[Jammin]

My past hesitation with Laced was mostly around longevity and stability. Historically, I felt concerned whether Laced would act on impulse, as he has some history of doing so. However wronged he may have been due to issues of the past, this shouldn't influence present staffing, and giving someone a position of power such as admin just because someone was wronged in the past doesn't right that wrong.

One thing I've always felt is that time is the best proof of someone's growth. At the end of this analysis, I will provide a semi-full timeline that I encourage an admin to edit to be more accurate. Obviously since I'm no longer staff, I don't have unilateral access to a full history of information to best document his time in the community. Real change in someone's actions & attitudes comes with time, and is only easy to fake for a short period of time. I said during the last controversy (back in January of this year when he became Web moderator), it is difficult to "keep face for a few months," let alone a full calendar year (since his unbanning on the forums in July).

Some actions are unforgiveable, and there are some persons who shouldn't be given such a position. In the past, I have hesitated to give my support to Laced - that is obvious from my feedback on various unban/staff apps, and from the ultimate rejection as discord helper this past November. When Laced became web moderator, I declined to give my support/+1, though I didn't oppose Gabe's ultimate decision in this regards. However, the majority of the issues that Laced has had has been mostly harmless - trolling, shitposting, etc - things that have improved as well over time.

There are three things of relevance that I feel should be addressed - and I will address each in turn. Laced may wish to do so as well.

1. The November 2021 harassment ban - this is due to the situation involving a meme shared about his discord. While I do feel Laced isn't totally an innocent bystander in that situation, it ultimately was not Laced who made the meme and shared it about. I did observe that Travis opened the lines of communication in January of this year, and I would encourage Laced to try and rectify any ongoing issue should they exist. Otherwise, this was not really Laced who lit the fire - just didn't use the water bucket to put the fire out when it was small. I feel that time has resolved this, and Laced's judgement in various community aspects seems to support that notion.
   
2. When first attempting to get unbanned in 2021, Laced made a derogatory statement towards the admins, accusing the team of effectively supporting deranged individuals (which was clearly and unequivocally in contradiction to the many hours spent by admins to rid the community of such). Again, this can also be chalked up to a bad headspace, something that Laced has grown out of - but it continued to make me hesitate - and this has impacted my support. I especially was hurt by these comments, as we as an admin team were the owners of a community discord shared by various other TTT/PH gmod communities founded to ensure we are rid of such animals. I actually owned this community for around a year or so. But, Laced has subsequently apologized to both me personally and to the admin team - and it wasn't long after this post if memory serves. In my book, this is also water under the bridge.
   
3. Probably the only relevant issue in recent times, the controversy of the promotion to Web Mod. Man, did Laced get absolutely dogpiled on in the linked thread below. I think it's important to remember that while Laced's promotion was controversial, a lot of the hate was directed to Laced - when it really should have been directed towards Gabe for not allowing community input in that decision. Gabe did open future apps up to public input, which was the right decision. Whether laced was the right decision for web mod, I feel the 6 months or so has proven well that Laced can handle the job. I would note that most of his responses appear to be well tempered in the thread, though I don't care to go back through 15 pages of mostly worthless drama.
   

I think there comes a time when someone has proven their worth and maturity to a community, and has grown up past his immature days. Granted, I don't have the context of how Laced behaves in staff discord, in server, and in his private community today - I am not a part of any of these anymore. I can only comment on the limited knowledge I have. But, assuming that there are no issues Laced has had since my retirement in spirit last year, and in practice this past spring, his behavior since the beginning of 2022 has been exemplary. I feel that he is one who can sway community opinion - a sign of a good leader - and is one who has a good grasp of the needs and desires of the community.

Granted my scope of knowledge of recent affairs is limited, but based on the totality of circumstances, I feel that my support is warranted.
Time can heal many wounds, and he hasn't been throwing around bullshit for easily 18 months. That's a lifetime in the gaming world, and is not something you can fake. You can put on a good face for 2,3,4 months, but you are bound to fuck something up over such a long time. Given Laced has not done so, this is telling of real maturity.

Laced, and I can't believe I'm typing this, you have a +1 from me for Web Admin.

Best of luck with your application.

"Full" timeline
Who the fuck knows, 2018: Community Ban
God knows when, 2019: Comes back/unbanned
September 2020: Shitposting ban on forums
December 2020: "Quits" the community (via Mass RDM)
June 2021: Banned from discord for being stupid
July 2021: Week ban from TTT by someone whom I will refrain from naming
November 2021: Banned from forums for harassment
Sometime in late 2021: Banned from Discord for logging client, using said client to troll. This was influenced also by the harassment ban.
April 2022: Week ban from TTT by me for racism
June 2022: Unbanned from discord, not unbanned from forums
July 2022: Unbanned from forums
October 2022: Becomes staff again (TTT Trusted)
November 2022: Becomes TTT T-Mod, denied Discord Helper
January 2023: Becomes Web Mod, with normal dinks-level controversy
April 2023: Falsely promises to delete the forums, fuck you laced I'm taking back my +1. -1 you get community banned kid