(more irrelevant posts removed)
Again, already... Will those of you that are not admins, or not Vertigo, kindly SHUT THE FUCK UP.
This is not a matter for open discussion and every wannabe rules-lawyer to start chipping in with their interpretation of things. It's for Vertigo to explain the accusation that has been made, and for the admins to respond. In some cases, we solicit open input from other affected players, but not on this occasion, because everyone only has opinions to offer, not facts.
We have been given facts from other sources who have told us that they have been approached by Vertigo with a view to joining his new server. Whilst he may not have handed out IP addresses and passwords, or made offers of inventory-matching or donator-status, that is not the point. The point is, he is using the servers operated by AltisLife.Co.Uk to promote, persuade, entice, interest, and attract (i.e. 'advertise') the existence of his server with a view to getting a head start when it comes to populating that server.
What makes it worse, is that (after initially telling myself and Wilco about his intentions to create a server) we made it clear to him that whilst we wished him every success, clearly, we would not tolerate any abuse of our goodwill if he attempted to promote his server on our systems. He agreed at the time that this would be silly - yet we know *for certain* that he has approached players here with that exact intention.
I find this duplicitous and deceitful at best - at worst, it's a complete disregard and contempt for the rules and a virtual 'two-fingers' up at Wilco, myself, and the rest of the community that have worked hard to make this place what it is.
I recommend that this thread be deleted once a decision is reached - I agree that it's unhelpful and counterproductive to have it sitting here acting as a 'de facto' advert in itself. But we pride ourselves on fairness and openness here - within reason - and so Vertigo gets his 'day in unban-appeal court' same as everyone else. He also gets a chance to demonstrate to everybody what kind of person he is - whether he is apologetic or unrepentant. Everyone else also has the opportunity to know the bare facts of why he was originally banned and the rationale behind it. I believe we have established that the VDM which was the trigger for the 'immediate action' was actually desync, but the fact is, we were made aware of the 'advertising' problem only a matter of an hour or so before - so the VDM ban was really just karmic timing. It would probably have happened pretty soon afterwards anyway, had it not been for the on-going event.
The thing is, I would personally be a bit sad to see Vertigo banned forever. He's a longstanding regular and a well-known player that a lot of people enjoy roleplaying with (even if he is, by his own admission, something of a bitcher when it comes to, well, practically anything, lol). I can live with that, but I'm not sure I can sit back and watch someone attempting to 'headturn' members of our community on to his servers, using our own communications systems against us. I would want some cast-iron guarantees that there would be NO DISCUSSION of his server on our TS or in-game, on pain of perma-ban - because let's face it, how would it be perceived if we did the same thing on his TS, or in-game on his server? Or on any rival, for that matter? It just ain't fair - full stop. It is simply 'not done' - here or anywhere else.
Wilco will have the final decision. I'm tempted to give Vertigo benefit of the doubt (after suitable grovelling and apologies, etc). I have sometimes had this kind of 'open-mindedness' used against me in the past, and I am something of a 'nice guy' in that regard, perhaps even when I shouldn't be. But I am also very good at enabling shitbags to 'show their true colours', by giving them enough rope to hang themselves, so it works both ways, sometimes.
It will all boil down (for me) to what kind of guy Vertigo really is: someone we can trust to do the right thing, or someone who's going to abuse his guest-rights here to 'steal' or divide this community. I await the answer with considerable interest and concern.
