(I wonder if such offensive arrogance has ever got him in trouble…?)
I don't look forward to the response this will get from the banned player, since I fear it may include more of the behaviour which got him banned twice before. However, I don't believe a one-sided statement with false accusations that attempt to hurt others’ reputations should be unjustly allowed to stand alone. I will make a statement in defence of the slandered victims in this drama. I know this will not help me at all and I am likely at high risk of being targeted by the banned player, but I do it anyway to defend the innocent. I apologize that this is long but that’s because I don’t want to ever revisit the subject with comeback responses.
You can avoid reading the full length of the text with this summary:
The banned player was banned for real reasons, and all his accusations are part of an abusive pattern that resulted in the ban in the first place, and all people he names and accuses are innocent.
I. RE: Andreas and FreeCiv-Web
1. In the first incident, we are led to believe that Corbeau was banned merely for calling Andreas a "PR Disaster". The implication is that Andreas is excessive and petty. However, I later discovered the following: There was a long sustained pattern of abrasive arrogance and insulting in which the recurring pattern was to be put "on notice" for a halt. Whereupon, Corbeau was temporarily put on suspension to be immediately re-instated pending the rather gentle requirement of an apology and some sign of acknowledgment that insulting disrespectful arrogance would be halted. Because he refused to make the simplest statement of "hey sorry, I'll try to be respectful going forward", you could say that Corbeau voluntarily chose to "ban himself”. Far from being petty, Andreas showed magnanimity and later gave Corbeau amnesty without receiving any apology or statement of good will to tone down his abrasive arrogance and dramas. {Note that the banned player then used this "self-banning" as a martyr-victim tool to promote drama and try to hurt the reputation of Freeciv-web and Andreas. Note also he proudly stated he preferred self-banning (and letting his allies down and 'betray' their months of game play), rather than just say 'hey sorry, I'll try to be more friendly and respectful going forward.' }
2. In this second incident, he was also not banned at first. Not learning from before, there was a long pattern of behaviour in the game including disrespect, slander, and cognitive abuse (gas lighting, trolling, etc.) This was radically more subtle and severe than any text he cherry-picked for his post. A player was going to quit the game because it was no longer fun for him, and this player explained to Andreas why this was. This runs counter to Andreas' goal of trying to attract and retain a larger community having fun, so it put Andreas in a difficult situation with respect to a player who already had a long past history of abuse. With what I believe to be measured and moderate fairness, Corbeau was given a nice and gentle
warning about it. Not a ban. Once again, instead of altering behaviour and deciding on friendly respect, he
again chose to voluntarily "ban himself" and yet again attempted creating another of his own “Drama King" PR Disasters for Andreas and the community. Indeed, the reason we have an ugly drama here again is because he chose it instead of a very simple decision to be nice and reconciliatory. Drama 2.0 included many one-sided spun statements and false facts intended to damage Freeciv-Web, Andreas, the player Schwartz, and he even threw in a slander shot at me. (I had been in repeated contact with him about toning down his abrasive behaviour and offering coaching on how to improve his interactions.) Many play the game on a daily basis with no issues. Corbeau gets them repeatedly. I let the audience contemplate if there might be a reason for this other than a conspiracy of multiple lunatics to randomly target Corbeau.
II. RE: The player Schwartz
1. This was the fourth 'incident' of Corbeau souring players in tech/embassy related deals in the area. Note that this is completely legal gameplay not punishable by anything other than "in-game karma": i.e., poor relations with neighbouring nations. Note that in the game in question, G8, the banned player started with good relations with all his neighbors which all became poor relations.
Whereas Schwartz has good relations. So, this particular Truth Check will deal more with false accusations which slander Schwartz in the in-game context. Corbeau claims Schwartz agreed to either a one-sided embassy or to pay Corbeau in tech or gold for giving an embassy, and then in a completely random and crazy deranged act, Schwartz broke this deal and whined and complained to Andreas. However, truth checking Corbeau’s own text log and evidence from involved witnesses shows quite the opposite to be the case.
Schwartz wrote:
To be honest, I don't think giving tech for a unilateral embassy is a fair trade. If you want tech from me -- and I'm definitely open to that, so I'm not being coy -- I would need at least an embassy in return. I would ask for a gold payment as well, [...] I think information [from having an embassy] would be worth its weight in gold. [in response to the idea of Corbeau not giving an embassy unless Schwartz paid gold, Schw. makes the counter-position that a one-way arrangement would require Corbeau to pay him gold instead]
...
but again, I will not accept you establishing an embassy without at least giving an embassy in return. That's what I meant by information being worth its [weight] in gold -- otherwise, I would literally ask you to pay me gold to establish an embassy at my city Turtledove.
...
I want an embassy back from you right now, nothing else.
What was omitted from the banned player's story, (since it wasn't helpful in slandering Schwartz), was that Schwartz was to be an intermediary in a deal, and that Corbeau was supposed to simply transfer through Schwartz and receive back from Schwartz, tech from the other party. In anticipation of his previous habit of errant diplomatic behaviour, Corbeau was reminded of the terms of the deal and that an in-game diplomatic issue would be created if he tried to change the deal or piggyback the usual things into it that had soured other deals, or hinder the deal further (he had already not followed through in one aspect of the original agreement). In spite of this, Corbeau dismissed the previous agreement and tried altering the deal and demanded shared vision, Monarchy, the Wheel, shared maps, world map, etc., in return for merely transferring Map Making to someone else.
A week after all this, Corbeau's nation made no offers to return to the original deal or something similar to it, and continued using Schwartz’s “rejection” of the deal as an excuse to maintain an unwanted one-way embassy with Schwartz which by all accounts, including his own admission, represented a hostile act of one-way intelligence on Schwartz's nation. Because Schwartz understandably did not agree to the deal as altered and modified by Corbeau, the other parties for whom Schwartz was intermediary were also 'shafted’. As far as this goes, this is all just in-game karma and legal play, so all this revelation does is set the record straight for Schwartz's in-game reputation. Like it or not, it is a legal and allowed tactic to embassy someone, pretend to do a deal, change the deal to be unacceptable, then gas-light the other and use it as an excuse to have a one-way embassy to gather intelligence. I repeat again, it was and is completely irrelevant to banning or other out-of-game dramas and here we are only defending the victim from the the banned player’s abusive insults and slander.
Gas-lighting is a toxic psychological trick where you wrong someone then blame and insult them for your own wrong actions, or continue to say and agree to one thing while doing another, or appear to implicitly acknowledge their position then flip-flop in contradictory positions as a tactic to frustrate and befuddle someone, or insult them for having a position, actions, thoughts, or feelings that they don’t. This is not the only incident of gas-lighting from the banned player, and this is one of the more mild ones in fact. After Schwartz became upset about the deal, and Corbeau established an embassy in direct violation of his terms that it would require immediate reciprocation of the embassy without payment, or payment in gold if one-way, the following happened:
Corbeau wrote:
And, lastly, I will gladly give you embassy. That is the right thing to do anyway. However, that diplomat cost me 30 shields, which can be converted to 60 gold. So I would like half of that back. (* note, read above how this condition was repeatedly admonished prior to embassy establishment as unacceptable and that in fact Schw. would be the one requiring gold if the embassy was to be one-way. *)
…
And if you actually come to your senses, do send me a note. I don't hold high hopes because your last message seems like deranged rambling, but you never know.
The above is an admittedly mild example of his gas lighting, but the reason this was chosen is that this particular text is present in
Corbeau's own above-supplied text, so that the evidence is undebatable since it comes from Corbeau himself. Further gas lighting continues in posts above where Corbeau repeatedly takes it upon himself to falsely declare the position/thoughts of the other party, i.e., that he wanted the embassy under these terms of non-reciprocation without payment. Proof of this gas lighting is easy enough to establish with the text above or seemingly unnecessarily, a public statement from Schwartz. However, I want to stress that all this is completely unrelated to the banning drama. More relevant to the banning drama is the far worse text which for some reason was not passed on to us, which has Corbeau going on to slander Schwartz to other players, where terms like "deranged", "lunatic", and "idiot" were repeatedly used and spread around to slander Schwartz's reputation. One look at the tone of his posts above should indicate this is not so incredible.
This is not limited to some 'misunderstanding' over only this one event, but indeed, Corbeau used the same terms to describe all his in-game neighbours. The trolling and gas-lighting and slander were the reason the player felt like quitting. The violation of “be polite to other players” in combination with a long past history of abuse, were the reason he was given a gentle warning. I repeat, you cannot be banned for deceptive or unfair diplomatic tactics, strong-arming, or any other in-game aggression or tactic. You could be banned for a repeated pattern of arrogant insults and slander or “toxicity”, however. Rather than correct himself after Andreas’ gentle warning, the banned player predictably took the warning as an opportunity for yet another "drama king" voluntary self-banning martyr-victimology theatrical episode, to attempt to further insult and injure more parties.
To the audience: Please, please do not respond with something to the effect that anything allowed by game mechanics is legal and deception is part of the Art of War, so therefore what Corbeau did should be allowed and he shouldn’t be banned. We know this. This was to clear the record on false allegations on Schwartz’s in-game reputation. The “self-banning” was voluntarily self-imposed by Corbeau himself after he was warned about the other inappropriate behaviour of impoliteness, insults, slander, and psychological toxicity and chose to turn a gentle warning into an auto-martyrdom victim event to create a drama stage to attack and insult admins and other players even more.
~*~
Conclusion. (Or, how can we make something good from this?) I encourage the banned player not to attempt to further injure the above innocent parties, as this will truly ‘burn bridges’ for the possibility of reconciliation. I would encourage the banned player to show he is humble and respectful and able to make gestures which attempt to repair relations, admit mistakes, show good will, and a desire to set things right and back to friendly and fun. With the players Schwartz, this is just optional and shows gentlemanly good will. With respect to Freeciv-web and Andreas, though I have no power over any decision, I believe it would promote healing and increase the chances of eventual reinstatement. The world now watches whether he will respectfully reach out with good will and questions on how to create reconciliation, or publicly prove the truth of the charges against him by making further defamatory attacks.