[Resolved] Comms ban appeal

In-Game name: Qcumber
Time of Ban: 02:12
Date of Ban: 10-08-24
Steam ID: STEAM_0:0:73940772
Reason for Ban: Other

I wanna keep this brief; I wanna preface tho I have some greivences with not just my ban, but also the moderation team as a whole. A few weeks ago I recieved a web ban, for just reason (Specifically I was banned for micspam). My case was handled well and there weren't really complications; my appeal wasn't accepted but I deserved to be banned in the first place so I'm not upset at the outcome. Recently tho, yesterday, I was having a conversation with one of the moderators, Animal Control [VF4-A], and we both recieved a comms ban. The verdict was way too unbalanced in my opinion because I was more civil in my responses than he was. Not saying I'm not guilty of instigating or "egging him on," but I don't deserve a week ban when I didn't curse at him or slander him personally. The more grandular narrative of my issues with the TF2c community is the fact there's no way to handle discord bans; there's no way to actually appeal a discord ban in any sort of timely fashion. This was what I was attempting to convey to him about in our argument in that lobby. A week had gone by and nobody had any concrete answer to why I was banned. Over our brief discussion he told me, Animal Control [VF4-A], told me something akin to, "You were banned because you were talking about your ban in the wrong channel and we told you 3 times to stop and you refused to listen." I explain I don't remember these warnings and if I did I would have stopped. It's way too extreme, in my opinion, to be told I was given ample warning about using wrong channels leading to a boot from the discord when at the same time I was webbanned from TF2c for a week. If these decisions were made in isolation with zero context, I think I would have tried to appeal them anyway because the moderation staff engages with the same behavior.

Your appeal has been received, we'll review the details and get back to you soon, usually within 2-3 days.

Thanks for your patience.

Based on what I am reading, the ban was issued as a "brown hat rule" ban because you were making a nuisance of yourself to the point that other players were getting tired of it and complaining to us. Contributing factors:

• Carrying on about not being permitted to mic-spam on our servers ("Complaining for hours", noted in the ban ticket)
• Continuing to complain about how your discord ban wasn't being handled. I know I did tell you earlier that we have no affiliation with the TF2C discord and so cannot help you here. By logical extension, carrying on about it in our game servers won't get you anywhere either.

The duration of the comms ban may seem excessive, but it is spelled out in our Server Rules page that we will increase the duration of a ban based on prior infractions. At this point, you have two prior "courtesy warning" communications blocks with us over the last few weeks (1 hour each) for spam, followed by the previous 3 day ban (first infraction tier) because you didn't seem to get the hint. That puts you at a "second infraction" level for which the typical duration issued is on the order of 1-2 weeks.

Additionally, I think it is a reasonable conclusion that if our staff and players have had enough of you complaining about your various bans in our game servers, that the TF2C Discord staff were similarly tired of your complaints about a game ban in their Discord channel. Many of our server staff are active there and they will direct anyone taking issue with a server ban here; beyond that they have no obligation to tolerate anyone that does not follow instructions given.

In conclusion, the mute you are contesting doesn't seem to have been issued in error; I find the description of the circumstances entirely plausible and the length of the punishment is in line with our published policies for repeat violations of our server rules.