[Resolved] Ban Appeal TOZ-34

[TOZ]

In-Game name: ТОЗ-34
Time of Ban: 18:50
Date of Ban: 10-02-23
Steam ID: STEAM_0:0:97040844
Reason for Banro-war spray, Homophobia
Hello, on the 3rd I was blocked for spraying images. I would like to change my sentence to temporary. because I didn’t know that my spray could carry such things as “homophobia and military themes” due to the fact that in our country these things are considered memes of TF2 lovers and do not contain anything aggressive or offensive and will not intend to use them in the future use.

 

[TOZ]

and I suck at writing English so I might make a typo

 

[VintagePC]

Your ban appeal has been received and I'll review the details and get back to you shortly, usually in 1-2 days.

~Vintage

 

[TOZ]

If I get approved, can I be banned from the second account? I logged in through it, thinking it was a server issue, before realizing I was banned. I'm afraid that because of him I will be banned again (because of the same IP)
In-Game name: ВаСёк_3004
Time of Ban: 12:58
Date of Ban: 10-04-23
Steam ID: STEAM_0:0:769891366

 

[VintagePC]

Apologies for the delay - I had a look at this today and I'm trying to get some more details on the reason this ban was flagged as being for homophobia. I'll follow up again when I have additional information to add.

As for the spray, please see the thread below for an explanation on our stance on the Wagner Group and why we condemn the use of their logo in our servers. In summary, they've been designated by many countries as a Terrorist Organization.

[Resolved] - Ban appeal

In-Game name: full tilt Time of Ban: 14:26 Date of Ban: 06-12-23 Steam ID: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198049445881/ ; STEAM_0:1:44590076 Reason for Ban: Inappropriate Spray Additional Comments: When i was playing the game, i used this spray. It is a Private Military Company Wagner...

www.vaultf4.com

This is further complicated because their symbol is often used in pro-war contexts with regards to the current situation in Ukraine. Our EU servers are hosted in Germany, where symbols supportive of the war have been declared illegal. We have an explicit clause in our server rules for such imagery:

Other sprays/imagery that are illegal in the jurisdictions where our servers reside will be similarly met with a permanent ban

I also have a hard time believing your explanation regarding the alternate account and you thinking it was a server error, you were shown this explicit text when you connected with your original account, which makes it clear you were deliberately banned and directs you where to go for more information:

Вы были забанены на этом сервере, для получения информации посетите: http://sb.vaultf4.com

 

[VintagePC]

I can confirm that the "Homophobia" annotation is in regards to your use of f-slurs in text chat on our servers, which also violates our rules on acceptable language.

 

[TOZ]

about the chat
If possible I would like to know specifically. I always treat players with respect.especially in my favorite game. Unfortunately, I can’t prove this, of course, just as I can’t prove that I logged in through another account, thinking there was a server error. I only use a translator and didn’t use it at that moment
and another question. I can't get a temporary ban?

 

[TOZ]

I just didn't do something terrible. I broke the rule, I realize that, but my actions did not aim to offend anyone, I thought this would be appreciated by fans of the same meme, and if I offended anyone, I even apologize for it
but I have an eternal ban. I didn’t even get a temporary one and I think maybe this is too much?

 

[VintagePC]

the message you were shown appears to be in Russian and you seem pretty fluent based on your chat logs

One of our staff members annotated this screenshot for those of us that don't speak it:


As I've pointed out before, we have a zero tolerance policy on the use of slurs, and in this case even if I overlook the alternate account, there are still two rule violations (the spray and the chat messages) for which a punishment was issued.

Unfortunately, while you didn't think you were offending anyone, Ukraine ranks in the top 10 countries on our servers, and I can only imagine that glorifying logo of a force involved invading their homeland is *incredibly* offensive to them at this time. This was the primary contributor to the ban being escalated to "permanent" for the reasons previously outlined. It's important to remember the servers have a wide selection of players and what may be considered acceptable culturally in one area is considered very inappropriate in another.

Here's the deal: Generally speaking, we use permanent bans for anything more than a month or so in duration. It is not "permanent" in the literal sense (excepting a few circumstances such as cheating). Rather, it's meant to be an indeterminate time-out for the banned player to consider their actions, reflect on them, and file an appeal when we feel they've had a sufficiently long vacation from our servers that they have understood that we're serious about those aspects of our rules, and are unlikely to break them again.

Our guideline for this (as outlined in the rules & punishments post) is typically at least 1 year since the ban was issued, but we may consider an appeal earlier if the staff genuinely believe a person has changed in the time they've been away.

As this ban is quite recent, I don't believe it's been long enough to consider making it temporary at this time, but you are welcome to re-appeal in the future after some amount of time has passed.

I'm sorry if you feel this is unfair, but as you noted yourself, it's impossible to determine true intent from just text - anyone and everyone can say they didn't know something or didn't mean to offend anyone, and I've heard those things so many times over my years doing this that it's just lost all meaning.

 

[TOZ]

Good. I understand everything, thanks for the clarification. then I will serve my sentence