society analogy (kind of like nukes vs guns, umeu likes his over the top comparisons :p) and it also means that ESOC is, under no circumstances, in a weak position here. You guys call all the shots which means that every issue which happens is slated in your favor. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's something to keep in mind when moderating anything, whether tournament or forum. This means that the danger which diarouga supposedly represents is overblown, in my opinion.

As bad as diarouga is (though to me, personally, he has always been fine), he's not really in a position to contest moderator decisions. He can whine and pout all he wants but if you don't want him in the tournament or on the forums, then he won't be there. He can try to ruin the event but I don't think he'll be able to, nor do I personally believe he'd go through with the threat. True, I don't know him especially well and he has done terrible things in the past. Though imo staff threatening to leave if a certain member of the community is not kept banned (if this is true and not slander), is also a form of blackmail and is also bad. It means that some staff would place personal vendettas above their contributions to the community. I don't know who put that forward nor do I want to know. I won't even judge any staff member who did say that (after all, I am voicing that I would like rouga to participate in tournament), but I will judge actions.

From the first point, we can come to the second thing. Since you guys have overwhelming authority in this situation, it means that you're in a position to be flexible and come to an understanding. You have the tools in hand to come to a reconciliation whereas the other party does not. It seems that the very rough consensus is that this issue is a close call to make at best. After all, it seems that diarouga's crimes are bad, but perhaps not bad enough to warrant a ban for the next event. Not even ESOC staff unanimously agree on this one, apparently. Given that and given ESOC's supreme authority on the matter, then I would say that ESOC should consider letting diarouga play. If problems arise, then you have all the power and the justification to smite diarouga. Even care-bears like me would take out pitchforks to see the guy banned, since he received generous clemency and then didn't live up to it.

More or less, the reason I would fall more in line with letting rouga play as opposed to not letting him play is that the former goes towards rebuilding relations and cutting back on drama, the latter doesn't. ESOC is justified to do the latter though, I entirely agree. However since you're in a position of absolute authority on the matter anyway, ESOC should be able to take it upon itself to forgive (but not forget), it's not like you're giving up anything by doing so.

I think theres a number of things that you really don't understand. Obviously esoc has absolute authority over esoc, you're stating this as if its a weird thing which confuses the fuck out of me. It's Mitoe's site at the moment, it's not a democratic thing or anything. Just like how just about any site is not a democratic thing, like we don't get a say in what shows up on google frontpage. Google has absolute authority over google. Then these society arguments are just being used by some guys in the thread. I didn't refer to them once in my response for example, so it seems weird that you bring it up in a response to me.

Then the "staff threatening to leave". This is another beautiful case of diarouga manipulation. The truth is that there are indeed some staff members that would leave if the collective decision to not let diarouga play in a tournament was overruled by someone. Now that we have context, I do think it's quite clear how different this statement is from what you've mindlessly copied from diarouga or whatever got that thought in your head. So in the case that part of a team is completely ignored on a matter that directly applies to them, then those team members have said they'd leave. You can say its blackmail, you can also consider that a logical statement. And let's get this clear, nobody has a grudge. Literally nobody. Diarouga is just very toxic and thats why people don't want him unbanned. I'm uninterested in even holding a grudge against diarouga..

I'm also 100% sure either decision would've let to drama. I think it's naive of you to think otherwise to be honest. And if you randomly decide to forgive (I dont know why you dont get this) then you are just giving up authority. Thats the same as telling people "hey just make a fuss about your ban, just spam the forums and spread lies about it and you'll be unbanned because esoc doesn't have a pair of balls". It has already happened with regards to bans, with in my eyes a very clear negative effect of people constantly trying to undermine the staff and whine about a ban, making the moderator's job much harder.

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[momuuu]

Some staff would leave if a decision that was made would have been overrules by someone. Thats what I said.

Esoc has plenty to lose by not following their rules. Theres a reason rules are rules. For an example, watch the video I linked. As far as you say theres nothing to lose, I think there isnt much to gain either because it is, to me, quite apperant that diarouga wont show improved behaviour right now. He doesnt even understand why he was banned at first. Not to mention, once again, that I think theres a lot to lose when he's unbanned or when we let him play in the tournament.

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[momuuu]

Esoc has plenty to lose by not following their rules.

What though? Authority over the community? Community respect? Trolls become invigorated? I don't understand the video at all.

Theres a vague rule stated. A favorite cyclist ignores that rule, which leads to a restart with no consequences because the juries ignore the rule too. Then second try, another guy ignores that rule again. Obviously the jury cant punish that guy, so theres another restart with no consequences. But that time they tell people that rules are now rules, that there are no exceptions, and that is what they should have done in the first place.

I think we've been that jury. When we first unbanned diarouga, way too early for what he had done, with similair logic to yours (if he misbehaves we can just unban him) we created these problems. The second time he got banned, he just started a spam attack on esoc knowing that it wouldnt have real consequences. Rules are there to prevent people from misbehaving. Consequences like a ban give power to these rules. If you keep coming back on a ban, if you keep unbanning people earlier, then you remove power from your rules. While we all would agree that a structural persisting spamattack on the forums for over a week, even after the person is told to stop and is told that such behaviour will make a return to the forums impossible, should not be allowed, the previous way of moderation, completely in line with your statement, made it impossible to actually prevent it. Diarouga knew that he could just do that, he knew that esoc would never have the guts to ban him permanently. So did evilcheadar when he repeatedly spammed the forums and tried to dodge his ban, so did insectpoison.

This clementia weakens rules, and has over the course of esoc's lifespawn quite clearly - at least to me - lead to a state where people dont actually value the rules. A place where people know that you can consistently ignore the rules with usually no real severe punishment. At worst you will be banned for a few months, but if you complain enough you'll get unbanned again. Theres not really a reason why you wouldnt spam forums when youve been banned tbh, its probably going to result in a faster unbanning.

So yes, I think there is a lot to lose if you just ignore your rules. In my opinion if any behaviour is poor enough to the point that a permanent ban becomes reasonable, that person in question should be excluded from esoc services for at least a year. After a year, Id be willing to consider the recent behaviour of such a person. If that person has behaved properly, hasnt done shit, spammed the forums, threatened to smurf the tournament etc., then Id be extremely happy to unban. Diarouga hasnt been banned for a year, and even if he wouldve been he hasnt showed improved behaviour. Even this thread, where he's circumventing his ban, attacking staff members by spreading lies and trying to create drama, doesnt give a reason to believe he will show good behaviour.

[n0el]

Esoc has plenty to lose by not following their rules.

What though? Authority over the community? Community respect? Trolls become invigorated? I don't understand the video at all.

This is also my struggle tbh

[fightinfrenchman]

If media team members are threatening to leave because a person may become unbanned and they disagree with it, they should just leave. There are plenty of people in the community who are willing and able to run the tournaments without going on some crazy power trip.

[momuuu]

If media team members are threatening to leave because a person may become unbanned and they disagree with it, they should just leave. There are plenty of people in the community who are willing and able to run the tournaments without going on some crazy power trip.

Some staff would leave if a decision that was made would have been overrules by someone. Thats what I said.

[Laurence Drake]

If media team members are threatening to leave because a person may become unbanned and they disagree with it, they should just leave. There are plenty of people in the community who are willing and able to run the tournaments without going on some crazy power trip.

Agreed, this tournament would be much better if it was run by the basement.

[deleted_user0]

i wonder if they are having this debate on teamliquid. or twcenter or csgo.net or whatever. i can tell you.... doubt it.

[momuuu]

i wonder if they are having this debate on teamliquid. or twcenter or csgo.net or whatever. i can tell you.... doubt it.

same

[gibson]

Damn a golden thread that I missed for five days cause off topic doesn't appear on the side bar, and now it's too late to flame Jerom for stupid shit he said five days ago #bringbackofftopictothesidebar

[fightinfrenchman]

If media team members are threatening to leave because a person may become unbanned and they disagree with it, they should just leave. There are plenty of people in the community who are willing and able to run the tournaments without going on some crazy power trip.

Some staff would leave if a decision that was made would have been overrules by someone. Thats what I said.

That doesn't really disprove what I said at all. You or whoever did say they would leave is just threatening to quit if they do not get their way. That does not seem like they care about the community very much.

[momuuu]

I dont even know thatd even be blackmail.