[lacer]

Before you involve me in this bullshit group, just know I haven’t even hardly been on discord or talking to anyone from here anymore

Don't worry, they'll still end up banning you or labeling you as part of a toxic hivemind because you said something or were simply friends with people in another discord.

Apparently, a community ban doesn't have to come from anything that actually happened within the community.

[reed1103]

While the whole cliques/groups thing is not ok, especially within staff, I don’t think that it warrants a community ban. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the members that were banned were warned about their actions, and that it would lead to a whole community ban. I think that the punishment should be, at the very most, demotion by only one rank if they were a staff member, and a ban of 1-2 weeks. A simple warning could have avoided this, but it’s likely that these people will never come back.

[The Dutch Problem]

Ooh boy, I wonder when I'm permanently removed, I've always been quite negative towards Dink himself because of his shocking lack of activity in the past and I frequently call Admins "Useless Elite" because of their excessive rarity. Still, it may have already happened! I don't play anymore because of the disagreements I have with how some of the issues were "fixed". Not to mention I feel I have participated in the toxicity on Discord.

I'm not gonna defend any of them for their sometimes toxic behaviour on the server and/or on our Dinklebergs Discord. But a complete removal, the fuck is that all about. I get that some of em had previous warnings, wich I would like to see presented as evidence btw, but c'mon a much less harsher ban would've been more then appropriate, would've sent the message and wouldn't have stirred up this shitstorm...

Jesus guys, I was so fucking against calling it this but this is now genuinely like a totalitarian state! Either Fascist (Nazi-ist) or Communist (Stalinism). You disagree or are in any form undesirable, Gulag or death camp it is. You shall be removed, no warnings required.

[lacer]

Are you going to ban everybody on this thread too?

Just wondering because according to your definition of a toxic hivemind, they're all now part of it too.

[Seeker]

For the people that don't know me, I started playing years ago back when @WILD was co-owner, but i was never actually here posting on the forums or in discord or anything, and then I took about a 2 year break. I would read what was going on, lurking and checking things, but never actually getting too involved. Now I'm starting to be more involved because it's becoming more mandatory because it seems like there's more abuse raining down (from my perspective - keep in mind, I'm also one of the older players, in age as well). Now for everyone else...

I have to agree with everyone saying this could have been handled better. A lot of the evidence shown was taken from private discords, with people having, rather strong personal opinions.

No, the insults were not OK.

No, egging on harassment and abuse was not OK.

However, the private opinions of the server and the people on them, not shared here among the community, again, in my opinion, should not be ban worthy.

"It is not okay to literally tell people their opinions are wrong because they disagree"

Right, fair enough, so then why are any of those opinions, toxic as they may be, directed as they are, to important of people as they may be, being used as evidence? Is anyone going to tell me I'm wrong for this? Am I going to be banned? No, or at least I would hope not, by your own definitions.

Furthermore, "a unanimous joint PH and TTT Admin decision" Queef I don't know you too to be frank, but I don't see you interacting too directly with the community, but Gabe I see often enough playing. Other than that, the only actual staff I've seen recently were the mods just banned and test mods, save a few I've only recently gotten to know (I do stick to TTT so I have some bias). On slow nights Donors have had to fill in the role until we could call a reliable mod/test mod to hop on.

3 Times in the original post there is mention of evidence that cannot be shown, be it to keep people anonymous, or because it can't captured. But that's it. In the full post there's a few links to a private discord chat, sample images for each person's banned for each listed "toxic behavior" and that's it. But no real summary for the not shown evidence. But in the end we're told "This decision was not made lightly and was given much thought by all members of the Admin team and Dinkleberg." To be frank, it sounds more like a someone just wanted these players gone, with some "evidence" being with held and we're being told to just believe it.

Now I know I probably pushed a lot of buttons with this but hey, just myyyyy opinion.

Edit: Also I need my donor PLZ

[Alcoholic Femboy]

The Problem
It has come to the attention of upper staff, including Dinkleberg and the PH/TTT Admins, that a set of toxic cliques has formed in this community. 
These groups are spiteful and childish, harassing any player that does not agree with their actions. Commenters on staff apps regularly get 
attacked for not agreeing with their outlooks. People are harassed on the forums and on Discord. This has led to quite a number of users being 
afraid to comment on applications or participate in the community for fear of backlash and harassment. 
This is not okay.   you're talking about all this evidance but you literally posted nothing worthhy of  a community ban.

Further, while these people openly attack anyone who doesn’t listen to their hivemind, they decry anyone that is not a part of them as “toxic” and 
oppressing them. This is not just sad, but undoubtedly wrong. Frankly, these actors have been allowed to continue for far too long, and we apologize 
for not doing something about this sooner. It took time for us together and review evidence, and to form a consensus. It took far too long. This 
community should be safe for all members. In a desire to not act too quickly we have neglected certain members and let them be attacked. 
We left you without a voice. We can only apologize for not acting sooner. 
But now is time to end this.


The Evidence
It is not okay to lie about your history and actions, belittle others, falsify situations, pathetically brag and be toxic just to feed your own ego.

It is not okay to attack people for making valid criticisms on staff apps or other threads.

It is not okay to harass members so consistently that they fear voicing an opinion.

It is not okay to egg on further conflict just because you think your friends are never wrong.

It is not okay to mindlessly hivemind support for your friends despite logic and reasonable outlook.

It is not okay to literally tell people their opinions are wrong because they disagree.

Besides the evidence of toxicity here there is more that cannot be shown. Some evidence involves users who we hoped to keep anonymous to 
protect them from backlash. Other evidence cannot be captured. The offhand comments, the tone with which people speak, the short tempers. 
Everyone knows how it is when someone is throwing shade. We all know the feeling. And that shade being thrown by a large group against single 
individuals who won’t be a part of the hivemind is unacceptable. Making people feel unwanted because they don’t agree will not be tolerated. 


The Punishment
Thus, in a unanimous joint PH and TTT Admin decision, and with the blessing of Dinkleberg, we hand out the following punishment:

Battons, Lily, HalfDemonLink, Laced Xanax, Wildfire, TDawg, and Ritsunureru are indefinitely community banned. 
These members may appeal this decision and each will be decided on a case by case basis.


The End
This decision was not made lightly and was given much thought by all members of the Admin team and Dinkleberg. 
If you have any questions or concerns please direct them towards the TTT or PH Admins. Thank you.


Edit: Post edited to more clearly show different hyperlinks

"Besides the evidence of toxicity here there is more that cannot be shown. Some evidence involves users who we hoped to keep anonymous to 

protect them from backlash"
I thought the whole point of this ban was to get rid of that fear seems like all this ban did was put fear into the players who wanna speak there opinion. if you got rid of all the people who are attacking people for there opinion why are you hiding it? unless you know this ban isn't solid and that the community doesn't agree with it which again brings up I thought this was supposed to help the community not hurt it.


what members have been neglected or attacked none of these pictures show people being attacked and half of them aren't even toxic other than the whole rits situtation where everyone was shitting on each other which again isn't worthy of a community ban and doesn't add up to it. Also if that adds up to being community banned why did cosmic get 100 times more chances than all of these people combined? you can't pick who gets a lot of chances and who doesn't cosmic and this ban is a good example of how out of touch the admins are because of there inactivity. 

we have one active ttt admin thought the rest couldn't vote? I'm assuming the prop hunt people are only involved in this because you want a community ban even tho more than half of these players don't even play prop hunt or talk to prop hunt players so it's wrong to community ban them. Also, Dinks "blessing" means nothing he's bans whoever the admins say to even if they're inactive which breaks his own rule lmao. haha remember my ban when dinks banned me because dakody said so? without any good evidence hahaha. the only people who should be allowed to vote here is Gabe and dink now I understand dink can ban whoever he wants but I'm sure he's going off what the rest of the inactive admins are saying which is wrong and shows how he doesn't care about the community opinion or any of the individuals.

the ban on wild doesn't make sense lol he shit talked dink and has an ego? I shit talk dink daily on how fucking sad it is for hitboxes to be broken for my entire time here meanwhile every other server has fixed or made it better.   I see everyone shit talking dink, you gotta ban a lot of people for that then.


all this shows is you can't have private discords to speak ur mind or have any opinion on players that could hurt their feelings. this ban is up there with my ban in terms of how retarded it is.

every post so far has been against this ban so either we're all apart of there little group or you guys are wrong. The only people who are for it aren't posting and they're the people who they "attacked" but you won't post any of that evidence of that so how is the community and staff suppose to help them or believe in this ban?

[[Yellow] Travis1421]

So. This is what Dinks has come to? Jesus.

[Summer]

What I still don't understand through all this is the fact that it came to banning, I can now type out everything since I just now have been able to get onto my computer.


I stopped being apart of the community not because of the toxicity, but because of how cancerous everything is handled, and this is a prime example. Toxicity in gmod is so common, go to ANY server of ANY type and see how toxic those people are.. and yet here we are banning people. Staff, and Dink, I am degrading your opinion because this is wrong on so many levels. It's like yall are pussies, pardon my French. Its like we can't say anything or get upset at someone because we're gonna be banned, and an admin has yet to respond to any of these like "Oh yeah, fuck you guys and your opinions because we have the final say and we're always right." No, you're not.

I remember a time where it was fun to play on dinks, and make people upset at you, and troll. But now, we can't even do that. Fuck this shit. Its so god damn stupid. We can't even say anything IN OUR OWN DISCORDS. ONE NOT EVEN AFFILIATED WITH DINKS. PM's are being leaked by upper staff now as well from those screenshots, remember when we do that because we'd be banned? Me too. Its so hypocritical of everyone in upper staff. "You guys need to follow these rules" when you don't even. If you don't like what we say in our separate discords, fucking leave. They don't need to have you in it because its among friends there. And obviously, you're not a friend if that's whats happening.

That's all. I'm tired of this fucking community.. mainly its staff. Now, can I be banned because I did exactly all those examples in your post queef?

[matt_st3 (Strongrule)]

You know, for being the voice of the community I’m not seeing a lot of support in the 5 pages this thread has

[Mallakk]

Idk i guess they decided to ban me from all platforms while this was happening even though ive been apart of nothing for the past 6 months. Since they have basically community banned me without a word to me.