Curious about application of administrative powers.

[grazr]

Today i'd like to report a suspect kick and potentially trigger happy Admin. You probably get this a lot so i can imagine there being a lot of rolled eyes at this complaint, but please take this seriously.

Today i was kicked for "spawn camping" by GTFOMaster.sar.fier.

The situation: Map = jagd, average player count = 6vs6. AA destroyed and Tank just destroyed, 1 satchel required to take out HT, access granted to back path to HT via recently completed Tank objective. I proceeded to use this flank to avoid nade spam and camping snipers and MG from Allies who have the choke locked down. 3 players exit spawn, last one notices, forced to shoot back, i get the kill. Battle takes place inside gameplay area and did not shoot players exiting spawn. GTFOmaster.sar.fier sees me take cover to reload as he exits spawn, fires rocket out of spawn, injures but does not kill me, i come out of cover to shoot him standing under the arches, proceed to objective; kicked.

I rejoined the server and asked why i was kicked without warning. I was told "i know what i did wrong, stop whining". Slightly offended at this point by unproffessional derogatory statement and uncooperativeness. Felt very much like a revenge issue and admin unwilling to objectively listen to me.

Allied players begin to take ground and fire rockets into Axis spawn. Ask same admin to do something about it, told to "stop whining" again. *wtf moment*

Just out of curiosity i reconnected to read the MOTD. There are no rules listed, let alone anything about spawn camping so it's not like i was "fore-warned" of hard administration that i should just roll over and die rather than be accused of spawn camping for returning fire at someone hiding in spawn. Irrespective of the issue my intention was not to spawn camp. I was top of the scoreboard with the most captures and highest kill count, i didn't need to grief an already half empty server. Most of the time i enjoy fair and balanced games on GTFO servers. 2 are in my favourites list.

I then came here and read through your rules thread. Again; nothing specific about spawn camping. A little mention about base camping in regards to final objectives, but nothing about shooting back at people sat in spawn. The rule seemed loose at best and a matter of general etiquette. In fact if i were to press the issue your admin was directly breaking rules by sitting in spawn shooting out whilst i broke no written rule by protecting myself.

server-rules-t89.html

I shot 1 person in spawn who shot at me first, he happened to be an admin and kicked me without warning. Refused to listen to me in game and proceeded to talk down to me when i needed his administrative help as a guest in your servers.

Now just to be clear i am also a server admin for several large communities including TF2maps.net, playstuff.net, as well as support admin for smaller privately run servers such as "Café of Broken Dreams"; additionally back in DoD 1.6 i was a support admin for the ED league, our clan server and several other "community watch clan servers" such as [WSAT] and [DA-UK]. I am not some punk with beef against admins, i understand what admins have to go through. But the understanding is that admin powers are not a means to an end and when used improperly alienate innocent players. They are not tools for revenge and being understanding invites people to your community, i am disappointed i had to come to the GTFO forums in order to lodge a complaint against one of your admins. I was kicked without warning for killing 1 player, an admin, who hid in spawn whilst shooting out at me. I'd like to call this extenuating circumstances considering i've been a guest in your servers without issue for months if not years.

What i'm asking is for this guy to tone it down. Tone down his attitude, tone down his admin power usage for misdemeaner issues that may or may not be in the wrong. I wont ask for an apology because as a fellow admin i understand sometimes mistakes are made, i wasn't so far as banned and/or re-kicked, but i didn't appreciate the rudeness ontop of it all. It'll be fine so long as it doesn't happen again (not trying to make unreasonable demands but i feel it's something that needs to be brought up lest it continue).

Sincerely, grazr.

EDIT: In fact, i found this image of my stats that show my recent performance on jagd. As you can see, 1 kill in spawn, which is your admin (The kill next to him was a mounted MG protecting the tank 1 or 2 rounds before hand).

http://stats.gtfogaming.co.uk/progress/ ... 000_en.jpg

[GTFO. master.sar.fier]

Hello grazr.
NR1 Jagd is a difficult map to run there are always various ways of looking at things, & special on Jagd.
I was not the first person you killed, while camped under our spawn exit.
Yes I kicked you out.
The first thing you said when you came back was: * wow, kick without warning, huh.
And I said, you know why.
If you play on Jagd you know that I run hard no one can camp outside the church or spawn exits. I, plays almost every night.
Feel free to think whatever you want, I think it's a shame, but when you come in here and accuse me of shooting from inside the spawn then I get pissed off.
This is not surprising if you were in the top of the scoreboard with the most capture and highest kill count, when you are along with the wall under spawn.

And this is bullshit "I shot one person to spawn WHO shot at me first, he happened to be an admin and kicked me without warning. Refused to listen to me in game and proceeded to talk down to me when I needed his administrative help as a guest in your server."

Then you went on complaining, I said stop Whining You said rofl

Then we had a player who camped outside church, I kicked him out too.

When I had kicked him out you went on to complaining that there was a player who camped
I said Stop Whining, he is already gone, after that it was a long silence.

The next time you camp outside the church or in our spawn exit, then I will not kick you out ...

[grazr]

Thank you for your response, master.sar.fier.

I appreciate you joining the discussion. However: Just because i play jagd does not mean "i know you run a tight ship"; how that is relavent or a logical resolution of thought i have no idea. More on topic though, If you were not the first person i killed outside spawn then how come the stats show otherwise; that in fact you are the only person i killed inside spawn. Are you stating that the server logs are incorrect? I killed 1 person inside the spawn, you; and I killed 1 person outside spawn, an MG protecting the tank 2 rounds previously. I honestly couldn't put it any straigher than what your server logs have recorded.

As for the kick without warning, am i not within my rights to complain about a kick without a verbal warning when there are clearly not rules to be read in regards to such a matter. It's not even that i was spawn camping, you just happened to shoot at me from the spawn area and i happened to be lucky enough to get the kill first when i returned fire. My lack of fortune was that you happened to be an admin and didn't like that fact.

If i am ontop of the score board you can think what you want about me, but this is no excuse to kick me from the server; it does not prove i am an exploiter, it does not prove i am a hacker and it does not prove i am breaking the rules; nor is my dominating you: this is clearly a motive to apply biased administrative action. Not a legitimate reason for authorative action.

I couldn't care less if "you are pissed off" by the accusation of you shooting from spawn. It's a matter of fact. You were shooting at me from inside spawn, when i returned fire and killed you, you kicked me. Not sure what else to say about it, with all do respect, Master.sar.fier.

Yes i did say "rofl" when you told me to stop whining, it was unhelpful, sny, uncooperative and unproffesional administration. It was like talking to a child in a playground who was self-declared "king of the castle", waving around a wooden stick, batting away at other children's hands as they try to use the slide. But i kept my mouth shut there after and brought my complaint here. I'm intelligent enough to know not to bicker in game with an admin "on a mission". So here i am, hoping we can discuss this with mutual respect and understanding now that (we) have calmed down from the ingame competitiveness (i would hope).

I'd also like to point out that likely as a result of my kick and the already low player count, 3 players dropped; which is partly the reason why i raise this issue. Your servers see a fair amount of traffic so perhaps this is a moot arguement but you're not only alienating innocent players on the recieving end of SM punishment but other players trying to enjoy the game just like everyone else. Personally i don't see how kicking a player on a low population server who "killed me after i began shooting them from spawn in a one off circumstance" and subsequently resulting in additional players leaving to higher populated servers was productive at all.

[GTFO. Bunny]

Jeeeeeez....I've had marriages shorter than that last post.

[grazr]

Sorry, it's probably too much considering what's being discussed. I just want to explain myself properly.

[GTFO. master.sar.fier]

Your whole argument revolving around the fact That Is not there a set in stone rule That wait for spawn camping, there is a reason for this, and That Reason Is that it's up to Admin's discretion to make a call on PeopleSoft spawncamping. The kick you got was to make you aware That what you were doing was not fair gameplay. It got your attention and you enquired as to the reason for your kick. Now in my experience of FOLLOWING These Sami strategies, I have Usually Been responded to by the person I kicked saying Either "ok sorry wont happen again" OR Having a Hissy Fit and bitching about abusive admins etc etc. Usually results Thing: Get a Further kick and / s ban. You Fall Into the Latter category. Admitedly server # 6 Does not Have as much of an admin presence as The Other Dods servers, but When Admins are present, They Will Do Their Job.

[grazr]

My issue isn't that there isn't a rule against spawn camping my issue is that i wasn't spawn camping in the first place and the fact that i was kicked for "spawn camping" despite it being a matter of discretion only exacerbates my frustration that this should have been handled more tactfully. It was a one off circumstance whereby you were shooting at me and i shot back. I consider shooting at people shooting at me fair gameplay and the fact that you decided to hide in spawn and shoot out was your choice and responsibility. It's unreasonable to expect me to let you just sit there and shoot out at me and not do anything about it through fear of SM repercussions, therefor the punishment enacted upon me was not only hypocritical but entirely unjustified.

Your retaliatory administrative action was purely self-motivated.

I am not so much aware that spawn camping punishments are skizophrenic, now, but that you are sensitive, quick to temper and difficult to talk to. My complaint is towards you as an individual, not your community rules or regulations (which apparently you don't even abide by yourself).

Spawn camping wont occur again because i don't spawn camp period; this is obvious just by looking at my player heatmap stats. i have nothing to apologise for or any habit to change to better fit into your community, I have done so successfully for months already. My only enlightenment today will be to avoid you as an individual, not anything related to your rules which i have respected from day one in the form of general etiquette and common sense.

Thank you for your time, i believe i understand the situation fully now. That you are spiteful, unforgiving, stubborn, unempathic and without integrity.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

Is this a joke? Yes you got kicked, yes it may have been without warning, did you kill a player exiting spawn, yes. Masters actions were justified, he was doing as we all do, admining the server. You may think that you were not spawn camping, but killing at a spawn exit then stopping there to reload doesn't sound like the actions of someone "passing". We have guidelines around spawn camping, not set rules, and they are at the discretion of the admin. Read this spawncamping-t7317.html
Oh, and stop whinning.

[grazr]

I was kicked feet away from capturing the HT objective, not sitting outside a spawn exit. If i was spawn camping, i'd have remained outside the spawn to continue killing unsuspecting players. That's what camping is, staying in the same place. I have been active all over the map for half an hour and your server stats demonstrate this. The joke here is your kick first ask questions later policy and unwillingness to listen and compromise with your guests. If you don't want to provide for public players then lock your servers and do what ever the hell you want in them. It'll save you kicking and banning us all. Moderation is more than just kicking and banning people. Or does your administration team not care about collateral damage by over zealous administration? If so then i'll just leave. Today i was playing in a UKCS server when an admin got shot exiting spawn as a player captured an objective, to which he groaned, only after the player continued to to shoot at spawning players did he then verbally warn him; and he stopped. This is what i would have expected from a respectable admin.

Your admin broke your own rules and then twists "etiquette" to suit his personal needs and impulses in the form of retaliatory SM action against people he simply doesn't like.

I clearly have no voice here. I was hoping your community would be more understanding and compromising and willing to discuss the status quo of administration, which as it stands is ruthless and unforgiving; but apparently not.

A one off momentary incident after half an hour of respectable play hardly calls for SM intervention. This is my dispute. But the impression i am getting is that you let your admins do what ever the hell they want without intervention from senior community staff; and i didn't even ask for it to go that far. I was just suggesting this guy tone it down. Instead i am told i am lying, insulted and mocked. Not the impression i was expecting from the public face of GTFO.

I have nothing else to add so if this issue is not going to be persued then by all means lock this thread if you dislike this arguement being drawn out. I'll just have to make sure i avoid certain GTFO members.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

I have nothing else to add

Ok

[Russian Guyovich]

I'm in agreement with sar fier and TommyBoy. Fair enough you think you weren't doing anything wrong, however an admin did and kicked you as a warning. I don't see why that justifies the essays you feel you need to post for something that wasn't even a ban. You should just accept the admin thought you were in the wrong and move on, ensuring what you were or weren't doing is not mistaken in the future. Also saying you were "insulted and mocked" just makes you come across as a whiner and doesn't help your cause.

We are far from being the strictest community and 99% of people who play here never have a problem with an admin's decisions. It only takes a brief look at the Bans section of the forums to see just how much work and effort the DoDs admins have to deal with and how many idiots refuse to listen to them despite warnings. Having admin experience yourself, surely you could sympathise with that.

[Troops]

Grazr i know what your trying to say, but i think your flogging a dead horse here.
At the end of the day it was just a kick, and if GTFO lose players coming to the servers because of rash decisions i think thats their own problem.

The trouble is that the DOD admins currently on GTFO servers are to put it mildly are very inexperienced and will just use there powers for random silly things. Iam not taking sides or saying that this was the case, but in general.

Majority of DOD admins dont even know how to view and judge wether players are hacking and will tend to just run to the stats pages to check, instead of the old fashioned dod1.3 way of demo/view demo etc.
This is mainly because of how the admins are recruited, which to be fair is because its a community rather than a clan.

/me now runs away to take cover from Tommyboy

[grazr]

I'm in agreement with sar fier and TommyBoy. Fair enough you think you weren't doing anything wrong, however an admin did and kicked you as a warning. I don't see why that justifies the essays you feel you need to post for something that wasn't even a ban. You should just accept the admin thought you were in the wrong and move on, ensuring what you were or weren't doing is not mistaken in the future. Also saying you were "insulted and mocked" just makes you come across as a whiner and doesn't help your cause.

We are far from being the strictest community and 99% of people who play here never have a problem with an admin's decisions. It only takes a brief look at the Bans section of the forums to see just how much work and effort the DoDs admins have to deal with and how many idiots refuse to listen to them despite warnings. Having admin experience yourself, surely you could sympathise with that.

Fair enough. Although being an admin is exactly why i came here so wound up about this. I have taken this very personally because of my admin experience and would never allow one of my admins to act this way (i have removed admins/support admins from my admin teams for repeated cases like this), if you aren't mature enough to take the responsibility of SM then you don't deserve it. It is merely my opinion that SM is a last resort, a warning is a warning, a kick is a kick, a ban is a ban. The fact that i had to rejoin the server to ask what it was for implies a certain amount of innocence to it, and being told "you know what you did" is exactly the kind of attitude i do not expect from an admin. I currently moderate 10 TF2 servers, and have probably moderated over 40 TFC, CS, DoD and TF2 servers over the past 6 years; i'd have never kicked anyone for such a one off misdemeaner offence. If this is how the servers are moderated then OK, i'm enlightened to this, i just never expected that to be the case.

Also, you're probably right, a kick doesn't warrant these essays, i just didn't expect to get brick walled so tactlessly so i became really frustrated over being told "you are wrong because we say you are in the wrong". Thanks for at least trying to explain stuff to me, i wont push this anymore.

[GTFO. Bunny]

I don't agree with the admins decision at all , infact he should be ashamed and quit or get pushed for such "lame" behaviour.
I think you used to have an admin who done something similiar and got slated by the rest of you....or did i dream it ....anyway .

Check out the stats admins, (you all have plenty of time I'm sure )
Grazr (jazz potato) kills 3 people leaving spawn ( i presume) and gets kicked within 7 seconds of the final kill, and 2 of those are rocket men who NEVER leave the base too far, lets be honest here, (thats because you don't have to run too far to get back to spawn and get more rockets or recharge your health....isn't that right Master?) "lame" behaviour if you ask me and not something a SM should do but anyway ....

7 seconds after the 3rd kill he gets kicked...which was the admin .....and you all think he's spawn camping ?...catch a grip of yourselves...he's on his way to the HT to get the obj. and if you get 2 mgs camped at sandbags, 2 rocketmen pointing those lame noob tubes at the obj and countless strings of assaults proned with shitty rates spraying then he did right to "flank" the idiots who are stuck on the allied team gaining rank for doing bugger all but "camping " the final obj.

I've reported hackers to admins that are in the server and it has taken longer to remove them, infact, they have left the server without taking action in the past so i can only presume that the kick was for killing the admin .

Grazr, I have read all your posts regarding this and you are correct, he was bang out of order and I believe you deserve an apology and it should never have got to this forum , should have been dealt with ingame.

No doubt this will be removed from public viewing or be responded to by some TF2 admin who doesn't know diddly squat about DoDs or the particular map or the circumstances regarding your actions in trying to win ....by the way , sometimes you are not allowed to win on GTFO DoDs servers because it's not fair on those who can't win.

Before anyone in authority in GTFO decides that I can't or shouldn't respond to this thread remember it is a public forum and my own thread about spawn camping has been referred to and taken out of context I may add because Grazr doesn't actually do anything wrong in my eyes and whilst you can lock it to stop it turning into a flame war remember the only people so far to start a flame war are the admins.

And as Troops says , Grazr , you're flogging a dead horse.
Good luck

But hey , it's only my opinion

Bun

[kyub]

LOL! I remember when DODS was good and I played it for hours every day. Oh look, still a GTFO beside my name. I think you're all morons.

[GTFO. master.sar.fier]

Nice to see you're back bun
And Bun thanks for the help last time.

[grazr]

No need to go that far, but yes, i'm flogging a dead horse now, which is why i said i'm not gonna push it and i'm done persuing the topic (i've obviously pushed it to the point where it's funny for all of you now anyway). I wanted to be civil about it but it seems i just made it out like i was "a whiner" by droning on about it paragraph after paragraph in my attempt to explain myself and the situation properly, as opposed to the normal "ZOMG admin abuse, you bastards!" that i'm sure you get all the time.

I've just never seen servers administrated like this where SM usage is used as a warning, instead of, you know, a warning. I was surprised and wanted to see if it was just one admin being zealous, a one off mistake, or a regular occurance. I am not a bad person, i play fairly as much as i can and this is the first time i've been on the recieving end of one of your admins and it's not like i wanted to shoot your admin inside his spawn. That's just the way it was at that time.

I feel like this has gone beyond formal to the point where you'll all just laugh about it and poke fun in game if i ever see any of you; which i guess is better than being kicked or banned. I enjoy your servers because i get decent consistant pings, it would be a shame if i had to leave them alone because of skizophrenic SM kicks.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

Fer fuck sake, some tool with only 90hrs total playtime gets kicked from a server ONCE, bitches and moans about it and it results in a thread like this? Can you imagine the bullshit, and thats what this is, utter bullshit, we would have to deal with if every person who got kicked made such a huge issue of such a miniscule event???? Get a grip the lot oh yee.

[grazr]

I'm sorry, i didn't realise my total play hours determined my level of treatment.

I made a complaint, you guys don't wanna hear it, i reluctantly get the picture, nuff said. If you're really that bothered, lock the thread. I was perfectly content with Russian Guyovich's response, it was polite, objective, informative and to the point. None of this "probable speculation" and "you're a nobody" crap. Sure, i can appreciate this is your community but pardon my confusion and culture shock. I came here to enquire and got my answer, it just wasn't delivered the way i was expecting. I was hoping to open a dialogue but you guys turned out to be real defencive about this kind of thing. It just took me a while to figure out this is what works for you, it took Troops and Guyovich to explain this to me properly because you admins were so intent on arguing the situation in what amounts purely to a difference in opinion. It's not often i meet a community that is run so unforgivingly.

If i've pissed people off then i'm sorry, i was pissed off too. Being upset doesn't justify making the fuss i made but i totally wasn't expecting it to blow up like this. This wasn't my intention.

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

Why do you keep asking us to lock the thread? You have said 3 times now you have said your last on the subject, do you have some sort of trolling addiction?

[SPA2TACU5]

Apart from any right or wrongs in this particular case - I don't know and I don't care,
I'm all for Zero Tolerance on Allied spawn camping @ Jagd. So bravo Master Sar Fier for being strict when it comes to that.

[GTFO. Avenger]

I'd just like to say all posts in here have some valid points, and that usually admins will take the stance of "ask first" whether it be by chat, private chat message, and/or voice and then proceed to kick/ban if the offence is repeated and/or warnings aren't adhered to. I personally do this 99% of the time in all the games GTFO host.
On this ocassion Master made the decision to kick you straight away as he percieved it as the common offence on the map, and it seems he was just a bit fustrated at the time and so you didn't recieve any prewarning. If it had been me, you would have been asked.

I'm not an expert on the map, but it seems bunny knows what he's talking about and grazr was only trying to cap an objective. So imo was an accident.
Also quickly shooting a rocket from spawn to take out a player that is stopping you from leaving spawn is perfectly legitimate imo. I have no problems with any class, when I do it or when people have done it to me e.g. on Donner or Jagd.

We do however as GTFO. TommyBoy said "...have guidelines around spawn camping, not set rules, and they are at the discretion of the admin." So in this instance you got the raw end of the deal.
If it had been me who was kicked I would have come back in and asked nicely, then procceded to say once told "I knew what I was doing" that I didn't understand, and get the admin to explain what the problem was. If he didn't then to just carry on the game as normal and consider it a small hiccup. If he did, then remember what he said the exploit was/where the exploit area was and avoid it. I could then have come to the forums and posted a new topic in the DoD:S section about the exploit or put a post in the spawncamping topic, explaining why you thought you were right to be there.

Thats my 2 cents on it anyway, and its a shame it caused such a problem for you grazr...

....by the way , sometimes you are not allowed to win on GTFO DoDs servers because it's not fair on those who can't win.

Not sure where you get that from? care to explain?

[GTFO. Sammo]

This is all lol

[arigatou]

The trouble is, the Department of Defense in the GTFO server administrator put it mild is very inexperienced, and will only use random stupid have the power.

[Rockford]

The trouble is, the Department of Defense in the GTFO server administrator put it mild is very inexperienced, and will only use random stupid have the power.

ermm....?

Where does one begin with this sentence?

[GTFO. Lost Sock]

The trouble is, the Department of Defense in the GTFO server administrator put it mild is very inexperienced, and will only use random stupid have the power.

ermm....?

Where does one begin with this sentence?

By putting it in my signature?

[GTFO. Systematic Slayer]

The trouble is, the Department of Defense in the GTFO server administrator put it mild is very inexperienced, and will only use random stupid have the power.

ermm....?

Where does one begin with this sentence?

By putting it in my signature?

Hahhahahahhah!! He just necro'd a thread about the LT server being down months ago... Seems like he/she is just bitching at admins.

[GTFO. Ragostini]

The trouble is, the Department of Defense in the GTFO server administrator put it mild is very inexperienced, and will only use random stupid have the power.