[Dildo Shwaggins]

ever notice how the only people railing against cliques are all friends with each other? friends who back each other up for all sorts of nasty behavior? there is only one group here that displays cliquish behavior. but even that's not really true. my guess is that before you met each other, around 2015, you all had the exact same opinions about the exact same women in gaming, opinions you never grew out of. in other words, your complaint is that people share the same opinions because they are friends with each other. my contention is that people who tend to share the same outlook on the world tend to become friends. that doesn't mean that all people in the same friend group share the exact same opinion on everything, but it does mean that if you see yourself as the perpetual victim, you naturally seek out others who see themselves the same way.

I know you are speaking of a friend group I am a part of and I can tell you this is further from the truth, we call bullshit like we see it, even with each other. We disagree ALL THE TIME but we are all still friends, because we have the mental capacity to think critically about situations and understand that shit ain't serious all the time. I have told my friends when something they said is fucked up and they need to change, and they have done it vice versa. we aren't just a bunch of dick riders who hype each other up.

To add to this, as I know I’ve been associated as well, the idea that everyone has “the exact same opinions of the exact same women” is wrong too. Only speaking for myself, I don’t harbor genuine animosity towards anyone through this whole time. I’ve had vehement disagreements with actions, I’ve disagreed with approaches and actions, but none of it is because they’re a woman. My thing with “cliques” is that I’m totally fine with people having friend groups existing, but the communication on server affairs became so entrenched in adjacent spaces that many things that could have been prevented by talking about them in a common space peacefully (with mediation) didn’t get communicated and the tensions built up until they exploded- everyone taking sides because they only see and hear what the people they hang out with elsewhere feel and say. And this time around anything that happened on discord/forums from April onwards was at a point where it was too late for that and here we are still in a mess.

[dong]

I don’t think the clique v clique nonsense is the real issue here to be quite honest. You’d be hard pressed to realize that most of your targets don’t use pc or talk gmod anymore. I think the overall sloppiness and lack of real remorse from upper staff is what most people are concerned about from what I’ve read here and have heard way down in the tunnels. Almost everything since those bans have read like poor justifications and no real apology. Is it that hard to admit that it was rushed and that you were genuinely wrong? Use your big admin voices if you feel like the overall team is drifting towards the wrong decision. You’re supposed to be leaders not let yourselves get pushed over.

There’s also no need to drag in the other place considering most of the migrants left completely silent and without issue. The story that’s posted on this thread about that is very misleading.

[The Chuckster]

I don’t think the clique v clique nonsense is the real issue here to be quite honest. You’d be hard pressed to realize that most of your targets don’t use pc or talk gmod anymore. I think the overall sloppiness and lack of real remorse from upper staff is what most people are concerned about from what I’ve read here and have heard way down in the tunnels. Almost everything since those bans have read like poor justifications and no real apology. Is it that hard to admit that it was rushed and that you were genuinely wrong? Use your big admin voices if you feel like the overall team is drifting towards the wrong decision. You’re supposed to be leaders not let yourselves get pushed over.

There’s also no need to drag in the other place considering most of the migrants left completely silent and without issue. The story that’s posted on this thread about that is very misleading.

I second that opinion, I feel like a lot of this mess has only been exacerbated by the utter lack of an apology. I feel like a big part of being an admin is to be capable of reaching down from your glass tower and leveling with the people below. Of course there is always going to be some level of disconnect between regular users and staff, but helping to remind people that you are human as well and still are not some infallible being who is always perfectly justified is, in most cases, going to produce more trust in the admin team than just blindly trying to move past existing issues.

I also share the sentiment that if the admin team was essentially able to make such an error, something needs to change in some capacity in order that such miscarriage of leadership doesn't happen again. Not necessarily qualified as to determine exactly *what* change is needed, whether it be in procedure, individuals in leadership, or otherwise, but some reflection is necessary in order to determine the root cause. Whenever such reflection is done, I would personally love to see some ownership and accountability taken over what happened and hopefully an actual apology, for whatever that is worth.

Until then, I don't think the airing out of the administrative process by dumping DMs on a forum post is the solution, nor do I think the immediate resignation of the powers that be is the solution either. People are capable of learning if they allow themselves to reflect and show a little consideration for others.

[J@CK XDDD]

Last thing I will say,

First, to echo dong (haha get it?) most of the people that I talk too dont really talk gmod we mostly talk about football or anime and occasionally when something happens in dinks (lets say this post) then it becomes a topic for a bit but then things quickly change topics after a little. Second, im not here to make this any bigger deal then it is nor do I ask people to speak for me as throughout all of this I have said my Dms are open and im willing to talk about things with anyone if they wanna ask me about stuff, ive told the admins before i was banned, I tell everyone now. Third, would an apology from people who publicly humiliated me in the lead up to my ban and the follow through of the ban despite not once asking me for my side on the matter mean something to me? absolutely! will i get one from those people? I dont expect too, for one reason or another even if I am innocent in this situation, im not like by some in this community and thats fine as their are people I dont like as well but that doesnt means I wouldn't talk to them nor try to find some middle ground where existing in the same space wouldnt be possible. This situation hit me hard when everything happened because of what people said about me and accused me of being and when its vocal and public it really made me question myself for a little bit, but then i realize through it all who are really there for me when the chips are down and isnt quick to throw me out and listen to me and make their own decision and for that I am forever grateful to my friends.

I do not have any enemies and I dont dwell on what happend and thats all I have to say and yap about! My dms will remain open for anyone if they wanna ask me anything as well

  

[coco]

I debated whether or not I should post this, slept on it, and decided that the community could use some transparency right now. It's absolutely not my intention and never has been my intention to get anyone into trouble, cause drama, or drag out any drama unnecessarily. I just feel like I owe it to Jack to clarify some details about the situation.

After sharing screenshots in a private discord, I was approached by an admin in DMs asking to resend the screenshots there and asking if they could share the screenshots in admin chat. I said sure, shared the screenshots again and said all of the following- "i don't want them publicly posted', "like i feel bad using those against him cause as u can see i respond to uncomfortable situations with 'lol' rather than 'please stop making me uncomfortable' lmfao so i feel like i cant really hold it against him too much but yeah", "he apologized for everything", "i don't really care we're cool' (referring to Jack and I).

Now, logically I should have known that sharing them with the admins meant something bad would come of it, but I was genuinely just trying to be helpful and didn't really think twice to consider what the consequences might be or what they would be used for. Had I been told that they would be used as evidence for a ban on Jack, I would have absolutely specifically stated that I did not want that and those were not my intentions when sharing the screenshots. I had no idea Jack was 'under investigation' or anything of the sort. Do I feel like the admin should have been more forthcoming about what they were being used for? Maybe, but the blame is not entirely on them, because had I thought twice about the situation I would have connected the dots.

I absolutely admit my fault here in certain aspects of the situation. I should have never shared the screenshots to the discord in the first place, my intentions when doing so weren't ever to get Jack in trouble, my intentions were purely just an immature 'look at this awkward interaction haha' and I never ever should have shared them for a laugh at his expense. I deeply regret it and recognize how shitty it was of me, and have absolutely learned my lesson.

An important takeaway here for me (and everyone I believe) is that context is soo important in situations like these. While the screenshots themselves may have not looked great, they did not include the context of the situation, which was that in a stupid effort to avoid awkwardness, I failed to ever let him know that I was uncomfortable with some of the things he said. There was never a set boundary that was crossed, he never said anything with malicious intent, and I now know that if I had ever mentioned I was uncomfortable he would have stopped that line of conversation immediately. Since all of this has went down I have actively been making an effort to 1 treat everyone the way I would like to be treated and 2 be honest with people about how I feel rather than laughing things off just to avoid an awkward conversation.

All in all I feel really terrible about this whole thing. I have apologized to Jack directly but felt I owed it to him to try to publicly shed some light on the situation that I had a hand in causing. So Jack, again, I am sooo beyond sorry for how I behaved and I am so grateful you could forgive me and that we are friends!

Now, as for the 'victim' that falsified evidence/lied to the admins and others, I am of the opinion they should receive at least the same punishment that Jack received, if not harsher. As for the admins who handled this situation back in April, I do have sympathy for them as it was definitely a tricky situation and I myself right now can't say how I would've handled it, but regardless at the end of the day it was handled incorrectly and all I'm going to say about that is I think an apology would go a long way. 

That's all I really have to say right now but I'm happy to answer any questions here or in discord DMs!

[bunniey]

ever notice how the only people railing against cliques are all friends with each other? friends who back each other up for all sorts of nasty behavior? there is only one group here that displays cliquish behavior. but even that's not really true. my guess is that before you met each other, around 2015, you all had the exact same opinions about the exact same women in gaming, opinions you never grew out of. in other words, your complaint is that people share the same opinions because they are friends with each other. my contention is that people who tend to share the same outlook on the world tend to become friends. that doesn't mean that all people in the same friend group share the exact same opinion on everything, but it does mean that if you see yourself as the perpetual victim, you naturally seek out others who see themselves the same way.

Jesus Christ this is the most braindead thing I've ever read. There was not some group meeting where a bunch of us said "hey, we all hate women, let's be friends" good god. Most of the people you're talking about keep to themselves until it feels like they're being railed on by a group of people for no reason. It was a clique thing back when dong's group and laced's group were butting heads over old friend drama, this is just people making mountains out of mole hills constantly which muddies the water when there's actual issues. A large chunk of the people who have been active for long periods of times have dealt with this, and obviously the reaction isn't going to be just ignoring it or being happy with people actively being cunty towards them. I very much disagree with certain aspects of how everyone has acted in these situations, including me, but to continuously insinuate it's some weird women hating thing or rooted in misogyny when the majority of reasons you have to think this don't exist is just...I don't have words for it. Do better. 

We have multiple large groups of people who mostly are just trying to stay out of things because everyone likes to suck themselves off over how they have the moral high ground when it's always just a surface level thing. My group (formerly laceds) doesn't fuck with any of this anymore because of that. Jack/dong's group almost entirely keeps to themselves because every time they've been branching out they're getting shit on in the same way. It makes new people less likely to want to be around because oh no, someone is going to be falsely called a pedophile and then community banned because someone decided they didn't like them and took things grossly out of context. 

So yeah. Apologies have been needed, and are still needed. I know no one will, it's always been justifying actions and not showing when you're doing something wrong with people here. But I'll at least apologize to Jack. When I heard about what had happened, along with some discomfort from some people I'm friends with, I ousted him from my group of people, as well as David, with some stupid justification. I'm sorry to both of you. We should have at least talked about it more before I just did it, and I should have tried to help mend some bridges before going that far.

Most of this is a sleep deprived, annoyed mess, but the final take away is this: For the love of god, just play your games, talk to your friends, and be cordial with each other. It's not that hard. Being a cunt because you get to be anonymous is cringe as shit.

---

Oh and idk why but fuck tdawg im going back to bed

[chibill]

I debated whether or not I should post this, slept on it, and decided that the community could use some transparency right now. It's absolutely not my intention and never has been my intention to get anyone into trouble, cause drama, or drag out any drama unnecessarily. I just feel like I owe it to Jack to clarify some details about the situation.

After sharing screenshots in a private discord, I was approached by an admin in DMs asking to resend the screenshots there and asking if they could share the screenshots in admin chat. I said sure, shared the screenshots again and said all of the following- "i don't want them publicly posted', "like i feel bad using those against him cause as u can see i respond to uncomfortable situations with 'lol' rather than 'please stop making me uncomfortable' lmfao so i feel like i cant really hold it against him too much but yeah", "he apologized for everything", "i don't really care we're cool' (referring to Jack and I).

Now, logically I should have known that sharing them with the admins meant something bad would come of it, but I was genuinely just trying to be helpful and didn't really think twice to consider what the consequences might be or what they would be used for. Had I been told that they would be used as evidence for a ban on Jack, I would have absolutely specifically stated that I did not want that and those were not my intentions when sharing the screenshots. I had no idea Jack was 'under investigation' or anything of the sort. Do I feel like the admin should have been more forthcoming about what they were being used for? Maybe, but the blame is not entirely on them, because had I thought twice about the situation I would have connected the dots.

I absolutely admit my fault here in certain aspects of the situation. I should have never shared the screenshots to the discord in the first place, my intentions when doing so weren't ever to get Jack in trouble, my intentions were purely just an immature 'look at this awkward interaction haha' and I never ever should have shared them for a laugh at his expense. I deeply regret it and recognize how shitty it was of me, and have absolutely learned my lesson.

An important takeaway here for me (and everyone I believe) is that context is soo important in situations like these. While the screenshots themselves may have not looked great, they did not include the context of the situation, which was that in a stupid effort to avoid awkwardness, I failed to ever let him know that I was uncomfortable with some of the things he said. There was never a set boundary that was crossed, he never said anything with malicious intent, and I now know that if I had ever mentioned I was uncomfortable he would have stopped that line of conversation immediately. Since all of this has went down I have actively been making an effort to 1 treat everyone the way I would like to be treated and 2 be honest with people about how I feel rather than laughing things off just to avoid an awkward conversation.

All in all I feel really terrible about this whole thing. I have apologized to Jack directly but felt I owed it to him to try to publicly shed some light on the situation that I had a hand in causing. So Jack, again, I am sooo beyond sorry for how I behaved and I am so grateful you could forgive me and that we are friends!

Now, as for the 'victim' that falsified evidence/lied to the admins and others, I am of the opinion they should receive at least the same punishment that Jack received, if not harsher. As for the admins who handled this situation back in April, I do have sympathy for them as it was definitely a tricky situation and I myself right now can't say how I would've handled it, but regardless at the end of the day it was handled incorrectly and all I'm going to say about that is I think an apology would go a long way. 

That's all I really have to say right now but I'm happy to answer any questions here or in discord DMs!

I would like to say that the messages after you sent the full versions of the small snipped messages were not shared with the whole admin team, so we only saw you giving the okay to for them to be given to the admin team and when I requested the admin get  the full screenshot versions of small single message snippets if possible, the convo after the full versions was not sent. (I have since be sent that by a 3rd party that brought it up to me.)  So IMO you should not feel bad about this, because your full side was not displayed to everyone else making decisions.

[Dinomoto]

I debated whether or not I should post this, slept on it, and decided that the community could use some transparency right now. It's absolutely not my intention and never has been my intention to get anyone into trouble, cause drama, or drag out any drama unnecessarily. I just feel like I owe it to Jack to clarify some details about the situation.

After sharing screenshots in a private discord, I was approached by an admin in DMs asking to resend the screenshots there and asking if they could share the screenshots in admin chat. I said sure, shared the screenshots again and said all of the following- "i don't want them publicly posted', "like i feel bad using those against him cause as u can see i respond to uncomfortable situations with 'lol' rather than 'please stop making me uncomfortable' lmfao so i feel like i cant really hold it against him too much but yeah", "he apologized for everything", "i don't really care we're cool' (referring to Jack and I).

Now, logically I should have known that sharing them with the admins meant something bad would come of it, but I was genuinely just trying to be helpful and didn't really think twice to consider what the consequences might be or what they would be used for. Had I been told that they would be used as evidence for a ban on Jack, I would have absolutely specifically stated that I did not want that and those were not my intentions when sharing the screenshots. I had no idea Jack was 'under investigation' or anything of the sort. Do I feel like the admin should have been more forthcoming about what they were being used for? Maybe, but the blame is not entirely on them, because had I thought twice about the situation I would have connected the dots.

I absolutely admit my fault here in certain aspects of the situation. I should have never shared the screenshots to the discord in the first place, my intentions when doing so weren't ever to get Jack in trouble, my intentions were purely just an immature 'look at this awkward interaction haha' and I never ever should have shared them for a laugh at his expense. I deeply regret it and recognize how shitty it was of me, and have absolutely learned my lesson.

An important takeaway here for me (and everyone I believe) is that context is soo important in situations like these. While the screenshots themselves may have not looked great, they did not include the context of the situation, which was that in a stupid effort to avoid awkwardness, I failed to ever let him know that I was uncomfortable with some of the things he said. There was never a set boundary that was crossed, he never said anything with malicious intent, and I now know that if I had ever mentioned I was uncomfortable he would have stopped that line of conversation immediately. Since all of this has went down I have actively been making an effort to 1 treat everyone the way I would like to be treated and 2 be honest with people about how I feel rather than laughing things off just to avoid an awkward conversation.

All in all I feel really terrible about this whole thing. I have apologized to Jack directly but felt I owed it to him to try to publicly shed some light on the situation that I had a hand in causing. So Jack, again, I am sooo beyond sorry for how I behaved and I am so grateful you could forgive me and that we are friends!

Now, as for the 'victim' that falsified evidence/lied to the admins and others, I am of the opinion they should receive at least the same punishment that Jack received, if not harsher. As for the admins who handled this situation back in April, I do have sympathy for them as it was definitely a tricky situation and I myself right now can't say how I would've handled it, but regardless at the end of the day it was handled incorrectly and all I'm going to say about that is I think an apology would go a long way. 

That's all I really have to say right now but I'm happy to answer any questions here or in discord DMs!

This is not on you at all, that goes without saying, don't blame yourself, you're good in all aspects, you cant predict what other people will do with information. If an admin asks you for something, its natural to think they can be trusted with it, since they're admins. I mean that may sound kinda backhanded at this point, but that was not my intention, I just hate seeing posts like that where someone blames themselves over how things go down because of trust.

[Ryan722]

Would like to chime in on this, sorry in advance if this is long.

I was not a part of the admin team for the April ban decisions, but I would like to take partial responsibility for the inaction in rectifying the situation. Reading through the rationale for the bans from the admins at the time, I wasn't completely in agreement with the decisions for the bans, or at least the lengths of them, but for more fundamental reasons than evidence that would turn out to be faulty (which had not yet come to light). I'll speak more to that in a bit. Regardless, through the lens the admins at the time viewed the situation through, I understood the perspective and agreed that the bans were justified. To give some context behind (though not to excuse) my failure to take action, I've been generally busy with travels pretty much since I was promoted to web admin, which has made it difficult most of the time to stay on top of everything, and even moreso to advocate for fundamental change to pre-existing processes. If I were a better and more available admin I would have sniffed these issues out sooner and pushed for change sooner, but I didn't do those things and I apologize for that.

Speaking to the bans themselves, to give my perspective and clear up any confusion there may be, here's how I see how it went down. The admins received evidence from multiple people of Battons and Jack both speaking to/about them in (sometimes very) inappropriate ways. Taking into account what context was available (though it would have been warranted to investigate for more context), the conclusion was made that there was a trend in this inappropriate behavior to the point that serious action was needed, which ended up being the temporarily unappealable permanent all-server bans. Over the course of the following months, more context/evidence came to light that greatly changed the perceived severity of Jack's behavior in particular, and ultimately led to his unban.

In my opinion, the core of the issue with how these bans were handled in the first place (imperfect evidence aside) is the question of protecting victim anonymity without sacrificing due process for the accused. This is not a simple issue. We do not want to violate the trust of victims who come forward to us, and similarly do not want to discourage others from coming forward in the future. That's the underlying reason for the whole song and dance of "this person has been punished for [vague reason] and we can't provide the evidence". I understand people are frustrated by it and it may sound silly, but it is done with the best of intentions, and I truly believe that is the case for all admins on the team. That said, it puts the accused in the tough position of being virtually unable to defend themselves, and it puts us in the tough position of convincing the community the ban was justified even without providing them evidence. Furthermore, it makes the appeal process exceedingly dumb (as it was with these bans). I'm personally of the opinion that we should handle this balance of expected confidentiality differently for permanently unappealable community bans, versus these relatively new "all-server" bans. I'm in support of maintaining the current approach for issues deserving of a community ban (truly deplorable shit, don't think I need to name specifics). But for less severe bans ending in temporarily unappealable all-server bans, I'm coming to the personal conclusion that anonymity might not be *as* vital.

In my ideal approach to these sorts of issues, it would look something like this: if Person A reaches out to us saying that Person B has said some things that made them uncomfortable, we either ask that they tell them to stop, or have an admin step in to do it for them. The argument has been made that this is not always easy to do for the victim due to power-imbalance, fear of being ostracized or harassed, etc. I understand this argument. But imo it's not sustainable to keep up this model of tallying offenses to the point of a ban when the offender may not even realize they've offended. If Person A is truly uncomfortable saying something themselves, an admin can relay the message for them. If subsequent issues of ostracization/harassment come up, they can be dealt with accordingly. If trends of discomfort-inducing behaviors continue after this, long-term bans can be considered. But overall I feel we should be more generous with the Discord block button, or if possible at least with telling people "hey cut that shit out". Again to be clear, this is all barring really egregious examples.

I think it's untrue that bias amongst the admins played a big part in the decisions to make the bans and uphold them as long as they were. Rather, I think it was a failure to thoroughly investigate as much as possible, as well as a flaw in the underlying approach to investigating and carrying out bans like this. I feel that improving our process for handling these sorts of situations will increase transparency, hopefully repair some of the trust towards the admin team and within the community, and in the long term ideally reduce the number of people who feel uncomfortable or harassed within the community.

Note that none of this represents the views of the admin team as a whole, this is my opinion on the matter. Happy to discuss in this thread or in DMs.

[chibill]

 I'm personally of the opinion that we should handle this balance of expected confidentiality differently for permanently unappealable community bans, versus these relatively new "all-server" bans. 

Just want to point out all server bans are not a new thing, just we had these be appealed a lot differently then the past ones. Addressing toxicity had them and when they appealed the people did so in each server's own appeal area.