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BenKenobi Ban

HardCarry
over 6 years

Hello everyone,

We have been getting a lot of questions about the BenKenobi ban and we just wanted to make a thread to clarify the circumstances of the ban.

He has received 8 violations in Main Lobby ranging from HC to Spamming to Trolling to Copied Mechanics to Lobby Camping and is currently banned there. Furthermore, we have gotten many reports from people complaining about the aggressive and overly offensive language that BenKenobi has been using in chatrooms and in games in the Survivor Lobby. Our first and foremost goal as moderators of the Survivor Lobby is to make the Lobby a fun and safe place for people to play in and BenKenobi was actively toxic and against all of these values. As a result, because of his actions in Main Lobby and Survivor Lobby, the Main Lobby moderators decided to siteban BenKenobi, an action which we support as well. Ben will no longer be able to play in the Survivor Lobby or Main Lobby, but he is free to play in Sandbox.

Finally, I'd like to thank the main lobby moderators for working closely with us for the past few months. They've been extremely helpful and we really appreciate their help.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

HardCarry
over 6 years
d) I'm a mentor! I answer questions about Survivor games and I try to help people improve in their game. I love to talk about survivor and survivor strategy so feel free to msg me if you need help with that!

e) I act as a liaison between the EpicMafia survivor community and the ORG community. I'm one of the most prominent members from EM in the ORG community and I do think that because of me, a lot of people in our community have applied to ORGs and know which applications are open. I also have asked hosts to accept more EM players so that more people can experience ORGs!

f) I hosted multiple games in the past. I'm sure I've hosted more successful games than BenKenobi has. As for the TAR, I easily spent 24 hours preparing that and Emile can attest to that.

As for proof that I know the people in this lobby at least within 2 months time:

https://epicmafia.com/topic/86207

It's been rather difficult to be more active in chatrooms this schoolyear mainly bc I'm spending 20+ hours every weekend doing problem sets and Computer Science assignments, but rest assured that I have done more for the lobby than BenKenobi. I hope this allows you to sleep better at night!
HardCarry
over 6 years
I'm glad you asked what I have done in the past 12 months!! Here are some of the tasks that I have done for the Survivor Lobby:

a) A little less than a year ago, I went through a mini personal project designed to rejuvenate the morning lobby which had been dying. I found hosts to voluntarily host trophy games and regular large games in the morning. I then went through all of Goldd96's Excel Spreadsheets and sent a personal PM to every single player who has ever played in a morning game. I then went on reddit and sent a PM to every single player that ever expressed interest in playing a game on EM. That is actually how ahrre joined the lobby!! At that time, the Skype chat "Morning Chat" had been dead for several months, but I revived it by essentially spamming it trying to get players to play in the game.

I also woke up at 7 AM myself to host one of those games which isn't difficult if you know how busy I am with school.

b) During the whole reddit explosion where we had dozens of new players join the lobby, I took the time to host for these new players when there weren't enough hosts and I was one of the people who explained all the site/chat mechanics to new players even though I had exams and often had to sacrifice multiple hours of sleep to do so.

c) If you ever wondered who wrote a large portion of the decisions and reasonings behind bans, it was me!! You might be able to tell by the pretentious tone that some paragraphs have!! All the moderators can attest to my participation in our group decisions over bans, rulings, etc.
deletedover 6 years

LelenasChild says

Snow and Nattless are also almost never in the lobby, just the forums and in private group chats.


Nat specifically is incredibly involved in hosting the EMBB and EMVivor trophy games and they wouldn't be a major part of the lobby without her help and guidance.
ImDory
over 6 years
@LelenasChild

I personally think that Benkenobi was a bully and he didn't contribute much to the lobby but insult the people in this community, that's all he did. I mean he may have participated in certain games, but he was bitter over it and show no remorse. If u are going to say that BenKenobi was making friends then u are wrong. He was just out there being aids to everyone. Even so many of us tried to be nice to him but he didn't appreciate, and continued to attack us personally. I agree with u he is active but he suicide when he lose in a game, so what is the point? Throwing tantrum??! Hopefully u can understand why people can't stand benkenobi.
LelenasChild
over 6 years

tillie says

its so disrespectful for you to discredit everything that they do just because some of them don't host games regularly lol


What do they do, please tell me? Other than ban people they don't know.
LelenasChild
over 6 years

tillie says


hardcarry, or any of the mods, don't need to host lots of games (or host any games at all) to contribute to this community or make this community fun lol. they do so much behind the scenes work that we don't see. and its what they do behind the scenes that keeps the survivor lobby running, what keeps it safe, AND what keeps it fun.


Ok but what makes it fun is games, and the odd bit of forum bants. No one would be here if there were never any games. Cammy actively produces most of these forum games, and puts a large chunk of the work in for orgs, plays a lot, etc etc. She knows people, is mature and well respected, and isn't biased with her decisions. But she's friendly and fun and just, and generally fits what a mod should be. She owns the plug and the discord, she spectates the trophy games, etc etc etc.

Snow and HC don't really get involved in much of this, and while I was never gunning for how the mod team is bad, I think it's crazy that Ben can be said to be negative to the community when he also does more positives. You can talk about how great HC is with dealing with ppl behaving inappropriately, but you can't even judge Ben on that when he obviously isn't given such an opportunity.

Idk what you're talking about behind the scenes though anyway, if things are being planned, they'd be games that would then be played (which isn't enough) and if ppl are being banned, that's not an appropriate thing to argue because they're the only ones who can do it, and if ppl are using the forums, I'd see it but this is fairly infrequent, etc etc. Lobby mods can't adjust things on the lobby like background, what games are allowed, emotes, whatever. Only Chris can. They basically just delete wall posts and stuff, and then are a regular user. And Ben was much more active, hosted much more, played a lot more, and made friends. Which, again, is something some of the mods haven't been doing really. A lot of people don't really know who they are now.
LelenasChild
over 6 years

Cammy says

me when i play regularly


Me when you weren't included in it :o
Cammy
over 6 years
me when i play regularly
tillie
over 6 years

LelenasChild says


If HardCarry does a lot for this community, then BenKenobi does a lot more. The TAR with Highspace happened in what, spring? And it's definitely the only noteable thing.



hardcarry, or any of the mods, don't need to host lots of games (or host any games at all) to contribute to this community or make this community fun lol. they do so much behind the scenes work that we don't see. and its what they do behind the scenes that keeps the survivor lobby running, what keeps it safe, AND what keeps it fun. and its so disrespectful for you to discredit everything that they do just because some of them don't host games regularly lol
HighSpace
over 6 years
I feel like ben was overall a big negative for the lobby so I agree with this decision
Otherscott
over 6 years

LineLiar says


Snow says

This is terrible phrasing. HardCarry will be spending some time in solitary confinement because of it.


MORE time? O_o


HardCarry being in solitary confinement is the only possible explanation for him missing the fact Voice was modded two weeks ago
deletedover 6 years
Free speech means the government can't punish you for your actions. It doesn't mean people who are running an online internet forum can't show you the door if you are harassing users and making minority groups feel inferior or unsafe by using slurs. I've seen instances of Ben/Lucio using slurs and while I personally wasn't affected by them I can see why someone could be affected by them.

Edit: fixed a run on sentence.
LelenasChild
over 6 years

Snow says

Ben's ban has to do with behavior that was reported to us by multiple different people - once you're upsetting several members of the community, that's when we feel like we need step in.



I like this a lot more, it's not just "He's continally negative" it's "We've had people complain"


Snow says

You shouldn't feel unwelcome because of harassment or excessive antagonistic behavior from that person who doesn't like you.


Big mood, apparently I need to get a few people reported.
LelenasChild
over 6 years

tillie says

@LelenasChild

this is actually really gross to read lol. it is sooo important to make this community a safe place. even just thinking back to recent events, do you think anyone would stick around if we let lukie go unpunished? just for the sake of a few more games being hosted each week? our community does a great job of stepping up and hosting games each week anyway?? and benkenobi has continued to ruin that for those who put in the effort.

i also can't believe you're trying to call hardcarry out when he does so much for this community even with his incredibly busy schedule. he volunteers his time to mentor people, he hosts amazing tar games with highspace, which they both put soooo much effort into, and if you check out his opinion thread he literally wrote 500+ word essays which shows that ya he does know the community lol.

the moderators work as a team, and in this case it wasn't even just the survivor lobby moderators that came to this decision, the main lobby moderators had a part in this too. if you are unhappy with this then you can file an appeal with benkenobis permission but you have no right to attack one single moderator for this united decision?

i'm just like really grossed out about this sorry that i'm really bad at writing and getting my point across but yeah i can't believe you would write something like this zero


Lukie did a hell of a lot more than Ben, and that was an obvious decision, as he endangered the player base.

BenKenobi hasn't really ruined anything

If HardCarry does a lot for this community, then BenKenobi does a lot more. The TAR with Highspace happened in what, spring? And it's definitely the only noteable thing.

I'm not even attacking HardCarry. The entire mod team has probably had under 5 encounters with Ben, because they're rarely around. Not that I dislike them as people, but Snow and Nattless are also almost never in the lobby, just the forums and in private group chats.
LineLiar
over 6 years

Snow says


HardCarry says

because of his actions in Main Lobby and Survivor Lobby, the Main Lobby moderators decided to siteban BenKenobi, an action which we support as well.


This is terrible phrasing. HardCarry will be spending some time in solitary confinement because of it.


MORE time? O_o
deletedover 6 years
Thank you mods for explaining the situation. Keep up the great work!
Snow
over 6 years

HardCarry says

because of his actions in Main Lobby and Survivor Lobby, the Main Lobby moderators decided to siteban BenKenobi, an action which we support as well.


This is terrible phrasing. HardCarry will be spending some time in solitary confinement because of it.
Snow
over 6 years
>an action which we support as well

I'm going to beat up HardCarry for this.
Snow
over 6 years
Oh boy.

To those concerned about us overstepping our bounds, becoming less chill, and making a decision in tandem with the site mods because "lul they did it too!!!" - not the case. My personal faith in the site mods to make good decisions is nonexistent. The way the rules and enforcement of the rules has shifted over time just based on just who has/hasn't been a site mod bothers me so much. Unlike the site mods, we rarely ever ban anyone, and we hopefully plan to keep it that way. Ben's ban has to do with behavior that was reported to us by multiple different people - once you're upsetting several members of the community, that's when we feel like we need step in.

To those who think the lobby needs to be a utopian safe space - this is the internet. Not happening. Survivor lobby is not an idealistic shelter free from all negativity. If someone doesn't like you, you can get over it.

It's all about that happy medium. You shouldn't feel unwelcome because of harassment or excessive antagonistic behavior from that person who doesn't like you. That's where the 'safe' from HC's post comes in. But if someone is a little rude and you want them banned because of it, you should probably grow some thicker skin.
deletedover 6 years

plushy says

I don't know how or why bans work but when a player receives violations or warnings for their behavior, is there any kind of mod discussion with the player before the ban takes place? I say this because in BenKenobi's situation he got a lot of both positive and negative attention from his behaviors. It may have been confusing for him to know when he was crossing the line into bannable behavior. Pretty sure most of us thought his antics were annoying but also entertaining, and something we just kinda brushed off as "Ben being Ben." I wonder if some attempt at negotiating, coaching, or working with him would have helped him smooth out some issues regarding his bannable behavior while still allowing him to keep his personality. I know I have seen other players who have sworn, trolled, gotten into arguments, and made sexist/racist/homophobic comments who are not looked down on in this lobby because they are popular. I worry what kind of lobby this will turn into if we are working against people who don't fit in and sit at the cool kids table instead of appreciating them for who they are, and helping them to understand when they truly have crossed the line.


"I know I have seen other players who have sworn, trolled, gotten into arguments, and made sexist/racist/homophobic comments who are not looked down on in this lobby because they are popular."

tillie
over 6 years
@LelenasChild

this is actually really gross to read lol. it is sooo important to make this community a safe place. even just thinking back to recent events, do you think anyone would stick around if we let lukie go unpunished? just for the sake of a few more games being hosted each week? our community does a great job of stepping up and hosting games each week anyway?? and benkenobi has continued to ruin that for those who put in the effort.

i also can't believe you're trying to call hardcarry out when he does so much for this community even with his incredibly busy schedule. he volunteers his time to mentor people, he hosts amazing tar games with highspace, which they both put soooo much effort into, and if you check out his opinion thread he literally wrote 500+ word essays which shows that ya he does know the community lol.

the moderators work as a team, and in this case it wasn't even just the survivor lobby moderators that came to this decision, the main lobby moderators had a part in this too. if you are unhappy with this then you can file an appeal with benkenobis permission but you have no right to attack one single moderator for this united decision?

i'm just like really grossed out about this sorry that i'm really bad at writing and getting my point across but yeah i can't believe you would write something like this zero
deletedover 6 years
I don't know how or why bans work but when a player receives violations or warnings for their behavior, is there any kind of mod discussion with the player before the ban takes place? I say this because in BenKenobi's situation he got a lot of both positive and negative attention from his behaviors. It may have been confusing for him to know when he was crossing the line into bannable behavior. Pretty sure most of us thought his antics were annoying but also entertaining, and something we just kinda brushed off as "Ben being Ben." I wonder if some attempt at negotiating, coaching, or working with him would have helped him smooth out some issues regarding his bannable behavior while still allowing him to keep his personality. I know I have seen other players who have sworn, trolled, gotten into arguments, and made sexist/racist/homophobic comments who are not looked down on in this lobby because they are popular. I worry what kind of lobby this will turn into if we are working against people who don't fit in and sit at the cool kids table instead of appreciating them for who they are, and helping them to understand when they truly have crossed the line.
deletedover 6 years
BenKenobi blacklists people so it is hard to play with him when literally he blacklists everyone who votes him out.
LelenasChild
over 6 years

freshman says

can you provide screen shots of the bad things he has said


I haven't saw him slur, he made a point to only suicide after he was voted out, and we saw him state this multiple times in games, and when he has cursed at someone, he's apologised for it on the lobby wall. I think this is a joke lmao
deletedover 6 years
can you provide screen shots of the bad things he has said