On another forum I frequent, before all other rules about name-calling, what curse words are acceptable or where you can or can't post giant gifs there is Rule 0: Don't Be A Dick.
You can follow every other rule to the letter and never 'technically' do anything wrong, but if enough people think, "Wow, this guy is a dick," then you get banned.
This.
If you have players in your community that actively antagonize other players for fun, you should stop them.
The current staff worked very very hard to ensure that there was a clean slate for the main faction already. Ame and Raz had driven away a lot of players and those players are now starting to come back again, even within moments of that decision. Are you saying Kim is biased? Fred? After Raz specifically belittled and threatened them just for doing their jobs? No. Reality check yourselves. This was a long time in coming.
I firmly agree with Reynolds. When we have poisonous members of the community who directly and repeatedly threaten people's plots those people need to go. Not the staff, who have been stellar. Not the mods, who have been fair, and you know they have. The people screaming threats and threatening to pull their art and money, or trying to use positions of power to get what they want, they go.
So Legix , Meta, reality check; don't be dicks on the Sarp Official. Never be dicks again. If you were one of those people screaming threats on the channel after Raz, possibly one of the most toxic people I have ever met, and his wife, who you know darn well was his wife and Wes's best friend and the only reason Raz didn't catch a ban for the numerous things he had pulled already, finally caught his ban? Try appealing that process to the people you insulted and belittled and quit gaslighting them like your bad behavior is their fault and I just bet they will explain their decision to you, take the time to listen to you, and then when they feel you are calmer and won't just go back to whatever behavior got you kicked in the first place, they will treat you fairly. I bet you just need to talk to them. This backroom stuff and appealing to Wes all the time like he is some sort of political tool ought to stop. Try sorting your issues directly with other members if you can, and that includes the mods.
You agreed the channel mods were fair in the first place and now they are doing their jobs and keeping the peace on the channel while Wes is going through this, while people are trying to stir up as much shit as possible. You are hurt. We get it. Everybody saw the like counters on the bottom of everyone's threads. Nobody made their "camp" secret. You probably feel a bit threatened right now and I don't blame you, I would too, but this isn't that kind of thing. I'm sure they would ask you to trust it a bit, and to trust them, because they put a lot at risk to give a lot of people the space to feel safe on the website again. There is an opportunity to build trust again.
So yeah I agree with you in a way, except I think the clean slate is here. Its time for peace and the mods you are trying to take dumps over have had to listen to all the reports about this for longer than you can imagine and I can personally assure you that eventually every single one of them save Ametheliana herself, who was in on it, to the same conclusion all by their own. They don't need replaced, they need uncollared. I can't recall how many times I've peeked into the channel to see Gunsight or Kim trying to gently solve problems and everybody ignoring them in favor of snark. They have patience like oxen. Doshii and Fred are two of the most long suffering people I know. Fred, particularly, is incorruptible and trust me, by God, I tried. Even when Fred is in a terrible position he will stick to his guns and see it all out to the bitter end.
But we get it, seriously. This last week has been hell on Earth for a lot of people who really love this website. I am trying to really meter my words here because I am trying to be sympathetic as opposed to combative.
You have lost friends too, here, but Wes is suffering the most out of everyone for having made this decision. Everybody is suffering here. Try not to make it worse by blaming the people who had to make those hard decisions. Someone told me when I was frothing angry earlier this evening to think of how all this must make people feel and I get that you are angry but it doesn't mean you have to try to burn everything down. The wound is fresh but it can heal. If anything there is less favoritism now than there has ever been, and more opportunity to extend hands and shake them, and work together for a better website. There is a hole here that needs filling and we need to fill it with a lot more trust and acceptance than has been shown over the last year or more.
Because, let me tell you, yesterday, I watched the impossible happen and Wes made me straight up eat my words. It took a lot of courage and fortitude to do what Wes did yesterday, and you know, Wes asked me to come back after I had already decided to leave and he spent a lot of time really listening to people who have felt harassed, bullied, and powerless over the last year or so. He held off doing anything for the sake of his friend, Ame, and when he finally decided to do something I was already out the door on another website along with the rest of my friends and the people who loved this website but hated how they were being treated. It surprised me. It still surprises me. I still don't quite trust what I see here as totally real. So I find the concept that the mods are the problem, that they need to be purged, like they are somehow to be blamed for what happened when in fact they had been dealing with it, unable to act, for months to their detriment and had finally had enough... no. His staff stuck by him through everything, even if they didn't seem happy doing it. I have to say they, too, are as patient as oxen, and make me ashamed to think I have a shred of that patience.
So this thread here? This isn't for taking out your personal vendetta. It's for figuring out how to prevent Wes having to make this hard decision between literally one half of his website and the other in the future, so if you can't come to this thread with a bit of forgiveness and forward thinking then don't post in it. Bury your hatchet. This website needs to move forward into less finger pointing and more trust all around and that means we need to each try to understand the other person's involved. I am even now trying to understand your hurt here. I know you just lost a lot of friends. TBH that is why I finally made the decision to pull stakes and it's actually a bit jarring to be back. I can only imagine how jarred you must be. If I'm dazed, it must be an understatement for you. But it wasn't their fault, and they don't deserve your blame.
Having said that.
Personally I want to see more transparency in the rules. I want to see why people are banned. When moderators moderate, I want to see a channel where they explain what rule is getting broken, and where we can see that the rules are being enforced. The backdoor way in which moderation had been conducted has always unnerved me. Once I was banned from the website for a month and managed to misunderstand why. I know other people's bans have been passed off as "vacations" before. It gives the impression nobody is ever punished for bad behaviour and it breeds this idea of favoritism a lot faster. I think it also makes leaders more consistent by habit and provides an example to the community. I think that measure would provide what you want, too; more accountable leadership with less favoritism.
Fair?
