Discord Ban Appeal - Willzadl
What is your Discord ID?
398538405090426881
What is your BYOND key?
Willzadl
Total Ban Duration
Permanent
Reason for Ban
Bigotry
Appeal
Let me preface this by thanking all staff members who have guided me with understanding the appeal process, the situation of my ban and pointing me in the right direction. Grimreaperx15 especially for repeatedly taking the time to talk with me and being very polite.
About 6 months ago, I was having a silly and non-offensive conversation about the LGBT community, which I would like to establish that I have no problem with in any way shape or form and understand that the direction of my appeal comes from a sincere position. During this conversation, I became very relaxed as I was finishing up online for the day after playing a few CM rounds, and I did not watch the words that I was saying as much as I should. It came onto the topic of WLs in one way or another, and I thought it would be funny to talk about the LGBT community in the context of CM whitelists, Gay synth, gay CO, gay predator. I said somebody should make a ‘ragebait transgender WL characters’, which I now understand was extremely insensitive and would have made several people uncomfortable. I did not make it with the notion that trans people are to be made fun of, but that is the way in which it was interpreted - for this, I am extremely sorry. I can’t begin to say how stupid I feel and how I would like to apologise to anybody who saw this message, but that is in the past. In this moment, and in the future, I want to make it clear that in the future I will do my utmost to make sure that I will never make fun out of any group of people in a banter-y way or in any other way again.
Furthermore compounding the issues that night was the intrusion of an undeniable bigot, who joined the chat swinging talking about how he ‘only liked lesbians’, and other vaguely anti-LGBT comments which eventually descended into outright homophobia. Initially, perhaps again due to my lack of introspective on what I was saying being projected onto him, I assumed he was joking in a similar vein to Jeremy Clarkson and his inflammatory yet not outright offensive humour. Once it became clear that was not his intention, I attempted to disengage from any conversation with him, but my other ongoing conversation was interspersed with his bigoted blabbery, leading to moderators arriving on-scene and banning him, and a few minutes later, me. I had and remain to have no affiliation with whoever he was, and would like to apologise again for my potential catalysis of his tirade in my attemptedly harmless yet ignorant banter, it was not my intention to further degrade the situation into the mess it became.
I’ve spoken to Grimreaperx15 about it, and he said that he could see that my intention was not to cause harm, but I did nevertheless. He could not give me the benefit of the doubt because of my Community ban about 4 years ago, which was also tied into bigotry. I cannot even begin to say how unfortunate it is that this situation occurred following that, as I was attempting to make amends with the community which I griefed in the past. The difference between casual bigotry and what I said was, I believe, that I did not necessarily say anything outright offensive, but given the situation and ongoing context, the interpretation was as such. I cannot stress enough that I truly did not intend to cause harm or act in a bigoted way.
In the past 6 months since my ban, I have played more than 400 hours in game, spent dozens of hours on the forum and done my best to interact with the community in a positive way. I received a minor note for a prank-gone-wrong, but I don’t think that’s particularly relevant to the appeal, and it’s the only such incident.
To summarize, I was not thinking about what I was saying, made a stupid, ignorant, and offensive mistake. I’ve done my best to prove that this is not the true me, and I ask humbly for one final chance with the community, not only to interact with my friends and others, but to contribute to the codebase and game on a wider scale. If anybody wants any clarification or to talk, please contact me via the forums or the discord ID provided. Thank you for your time.