Staff Report - Silencer_pl

[Gandlhoff]

Staff Report

Your BYOND Key

Gandlhoff

Date of Incident

March 9, 2022

Your Character Name?

John Williams

Their BYOND Key

Silencer_pl

Approximate time and date of the incident

7pm

Which Staff Protocols (//showthrea...-and-Protocols) were broken

I have no idea what your protocols are, but this was a total abuse of power.

Description of the incident

I have been playing on this server for two years, it was the second server I ever played and the server I learned to play BYOND on. I have played for litteraly hundreds of hours through all sorts of roles. All under the name John Williams. Never once has it ever been a problem and not once have I ever tried to compose music while playing and or do anything to act like the composer "John Williams" I have played on this server so much as this character that I have seen other John Williams in OTHER BYOND servers that are not even played by me.If my name was really an issue then why has it taken two years for an admin to notice? I have been bodyguard to wakahama windmaker, on multiple ops. John Williams is the only thing less generic than John Doe. There is no way this breaks any rules and if so why has an admin not asked me to change my name until now?

Evidence

If my character name is acutally breaking rules then so is a character of the admin that is forcing me to change my name. The discord has told me that they have the name "Cassandra Reed" as one of there characters.

What resolution are you seeking?

I just want to play with my character that I have hundreds of fond hours and memories and friends made with. If for some reason my name is deemed rule breaking than I would atleast like the admin to also have to change Cassandra Reed's name as I feel staff should be more subject to the rules than anyone else.

[silencer_pl]

Fun fact: After looking through the logs, I found that you are at least the 5th CKey to use that name which should say something.

My decision is based on the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Williams

There is just no way that your name will not be recognized by people playing on our server as the composer who among other things wrote the soundtrack to Star Wars and Jaws. Its unfortunate that no one saw this earlier, but that is not exactly something that makes your name not unacceptable per our rules.

As for my character, they are completely accidentally named after a side NPC in one of the Deus Ex games. Something that I demonstratively had no idea about and have the receipts to prove that I always played characters with the surname Reed when I was starting out on CM and still do. It is multiple times different in scope than your character name.

[Gandlhoff]

So the same person who is trying to ban me in game for using this name is the same person I have to deal with in the forums? and you have only been a forum member for a month longer than me? I would like to deal with a different admin of actual server seniority over me. This feels like a police officer handling his own arrest. I just want to use my name that four other people also use. Clearly no other admin has ever had a problem with it until you have shown up. Also Cassandra Reed isnt just "coincidentally" the name of a character in whatever video game you are talking about which after your explanation I clearly can see now where you got the name from, but there is also a very famous singer named Cassandra Reed as shown here.

https://concord.com/artist/cassandra-reed/

The fact you are being such a hypocrite is actually crazy, I do not understand why someone like you is an admin. I guess it's because people like me just wanted to play the game instead of telling people that cant have the names they want.
The name does not break any rules, it is a very classic north american and english name. Thee only reason it is now a problem is because you have made it a problem.

[NGGJamie]

Logs of the conversation:

Starting off right at the gate, Silencer's conduct does not appear to be abusive in any discernible way, and it does align with our naming rules as they are written. Staff reserve the right to tell someone they need to change their name based on a rational judgement that the name is famous, unrealistic, or not conductive to a roleplay environment. How long someone has used a particular name is not relevant, as staff don't pay particular attention to every name in the player list, and not every player bothers reporting it. Even if a name is used for years, it still must be changed if staff requests it to be changed.

However, in your paricular instance, I believe an exception can be made solely on the grounds that both "John" and "Williams" are common names. Both names are so common, that they could be picked by random selection and have a good likelihood of someone using them by pure chance. In that sense, so long as you are not actually trying to play as Star Wars Composer John Williams, you may continue to use that name. This exception is unique to names that are particularly common, so someone coming on the server and trying to say they picked the name "Keanu Reeves" wouldn't pass the sniff test, nor would someone named "Samuel Jackson" who plays a character identical to Samuel L. Jackson, despite both names also being common. These exceptions are completely held at staff discretion.

Finally, after looking up the name Cassandra Reed, I find nothing indicating that the person mentioned is especially famous. I only found the singular page about that particular artist, and Spotify seemingly gave me a completely different Cassandra Reed, who gets a whopping 58 listens per month. As such, Cassandra Reed is not famous enough to require change.

Closed without any action taken against Silencer_pl.