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Given the discussion this has spawned, I wanted to publicly state my own opinions on this matter. These are only my personal opinions, and are not necessarily the opinions of the other ops who are free to speak for themselves on this matter if they want.

It's very rare that any action is ever taken by the chat ops beyond unofficial warnings, but when action is taken it's usually because it is needed to maintain the peace in the chat, such as with Hugsim's mute. The purpose of muting people people who are going at it is not only to reestablish peace in the chat, but to prevent the situation from escalating to the point where it gets into flaming. We don't want to ban people if we don't have to, so we try to do things like warnings and mutes before things reach that point.

It's not in dispute that Chanku and Gov were going at it, nor is it in dispute that Chanku intentionally evaded the mute so that he could keep going at Gov. The core dispute is the interpretation of the rules. Chanku's appeal is based on the premise that the rules can only be taken at their literal meaning and are not open to interpretation...in this case, that any action taken by the chat ops other than bans can be ignored or evaded because the rules only mention ban-evasion specifically. However, I would hope most people would agree that this reasoning doesn't make sense, and that it was obviously intended that mutes and other admin actions shouldn't be evaded as well...otherwise, what would be the point of even bothering with mutes to begin with if someone could just ignore it?

Additionally, accepting Chanku's appeal would have set a bad precedent, in that it would allow people to get out of the consequences for their wrongdoing by arguing technicalities and loopholes in the rules. While this may be acceptable in regional law or in NS as a whole, one of the points of having an admin team that wasn't part of the regional government was to be above such attempts at gaming the rules or rule-lawyering. To accept Chanku's appeal would have been to open the admin teams and the rules to attempts at the very same politics and manipulation it was set up to be above. In effect, far from being corrupt, the decision reinforces and stands behind one of the principles for a separate admin team existing as a separate entity.

Ultimately this ban was levied for this reason because...that was the direct reason for the ban. I see it's been argued that he could have been banned for something else, but the situation had not reached the point where bans for flaming and trolling would have been given out...in fact, the point of the mute was to mitigate the conflict before there could be bans for those reasons. It would not make sense to attempt to mitigate a conflict and then immediately ban its participants for flaming, nor would it have made any sense to allow someone to evade an action taken by a chat op mitigate the conflict, and this is why I supported upholding Hugsim's decision.

Again, this is just from my point-of view, but given the disagreements the ruling has sparked I wanted to express my own perspective in a more comprehensive manner.

I'll point you to Pengu v Chanku, where you stated by your own admission that the rules could not be taken any other way but literally.

You can't argue that when it suits you, and argue the exact same thing as Chanku did in that case when it benefits you and the chat ops team.

If you and the other ops had amended your rules publicly, especially as you seem to have run into such a situation before, then there would have been no problems. So that means only one thing. The chat ops team is now both corrupt and lazy, and on top of that, instead of fixing its mistakes, it would rather push back against criticism and take a stand that costs them more energy than would have been required to simply fix the mistake. Perhaps admitting the mistake is too traumatic. I don't know, and I don't care anymore. All I know is that I can't stomach that. It is not my problem anymore, as I'm about to resign my posts and renounce my citizenship.

I wish all of you the best of luck going forward.

Uh, I'd love to know where exactly I said that, cause I certainly don't remember that being part of the ruling. In fact, if I remember, the ruling was that the Procedural Rules of the Underhusen are subject to the interpretation of the Speaker, not at all dissimilar to what I've posted here about the interpretation administrative rules, actually.

I've been called many, many things in this game, but this is honestly the first time I've ever been called lazy. I can say at least some of your character attacks are new.

I'll point you to Pengu v Chanku, where you stated by your own admission that the rules could not be taken any other way but literally.

You can't argue that when it suits you, and argue the exact same thing as Chanku did in that case when it benefits you and the chat ops team.

If you and the other ops had amended your rules publicly, especially as you seem to have run into such a situation before, then there would have been no problems. So that means only one thing. The chat ops team is now both corrupt and lazy, and on top of that, instead of fixing its mistakes, it would rather push back against criticism and take a stand that costs them more energy than would have been required to simply fix the mistake. Perhaps admitting the mistake is too traumatic. I don't know, and I don't care anymore. All I know is that I can't stomach that. It is not my problem anymore, as I'm about to resign my posts and renounce my citizenship.

I wish all of you the best of luck going forward.

How is it lazy much less corrupt?

I can tell you the actions of this op team is no different than the op teams of other regional channels. 

All of those other regional channels don't even have an appeal system that involves the forum, much less a list of rules for the channel publicly shown here.

If I got the ban like Chanku did, Chanku would have argued for more severe penalties or for the appeal to be dismissed.

Chanku needs to learn that he is not above the rules and he needs to get the same punishment like I have when punished by the IRC op team in the past.

Laurentus I urge you to reconsider your decision.  You are a good asset to the region and I hate to see you go over this.

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There are other assets to be found. I can't stomach this and remain the same person.

There are other assets to be found. I can't stomach this and remain the same person.

I get you're new to IRC but you didn't explain how people are corrupt? 

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It is still up to the chat ops team to enforce the rules they set up, and ONLY the rules they set up. Just to be clear, it is reasonable for a rule to be created to enable them to ban someone for evading the mute, but before such a rule is actually created, there are absolutely no grounds for banning someone for such an evasion. It is corrupt. End of story.

It really isn't corrupt Laurentus for people to have the same type of enforcement rules on them as done to me.  Chanku feels that he is above the law because he's the Defence Jarl and a prince, and that he's entitled to special treatment.  He needs to accept the fact that he violated IRC op enforcement and suck it up and stop complaining about his punishment. 

That also includes his constant childish behaviour of disliking comments because they are valid criticisms, just because he can do them doesn't mean he should.  He doesn't have the excuse of pulling the "I'm a kid card" because Hugsim and other members of the region underage are mature and don't act at all like him with his constant negative personal attacks against myself and nearly anyone who disagrees with him. 

Sorry for the double post.

In the time I've seen the the IRC ops grow to what it is now, I believe that they are the most fair minded team I've seen in any NS channel.  And this is coming from someone who's also been banned at times in the channel for periods of time. 

If other regions are even MORE corrupt, that's not my problem.

I'm also not commenting on the nature of the dispute, I'm commenting on the unlawful nature of its penalty.

If the chat ops team wants to deal out any penalty they want, then they should take that rules and guidelines topic down, since it obviously means nothing, and at least they'll be honest about it.

If other regions are even MORE corrupt, that's not my problem.

I'm also not commenting on the nature of the dispute, I'm commenting on the unlawful nature of its penalty.

If the chat ops team wants to deal out any penalty they want, then they should take that rules and guidelines topic down, since it obviously means nothing, and at least they'll be honest about it.

I don't think they are corrupt.  I believe they are interpreting the rules broadly rather than strictly to the letter.  Are they not allowed to have leeway in interpretation?

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Their not stretching the interpretation of a law, they're completely ignoring it.

Ban evasion does not equal administrative evasion. It's ban evasion. That's it. I'm done with this.

The ban should be over by now, maybe it's time to wrap this up and move on to revising the channel rules elsewhere.

If Chanku still wants something he should state it clearly. If not, we're just tossing around a flaming ball that needs to be extinguished before constructive discussion can take place. Those who for whatever reason want to play with a flaming ball should ignite their own to clarify their goals.

The ban should be over by now, maybe it's time to wrap this up and move on to revising the channel rules elsewhere.

If Chanku still wants something he should state it clearly. If not, we're just tossing around a flaming ball that needs to be extinguished before constructive discussion can take place. Those who for whatever reason want to play with a flaming ball should ignite their own to clarify their goals.

Tatte doesn't like to play with flaming balls? 

* Govindia giggles

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