h4rdc0r3 4 |1ph3

[Maddolis]

Peter, that is the strongest argument I've seen put forth by an LVP crewmember ever, by far.
Although I am not online often when they are doing more "extreme" flame, it is believable that they'd commit such actions so I won't bother arguing with the facts themselves, more around them.

A small fact-sheet to clarify the happenings which led to this, purely for the sake of emphasising that this ban is not solely about the flaming:

First of all, when you say the ban isn't solely about the flaming, I'd argue with that.
All those points (and many others made by the crew) have all been about flaming or related to flaming- as clearly none of them indicate cheating or bug abuse or many of the other rules I specified in my last post.
I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be banned because all they were doing was "flaming"- other people have had "permanent bans" from flaming- Terror and CrazieFurie just to name two.

• A total of 36 bans and 40 kicks due to flaming, swearing in general, racism, discrimination and disrespecting the LVP Staff.
  

I do realise its a large number of offenses, but from my perspective, if the harsher admins (or admins who put up with less crap than others) were online at the same time as many other users- Swifty, SoNiX, DMX- I can list 30- then these users would also have the same number of offenses (items on the log), if not more.

• shoebox offered the sum of € 2000 to a crewmember for banning four individuals from Las Venturas Playground, permanently.
  

This is one point I do not really understand- I'd jokingly offer $5000 to perm-ban four users at my discretion- it doesn't really seem like an offence to me. Perhaps you can elaborate on this point, unless it was thrown in to make the list look bigger.

• Nerd has made various references between LVP Staff and people who played important roles in the second World War on the German side (the nazi's), as well as saying that LVP Staff should die from cancer and aids.
  

The "die from cancer and aids" part I'm not arguing with, however using the Nazis as a metaphor for any community or organisation with an extremely tightly-wound leadership is very common. I wouldn't call that part bannable- and I've personally seen many others (including myself) compare leadership of LVP to the Nazis (without refering specific members to specific Nazis), such as in one of my recent CSI posts, as the 'Nazi' or 'right-wing' metaphor is very strong and gets the point across like nothing else. Basically Nerd isn't the only one who's done that.

• Spreading rumours and so-called "facts" about LVP Staff behind their backs, making fun of them.
  

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen or done that... heck I've also seen LVP Staff deal a decent load of crap onto other players (sure, not comparable with shoebox or Nerd- but in reference to this particular argument, more than enough).
Point is, shoe and nerd aren't the only ones doing this.

• shoebox blatantly tried setting up Terror so he'd get permanently banned as well (doesn't that beat the purpose of a clan?)
  

I heard that shoebox was "perm-banned" before this incident took place, so the point has little relevance to his own actual ban. shoebox and Terror know each other very well in real life, so it's not so much like he's trying to get his overseas internet-bud to get banned by giving orders, but more like he's having fun with his mate/letting the ideas flow or whatever.
Even still, this is a game and not real life- if a soldier in real life kills on their superior's order, the superior can cop the blame as well- however in LVP, Terror has a good deal of independence (like the rest of us), so its his choice in the end- you can't blame this on shoe too.
Using the same train of thought, I could say that I gave shoebox and Nerd orders to act like this, and swap bans with the two of them...


As I said earlier, it was and still is a very strong argument, but not flawless.
In the long run, I'm not arguing the fact that they got banned- I am merely arguing the length of the ban.
Perhaps a couple of weeks is necessary, a month max. However, a "perm ban" with a non-parole period of two months is rather over the top in my and many others' opinion.