Harassment With Staff Present

**Kaiwan**

Offenders' Names: Slater, Chibill, EpicGuy

Offenders' SteamID: STEAM_0:0:90030088, STEAM_0:1:92904246, STEAM_0:0:69946133

What Server(s): Dinkleberg's Trouble in Terrorist Town

Offender's Rank: 1 Test Mod and 2 Moderators

What They Did: Ignoring Harassment

When They Did It: Monday, October 24th

Potential Witnesses: Screenshots With Potential Witnesses Provided

Proof (You must have VIDEO and/or Multiple Screenshots as proof*): https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1...nknown.png
The entire event began when a random joined and started harassing me and calling me slurs. Everything they said was through voice chat, and unfortunately I did not get a recording of it. The player was given one warning for slur use after I brought it to the attention of staff (I told them multiple times in VC and Admin Chat before even this was done) and faced no other punishment. It is possible another player recorded this event.
Fanta decided to join in harassing me with the screenshotted message in text chat. This message was either not seen by staff, or ignored. I PMed Fanta to ask them for an explanation, since they are a Donor and not just some random player. Fanta proceeded to confirm they meant what they said, so I went ahead and used Admin Chat to make staff aware of the comment. Even after this nothing was done about the harassment.
As the night continued Fanta sent more messages doubling down on the harassment, again with no sign of a reaction from staff members. (Attachments provided as proof)

A Quick Note: Although Moocow was present for the last example, I did not include them in the list of offenders as they had not been on during the previous instances of harassment. Since they did not have this context it would be unfair to consider them negligent in regards to this incident.

Other: This is not the first time I have been harassed on the server, either by misogynists, transphobes, or those who simply don't like me, nor is it the first time it has gone unpunished by the staff members present. I do not have evidence of every single instance, but I do for this one. My hope is that going forward I will not have to be subjected to this type of behavior while staff simply stand by and watch.
I also want to make it clear that I'm not trying to call out these specific staff members, again this is only the most recent example. I know they are capable members of the staff team and I'd find it hard to believe they simply don't care about what is happening. That doesn't change the fact that it IS happening, and it happens A LOT. Just because it's their names up there doesn't mean they are the only ones responsible for how bad it has become.

**Icey** · 10-25-2022, 12:55 PM

The comments made by Fanta were degenerate and I'm sorry that something wasn't done about it yesterday. Thank you for bringing this up!

~~lacer~~ · 10-25-2022, 01:01 PM

To say the least, these messages are just disgusting.

While the most that will come of this is probably just a warning for staff to not ignore this stuff, it may be wise to make a ban request on fanta for it as well.

**Gabe**

wow, those messages are disgusting. No one deserves to be talked to like that in a genuinely demeaning way. I'm sorry that happened to you and that more was not done in the moments it happened. I’m glad you brought this up. More should be done about the offender too as a result of this.

I'm looking forward to hearing from the staff members that were on and get their side of the story so we can see what happened from their perspective, if anything is missing here, what went wrong, any communication issues, and how we can all do better next time. In general, it's no secret that we need to do better as a community when it comes to handling harassment, both as players and staff. Absolutely should be something that is not allowed to happen. There’s no excuse for something like this not to be handled at the time, it should have been. But I am glad to see in EpicGuy’s response at least something was attempted to be done, but obviously wasn’t enough. But now we know what we can do better next time.

We need to handle it better and be proactive in preventing it from escalating and punishing it accordingly when it does happen, which imo harassment and any of its forms should be taken the most seriously. So this is certainly a larger issue that needs to be addressed too. This also includes staff actively paying attention to what’s happening in the text chats/or admin chat too, since it’s entirely possible there was a disconnect between you and the staff rather than them just ignoring it(which I hope it wasn’t ignored). Sometimes things can unfortunately slip through the cracks. Which in cases like this, it absolutely should not ESPECIALLY if it was sent in admin chat. The situation should have been handled better and more clearly at the time, there’s no excusing that.

I think the staff team is more than capable of handling harassment, it’s just a matter of doing it the right way. Such as making sure we’re having situational awareness and clear communication with the person who is reporting it. Also knowing what is harassment, there should be a clear line and definition rather than questioning if something is "gamer talk" or something silly like that.

Edit Chibill's video: I think it's disheartening that the admin chat seemed to be ignored, no one was typing in adminchat about what Kaiwan said after she sent that. A discussion about that ideally should've taken place IMO or one of them saying that they would talk to Kaiwan in PM. I'm wondering if any of the staff members online PMed Fanta about that after and told him to stop. But it seems inexcusable that not more was done in the moment for this. Better communication among the staff/Kaiwan too to check if anyone was handling it at the time should have happened IMO. Lack of communication during this incident seems to be a BIG factor.

also obligatory lame forum staff disclaimer to pls not derail the thread and keep it on topic bc this is a very serious topic. (:

**Nazu(s)** · 10-25-2022, 01:13 PM

Wow.

I'd love to hear what the people on the podium have to say about this, extremely disappointed is an understatement.

**coco** · 10-25-2022, 01:27 PM

I'm sorry this happened to you, people can be so nasty. Nobody deserves to be spoken to this way. Hopefully we can figure out where the disconnect was by staff so this doesn't go unnoticed again!

**dero** · 10-25-2022, 01:27 PM

regardless of anyone's opinion of someone, nobody should ever use transphobic, homophobic, or racist comments to put another person down. this situation (and many others) was handled extremely poorly, especially being that staff were asked multiple times to intervene. this is extremely disappointing to see.

@slater @chibill @EpicGuy
i would like to see what yall have to say.

**Ryan722** · 10-25-2022, 01:29 PM

This is a pretty egregious case, though I know that sometimes staff don't see everything or might not pick up on the intended malice in player's comments, especially if the server is particularly hectic. That being said, I'm sorry this happened and continued to happen, especially given that you mentioned it to the staff online.

We'll see what the staff present have to say, as I'm sure nobody overlooked this issue deliberately (if at all). Regardless, I agree that the staff, as a team, should be more proactive about handling harassment (especially repeated harassment directed towards the same player(s) by the same player(s)). I for one will definitely keep a closer eye out for hateful shit like this.

**Jammin** · 10-25-2022, 01:34 PM

Probably should propagate this to a ban request as well. I'll try to handle it if I get home tonight at any sort of decent hour.
That being said I'll withhold comment until the staff involved can comment.
It's possible things were missed/folks were tabbed out, but posting in admin chat multiple times without resppnse is not exactly chill.

Do you or any witnesses have full video? It would help to have more context on who was alive vs dead, if the staff involved were AFK or actively playing, etc.

**Kaiwan** · 10-25-2022, 01:37 PM

(10-25-2022, 01:34 PM)Jammin Wrote: Probably should propagate this to a ban request as well. I'll try to handle it if I get home tonight at any sort of decent hour.
That being said I'll withhold comment until the staff involved can comment.
It's possible things were missed/folks were tabbed out, but posting in admin chat multiple times without resppnse is not exactly chill.

Do you or any witnesses have full video? It would help to have more context on who was alive vs dead, if the staff involved were AFK or actively playing, etc.

I believe Chibill usually records while playing, so once he responds to this it's possible he can provide a video giving us context from his point of view.