In Defense of Cheesecake

I don't think that permanently banning people after 3 (or any) times an offense like harrasment is a good idea at all. A minor offense should stay a minor offense, and be treated as such even if it's repeated.
But I'm definitely not for unbanning anyone, so I'd appreciate if you'd add a third option to your poll. If there ever was a rule change, you cannot just start unbanning people based on the new rules. A good rule system shouldn't work that way.

 

Germany re-established itself as a world power due to his belligerance, his disrespect of conventions and the lives of people that did not fit in his ideology. Supporting Hitler as a leader implies a degree of support for the degradation of free speech and religion. If he wanted to support a charismatic, shrewd leader there are plenty others in history who, unlike Hitler, didn't systematically murder minorities for their beliefs and physical attributes. He has to have known that using Hitler would hit the nerves of some people especially when he's being so vague ("All Hail Hitler") in the smega. Him voicing his support for Hitler, out of the blue through a smega, is just outright rude and in many situations can be considered as hateful.

Ironic that the person appealing his ban on grounds of free speech (in a private server no less) supports the man that supported removing the rights and freedoms of his opponents in order to further his own ambitions.

I agree with @omnom1337 with his last paragraph. Whilst I think it's fair for Ray to be permanently banned for making 3 strikes when he was fully aware of the rules, in all future cases I would prefer lengthier ban times instead as I feel that the offence itself does not warrant a permanent ban.

 

For everyone arguing that we will always have bad eggs in a population/Ray is just an "eccentric":

The nice thing about voluntarily-created communities is that we get to decide if someone stays in the group or not. MapleRoyals as a communal space does not exist in the same way a physical space does: where in a physical space like NYC we have less freedom to choose who leaves and who stays, voluntarily-created communities have more discretion as to what constitutes acceptable behavior in the group. Ray's behavior is unacceptable in the Royals community (though I think you would also be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks saying "Hail Hitler" is even remotely acceptable in the real world), and so he's gone.

Also, if you want to use the example of someone using a megaphone in the middle of NYC, please know that there are hate speech laws in place that are meant to combat this specific kind of speech that can incite violence. And please note that these laws also differ not just from country to country, but from state to state within the US. My point here is that regardless of however rigid or lenient these laws may be, they exist.

Edit: In other words,

 

I honestly can't believe there has been this much discussion about this topic, but I will try to sum it up as best as possible based on some of the main points I saw in this thread.

First, this is Matt's server, with me as the co-administrator. Him and I make the final calls. If we don't want to allow a certain thing, or we want a certain rule to come with a certain punishment, that's our prerogative to do so. If you don't want to follow it, no one's forcing you to stay but these are our "toys" and if you don't play by our rules, we're not going to let you play, as simple as that.

Second, I don't care what you say or how you construe it, SMEGAing "All hail Hitler" is something we're going to ban you for. No questions asked. It doesn't matter if it's a joke, or you are a legitimate Nazi, but it is not something we will tolerate here. I would also ban someone for saying "All hail Stalin" or "All hail Mussolini" It is clearly not something that the average person would consider acceptable. Likewise, the rules of this server, on average, reflect what an average person would consider acceptable/unacceptable. As many have said before and will say after, if you just use common sense, you won't get yourself into trouble. Cheesecake did not use common sense and acted quite foolishly, resulting in multiple bans prior to his permanent one.

Finally, the staff are hired for a reason. They are persons considered trustworthy enough and with good enough discretion to use their own judgement in upholding the rules of this server. While many cases are discussed amongst the staff as a whole before any action is taken by one or multiple GMs, equally, that GM is just as much entitled to enforce a punishment without consulting any other staff member, with only the assistant admins/admins being allowed to overrule them. To sum this bit up, if one GM feels they should ban someone for breaking a rule, they have the right to do so with or without consulting anyone else. I keep going back to this parallel in my posts but a GM is like a police officer when it comes to rules violations. They issue the summons/ticket/arrest by banning/closing a merchant/changing IGNs with the ban appeal serving almost (but not exactly) like a court allowing for the possibility for other staff to review the case.

There really isn't much to say here as this permanent ban was deserved and is not something that will be reversed. The final decision has been made, and that's that.

 

The discussion has been real. Rest in peace Cheesecake.

 

Hey everyone go read Cheesecakes Description in the Boobs guild page here >> http://royals.ms/forum/threads/boobs-1-boobs4ever.16356/ Made me LOL xD he had it comin sadly

 

Rules are just too strict. The things he did are done too comonly without consequence and I believe that shows that they are acceptable to do in a sense. No need to take away his hard earned character and his time for something so silly

 

Im gonna miss dis kid. Hes in my guild. CHEESE Y U DO DIS

 

May I ask why Cheesecake's thread was closed with no response by the staff after he brought up a valid point?
He was banned twice for harrassment and once for ks'ing, those fall under two seperate sections of the ToS.

 

Even freedom of speech has it's limits. If the staff has to take out all the things whether it's morally reprehensible or not, they would spend way too much time on dealing with this. Saying ''Hail Hitler'' is a matter of waking a sleeping dog. Let it lie, don't wake it up with such attention-seeking suggestions in your megaphones.

 

It doesn't matter what parts of the ToS he broke, he broke three rules. 3 strikes you're out.

 

That's not how the rules work though. It's three strikes from the same section and then you're banned. If someone glitch abused once, got a 3 day ban. Then smegad the N word. They would still get a 3 day ban because the second rule they broke was part of a different section of the ToC

 

Guess I read it wrong. I've seen people banned for 3rd strike on different sections.

Time to go break 13 rules from a different section yay democracy

 

Engage in rude, unlawful, harassing, vulgar, obscene, hateful, threatening, abusive or otherwise objectionable behavior, including, without limitation, looting, kill stealing, making sexual comments; Punishment: 1st offence - 3 day ban, 2nd offence - 7 day ban, 3rd offence - permanent ban

Engage in rude hateful and otherwise objectionable behavior (Smegaing 'all hail hitler', nigglet and the ks incident.) including, WITHOUT LIMITATION, kill stealing.

I don't see why you think he broke two different areas of the ToS.

 

I say that because section 5 lists off examples of rude behavior and section 8 lists verbal abuse.
Although verbal abuse could fall under rude behavior if that was the intended case having two seperate rules for it is redundant.

 

I was under the impression that Ray got two 3 day bans though, and if this is correct then I don't understand how he was on 2 strikes as presumably he was punished with 2, different, 1st offence bans?

 

@Stan He was punished with two or three 3 day bans.

In reality this permanent ban should of taken place in March with the third ban, so basically he has wasted two months of his time. Which doesn't feel right to me, especially since he never got the 7 day ban (warning). Also I don't feel like these bans are radical enough to be interpreted as a permanent ban. As his bans are still filled with contraversy.

I understand how some people have absolute hate for hitler. So I'm not going to try to justify what Cheesecake said. However, it pains me that there are so many other terrible/contraversal leaders in the history of mankind that were much worse than Hitler and no one bats an eye to their names. The Khan dynasty raped and piliged 30% of the world, the Japanese atrocities in China during the sino pacific wars, the Nordic invasion of Anglo-Saxon England, and Chairman Mao who was responsible for the deaths of his own people which topples both Stalin and Hitler combined. These were all events that pale Hitlers atrocities yet, anyone could probably get away with anything to do with those leaders. And at the end of the day it comes down to freedom of opinion. Everyone is different and therefore holds different opinions of history, leaders and the world. I feel like everyone should have the right to their own opinion since, you can't expect a server which is open to the whole globe, to not have ideological differences. (Which is why I think the language stuff can be pretty ridiculous sometimes).

But I agree that all his bans fall under the same category like what @Moo said.

Because I interpret section 8 rule (that y'all keep referring to as)

1. Transmit any content that is unlawful, harassing, vulgar, obscene, hateful, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, sexually explicit, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, or that could be deemed to be stalking or constitute an invasion of a right of privacy of another person. Punishment: 1st offence - 3 day ban, 2nd offence - 7 day ban, 3rd offence - permanent ban

Key word in this rule for me (I guess it's open to your own interpretation) is "transmit any content". To me that is basically saying, linking nude pics, adult videos, etc. which he did not do.

(wrote this all on my phone so rip).

 

That is exactly what that rule is intended to be about. We will need to look into changing the wording so that it is less confusing.

 

Though I do feel like knowing how many times you've been banned under the same category is partially the player's own responsibility, you do raise a valid point that they essentially let him play for two extra months to then be terminated regardless of what he did in those 2 latest months.

Now I do know that GMs sometimes forget to check whether the player has been banned before, and that this causes confusion from time to time. I feel like changing the state of someone's ban 2 months after the ban has already expired, is not the most clean way to deal with this.

 

Tbh im jewish and i think cheese should b unbanned. He may deserve one for sayin heilhitler but permanently banned ontop of "" is too harsh