Before I begin this post I want to state for the record that I and many others within this community are grateful for the tournament directors and the large amount of their time that they willingly give to maintain the consistent flow of such an important part of our community. But after the most recent and past incidents that have occurred within the tournament aspect of the site, I feel compelled to start a discussion regarding the way the tournament director team operates around tournament bans, more specifically in regards to the appeal processes in place.
When a user is banned for any form of cheating in tournaments with the evidence being logs, it should be standard and logical sense that the banned user be allowed access to the logs used as evidence if the user is appealing. How is one expected to appeal a ban when not one shred of information was given as to what specifically warranted it? Appealing is more often than not a futile practice with a dead end, with the only response received from TDs being:
when this reply can be used again in "a couple months'' and you're never given a genuine chance to make a half decent appeal while you're being kept in the dark about your own logs. I understand that prioritising both the safety and privacy of a source is of utmost importance during an investigation, as TDs shouldn't be required to turn over all the evidence they have if doing so would jeopardize a source. However, this is very easily avoided as the evidence that is used is usually, if not always, the logs between whoever is appealing and other users, which means there is nothing new that they will see. Furthermore, removing timestamps and only providing the raw text would guarantee the anonymity of the source, thus allowing a level playing field for both the source and the appealer, who would now be able to see what specifically got them banned.
I also do not think it's fair to use the term 'indisputable logs' when neither the public nor the banned user are able to access said logs. It gives the public an impression that these users are guilty without a doubt and paints an unfair image if the TDs also refuse to provide the evidence. A scenario that occurred during the last SPL (Kenix Ban), which most are familiar with already, when evidence was shared with the community the TDs received a large amount of backlash which more or less forced their hand to reconsider the ban and change it. This was only possible by virtue of having made the evidence publicly available, hence avoiding an unjust ban (as established by popular demand).
To demonstrate this, a good baseline would be using the cases of three recently banned users (CBU, Amukamara, FU SHUN HA)
Amukamara received a 3 month-long ban for encouraging banned users to alt for tournaments. He was unable to receive any details whatsoever on his logs where he told friends to attempt to alt and cheat the system. These logs, whatever they may contain, could easily be taken out of context. Every person on this site is old enough to make their own choices, and are solely responsible for their actions and whatever consequences follow. Amukamara has also been a long time contributor and council member of the UU community and this ban likely puts his position into question.
CBU was banned for ghosting and immediately removed from slam playoffs. He was already in slam playoffs and also happens to be a previous UULT winner, so logically there's little sense in accusing him of ghosting for a tournament that he's already won and therefore has little stake in competing in or helping others to compete for. Even with irrefutable evidence of CBU cheating according to the TDs, they provided him with none of the evidence that implicated him doing so. There is even a log of user Lilburr
admitting that they have access to CBU's logs and stating that he isn't guilty of ghosting from what they see. This in particular is a surprise as somehow CBU can't have access to his own logs and be removed at such a late stage from one of the biggest tournaments but they can be given to other people who have no involvement with the investigation.
FU SHUN HA was also banned for ghosting and received the same punishments with the addition of losing his roomauth in the Overused room on PS!. In their appeal, they give a very in depth timeline from the before the beginning of uult and till the uult playoffs, including that he had about a total of 6 games in the tier beforehand. FU SHUN HA actually took part in uult and states that all of their games during that cycle, which could be viewed publicly by anyone at the time, were played with respects to the rules and they also states how they had minimal activity after the tour progressed to the playoffs. Just like CBU, they never received any of the indisputable evidence and goes on to request them also.
It is also important to consider the fact that each of these banned users no longer have access to any arguably incriminating logs due to the deletion of the server containing them. The onus for the server's deletion can only be placed on the owner of the server in question, not upon chat regulars who have no control over any server management. This emphasizes the point of the TDs withholding evidence from said banned users, which in turn severely limits their respective appeal processes.
Moving on to another issue I’m really concerned with is the inappropriate manner displayed by one of the TDs, specifically Perry, as I can not speculate on whether the rest of the team have similar qualities as him.
Perry's way of investigating potential rule breaking is bizarre. Take the most recent circuit tournament bans for example. The banned users were told to not appeal by Perry. Why?
Or the last Snake Draft, where Perry showed no interest in helping Ewin with his appeal. The TD had already made their decision, and refused to listen to Ewin. TDs are supposed to stay neutral.
Below are some examples of Perry displaying inappropriate behaviour.
A TD shouldn’t have any authority to deny an attempt to appeal. In this specific log he says “As it’s pretty damning” which makes no sense as he’s already reached a conclusion before there has even been an appeal made by the user.
Here we have a part of the appeal response by Perry to Ewin, who doesn’t speak English as his first language, where he bashes and mocks the user for getting help in creating his appeal. Perry’s other replies to the user here make no sense and are void of the professionalism expected from a TD
For context there was an ongoing discussion within the uu discord about the recently banned players from uult to appeal with. Here Perry pops in displaying unprofessional behavior for a member of the TD team again
Despite all this I still reiterate my initial sentence that we are all very lucky to have so many people willing to give their time to manage and oversee the tournaments that take place here.
I don’t think it's entirely on the TD team for the way bans and investigations are handled, but mostly due to an outdated system that hasn’t but needs to be changed. Yes, smogon isn’t a court of law but this doesn’t mean there should just be a disregard for maintaining a standard of care for users who are banned or are suspects in an investigation. The current appeal process puts you in a position where you are being directly reviewed by the people who banned you and are incentivised to keep you banned rather than a neutral party, this is an extreme lack of oversight issue that needs to be changed. In an actual court of law you are at the mercy of a carefully selected neutral enough jury or a judge who above all else wants to set good precedents and law. Appeals only lead to dead ends especially when all that’s necessary for you to be denied from appealing by Senior Staff stating that "the investigation was warranted and the decision can be perceived as valid so you remain banned". Essentially any investigation can be deemed as valid if there is any circumstantial or easy to manipulate evidence.
Overall I think there are several things that need to be changed. These include a re-evaluation of the appealing system, how investigations are conducted and most importantly, who we promote and allow to have the power to make important decisions involving these investigations/bans. Hopefully these suggestions are properly considered and hopefully implemented to provide the appeals system with a higher degree of logic and transparency compared to its current levels. Of course, not every banned user is completely devoid of responsibility but in the end, everyone does deserve the chance to properly appeal their cases to the best of their abilities.
When a user is banned for any form of cheating in tournaments with the evidence being logs, it should be standard and logical sense that the banned user be allowed access to the logs used as evidence if the user is appealing. How is one expected to appeal a ban when not one shred of information was given as to what specifically warranted it? Appealing is more often than not a futile practice with a dead end, with the only response received from TDs being:
when this reply can be used again in "a couple months'' and you're never given a genuine chance to make a half decent appeal while you're being kept in the dark about your own logs. I understand that prioritising both the safety and privacy of a source is of utmost importance during an investigation, as TDs shouldn't be required to turn over all the evidence they have if doing so would jeopardize a source. However, this is very easily avoided as the evidence that is used is usually, if not always, the logs between whoever is appealing and other users, which means there is nothing new that they will see. Furthermore, removing timestamps and only providing the raw text would guarantee the anonymity of the source, thus allowing a level playing field for both the source and the appealer, who would now be able to see what specifically got them banned.
I also do not think it's fair to use the term 'indisputable logs' when neither the public nor the banned user are able to access said logs. It gives the public an impression that these users are guilty without a doubt and paints an unfair image if the TDs also refuse to provide the evidence. A scenario that occurred during the last SPL (Kenix Ban), which most are familiar with already, when evidence was shared with the community the TDs received a large amount of backlash which more or less forced their hand to reconsider the ban and change it. This was only possible by virtue of having made the evidence publicly available, hence avoiding an unjust ban (as established by popular demand).
To demonstrate this, a good baseline would be using the cases of three recently banned users (CBU, Amukamara, FU SHUN HA)
I would like to appeal my tourban. I have never encouraged cheating during my time on Smogon, and have never seriously told anyone to do anything related to cheating or alting. I cannot even think about what logs you might have that would say otherwise, because I am so certain I would not do this. If I ever said anything about alting, it would have clearly been a joke (one that countless people make every day) that nobody would have taken seriously, but since I cannot see the context I find it hard to make a case here. All I can say is that I have been on Smogon for a long time, and not once would I ever seriously do any of these things I am being accused of. Thank you for your time.
Amukamara received a 3 month-long ban for encouraging banned users to alt for tournaments. He was unable to receive any details whatsoever on his logs where he told friends to attempt to alt and cheat the system. These logs, whatever they may contain, could easily be taken out of context. Every person on this site is old enough to make their own choices, and are solely responsible for their actions and whatever consequences follow. Amukamara has also been a long time contributor and council member of the UU community and this ban likely puts his position into question.
I would like to appeal in regards to the ghosting ban I received yesterday. The reasoning behind that ban was there were ‘’irrefutable evidence’’ against me. Said evidence were not provided to any of the involved people for reasons that have to do with policy. That being said, asking around many uninvolved people have not only publicly admitted they have seen said screenshots but also that there was nothing incriminating against me in regards to ghosting. Its not like I can dig up the screenshots myself because as you probably know by now the server was nuked immediately after the bans were announced. I am provided the chance to defend myself but at the same time I do not know what I am being accused of, while third parties are circulating the ‘’evidence’’ i am deprived of. Besides that, I really don’t understand why I would bother ghosting in a tournament I have already won in the past, especially after being on record saying multiple times I was not going to bother with it(chances are that this remark is stated somewhere amongst the screenshots that were leaked). Many of my friends were playing playoff games and I was speculating and commenting on some of their moves during the game, which doesn’t influence the outcome of the game in any way. The only other thing I can recall doing was telling someone to snipe a specific person and eliminate them, without getting myself involved in the actual game in the slightest. None of what I recall doing in that server falls under the definition of ghosting, so I would like to see those irrefutably incriminating evidence against me since neither me nor anyone else in that server seem to understand or remember what they are all about.
CBU was banned for ghosting and immediately removed from slam playoffs. He was already in slam playoffs and also happens to be a previous UULT winner, so logically there's little sense in accusing him of ghosting for a tournament that he's already won and therefore has little stake in competing in or helping others to compete for. Even with irrefutable evidence of CBU cheating according to the TDs, they provided him with none of the evidence that implicated him doing so. There is even a log of user Lilburr
Hey, I’m here to post an appeal on my recent tournament ban.
Amongst others, I was banned for ghosting during uult, for a total of one year. I will begin by outlining the happenings preceding the ban, which I'll then follow with my reasons as to why I'm making this appeal to begin with.
Our uufpl (uu farm premier league) server stayed active after our tour exit and uult came around weeks later, perhaps a month. I didn’t have much knowledge in uu other than about half a dozen games I had played between uu open and one sub game of uufpl, so I didn’t have much interest in attempting to play in uult. Despite this I noticed some of my friends in the server had qualified for 3/4 of the cycles that took place and I decided to give it a go on the final cycle. During that time I played each game legitimately and have no logs that indicate any sign of cheating whatsoever and I had also not joined a voice call during the entirety of uult. I was unavailable during majority of the last day to qualify and only had around 20mins to spare until the deadline and was unable to qualify for the tour. I left the server along with other irrelevant servers in annoyance planning to take a break from PS! and Smogon and joined back about a day or two later after being convinced by a friend to stick around for RCOP.
In the following days uult playoffs had begun and I took no interest and missed all games that took place live except the recent sunday game (TMM vs ProDigeZz) which my friend lost.
Not more than a week later I was banned for ghosting in uult. This is surprising to me specially when I can recall and view my uult experience in vivid detail. The only instances where I could have attempted to ghost or be ghosted were during the ladder process and playoffs.
As I’ve said all my ladder games were played legitimately nor should there be any cause for concern as they are open to the public. Secondly, my logs during uult playoffs show I wasn’t aware my friends had even lost or won, excluding the series I was able to spectate, which still resulted in a loss for my friend.
Tournament directors must prioritize the safety and protection of their source, which I fully understand, however, in this specific case the logs which supposedly incriminate me were all in a server I could directly view, so there shouldn't be any privacy issues in compiling the evidence (without the times stamps of course), and presenting them to me. Such would allow me to actually see what is specifically being used against me without compromising the integrity of all of the participants involved.
After speaking with a former td on the reasoning of "protecting the privacy of the source" I understand completely why the tds must take great precaution when sharing their evidence though I feel that if I can’t see what I already have in my possession this reasoning could be used to prevent me from being able to properly appeal now or in the future which would be unfair to me if I am factually innocent as I believe myself to be.
I’d appreciate it if there were some way like I suggested for me and the tds to discuss the evidence that is being used to ban me so I can have a chance to appeal without being in the dark.
Amongst others, I was banned for ghosting during uult, for a total of one year. I will begin by outlining the happenings preceding the ban, which I'll then follow with my reasons as to why I'm making this appeal to begin with.
Our uufpl (uu farm premier league) server stayed active after our tour exit and uult came around weeks later, perhaps a month. I didn’t have much knowledge in uu other than about half a dozen games I had played between uu open and one sub game of uufpl, so I didn’t have much interest in attempting to play in uult. Despite this I noticed some of my friends in the server had qualified for 3/4 of the cycles that took place and I decided to give it a go on the final cycle. During that time I played each game legitimately and have no logs that indicate any sign of cheating whatsoever and I had also not joined a voice call during the entirety of uult. I was unavailable during majority of the last day to qualify and only had around 20mins to spare until the deadline and was unable to qualify for the tour. I left the server along with other irrelevant servers in annoyance planning to take a break from PS! and Smogon and joined back about a day or two later after being convinced by a friend to stick around for RCOP.
In the following days uult playoffs had begun and I took no interest and missed all games that took place live except the recent sunday game (TMM vs ProDigeZz) which my friend lost.
Not more than a week later I was banned for ghosting in uult. This is surprising to me specially when I can recall and view my uult experience in vivid detail. The only instances where I could have attempted to ghost or be ghosted were during the ladder process and playoffs.
As I’ve said all my ladder games were played legitimately nor should there be any cause for concern as they are open to the public. Secondly, my logs during uult playoffs show I wasn’t aware my friends had even lost or won, excluding the series I was able to spectate, which still resulted in a loss for my friend.
Tournament directors must prioritize the safety and protection of their source, which I fully understand, however, in this specific case the logs which supposedly incriminate me were all in a server I could directly view, so there shouldn't be any privacy issues in compiling the evidence (without the times stamps of course), and presenting them to me. Such would allow me to actually see what is specifically being used against me without compromising the integrity of all of the participants involved.
After speaking with a former td on the reasoning of "protecting the privacy of the source" I understand completely why the tds must take great precaution when sharing their evidence though I feel that if I can’t see what I already have in my possession this reasoning could be used to prevent me from being able to properly appeal now or in the future which would be unfair to me if I am factually innocent as I believe myself to be.
I’d appreciate it if there were some way like I suggested for me and the tds to discuss the evidence that is being used to ban me so I can have a chance to appeal without being in the dark.
FU SHUN HA was also banned for ghosting and received the same punishments with the addition of losing his roomauth in the Overused room on PS!. In their appeal, they give a very in depth timeline from the before the beginning of uult and till the uult playoffs, including that he had about a total of 6 games in the tier beforehand. FU SHUN HA actually took part in uult and states that all of their games during that cycle, which could be viewed publicly by anyone at the time, were played with respects to the rules and they also states how they had minimal activity after the tour progressed to the playoffs. Just like CBU, they never received any of the indisputable evidence and goes on to request them also.
It is also important to consider the fact that each of these banned users no longer have access to any arguably incriminating logs due to the deletion of the server containing them. The onus for the server's deletion can only be placed on the owner of the server in question, not upon chat regulars who have no control over any server management. This emphasizes the point of the TDs withholding evidence from said banned users, which in turn severely limits their respective appeal processes.
Moving on to another issue I’m really concerned with is the inappropriate manner displayed by one of the TDs, specifically Perry, as I can not speculate on whether the rest of the team have similar qualities as him.
Perry's way of investigating potential rule breaking is bizarre. Take the most recent circuit tournament bans for example. The banned users were told to not appeal by Perry. Why?
Or the last Snake Draft, where Perry showed no interest in helping Ewin with his appeal. The TD had already made their decision, and refused to listen to Ewin. TDs are supposed to stay neutral.
Below are some examples of Perry displaying inappropriate behaviour.
A TD shouldn’t have any authority to deny an attempt to appeal. In this specific log he says “As it’s pretty damning” which makes no sense as he’s already reached a conclusion before there has even been an appeal made by the user.
Here we have a part of the appeal response by Perry to Ewin, who doesn’t speak English as his first language, where he bashes and mocks the user for getting help in creating his appeal. Perry’s other replies to the user here make no sense and are void of the professionalism expected from a TD
For context there was an ongoing discussion within the uu discord about the recently banned players from uult to appeal with. Here Perry pops in displaying unprofessional behavior for a member of the TD team again
Despite all this I still reiterate my initial sentence that we are all very lucky to have so many people willing to give their time to manage and oversee the tournaments that take place here.
I don’t think it's entirely on the TD team for the way bans and investigations are handled, but mostly due to an outdated system that hasn’t but needs to be changed. Yes, smogon isn’t a court of law but this doesn’t mean there should just be a disregard for maintaining a standard of care for users who are banned or are suspects in an investigation. The current appeal process puts you in a position where you are being directly reviewed by the people who banned you and are incentivised to keep you banned rather than a neutral party, this is an extreme lack of oversight issue that needs to be changed. In an actual court of law you are at the mercy of a carefully selected neutral enough jury or a judge who above all else wants to set good precedents and law. Appeals only lead to dead ends especially when all that’s necessary for you to be denied from appealing by Senior Staff stating that "the investigation was warranted and the decision can be perceived as valid so you remain banned". Essentially any investigation can be deemed as valid if there is any circumstantial or easy to manipulate evidence.
Overall I think there are several things that need to be changed. These include a re-evaluation of the appealing system, how investigations are conducted and most importantly, who we promote and allow to have the power to make important decisions involving these investigations/bans. Hopefully these suggestions are properly considered and hopefully implemented to provide the appeals system with a higher degree of logic and transparency compared to its current levels. Of course, not every banned user is completely devoid of responsibility but in the end, everyone does deserve the chance to properly appeal their cases to the best of their abilities.
and talah also muted me during that discussion lol)after I asked to have perms to write removed spontaneously because I didn't want to engage in pointless discussions with trolls like starry again, and without any prior warning (about this talah lied, they said they warned me more times before which is false).
