Urytion - Whitelist Report: Steve Murphy, Rule 3, Rule 11
What’s your BYOND key?
Urytion
Round ID:
23403
Your character name:
Darrell ‘Dingo’ Sturt
Accused BYOND key:
Spypig23
Accused character name:
Steve Murphy
What rule(s) were broken?:
Rule 3, Rule 11
Whitelist in question:
Commanding Officer
Description of the incident:
I roleplay my character as having a thick, Australian accent, including slang.
Steve asked me to make the announcement “in English” announcing mission and briefing time. I did, in Australian slang. He asked me to do it again, and I did, in different Australian slang. He then had me arrested for 10 minutes for FTFP, presumably for not speaking English in communications. I have no issue with this, because I was technically disobeying an order.
I kept speaking over the radio in Australian slang, then Steve ordered my headset to be removed and to be moved to perma as a discretionary arrest. I faxed Provost IC, and ahelped regarding what I perceived as a violation of rule 3 (and now, in retrospect and reading the rules more carefully, rule 11, thought I didn’t say that at the time). The admin (Steelpoint) recommended I make a whitelist report, but I am aware he was noted over the issue during the round.
Provost ordered me released, and I played the rest of the round as usual, but I was out of the round for 50 minutes over roleplaying in a way Steve disagreed with.
Evidence:
I have no evidence downloaded, but Steelpoint was the responding admin, and Spypig23 was noted in the round. The actions taken will be very visible in logs.
It appears that you and Steelpoint have gone to significant lengths to misrepresent the nature of my actions during this operation, deliberately leaving out critical details regarding my use of a discretionary arrest, and the sheer magnitude to which your roleplay is generally disruptive to the operation.
I will separate this response into multiple parts below
Addressing your use of slang
The Executive Officer has a responsibility, as do I, to the Marines they command. Your entire job, is to dispatch and relay orders in a manner that is clear, concise, and easily understandable by EVERY MEMBER OF YOUR MARINE CORPS.
If I, as an Australian, can only barely understand half of what you were saying on official command announcements, you can be absolutely certain that not a single person on the ground will bother to even try, resulting in the Marine force eventually growing to completely ignore command announcements
There is quite a sizable difference between roleplaying an accent, and using novel slang terms and nicknames when describing components of the operation. Casting a comparison to an officer in the actual Australian military, while they are likely to have a thick accent on some occasions, you will NEVER see a military officer assign Aussie pet-names to squads, refer to their superior officers as Steve’o, and invent entirely new terms to describe field objectives.
The difference between slang, and an accent, is that accented words, while spelled the same can sound differently, but ultimately have the same meaning. Slang, on the other hand, is using entirely different words, unique to a specific region of a specific country, to describe an otherwise normal concept.
Marines were frequently asking their Commander what exactly the XO just said in their command announcement, expressing annoyance and confusion over your apparent disregard of your station, treating the whole thing as an elaborate joke, rather than a military operation
This roleplay is not acceptable for an officer of your station. You are expected to act with maturity, treat your superiors with respect, and not use heavy amounts of slang when communicating in your capacity of Executive Officer.
Marines cannot understand what you are saying, meaning that Marines end up ignoring command entirely, meaning that Marines begin to ignore me entirely, ultimately meaning that Marines are going to end up dead, because of you
The timeline of the incident, from my point of view
Your initial arrest, for FTFP
Waking up on roundstart out of cryo and running through the pre-operation checklist, I immediately noticed several alarming aspects of your behavior as the second in command of the Almayer. You were filling comms with borderline unintelligible slang and phrases when referencing mission critical operational components, including consistently referring to me as Steve’o, despite being corrected to use my proper rank on two occasions.
After a few minutes, I asked you to deliver the morning announcement, stating briefing time and location. Since you had been heavily roleplaying for the past several minutes, and for the sake of my Marines understanding, I specifically requested that you do the announcement in English, without heavy use of slang.
Following this specific request, you went on to deliver the most poorly organized and communicated briefing announcement I have yet seen from an XO. It was filled with slang, phrases unique to Australia, and nicknames for particular parts of the ship, that I was absolutely confident that a new PVT, or a squad leader for that matter, would be entirely unable to understand.
I expressed annoyance at you, and reminded you that this was an official and important command announcement, and you should take it seriously. I then ordered you to redo the announcement in English as I said at the time.
Upon being given a second chance to take your job seriously, and make a proper announcement regarding arguably the most important aspect of an operation, you went on to deliberately construct and deliver a less intelligible briefing announcement.
I than turned around to you, and quite flatly asked “are you fucking with me right now Captain. I gave you a direct order”, and questioned if you thought the position of Captain was a joke, to be treated with a similar lack of regard.
You said something along the lines of “I dont know what you mean, Steve’o”, or something silly like that, at which point I had you promptly arrested for Failure to Follow Procedure, and I moved to do both of our jobs for us, by delivering a proper briefing
Briefing, and your elevation to discretionary detainment
As I arrived at briefing, I knew I had my work cut out for me.
An operations briefing is the ONE TIME command MUST have their shit together. You are detailing a plan that will get Marines killed, no matter what you do, and your troops need to have confidence that their CO and XO can be trusted, are competent, and are not actively insulting each other over general comms.
About 2 minutes into briefing, I began to notice your whining over general comms, quoting the ‘Democracy Manifest’ clip (which, to your credit, was pretty funny), misleading the corps to the circumstances of your arrest, and generally attempting to antagonize me while I was delivering my orders.
Your conduct at this stage, was immature, unnecessary, and unbecoming of a highly senior officer entrusted with the lives of my soldiers. I had to briefly halt briefing, to order your headset removed, and for you to be elevated to a discretionary detainment until I arrived to the Brig to handle you myself
This was, contrary to you and Steelpoints erroneous testimony, NOT because of your heavy usage of slang, which I will detail more thoroughly in my Rule 11 section. Your whining and antagonizing was damaging Marine confidence in command, and the orders I was giving them, therefore, your conduct was becoming a direct threat to my operation.
I fully intended for this discretionary detainment to be TEMPORARY until I had finished briefing, and could talk to you in person about your behavior, and determine if you were going to continue to behave like an idiot over announcements, and were fit for duty.
My discussion with you in the brig
Immediately following briefing, and the updating of the TACMAP, I quickly moved to the Brig to meet you in your cell, wasting almost no time to do so.
Upon arriving, I directly confronted you about your behavior over comms during briefing, and your efforts to antagonize me and my Marine corps. I asked you point blank if you were “ready to act like an officer again”, willing to release you from the Brig, if you agreed to make an effort to communicate orders more clearly, and act more professionally over comms, to which you said that you’d rather “fax the provost for an appeal”
Determining that, based on your worsening attitude to myself, and your duty as Executive Officer, you were not fit to return to active duty on the Bridge, and would be a detriment to my operation if I were allow you to do so. As such, I decided to leave you in the Brig, until you had faxed your appeal to the Provost.
After this point, I returned to the Brig approximately 10 minutes later, to pose you a similar question, asking if you were “ready to behave like an officer, and return to your duties”, to which I received no reply at the time, and I assumed you were filing an ahelp
The Provost, and your release from the Brig
About 5 minutes after this point, I received a fax from the Provost (Steelpoint, as Major Bentway), formally ordering me to release you, and apologize for my arresting you in the first place. I immediately moved to comply with this order, as you gloated to me over the radio about your imminent release.
I delivered your apology, mustering up as little sincerity as possible, and returned you to your post on the Bridge, having no choice but to allow you to run wild with your unintelligible slang, nicknames, and Australia-exclusive phrases over command announcements.
Throughout your time in the Bridge, following your release, you continually referred to me as Steve’o, used random terms when communicating with me, that even as an Australian, I could only guess as to their meaning.
Roughly around this point, is when Steelpoint began directly communicating with me, and I received a note for rule 3, which I will discuss later.
Unfortunately, Captain Dingo appeared to perish during hijack.
In regards to your report itself, I will take the chance to explain my conduct, and how it doesn’t breach CoC, rule 3, or rule 11.
While it would have of course been very helpful if you had mentioned which parts of these rules I have allegedly broken, rather than leaving me to guess, I will pose my defense for all reasonable applications of the two.
Rule 3: Community Expectations
Rule 3, in essence, simply mandates that SS13 players treat each other with basic respect throughout gameplay, which is why I am confused as to why you and Steelpoint chose to pin this one on me specifically.
Rule 3: Community Expectations
The general behavioral expectations for members of the community. Unless explicitly stated these rules apply to all areas of the community.
Don’t be a dick.
Don’t joke about OOC threats or make any threats in that respect.
Use common sense to determine if something is acceptable or not, if unsure ahelp or ask in #staff-help channel on discord.
This is not a complete list and only includes the most important elements.
Below, listed examples of this rules use include:
English only (speaking in a LRP manner, which is ironic…)
Profane RP (RPing hostile beliefs or emotions through profanity)
Racism and Bigotry
Stereotypes
Playing a character that is based upon a specific stereotype is permitted however playing to a racial, religious or cultural caricature is not.
Management staff, or the highest ranking alternative available, reserve the right to make calls on specific stereotypes being racially, religiously or culturally offensive.
No Advertising
No Spam
Once again, since you have not bothered to pose specifically which aspect of rule 3 I have allegedly broken, I am going to be left to assume the following two things:
You are generally accusing me of “being a dick” while utilizing my CO WL permissions to stabilize my operation, and remove you from command temporarily
You may have also just misunderstood what rule 3 meant, at a basic level, since this quote of yours appears to suggest that rule 11 was what you meant to report instead
Unless you are interpreting you’re interpreting my actions against you as directly racist or bigoted, I hardly see how rule 3 applies in this situation, and arguing that I am in breach of rule 3 simply for “being a dick” is reductive.
Rule 11: Marine Law, Mutinies
Rule 11, while quite broad overall, I believe only applies to this report relating to malicious compliance, which is what I am going to assume you are alleging I have broken.
Malicious Compliance
Malicious Compliance is using IC Military Law to impose excessive punishments, make an arrest on a technicality of someone non-disruptive who is acting in good faith, or causing intentional delays in the jailing and appealing process.
Malicious Compliance does not apply where IC provocation is present. (For example: following and taunting/threatening a player, engaging in mundane but disruptive actions and continuing when asked or told to stop, etc)
You are arguing that my usage of a discretionary arrest planned for the duration of briefing, or until you began to behave like an officer, is excessive.
Both you and Steelpoint have organized your recountings of the operation, to suggest that I placed you under discretionary arrest simply because of your aussie-accent RP, where, in actuality, it was for your continual whining throughout briefing, attempts to antagonist me over comms while under arrest, and the fact that you were speaking in an unintelligible manner throughout.
Discretionary Detainment, as defined by ML
A discretionary charge used by Commanding Officers to detain personnel for any reason - for the safety and benefit of the operation or security.
Here's why I believe my usage of this charge was justified
Your heavy use of slang, and incoherence in command announcements, as well as comms chatter, represented a direct and legitimate threat to the safety of the operation, and my Marine corps. As I stated in the “Addressing your use of slang” section, your roleplay was undermining your duty as Captain, and my capacity to operate as Commander, considering that over time, Marines would eventually begin to ignore CIC entirely, more than definitely getting them killed.
On top of your usage of slang, you were openly antagonizing me over comms during briefing, in front of the Marines, during the ONE SPAN OF TEN MINUTES where command MUST HAVE IT TOGETHER.
I did not intend to keep you under arrest indefinitely, instead being fully willing to release you, if I saw you demonstrate your own willingness to act in a more professional manner. Both times I came to the Brig to offer your release, in exchange for your behavior improving, you acted dismissively.
As such, I had no confidence that returning you to the bridge, as a dysfunctional XO, would be to the benefit of the Marine corps, justifying my use of a discretionary arrest
Circling back to the wording of the malicious compliance rule, it is specifically stated that:
Malicious Compliance does not apply where IC provocation is present. (For example: following and taunting/threatening a player, engaging in mundane but disruptive actions and continuing when asked or told to stop, etc)
Your usage of heavy slang, while mundane, was highly disruptive to the operation considering your post. Despite this, you were given several opportunities to cease this behavior with no persistent consequences should you agree to do so.
I allowed you the chance to redo the briefing announcement
You were initially only to spend 10 minutes in the Brig for FTFP, before choosing to cry like a 7 year old over comms
You were given two opportunities to return to the Bridge, should you agree to behave like an officer, both of which you refused
Therefore, I fully believe I have acted with reasonable escalation, and have not breached rule 11, nor the CoC whatsoever.
Relating to Steelpoints administrator misconduct, and my resulting harassment because of it
As logs will no doubt shortly demonstrate, Steelpoint attempted to mediate this whole affair following your ahelp in the Brig.
While this would otherwise be unrelated to this report, you use the fact that I was noted by Steelpoint as some kind of justification for your allegations.
Below is the attached note I received from Steel, which has now been entirely retracted
Not only is this a gross misrepresentation of why I chose to apply a discretionary arrest, Steelpoint appears to have entirely disregarded my testimony I gave through PM’s during the round.
Despite it being explained to them by myself, through PM and Provost Fax, they characterize this note in such a manner to suggest that I threw you into perma for having an Australian accent, which is not at all the case.
You were only moved to discretionary arrest for your continual unwillingness to act maturely as an Executive Officer, attempting to antagonize me following your arrest over comms, during briefing, in front of the entirety of the Marine corps, creating unrest.
Steelpoint was encouraged by me through PM’s to file a WL Council report if he believed I had abused my position as CO, a proposition he directly refused to do.
On top of this, Steelpoint actively turned an ongoing admin matter into a server-wide song and dance, with public announcements to this effect
Due to the gross misrepresentations of the event, by you, and Steelpoint, I have been the subject of public harassment and ridicule across CM, for the past 24 hours.
Steelpoints handling of this matter was entirely inappropriate, and is not valid to use as evidence to prop up your own report
If you have any further questions or queries relating to the proper conduct of an Executive Officer, I have linked the CM wiki below, feel free to give it a read
For context. I was made aware of the detainment of the XO in the permanent confinement section of the brig by deadchat while I was observing the game. Anticipating a provost appeal, I decided to log-dive to ascertain why the XO had been detained by the CO. I come to the conclusion that the CO had detained the XO due to their method of communication via a very stereotypical Australian-style accent, and for some talk-back after the fact.
Upon a Provost appeal being logged, I sent a faction-announcement demanding a prompt response from the ranking officer of the Almayer regarding why the XO had been detained.
I should stress here that the appeal I received only gave High Command the indication that the XO had been detained for their Australian accent, ergo my response was worded around the idea that the XO has been detained just because they spoke in atypical accent. I should also note I was still in the progress of collecting the facts at this stage, so I was also not fully informed as to what occurred.
The CO replied to me via fax as to why they detained the XO, I cannot 100% recall their reasoning (and I don’t think the game logs faxes easily???) but it was essentially an argument that the XO was talking back to them and that their style of English was illegible.
Since I am Australian I personally actually understood what the XO was saying and I did not, at the time, think their style of communication was egregious, but I appreciate on reflection that other people may not understand it.
In either case I sent a reply requesting that the CO release the XO and for the CO to apologise, since from my perspective it appeared that the XO was only detained due to their accent being excessive.
I made no further efforts to afflict further actions on either player on the round following the announcement outside of a rule incident noted below. I did send a end-of-game narration as detailed in the above post, however, this was in response to a CLF synth wearing the XO’s ID card and thus it appeared the XO had “somehow” been turned into a CLF Combat Synth. I very commonly post an end-of-round narration as a lore-dump for fun, so this is typical of me.
I did sanction the CO for a rule break as I felt, at the time, that the incident of removing someone for a hour for how they spoke was excessive, however, as discussed above the note was rescinded as the issue herein was/is a whitelist issue, not a server rule issue.
The council has reviewed this report and has deemed that the usage of the discretionary arrest clause was understandable. If the reporter were a PFC or so, then it would be wrong, but as the XO is an important role, and ought not be left unchecked so as to avoid hindering the operation, it was seen as understandable in this case. As such, this report is denied, and no action shall be taken.
