Pilgrim

Scarcely Lethal Noob
Summary:
This admin seems to be abusing their authority.

Player Name:
Jermaphobe (possibly Nicholas771212)

SteamID:
[U:1:357799798]
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/[U:1:357799798]
https://stats.skial.com/#summary/player/SteamID/All/[U:1:357799798]
https://www.skial.com/sourcebans/index.php?p=banlist&advType=steamid&advSearch=[U:1:357799798]
https://www.skial.com/sourcebans/index.php?p=commslist&advType=steamid&advSearch=[U:1:357799798]

Time:
now

Servers:
FREAK FORTRESS | NY

Detailed Explanation / Screenshots / Demos:
This admin Jermaphobe has been on my case for a few days now, ever since I started playing on the freak fortress server again, and he also started banning me and those who I got along with multiple times, and in one case overruling an unban and giving a different reason for the temp. ban to keep my friend off of the server. This happened with my friend Capt. Pickle [U:1:428135126] (who is not associated with this report) on 03/24/2020. He was banned first for spamming, as he said, for three days. He appealed this minutes after this happened and got a reduction to one day, however the ban was then returned to three days minutes after the appeal for the reason of him being friendly (I can provide screenshots of the conversation we had discussing this if needed). In fact, today an admin who I can assume was Jermaphobe, threatened to permanently ban me for what someone standing next to me said, this person joked about putting on his spinbot and spun around as a joke. shortly after the admin threatened to ban me if I made a remark like that again, completely disregarding the fact that I didn't even say anything relating to hacking.
I also happened to look at Jermaphobe's record of bans over the past few months and all of his permanent bans given out in one day can range from one to six bans (which occurred in on 03/03/2020), I checked all of his bans from the beginning of the year and none of them have demos included, which is said to be required by the admin info page created by Bottiger. I'm going to be honest, I really like playing on these Skial servers and I would hate to have the kind of person who refuses to deal with mic spammers and people who post porn sprays ruin this server by going after the people who are just trying to have fun. I appreciate all that the admins do in keeping these servers clear of cheaters, and I hate having to be that guy, but I think that what has been happening recently is going a bit too far.

Thank you for your time!
 

Dragontamer

TF2 Admin
Contributor
For starters, Nicholas isn't the right person your talking about, it's Jermaphobe.
Pickle was muted for spamming, and got reported again which got him banned for three days. Punishment lengths increase if you break the rules again.
Bottiger's 24/7 Idle Trade 03/26/2020 - 11:20:36 AM Kaka Krabby Patty Especially advertising known cheat tools
Bottiger's 24/7 Idle Trade 03/26/2020 - 11:20:24 AM Kaka Krabby Patty Saying you're cheating will land you in hot water
This is all that came out of his stats. I have no idea where you came up with "he threatened to ban me" as none of that was in his stats. Unless I missed something it seems you're making stuff up.
Just because demos aren't put on the ban page doesn't mean that he doesn't have the evidence. From what I know, we're only supposed to keep the evidence of a cheater and make sure to have it saved for later in case they appeal.
Dunno what you mean by "refusing to deal with mic-spammers", if you could clear this up that would be appreciated.
Also, porn sprays are allowed, just not lolicon or child porn. If you see any of the two, you should report them. Regular porn sprays are allowed on the server.
 

Jermaphobe

Moderator
Contributor
Legendary Mapper
This admin Jermaphobe has been on my case for a few days now, ever since I started playing on the freak fortress server again,
Who are you? I don't know you, definitely not enough to be on your case when I've only issued one punishment to you.

he also started banning me and those who I got along with multiple times, and in one case overruling an unban and giving a different reason for the temp.
If you don't break the rules, you won't be punished. I banned you for a day a while ago for friendlying. Capt. Pickle got reported once for chat spam which was a (first offense) 1 day silence (not banned, like you tried to say) and then got reported later that day for friendlying which got him a 3 day (2nd offense) ban. You can read Pickle's appeal here where I discussed his offense a bit. Just in case you insist that these lengths are abuse, they are not, they are the standard length for the correct offense amount, 1 day > 3 days > 1 week > 1 month > ?

He appealed this minutes after this happened and got a reduction to one day, however the ban was then returned to three days minutes after the appeal for the reason of him being friendly (I can provide screenshots of the conversation we had discussing this if needed).
When? Provide these screenshots then. He never spoke to me and I never spoke to him or you about lowering his ban to 1 day. My only time speaking with him is in his appeal.

In fact, today an admin who I can assume was Jermaphobe, threatened to permanently ban me for what someone standing next to me said, this person joked about putting on his spinbot and spun around as a joke. shortly after the admin threatened to ban me if I made a remark like that again, completely disregarding the fact that I didn't even say anything relating to hacking.
I don't know you, don't recall ever doing this, or let alone play Freak Fortress. You automatically assume this was me, just because you think it'd be me and only me that would do this? If you cared to check my server activity on my stats page, I have not been on any of the servers you frequent in nearly a week, so your accusation that I threatened you today is false. Skial Stats can tell you exactly what servers I've been on recently, and no admin perk can hide that. If you're going to accuse me of threatening you, confirm it is actually me, please.

I also happened to look at Jermaphobe's record of bans over the past few months and all of his permanent bans given out in one day can range from one to six bans (which occurred in on 03/03/2020), I checked all of his bans from the beginning of the year and none of them have demos included, which is said to be required by the admin info page created by Bottiger.
90% of the permanent bans I issue is me banning cheaters. Yes, we are required to keep demos of cheaters. We are not required to upload and post demos directly to the ban page for specific users. Some admins will do it, but I prefer keeping a dedicated folder and dropbox for my demos and giving them out when necessary. If you think it should be required I post every demo of every cheater on their ban page, you should start criticizing the other admins alongside me who don't post their demos on the ban pages instead of targeting me only.

Your report also mentions Nicholas, but your entire report is only trying to throw me under the bus, so why mention him at all?
 

soos

TF2 Admin
Listen, the whole spinbot idea is usually thrown in with hacking, i herd someone talking about it with a joking manor. i reacted the way i did because skial has a no tolerance policy for joking about any hacks of the sort. apologies for assuming the wrong person i was talking to friends at the time and therefore couldn't hear exactly who was saying it.

as for mic spammers and the porn sparays

depending on what is being played (music, short sounds) that is left to server vote. if it is ear rape or phone spam 1 or 2 warnings are distributed, if the player does not comply, they get muted for [length of time here] depending on how many times they’ve been silenced.

most porn sprays are allowed (sadly) admins have the power to remove the spray or to kick the person while warning them to change their spray and come back when they have done so. unless it is something underage for example they will receive a permanent ban. they can appeal later on showing that they have changed their spray.

the process of delivering these warnings/ bans are different for all staff. i try to deter people from doing things like phone spam and warn those who ear rape.

BUT, there are ways you can fix the spray issue AND your mic spammer issue at the same time. you can always disable sprays and client side mute the mic spammers. if not, you can use /ignore [player name] to ignore their VC but still be able to see their messages in chat.

hope this clears the miss understanding a bit for the future
 

Fenix

TF2 Admin
Contributor
(Just throwing in my 2 cents, plenty of comments already made on this)

While I don't know all the particulars, as everyone has their own perspective on what happened in any particular situation, if your friend was spamming, and got it reduced, and was also friendlying, then the punishment would go right back up. Friendlying is frowned upon regardless, but especially so if the server is full, people that might actually want to play could be sitting in queue. If you wanna screw around, do it in an idle or trade server.

Any talk about hacking is taken seriously, we don't want anyone even getting the thought in their head they can go look for cheats. If it was mistakenly directed at you, then it was just due to proximity. However, if it was in chat it's obvious who said what, and over mic it still says who is talking, so it's hard to mistake who's saying what unless people are talking over each other.

We keep our demos internally, they're not on sourcebans, and even if they were you would not be able to see them unless you were logged in as an admin.

Jerma is the sonic the hedgehog of our admins, beats us to everything, so that's why they've got high punishment rates.

We do our best to be fair and understanding with every issue we take care of. Sometimes people might just consistently be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We are but a few trying to keep the peace for a great many. I hope you have a better time in the servers in the future, just try to steer clear of anything that can be construed as rule breaking and remind your friends of the same. Stay safe, stay inside, wash your hands, and enjoy Skial!
 

Pilgrim

Scarcely Lethal Noob
In response to Dragontamer's comment:
1) The incident with Pickle happened within about five minutes. The initial ban was given, then it was appealed with the ban time being reduced from three days to one day. Not two minutes later Pickles ban was increased from one day back to three with a different reason being given, making it seem like the admin just wanted him off of the server.
2) I realize that advertising cheating will get you in trouble, i'm not arguing that point but the problem came from me being blamed for something I didn't do. As I couldn't see what admin sent that message over the server I assumed that it was the same admin that has been temp. banning people for negligible offences. I have nothing against Soos, as he's been decent in all of his interactions with the players.
3) In regards to the sprays, many I've had to see and cover up over the past few weeks have unfortunately been lolicons, and instead of kicking the person responsible for posting those, nothing was done.
 

Jermaphobe

Moderator
Contributor
Legendary Mapper
The incident with Pickle happened within about five minutes. The initial ban was given, then it was appealed with the ban time being reduced from three days to one day. Not two minutes later Pickles ban was increased from one day back to three with a different reason being given, making it seem like the admin just wanted him off of the server.
He didn't appeal his silence mere minutes after it was issued. Pickle was silenced for 1 day. A silence is not a ban, it revokes your ability to talk in voice and text. 20 minutes after he was silenced he was reported again for friendlying. His 2nd offense was a 3 day ban. a ban that blocks you from connecting to our servers. It was never 1 day, it was 3. His only interaction with me was his appeal.
 
Last edited:

Nicholas771212

TF2 Admin
https://www.skial.com/threads/appeal-capt-pickle.86235/
Even in the appeal at the bottom Jermaphobe physically says Pickle can wait the time out, not reduced.
3) In regards to the sprays, many I've had to see and cover up over the past few weeks have unfortunately been lolicons, and instead of kicking the person responsible for posting those, nothing was done.
Theres something called reports on the skial forum. If you see someone spraying this, just report them and they will be banned.
 

Fenix

TF2 Admin
Contributor
Are you reporting the sprays or just covering them? I just went through the last 10 pages of reports and every reported loli was dealt with. It's not like we have an automated system that sends us a screenshot every time a spray is sprayed, it has to be reported by someone. Take a screenshot where we can clearly see the spray and where it says who sprayed it, report it, and we will deal with it.
 

Metroidz

Australian Skial God
Contributor
He's not here to report rule-breakers. He's here to report people he doesn't like.
 

Pilgrim

Scarcely Lethal Noob
In response To Fenix's comment:
1) I fully understand that being friendly is frowned upon, and you will get kicked if you are in fact friendly, but that's not what i'm focusing on here. The point here is not weather or not he is guilty of being friendly or not, it is that a second ban was given increasing the ban time back to three days immediately after. Looking at this from the outside it just seems like the admin is only trying to keep him off of the server for as long as possible.
2) As for talking about hacking, I also understand that this is taken very seriously, as it should be. However, when multiple messages come across the screen directed at me, then this happens, its a little hard to see this as just coincidence especially because I can't see admins name attached to the comment, which would lead to my thoughts of this coming from just one person.
3) I'm not debating the fact that what Jermaphobe does is beneficial to the Skial community in banning cheaters, but some of the recent messages seemed come across as being a bit too liberal with the privileges of being an admin.
4) looking at it with Felix's, Soos', and Dragontamer's view points, this issue is a bit clearer. The last thing that I wanted with this is to piss someone off or get someone in trouble. I saw something that looked a bit odd and I didn't want it to get any worse. The main purpose of writing this was to clear up these issues and get a better understanding of both the admin group as a whole and Jermaphobe, If the initial thread seemed to give off other motivations or intentions then I apologize for being unclear in my intentions.
 

Nicholas771212

TF2 Admin
1) I fully understand that being friendly is frowned upon, and you will get kicked if you are in fact friendly, but that's not what i'm focusing on here. The point here is not weather or not he is guilty of being friendly or not, it is that a second ban was given increasing the ban time back to three days immediately after. Looking at this from the outside it just seems like the admin is only trying to keep him off of the server for as long as possible.
His ban time was never decreased. Period. It was a 1 day silence. He was then later banned for 3 days for friendlying. Bans on skial stack with mutes. 1 day > 3 day > 1 week > ect. No ones trying to keep him off, he broke the rules so hes being punished for it.

As for talking about hacking, I also understand that this is taken very seriously, as it should be. However, when multiple messages come across the screen directed at me, then this happens, its a little hard to see this as just coincidence especially because I can't see admins name attached to the comment, which would lead to my thoughts of this coming from just one person.
Soos said he did not know who was talking on mic. He didn't target you on mic because he can, he even apologized for it.
apologies for assuming the wrong person

I'm not debating the fact that what Jermaphobe does is beneficial to the Skial community in banning cheaters, but some of the recent messages seemed come across as being a bit too liberal with the privileges of being an admin.
Your point of Jerma admin abusing was because he bans a lot of people in one day. Jerma is one of the most active admins and handles most of the reports. These include hacking reports which results in a ban. So yes depending on the day bans can range from 1 to 6 people.
 

Pilgrim

Scarcely Lethal Noob
As of the time writing the "report", I was under the assumption that it was one person who was who was possibly starting to take things a bit too far. In writing this I wanted to either affirm my thoughts or have them disproven, which thankfully is what happened. I had no prior knowledge of the enthusiasm of some of the admins and seeing that no visible demos were posted I thought that banning six people in a day was a bit suspicious, as from what I gathered from the admin rules page you had to include the demos in the report, and I had no way of knowing that it was not going to be accessible by the public. As for your point Nicholas, I got the information from capt. Pickle on what happened (hence my saying that I would include the conversation if necessary), and even tough I checked the ban log and there was only one entry, I thought he knew best in this matter and I trusted him since he was the one banned.