LB3737 Tampering Punishment

[TomHanks]

Hello everyone

It has been brought to our attention that user @LB3737 tampered a member of the Bondi Beach Buccaneers on the forums.

The post in question:


In the official ISFL rulebook, tampering is defined as "a player...approaching a player under contract with another team...with the purpose of persuading them to join [their] team." HO has determined that this constitutes tampering as the user explicitly requested the other player re-join Portland. The post has since been edited so that the word Portland is struck through, but it is nevertheless an offense. HO has elected to issue the standard tampering punishment based on the following instances of precedent:
Retrospace Tampering Punishment
Retrospace Appeals Decision
Buttersquach Tampering Punishment

The punishment is as follows:

--A fine of $5m,
--A ban on holding a GM position for seasons 26 and 27, and
--HO approval needed if taking a GM position in season 28

LB is free as always to appeal this decision by reaching out to @manicmav36 or another member of the appeals committee. 


As an aside, I'd like to take a moment to re-iterate how the tampering rules work. If a player is under contract with another team, does not have a legally tamperable clause in their contract, and you do not have express permission from their GM, you cannot do any of the following:
Tell the user to leave their current team
Tell the user to join another team (especially your own)
Tell the user that they should retire

[zeagle1]

#FreeLB he ain't do nothing wrong he just stupid

[furiousPanda]

#FreeLB

[SchwarzNarr]

Man two punishment threads in such a short time. One thing is clear - the offseason of the Bachelorette made the league behave. This past offseason, no bachelorette, and everyone gettin' in trouble.

#bringbacktheBachelorette

[OrbitingDeath]

Oh god , DSFL free agency will be spicy. Lets see if he returns to Portland ...


#FreeLB

[ReverendOReily]

If there is no process for a player in the DSFL to leave one team for another (outside of those teams making a trade with each other), why is tampering a thing in the DSFL? What negative thing could have possibly arose from LB's comment? Are we afraid the player he "tampered" is going to request a trade? Last I checked, GM's are allowed to say no to trades.

[Arkz]

Applied.

[Jo3fish5]

Too harsh a punishment for such a harmless sentence

[slate]

Okay I realize I'm only coming out swinging on the ones where it's my friends/teammates getting punished, which probably isn't a great look. But come the fuck on.

It has been brought to our attention that user @LB3737 tampered a member of the Bondi Beach Buccaneers on the forums.

Specifically, a member of BBB who was his teammate as a waiver pickup before playing with BBB, which seems like extremely relevant context. Hence the word "back" in the post.

In the official ISFL rulebook, tampering is defined as "a player...approaching a player under contract with another team...with the purpose of persuading them to join [their] team." HO has determined that this constitutes tampering as the user explicitly requested the other player re-join Portland.

(Emphasis mine)

Now this could be me giving an extreme benefit of the doubt to my teammate, which I fully recognize may come across as biased, but I have a very hard time reading that purpose into the post. In my mind it's much more likely to have been a new user, who wasn't completely familiar with the (quite long and somewhat difficult to find) rulebook, expressing fondness towards a player who he used to play with in a way that he didn't realize would break any league rules.

I understand it's a public post on the forums and so HO has established a precedent where it needs to be punished because Zamir called them out for being biased previously, but the punishment seems massively disproportionate to me.

Just because it's obviously tampering to heavily involved league users doesn't mean it's obvious to new users. Punishing them for things that seem harmless if you don't know the rulebook backwards and forwards is a great way to drive people out of the league.

[infinitempg]

If there is no process for a player in the DSFL to leave one team for another (outside of those teams making a trade with each other), why is tampering a thing in the DSFL? What negative thing could have possibly arose from LB's comment? Are we afraid the player he "tampered" is going to request a trade? Last I checked, GM's are allowed to say no to trades.

"Hey man just bank all of your TPE while you're on your team and demand a trade to my team!"