It is banned.

shout out to Essentials staff, producers, casters, hosts and analysts for making this event possible
shout out to DCS and Sodium for running a smooth tournament & watching the Belgian GP with me
shout out to Gubbins for philosophising with me about the state of TF2 volunteering and walking me back to my hotel at ungodly hours, maybe we will go to the casino another time
shout out to morale for keeping me up to date with the latest F1 memes
shout out to CeeJaey, Mac, GrumpyKoi, Lucky, TurboTabs, JLEBS, Beater, jun0, twiikuu, yak, squirrel_BVC, JackWalms, AWJ and Lux for being lovely to talk to and hang out with
shout out to Rahmed for asking me to sign his shirt
shout out to supra for offering us (Polish?) sweets
shout out to BeaVerN for being BeaVerN
shout out to the B tournament teams for taking it seriously and playing some fun matches
shout out to everyone else I spoke to but forgot mentioning here
cu@ again soon

not a pic but still wanted to share this somewhere: https://youtu.be/BYEIdBK7KRs

https://youtu.be/VQoOqN32Vw0

https://youtu.be/Y0rk2ROJF-s

You weren't kicked for people complaining about you being a low div player on the AC team, you were kicked because during your trial phase it was decided that from the way you were interacting with the community and the general quality of your reviews and case responses you were being too immature and inexperienced at the time to continue in the position.

Senior Admins don't necessarily have to give input, they are just (beside the Head Admins) the only ones with ban rights on the site, so you need either them or the Head Admin to apply bans. They/I usually prioritize for the team which cases should be worked on with a higher priority and usually give input as well, but if the majority of staff has already agreed to ban a player the Senior can't just put a stop to the investigation or anything like that unless there are serious reasons for a re-investigation of the evidence, which I don't think has really happened before, at least not since I have been in staff. A Senior Admin doesn't have to give their approval on bans, that's not their role. During an investigation their opinion is not valued higher than that of a simple AC admin.

You edited this now after me correcting this error in a DM, but you wrote two months before your edit and you are on record saying it took three months in a public Discord. You have to be careful with details like this you cannot fully remember if you want to post a good critique that isn't misleading on a public forum.

I won't deny that some cases take "too long to solve", but if inactivity becomes a bigger issue this usually gets addressed internally and we'll try to find a solution. It's unpaid volunteer work done during a staff member's free time and if people are inactive for a month because they have important exams coming up we can't force them to do anything.
If one person made a big effort with an investigation that takes some work off the other members, but they are still expected to do their own research and look at the material themselves to make sure the collected evidence is actually worth anything and to add their own thoughts. People don't blindly follow the first poster, there are disagreements and further inputs all the time. Most of your own reviews back then resemble exactly what you complain about here, to be quite honest.
I don't know what you mean with "bigger profile" case. If you think some players are "obviously using cheats" then please report them instead of making vague references here.

If a trial wants to re-look at a case they worked on again we can make it visible for them if they ask us to. We have to be careful with new AC members seeing old case material because there is a real issue of people attempting to join staff to gain info, potentially share it with others, and then leaving staff again. Putting solved cases behind full admin permissions creates an additional barrier. The specific case I think you mean is back to its usual visibility state because the original purpose of it being hidden has been met by now.

I read some of your past public messages complaining about ETF2L AC being really dumb and a joke and our staff members being lazy, so I'm glad that you somewhat changed your opinion on us then.

I'd like to weigh in here. The ETF2L Anti-Cheat team does appreciate receiving constructive feedback even if it doesn't always seem that way to the community. I certainly prefer the constructive takes in this thread over stuff I have seen for previous bans from people with zero competitive experience who somehow still knew enough to commentate on ETF2L AC matters, apparently.
But unlike League Admins who are able to apply the feedback they get from polls or requests by testing or changing stuff up for the next season, the stuff we get is mostly about Anti-Cheat policies we absolutely cannot change. That we should share evidence or give out information regarding cases, for example. Or it is feedback that we are taking too long, acting too fast / that we ban people who are innocent, that we are biased and so on.
Due to the secretive nature of our positions we cannot talk much about our work, having to say the same thing over and over again to different people when we know it's not what they actually want to hear. You are frustrated, we are frustrated, but in the end this is just something we have to deal with because we know the negative effect it would have for AC otherwise.

To quote quintosh:

This cannot be stated often enough. You might not want to believe it without proof and I can't really blame you for that, it's good to remain skeptical sometimes. But if current staff members and previous staff members, some in this thread, say the same thing with different words I don't really know what else to say other than just believe that we aren't trying to bullshit you with excuses on purpose.
What I'd like to add as a different argument though is that we are also protecting our sources and reporters by not providing any information on what exact situation the cheating happened in. Revealing this can also have an effect not just in the trust reporters have for us but it may also remove our access to things that aren't really public knowledge if we share the sources, or reduce the value they give us for our own future investigations.
I cannot really comment on the "magic tools" we supposedly have, but it's really not as easy as that when investigating someone (sadly).
I think ban reasons were also mentioned in this thread. It's true that ETF2L had more precise ban reasons for cheating in the past, but in 2020 we decided to change the reason because they gave away what the AC team found, which seemed counterintuitive to our policy on information sharing, plus they might have led to some confusion in the community at times. A more general "Cheating" ban reason which the other TF2 leagues were also using seemed like the better solution.

AC admins make decisions to the best of their ability and understanding of the game, cheat tells and the case material, having policies in place to minimise the possibility of biased decision-making, requiring a majority of staff to agree with the findings without anyone pointing out a flaw in the investigation. If we have made any mistakes on any ban then we are genuinely sorry to those affected. We don't ban anyone for cheating simply because we dislike them. We judge the evidence that is available and only when we think it's conclusive enough we will ban, not before.
Now, Baud was mentioned in this thread, to which I'd just like to say that not only did he get banned for cheating twice and the bans were never overturned, but the decisions were also made by two different AC teams each time.

On the topic of perma bans:
Even with a permanent ban for cheating or getting 2 TF2 VACs it's not the end of the line, according to rule 6.2.1:

The players have to follow these requirements and they can apply for an appeal two years after their permanent ban. Spamming recruitment posts with... weird stuff is not the way to go.

We would appreciate a more general interest in Anti-Cheat because the numbers of people who would want to do it, have the time and are qualified for it is decreasing. We get applications where you question yourself if it's a serious application or a troll, the user has a questionable league history or you have to worry about potential ulterior motivations to gain information, or they only want to focus on certain divs or gamemodes when we need people for the entire league. League experience sadly also isn't really an indicator for how useful of an AC admin will be judging from test case results I have seen from high to top div players (not going to name anyone). People see blatant cheating when it's not happening, and miss the stuff we actually wanted them to see or at least consider when analysing demos.
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future, if no suitable replacements are found or they also left, that TF2 leagues will no longer have dedicated Anti-Cheat teams anymore and it might revert into some sort of weird mix of League/AC admin input like 2011 and before.
This doesn't only apply to EU, by the way. If any NA etc. players are reading this who want to give AC a try, please go for it and apply to your leagues.

I do wish that Valve would finally step up and do literally anything with VAC in TF2. Anti-Cheat generally has a massive backlog. Some cases are relatively "easy"; others take weeks or longer to investigate, meaning we have to prioritise while also not forgetting about the other cases we still have to work on. If you resolve a case, two new ones come in. Having VAC as a "backup" and a form of credibility (players banned for cheating who end up with a VAC later on) would help a lot, but that might remain wishful thinking until Valve shows a bigger interest in TF2 again.

It is, yeah. If you apply a ban for the year 9999 for example it just does nothing. It might/will be fixed at a later point in time, it's not a priority at the moment. If you see a 2037 ban on a player profile it's meant to be a perma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxDxkn1Onq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBJCgrrQhx4

Still, please replace Masi lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RfxNOGBN88

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/3679
I'm assuming we might be getting community CTF map(s) with some custom player/intel interaction for Smissmass this year, not sure why they would prioritise the issue this much otherwise unless it was just a very easy fix to implement to help map makers.
It's a nice thing to have, but it's just frustrating that issues like these remain open for years:
https://github.com/ldesgoui/comp_6v6_bugs/issues/1
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/2761
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/3340

Still looking for coaches :)
Edit: Also, if you think it's possible that you can do a shoutout about Newbie Mixes during your stream, on Twitter etc. to help bring more attention to us and getting new players interested, please reach out to me as well!

Adding onto this, be aware that most stores might be closed on Thursday and Friday (not sure if that includes supermarkets) as those days are public holidays in Denmark, so don't forget to bring important electronics like ethernet cables or power strips, adapters etc.: https://www.officeholidays.com/countries/denmark/2022
I remember us being a bit unprepared last time because Maundy Thursday is not a public holiday in Germany.

https://i.imgur.com/ynNgkHW.png

cu@