Howluinb Warned by Ro5490

[Howluinb31153]

CKEY: Howluinb

Admin’s CKEY: Ro5490

Note Type: Yellow note
Note Date (YYYY/MM/DD/): 2023/05/07

Round ID: 43951

Ban Reason: Minor Over-Escalation - Went from non-harmful combat (shoving) to unarmed combat (punches) as the agressor in a situation between themselves and a janitor, where the janitor was trying to clean up graffiti from the hallways that Howluinb had placed. Very argumentative on the topic of them being the Aggressor in this instance. Under policy, the Agressor is the person who initiated conflict, I.E- the first shove, which in this case was given by Howluinb.

Appeal Reason: As already explained in the entire ticket, I do not believe this to be a clear cut and dry “over-escalation” worth noting in the first place, especially with harsh wording like this.
I would like the note removed, especially due to its yellow severity, as it is such a minor thing that I really don’t understand how we spent THIRTY minutes arguing over something that both parties (me and the janitor) were okay with in roleplay, and that was so minor and ambiguous it should not even have mattered.

Additional Information: Here’s how the encounter happened,

• I get turned into an oozeling by an admin after a prayer. I decided to go with a dumb gimmick of tagging “hate your gods/kill god” etc and try to launch an anti god movement. I spend like, five minutes tagging a bunch of words.
• Janitor arrives, whom I already met before. I proceed to immediately talk to them about how they shouldn’t clean because the gods are bad.
• Discussion IRP ensues where I try to convince them that my cause is just, ending with me trying to buy them off so as to not clean my tags.
• They proceed to activate a cleaner grenade in hand, MID TALK, which I believe makes them the instigator of the conflict. The entire conflict stems from them wanting to clean & my character who didn’t want his time to be wasted. Interrupting any discussion by unleashing a grenade which destroys most of what I spent my time doing clearly initiates a conflict between two people.
• I quickly shove them twice - once to make them trip, another to make them drop the grenade, at which point i grab it and throw it far away. I try again to tell them not to, and that I will retaliate (IC)
• They activate another one in hand, this time constantly shoving me back to prevent me from grabbing it. I did not even shove them at that moment. 70% of what I tagged gets destroyed.
• I tell them that I am mad, and that they better not clean the rest or I’ll start throwing punches. They proceed to go towards what’s left, and I say, again, “Clean this and I’ll punch you”. They start mopping it up, so I punch them thrice, let them leave, and throw a chair in front of them - not on them - and tell them to not come back or I’ll punch them again.
• They come back, chair in hand, trying to attack me, so I fight back with a chair too this time. I put them to crit, then bring them to medbay myself to get them healed.

I then get an ahelp asking me to explain the situation with the janitor, and thus lose 30 mins of my round trying to explain that, in context, it was not unreasonable, that depending on the PoV the instigator of the fight could be either me or them, and that I believe that I gave them ample warning and justified it several times in RP of the fact that I’d escalate to punching.
The janitor didn’t even seem upset by the encounter, as they proceeded to come back mid ticket to clean up the rest while i’m there, and go “much better mwah chef’s kiss”.

The entire ticket lasted 30 minutes, hence why I can see the “very argumentative”, but I felt completely justified to explain my pov and that it was not over-escalation, and that even if it was, it’d be so minor it was not worth even bwoinking over.

[ro5490]

https://wiki.beestation13.com/view/Escalation_Policy

Any breaches of this policy will be classified as either over-escalation or self-antag depending on the severity of the breach

Escalation Information

Escalation Steps

1. Completely non-harmful and unarmed actions such as shoving into a wall or table
2. Unarmed but harmful actions such as punching and kicking, or armed but non-harmful actions such as using a disabler or stun baton.
3. Armed combat - using any item as a weapon to cause harm to someone
4. Crit - you are responsible for seeing that your victim receives medical treatment.
5. Kill - If you properly escalate to this step, no medical attention is required.

Aggressor: The person who initiated conflict. The aggressor may not escalate conflict to the next level, however they may stand their ground and match the force used against them.

Defender: The person who has had conflict initiated with them. Defenders may use a level of force one step above what an aggressor has used. This also allows the aggressor to match your force, so don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

Logs

All logs

Important parts

Janitor tries to clean, ends up in a shoving match, started by Howluinb.

Howluinb says they’re going to punch the jani, and follows through, breaking escalation policy.

Howluinb throws a chair towards the jani, and then continues to punch the jani

Jani fights back using the chair that was thrown at them, and Howluinb also gets hold of a chair

Howluinb puts the janitor into softcrit

Long story short, Janitors have one job, to clean.
Howluinb shoved first, making them the aggressor when the janitor was trying to clean.
They then punched first, breaking escalation policy, as the Aggressor should not be escalating.
They also threw a chair towards the janitor which could easily be percieved as an attack by the janitor (and if it had hit, would have been even further over-escalation)

While the original escalation break was minor, and there was a bit of RP behind things, a rule break is still a rule break, and the note documents exactly what happened.

[Howluinb31153]

I believe to mostly have stated my POV of those events as I perceived them in game, However,

• I still hold my position that the janitor was the one who initiated the conflict in the first place.
• I disagree that the chair being thrown would have been perceived as an attack. I told them to back off, then threw it - I know the range of throw of a chair by this point, and know it’s pretty heavy, hence only flies a few tiles. The janitor was 3-4 tiles away from where it landed.
• The second series of punch lacks the fact that the janitor came back again chair in hand, after I had told them and shown them I do not want them to come.

@ro5490

a rule break is still a rule break, and the note documents exactly what happened.

And I’d not have made this ban appeal beyond getting upset IRL if this was one of those “no severity” notes that basically just document very minor things.
This is so minor that I do not believe it should even be yellow severity - that just makes thing look much more bad than they actually were, amplified by the line “Very argumentative in ticket”

[ro5490]

Starting by skipping escalation steps, then soft-critting the janitor, then arguing about everything in-ticket, a yellow is warranted. If the fight wasnt over-escalated or the janitor wasnt put into crit, this would have been a minor note rather than a medium.

As such, I’ll be leaving it as a medium/yellow note.
If you feel this is too much, feel free to open a staff report.

Appeal Denied