1. Server/Platform: Skyblock
2. In-game name: DietPepsi22
3. Full exact ban message: you have been permanently banned from this server for racism/major griefing. Banned by Kyrux.
4. Did you read the rules: Yes
5. Why do you think you were banned?: I was banned for griefing another players island. I destroyed many spawners from their island (don't remember the exact amount). I was also banned for arguing about a genocide that happened in the past, and I was reported because the player did not like what I was saying. (this was the racism part of the perm ban)
6. Was this an incorrect ban: This was not an incorrect ban. I griefed another players island and ruined their hard work. I wish I never made this decision, and could go back and fix this. The second part was what confused me. I'm not sure if this is really ban material, but it is what it is. I was defending my home country, Armenia. Another player online was Turkish and we started arguing about the Armenian Genocide when Turkish Empire killed millions of innocent Armenian citizens. He denied this and I tried to inform him and got very mad about this. This was why I was banned for racism. I personally don't agree with it, but I was trying to inform and defend myself.
7. Were you ever banned before on SkyBlock? If so, what for?: Yes, I have been banned for scamming and swearing.
8. Why do you think you should be unbanned?: I personally think that I should be unbanned because I've waited about 8 months now. Leeeroieee told me that I should really take some time to think about what I've done. Over the 8 months, I have realized what I did was very unacceptable, and that behavior is not prohibited on here. It was my choice to break the rules and I really regret doing this. Unfortunately their is nothing I can do now as it happened last summer. I loved playing on this server and I miss a lot of the people on here. They've been trying to get a hold of me, but I am banned and faced my consequences. I think that my time away from this server is finally over, but that is only up to the wonderful staff team. Once again I am not just sorry to my victims, but sorry to the whole community because newer players look up to players with ranks and they think what I did was okay.

Sorry if you can't understand my appeal, I have a lot of trouble writing in real life and trying to work on that.

 

Hello Pepsi, thank you for taking the time to create an appeal.

As Laini is no longer a staff member, I will be taking over this appeal; however, all members of our team will be asked to reply to it as they see fit, as your situation is serious enough to require complete agreement among the team in order to allow you back onto the server.

I do not feel that it is necessary to go in-depth on each of your offenses, as they are rather self explanatory; however, to list some of the events that led to your permanent removal from this community, you:

• Harassed a player for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they were born in Turkey: something which they had no control over.
• Have been banned multiple times throughout your time here for looting.
• Have an extremely long history of staff disrespect, rude comments, and inappropriate behavior. I am not able to view your full history within my chat limit, and that is just in-game.
• Continually insulted players on the forums, after you had been permanently banned in-game, for similar offenses.
• Became a threat to this community, eventually resulting in a permanent removal from all platforms.
• Have been continually breaking the rules, even after being removed from nearly all platforms; not too long ago you stole a head from another player, and attempted to sell it to other players, under the pretense that you had owned it for years, and were just now trying to sell it.

Before continuing with this appeal, I would like to make it very clear that a successful appeal can only be achieved through complete honesty, and willingness to admit to your actions. You were not simply defending your home country, having a harmless argument with a player, or trying to respectfully explain the situation. Tonny had absolutely no intention of even starting the conversation with you, yet you deliberately sought him out, for no reason, and without any sort of provocation, just to post extremely racist, offensive, and rude comments, criticizing him for being born in Turkey, after you were repeatedly told to stop.

While other communities may have different rules, this is not the place to be insulting others due to aspects of their life such as their race, sex, personal beliefs, or country of birth. This behavior is strictly prohibited, and you had been warned on multiple occasions that repeating this sort of behavior would result in escalating punishments. Please be completely honest in your responses, as failure to do so will result in a denied appeal.



As your behavior led to a permanent removal from this community, I would like you to understand that you must provide very convincing arguments as to why you should be allowed back. You were removed for a reason, and will only be allowed to return, if you can prove that you have gone through a significant change, and are no longer a threat to the community.

I would like you to explain why you believe that you should be allowed back, how you intend to improve your behavior, as well as suggest ways in which you can gradually begin to prove that you have changed for the better, without giving you immediate unrestricted access to this community.


As stated near the beginning of this response, in order for this to end in a successful appeal, the team as a whole must come to conclusion that you are no longer a threat, and can be safely reintegrated into the community. I would like you to read through all replies and advice given to you by other members of the team, and respectfully answer any questions they may ask, as well as provide you own input, explaining how you intend to change, and what you can do to show that you have become much more mature since your permanent removal from the server.

This will be an open discussion with the team, and an attempt to come to a mutual understanding; however, if at any point, you begin to insult members of the team, other players, or lie to us about any past infractions or questionable situations, this appeal will be automatically denied and you will be required to wait before attempting to appeal again.

 

Okay Michael, I am going to answer your questions first, since you are the first to write something here.

Why I believe I should be allowed back: I believe I should be allowed back because, I personally think I've matured over these last 8 months. I know it's hard to say that, as I've acted very childish on my time with this server. Recently, I have been reading more books, and started caring about school. I always acted immature in school, and would always be sent to the principle. This school year, a lot of that has changed as I have started to care about my education. Same applies on here, except the principles are the skyblock staff team. My whole time on here I've had to be sent to moderators giving me punishments such as bans. I honestly think that I am no longer a threat to the people on here. If I am given the chance to come back on this server, my movement from immature to mature behavior will be very recognizable.
I intend to improve my behavior by to first stop being obnoxious in the chat. I have learned that being obnoxious in the chat starts disputes between players. It can result to swearing. I intend to be more calm and will not look for arguments as I did before with another player resulting in my ban.

 

Hi Mike, I know that you are very busy, but I just wanted to make sure you got my message as its been a couple days now.

 

I'm sorry for bothering you guys, this probably wasn't the best time to appeal because of the holiday, but may I ask for all staff members to give me their feedback on what they think I have to do to rejoin the community and what I need to do to demonstrate that I've changed.

 

Hi Pepsi, I apologize for the rather late response.

After some discussion with the team, we would like you to explain just a few more things before deciding the outcome of this appeal. As you are aware, your ban was for extreme toxicity and repeated inappropriate behavior, and these types of bans are not often lifted. In order to give you another chance, we must be absolutely certain that you are no longer a threat to the community, have shown honest behavior, and we must also be clear that any future infractions, especially for harassment related offenses, will result in an immediate reinstatement of your permanent ban, without an extremely small chance of ever being able to appeal in the future.

Before continuing with the appeal, I would like you to answer just a few more questions, for the team to review, and then hopefully come to a decision.

• How can you prove that you have changed your behavior? Forgive me for being so blunt, but your word is simply not enough at the moment, considering your history. You will not be immediately unbanned on all platforms; however, if you are able to prove your changed behavior through interactions on the forums, you may slowly gain access to other platforms as well.
• Have there been any significant recent situations, that either help exemplify how your behavior has truly changed, or would give us any reason to doubt your sincerity?
• Is there anything specific that you would like to include, or ask the team, before we decide on an outcome.

I would also like you to read through the server rules again, and restate all of them, in your own words, along with an explanation of why it is necessary to enforce the rule in order to keep this server a safe and friendly place. You must be able to show us that you fully understand the rules, meaning that you if your behavior has truly changed, and this appeal is accepted, you should have no problem avoiding infractions, which will ultimately lead to a reinstatement of your permanent removal from this community, with very little chance of appealing again in the future.

If you have any questions, or would like anything clarified, please feel free to ask us. I look forward to your response.

 

1) I understand that my word is not enough to prove that my behavior has changed. I personally think that the only way for me to prove that I've changed my behavior is by allowing me back on skyblock to show you guys. I do understand that I will not be directly allowed back on the server, but if I can at least get back on my forums account, I can show my positivity and that my behavior has changed. I understand that this is a slow process, and I can try to gradually come back to the community.

2) As I said earlier, I have matured in my life a lot this year. Especially in school, I haven't been getting in trouble as often as I used to my whole life. I have sat with counselors to improve my behavior. I can ensure you guys that I am responsible enough to control my behavior.

3) I would like to ask any staff members exactly what I need to do to work my way back onto the community, and if they could give me any feedback.

Rules in my own words:

Player Disrespect: I will make sure that I treat every player the way I want to be treated. Cursing and bullying will not be prohibited.

Chat Related Offenses: Do not try to get around the filter, do not swear or spam.

/Nick Abuse: Do not copy other players nicknames or set your nick as something inappropriate.

Extreme Chat Related Offenses: Do not be racist, sexist, or wish death upon another player. This can be very hurtful to another player.

Advertising and Inappropriate Links: Advertising other servers/websites is not allowed. Also, links leading to inappropriate content is not allowed.

Posting Malicious Links: Step up from the last rule, includes links leading to porn and IP grabbers.

DDoS or Account Hacking Threats: Do not tell players that you are going to hack them to try and get items.

Releasing Private Information and Doxing: Do not release phone numbers, social media usernames, private information, pictures, names, and ages of others.

Ban/Mute Evading: Do not log onto skyblock with an alternate account of yours if you are banned/muted on another account that you own.

Scamming: Do not try to scam another player to get money, in-game items, or ranks.

Griefing: Destroying other players islands, chests fill of materials, looting, and other things placed on an island that is not yours is not allowed.

Island Farming: Trying to keep resetting your island just to get the dirt/sand/lava bucket and putting it away in another chest to stock up on these items is illegal.

Inappropriate Names and Skins: Don't create a username that has an inappropriate name or get a skin that is inappropriate.

 

Hello Pepsi,

Thank you for your response. While I appreciate you taking the time to go through the formal appeal process, unfortunately, at this time, I do not believe that it would be the correct decision to allow you back on the server.

After some discussion with the staff team, even though you did go through the process of creating an appeal, and seemingly put effort into it, we do not believe that you have had enough time to significantly change your behavior, and have also recently been caught engaging in extremely dishonest activities, which does not reflect good upon one that is trying to come back from a permanent ban. You not only initially refused to admit that you were blatantly harassing a member of our forums for simply being born in a different country - something which he had absolutely no control over - but also tried to frame it as simply "defending" yourself in an argument.

I would like to make myself extremely clear here. If you take nothing else away from this experience, please remember this: Blaming a single person for a genocide, when they had absolutely nothing to do with the actual act, for no reason other than the fact that they were born in the same country is never acceptable, under any circumstances, and will not be tolerated. Members who do this are no longer welcome here, and I intend to stick to that policy. There was absolutely no reason to do this, and if you had been taking this appeal seriously, I would think that you would at least be willing to admit that there was no justification for your actions, rather than trying to act as if you were being attacked. You deliberately sought out this user, just to harass him, for his country of birth, which is very blatant discrimination.





This is only one example, showing one of the comparatively more civil comments from you towards this user; however, I fail to see how this could ever be seen as acceptable, under any circumstances. It was not his choice to be born in Turkey, nor did he participate in the alleged genocide, that you seemed to be obsessed with at the time. If, for example, you had been born in Germany, would you appreciate people on the internet spamming you with "filthy Nazi" for no reason? This sort of behavior is not permitted here, especially after being repeatedly warned to stop.



After looking through your history in more depth, and looking through reports leading up to your permanent ban, I would like to apologize for giving you any sort of hope that you would be immediately unbanned, and I admit that I made a mistake in continuing with this appeal for so long. You not only made extremely rude comments towards TonnyMaxper, but also were continually harassing Gamzee, even going so far as to make borderline death threats against him as well as extremely rude comments, in addition to multiple other infractions for either abusing your permissions or harassing random players on the forums.

While I am certain that there are more comments out there, if I felt it was worth my time to search for every one, I will paste just a few below:







Not only were you doing all of this, even before your permanent ban, but you were also, as stated previously, engaging in extremely dishonest activities, quite recently as well. We gave you multiple chances to mention the fact that you stole a JeffCiv head from another player, then proceeded to try to sell it to someone else, claiming that you had owned it for years, yet you tried to pretend that this never happened, indicating that you are not truly sorry for these actions, and do not believe that it is important enough to mention. In order for an appeal involving a permanent ban to be accepted, we must look for evidence that the player has truly changed their behavior, and has a genuine interest in rejoining this community as a new person; however, we have seen none of that throughout your appeal. While you definitely have put time into formulating your responses, you still refuse to admit to your previous actions, and seem to be only saying what you think we want to hear, which is an extremely large concern, as we cannot risk allowing a member that is going to continue to harass others to rejoin this community.


Throughout your time here, you have consistently proven yourself incapable of acting in an appropriate manner, have received multiple infractions on nearly every platform possible, and have shown a continuation of your dishonest behavior, leading me to believe that you do not truly feel remorse, and that you are simply trying to say what you think we want to hear, in an attempt to get unbanned and continue harassing members of this server. Again, as stated before, under normal circumstances, you appeal would be an excellent example, as you have seemingly been very respectful and doing everything that has been requested of you, in terms of questions and restating the rules; however, you failed to mention some of your most serious infractions, and also have quite a few inconsistencies in your story, along with an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting that you are not capable of truly changing your behavior, at this point in time.


I would like to stress that this decision was not made solely based on your previous actions, as that would be unfair, considering an appeal takes into account your previous infractions and attempts to give the player a chance to explain how they have changed. The screenshots posted above are just examples of your previous behavior, and your recent interactions on the server provide quite a bit of convincing evidence that you have not changed as a person, and would continue this behavior if allowed back. Our end goal is never to keep players banned; however, if we have enough reason to believe they are currently incapable of interacting with the community in an appropriate manner while using our platform, we must do our best to keep this server a safe place, and only allow back those who have proven they are capable of changing how they interact with others.



Currently, I do not believe that it would be in the best interest of the server to allow you back on our forums, as you have not yet shown a significant change in behavior, nor have you even been willing to admit your wrongdoings in the first place. You were permanently banned for consistent failure to abide by our rules, as well as continuous harassment and rude comments. Until we have reason to believe that you have truly changed, you shall remain banned. If you have any further questions, please feel free to send a message to any of our staff members, and we will be more than happy to answer them.


Please do not bother creating another appeal until you believe that you have had enough time to show a significant change in behavior.

Your ban appeal has been denied.
Thread locked and moved to Ban Appeal Archives.