Report on Kurt Kobean for blatant bias

[LeGerbs]

9 minutes ago, kez said:

I’m more talking about the amount of reports you’ve made recently on many different people, feels like your the only person’s forum posts i’ve been commenting on.

I could have sworn this is my report but okay.

[kez]

6 minutes ago, LeGerbs said:

I could have sworn this is my report but okay.

it is, but it’s in tandem with piklas’ ban/appeals/reports, to report Kurt; Trying to prove Kurt’s bias against him no?

[Rubik]

I get where you're coming from gerbs, I mean we've both seen this happen multiple times from he who shall not be named. That being said, I don't see that type of behavior here in the screenshots you've posted. I'm going to give kurt the benefit of the doubt and say we don't really know what his intentions were. His duty is to moderate the community and if that involves reaching out to victims to collect information which may relate to an active report, I don't see that as an issue. I don't see him encouraging the guy to respond in one way or another. I really don't see what this report is even about. Where in the staff guidelines is what he did not allowed? 

[Blue.]

I kinda gotta agree with rubik, if the screenshots provided showed him basically forcing people to agree to piklas killing them being a problem, or goading them into agreeing to how kert wants the situation to be, I would be right on top of that with a plus one for demotion. You know me I don't ever tolerate bias. - but this screenshot shows him asking what happened, the process behind the situation, then thanking the guy for talking to him after the guy mentioned how he didn't care. If it's true that kert has never done this for anyone else before - that is definitely odd, but there is a first time for everything. Do i get some odd vibes off how kert has responded to this report? Yea. Does that mean there is direct proof of bias with the substance for an actual punishment? Not really tbh, unless theres something im missing. It gives reason to keep a eye on them however, imo.

I think my issue is the response given by kert in this appeal. That shows more of an issue than any of these screenshots. When a report is made on you, you should bring all your cards to the table, not say you don't want to play on a server with this mentality. That's basically insulting the entire community and looks bad as a response for sure.

If anything - this report here: 

shows more about the kert/piklas dynamic than this report. I cant view any of the screenshots tho.

Edited April 7, 2025 by Blue.

[LeGerbs]

11 hours ago, Rubik said:

I get where you're coming from gerbs, I mean we've both seen this happen multiple times from he who shall not be named. That being said, I don't see that type of behavior here in the screenshots you've posted. I'm going to give kurt the benefit of the doubt and say we don't really know what his intentions were. His duty is to moderate the community and if that involves reaching out to victims to collect information which may relate to an active report, I don't see that as an issue. I don't see him encouraging the guy to respond in one way or another. I really don't see what this report is even about. Where in the staff guidelines is what he did not allowed? 

Let's take a step back here and look at how the ban was handled, the severity of the rules broken, and what had happened almost a day after the original ban was issued.

 

1. The entire sit was handled incorrectly which led to the obvious appeal on the forums. (ACCEPTED BTW)

2. The rules broken were not serious in any way. RDM is rarely taken serious on this server.

3. Why do we have a staff member who WASN'T involved in the ban whatsoever going out of his way to interview players ON DISCORD over a poorly handled MRDM ban. This has NEVER been done before because if the players affected actually cared they would've made a sit when it all happened. 

 

Now we're led to believe that magically all these players cared that they were RDM'd because a staff member used leading questions to "sway" these players into saying they were RDM'd ( A DAY AFTER THE BAN HAD TAKEN PLACE) This staff member has NEVER done this before for ANY other player and had even +1'd multiple other MRDM ban appeals that were similar to this one. 

 

This is a case of clear bias toward the affected player because he's well known. (for better or for worse) If this were any other case such as harassment, ddos threats, admin abuse, exploiting etc etc. I could totally see someone going out of their way to interview those affected. 

[Rubik]

1. nothing to do with this report. Totally different staff member.

 

2. Rules are rules and if there’s a report (ie sit) then staff are expected to use their discretion to determine an appropriate punishment based on the staff guidelines (which you helped to create as head admin). 
 

3. The staff member was collecting feedback to determine if the ban was valid or not to try and come to a “facts of the case”-based outcome and not hearsay. It would be no different than me reaching out to them and asking them to chime in on the forums report themselves with their pov. Totally optional, no one was coerced to do or say anything for one side or the other. 
 

As a mod, if I’m going to get demoted for reaching out to the victim of someone breaking the rules  to ask what happened, then what are we here on the forums for? If that was the case then all sits would be handled in game and that would be the end of it.

[1-800-Suicide]

27 minutes ago, Rubik said:

1. nothing to do with this report. Totally different staff member.

 

2. Rules are rules and if there’s a report (ie sit) then staff are expected to use their discretion to determine an appropriate punishment based on the staff guidelines (which you helped to create as head admin). 
 

3. The staff member was collecting feedback to determine if the ban was valid or not to try and come to a “facts of the case”-based outcome and not hearsay. It would be no different than me reaching out to them and asking them to chime in on the forums report themselves with their pov. Totally optional, no one was coerced to do or say anything for one side or the other. 
 

As a mod, if I’m going to get demoted for reaching out to the victim of someone breaking the rules  to ask what happened, then what are we here on the forums for? If that was the case then all sits would be handled in game and that would be the end of it.

The problem with reaching out after the fact and posting some random screenshots of discord messages with people who do not like me is that he could easily have just said something like "Say yes to the next question and I will ban piklas" then delete it, and stage the screenshot. I would 100% not have argued against them if they were ingame and doing as little as saying in ooc chat that i was mass rdming, but they didn't. They did not care until 2 days afterwards when kert kobean at the very least asked leading questions. This in my opinion makes it very suspicious, who cares about being rdmed 2 days after it happened when they didn't 10 seconds after it happened?

[Rubik]

It makes sense that if they had an issue with it, they would have made a report then and there. I agree in that it’s not something I would have done (reached back out to them later) but based on what he said about the report turning into a pissing contest that there was some urgency to get it closed. I think he was just trying to collect something he could use as the final verdict to get it resolved. 
 

I think if we want to conclude that what he did was wrong, then there needs to be some clarification in the staff guidelines to say once a sit is decided on and a punishment is given, its final. What he did is not against the staff guidelines. If this report is accepted then it will fundamentally change how staff operate because it sets a precedent that any time you try and collect feedback from one side or the other, you’re being “bias”. It’s a slippery slope to say that staff cannot reach out to victims involved in an active forums report for their POV on what happened. 

[1-800-Suicide]

16 minutes ago, Rubik said:

It makes sense that if they had an issue with it, they would have made a report then and there. I agree in that it’s not something I would have done (reached back out to them later) but based on what he said about the report turning into a pissing contest that there was some urgency to get it closed. I think he was just trying to collect something he could use as the final verdict to get it resolved. 
 

I think if we want to conclude that what he did was wrong, then there needs to be some clarification in the staff guidelines to say once a sit is decided on and a punishment is given, its final. What he did is not against the staff guidelines. If this report is accepted then it will fundamentally change how staff operate because it sets a precedent that any time you try and collect feedback from one side or the other, you’re being “bias”. It’s a slippery slope to say that staff cannot reach out to victims involved in an active forums report for their POV on what happened. 

Forgot to add that kert only messaged people he presumably knows doesn't like me, booper scooper was not messaged for example, and he is very available on discord and neither was goatnuts. 

Edited April 7, 2025 by 1-800-Suicide

[Rubik]

I think there is some middle ground here where we can all agree that Kurt overstepped some boundaries and should have left it to the banning staff member to handle. The issue is that the sit was presumably not handled properly to begin with and some additional work was required to make sure everyone involved had a chance to speak their side.
 

Moving forward I think there should be more of an emphasis on the standards and quality of sits (I’ve been pushing this for a while) and leaving it up to the banning staff member to do any outreach if necessary.