(09-04-2024, 07:03 PM)bryanbrr Wrote:

(09-04-2024, 06:56 PM)TDawg4 Wrote: Will say that I was not made to post it. I also want to emphasize that the whole team supports this post.

Also, I think that I can provide a somewhat less biased answers as I was not involved in the initial ban decision.

There is a problem if you are the only admin on the team who can provide an unbiased answer.

Staff is told at the beginning that they may have to ban their friends one day and there can't be bias. Its disappointing to hear that proper were not taken to begin with. Even with multiple former senior staff members who should have known better to guide the decision. It seems that there was heavy bias in the decision to initially ban Battons and Jack. What a shame.

(09-04-2024, 07:15 PM)dong Wrote: Thank you, Tdawg. One question though. Are there going to be punishments for those who threw out heinous accusations that had no merit?

(09-04-2024, 07:28 PM)Battons Wrote: Actually, I have more I would like to say.
No admin will give me any form of evidence or explanation other than “harassment” and community banned me for 3 months.
None of you ever approached me to try and investigate whatever the issue was.
I explicitly asked one week ago when I was informed of this, to be completely and utterly excluded from any self pat on the back post about how you guys are “gonna do better” or whatever justifies your mental illnesses. You ignored that request. I have no idea what mental gymnastics you did to think it was ok to ignore someone’s request when it directly involves them.
You do not care about victims, you do not care about doing the right thing. If you did, you would’ve instantly unbanned Jack as soon as you learned you all were lied to. Despite me providing both evidence and a literal name you have REFUSED to take action on the person who started the false accusations against Jack.
All you did, was give a dopamine hit to the brain rot twitter rejects that already hated me justification for their hatred when I have and will continue to declare I’ve done nothing wrong. As far as I’m concerned this is all made up.
At least Addressing toxicity had the fucking balls to give me some evidence and proof I did something wrong even if it was stupid. Somehow, you have managed to fuck up worse than they did and that is the literal laughing stock post of the community.
Lastly, you blocked me from defending myself at every single opportunity. You never asked my side, didn’t give me any way to find evidence to disprove claims. Locked my appeal without telling me so I couldn’t answer questions in my own words, and now continue to violate personal requests for your own gain, and reopen wounds for what? Your own pleasure?
I have nothing further to add at this time.

(09-04-2024, 07:03 PM)bryanbrr Wrote:

(09-04-2024, 06:56 PM)TDawg4 Wrote: Will say that I was not made to post it. I also want to emphasize that the whole team supports this post.

Also, I think that I can provide a somewhat less biased answers as I was not involved in the initial ban decision.

There is a problem if you are the only admin on the team who can provide an unbiased answer.

Staff is told at the beginning that they may have to ban their friends one day and there can't be bias. Its disappointing to hear that a proper investigation was not conducted to begin with. Even with multiple former senior staff members who should have known better to guide the decision. It seems that there was heavy bias in the decision to initially ban Battons and Jack. What a shame.

(09-04-2024, 10:43 PM)Jammin Wrote: This highlights the need for significant change in how these things are investigated, how communication is handled between alleged victim and alleged harasser, and how appeals/defenses are handled. The fact that this happened is outrageous. I laid out some ideas in the past, but if you want my complete thoughts feel free to DM me.

If what is said is confirmed true, and the "victim" of Jacks wasn't a "victim" whatsoever, strong actions need to be taken. They can be taken privately, no need to announce it - but faking being a victim of harassment invalidates the voices of legitimate victims of harassment - and God knows there's a long history of that bullshit in this community.

On the point of not reaching out to the accused, in 99.9498382947227% of situations that's fine. If a mistake is made, an appeal can be made to correct it. That's why I categorized discord ban appeals during my time as 'Appeal of sentence (aka the facts are not in dispute)' or 'Appeal of ban (aka the mod messed up). The only reason to get their side is when the ability to appeal may be restricted - essentially a timed community ban (or permanent), which is what happened to Jack, and Battons, and others in the past. That's why it is important to make sure you give the accused a voice, to ensure the evidence isn't manipulated, out of context, etc.

Above all I'm hoping we can move on, but I really hope that Jack is given the apology he is owed by the individuals who owe them, and that Battons is left alone.

I hope these two bans will be a one-off mistake, and that the underlying issues that caused this (e.g. not getting thr other side) are swiftly corrected. It seems kinda funny, my comments made privately to the admins when Jack/Battons were first banned, and when they first appealed, are somewhat vindicated now.

Additionally, I'll just say that my respect for Jack, in terms of how he handled this situation this year, has risen immensely. If I were in the same situation, I'm not sure my response would have been handled as well as he handled it even with his response. Jack wants to move forward, and I'm all for it. Jack could be making a much bigger deal about this situation than he is right now - his maturity through this should be a positive influence for other as we move on. (Just don't look at his shitty fantasy football teams, Jesus Christ that shit is bannable)

Also thank you for allowing a discussion thread on this topic to remain open, and thank you for removing the shitposting (and hopefully warning/restricting as needed to ensure this thread remains open).

(09-04-2024, 05:39 PM)TDawg4 Wrote: In the case of Jack’s ban, we learned shortly after the ban that our primary “victim” had been lying to us (the admin team) and lying to their friends regarding Jack and close to everything that was going on with him and between them.

Then after the events of April, the team was provided more evidence from the person in question. Additionally, other evidence was gathered from a few others that Jack interacted with. This evidence was used to enact the ban. The ban was heavily based on the merits of the original issue brought but additional information that came in was contributory.

A few days after the ban, Jack reached out to one of the admins and provided his side of some interactions, leading us to find out over time that the majority of our evidence was intentionally cut to avoid context and other exculpatory messages to certain claims were not included. This revelation was the reason for the reduction of the appeal time. 

Over the time period between then and now, even more information has been found that proved the "victim" was lying to the admin team from the start, including leading some of the “victim’s” close friends into believing them as well.

Additionally for a significant piece of evidence, the person submitting the evidence had a misunderstanding as to what the evidence was to be used for. They have since clarified their position changing the team's perception of that evidence. 

(09-04-2024, 10:29 PM)Dildo Shwaggins Wrote: I think a lot of this tumult ever since the April drama explosion has been the result of converging Dinks-adjacent spaces having disagreements that blow up in Dinks spaces. I've been on record for finding the admins' handling of occurrences in adjacent spaces being less than optimal (my views align with RyanHighman on this, he's better at writing things like that out than I am for one, but refer to his posts on that topic).