[Jammin]

God I hate the word addressing, I’m not using it.
 
Well, yesterday was fun, wasn’t it?
While I have respect for Reina’s service to the community over her tenure, and appreciate everything she did to try and improve the culture in the dinks community, I do have both the right and the obligation to respond to the allegations made against me in her own post.
I am doing this in a separate forum thread because I don’t wish to derail the admin resignation thread, and I have enough to type out that a dedicated thread seems appropriate. While I don’t feel obligated to respond to everyone who has rallied against me with unrelated/baseless allegations, I do respect Reina enough that I feel she is owed an explanation of the comment I made.
For the record, I have requested a transparent investigation by the admin team be conducted into my past conduct, and that the appropriate action, if necessary, be taken. However, I am posting a public defense because the allegations made against me were made in public, and I feel it is my obligation, not theirs, to clear my name.
For those who still think the allegations against me are true after this, well I encourage you to supply a logical argument. Simply hivemind shitposting some brainrot take doesn’t prove your point, so I encourage those wishing to respond to debunk my points. I think we will find throughout this thread that folks who lose arguments will devolve into insults and crying, while those with legitimate points will state their case objectively.
With that, let’s get started.
 
I: The Main Allegation
Since nobody else seems to have the desire to post the comment in question, I’ll go ahead and do that for everyone:

Looks bad, right? This is me, typing in an admin-only chat, indicating that the admin team shouldn’t get involved in stopping the sexual harassment of a 16 year old. That’s a pathetic viewpoint, and such viewpoint should be called out. This reads, on its face, as if I were accepting of a minor being sexually harassed in our community, and I’ve already acknowledged this in Reina’s resignation thread.
This screenshot, taken during my admin tenure (hence the nickname), was the basis for Reina’s accusation levied in her resignation post. This can be found below:

@Jammin this one is a deep cut, but how you responded to the Milly situation was absurd to me. victim blaming and saying that the case of predatory harassment that you saw evidence of was something that the admin team should stay out of is grossly negligent. your responsibility as discord admin was to maintain a safe environment, but you couldn't even accept the fact that it's always the adult's responsibility to say no. an adult having conversations like that with a minor can only be described as an adult taking advantage of a minor seeking attention and validation, regardless of who initiated the conversations or how they were initiated.

To be clear, the allegations being made against me are:
·        Victim Blaming
·        Gross Negligence
·        Putting the burden of action on the minor, not the adult
I will address these allegations, post the screenshot in question, provide the context in which it was made, then address other issues that may be at play.

II: Context
The full context of my interactions during the ChiefRunningWolf ban is available at this slideshow, to save forum space. This conversation in admin chat, which since I don’t have access to it is only to the best of my recollection, was posted after review by and with the approval of one of the members of the admin team.
I will highlight some critical points from this presentation below:
·        My comment was made when the discussion between admins was about an overly sexual conversation between unconfirmed ages
·        The discussion immediately preceding my comment was about two separate topics:
o   Ashly’s age, and whether she was of the age of minority
o   Whether Chief’s conduct was sexual harassment, or consensual sexual talk
·        At this point in time, we had not received any evidence, other than what was manipulated by Ashly
·        Later on, actual evidence, not fabricated/manipulated by Ashly, was presented to the Admin team by Chief himself
·        I was one of the FIRST admins to vote for Chief’s community ban for criminal activity (pedophilia), though this wasn’t much of a debate in the end
·        I was one of the LAST admin to vote for Ashly’s community ban for criminal activity (blackmail), as I wasn’t fully convinced it was serious enough for an unappealable ban.

III: The comment in question
So, let’s address that statement, shall we?

So wolf’s still kind of harassing Milly sexually but that’s between those two.

During this time, as I said, this was being discussed as a possible case of sexual harassment. I was asserting that it appeared that Chief’s conduct was indeed sexual harassment, not consensual sexual engagement.

At worst, this is directed at a 16 year old but we cannot verify that.

This is addressing the age issue, not the sexual harassment issue – two separate conversations, hence the two separate lines in the message. It appeared that Ashly MAY have been 16, or frankly, MAY have been as old as 22. Chief’s age was not known at the moment, but was later confirmed to be much older, > 30 if memory serves correctly. None of that was known when the ban was issued.

So I’m not sure I can support any kind of action against Chief.

This was me taking the “Innocent until proven guilty” approach, that has been a long-standing approach Admins have taken to investigations of accusations with the gravity that Chief’s accusation has. In retrospect, this looks extremely dismissive of the initial allegations, given the limited evidence given at the time.

The evidence is real but manipulated

I can’t post the evidence, as it was private only to the admin team, and it is predatory evidence against a minor. However, I'm sure other admins would back me up that it was censored, blurry, and missing multiple parts/context. I stand by this statement at the time.
Overall, this statement, read as a whole, is overly dismissive and reads poorly. I can understand a misunderstanding being taken from the screenshot as a whole. Whether this is a misunderstanding, I’ll address below.
But – in context, I hope my line of thought makes sense.
I have the tendency to address things in different orders, sometimes in a bit of a stream-of-consciousness method, when not able to sit down and organize my thoughts. This comment was a quick combination of an opinion on two different conversations – whether it was harassment and whether the age claimed makes sense or not – and unfortunately this comment plucked out of the chat looks horrific.
In summary, Reina’s accusation was that I was saying/implying by this comment that “at worst, he could be sexually harassing a minor, but that's between those two.” My refutation is that, in the context of two ongoing simultaneous conversations, I was conflating the two into one rushed statement. My future support of Chief’s ban, while seriously questioning a ban on a possible victim of sexual harassment, refute that.
Side note
One other statement that was made in DM’s was that I was wrong to call Ashly out “in the (discord) post because she wasn't a perfect victim.” This is in reference to a somewhat emotional defense I made in the discord yesterday.
Ashly wasn’t banned because she wasn’t a perfect victim. She was banned because she was a manipulator and blackmailer. And as I’ve shown, I had a damn hard time coming to terms with that.

IV: My history in protection of the community
It is my understanding that Reina’s statement is pretty much surrounding just the one comment – the one I’ve addressed in section III. I’m confident that I have debunked the talk of “Victim Blaming” by my DEFENSE of the victim, and have clarified my position that the burden of action always falls on the adult, hence my support of Chief’s ban – but the accusation of gross negligence is what bothers me the most.
In this instance, I feel I was the opposite of negligent. This comment was made early in the evidence gathering process. My concern at the time was that the evidence against Chief was possibly manipulated. It’s a common troll tactic to accuse the staff banning them for their slur usage to accuse the server of being pedophiles before their banning, and as such, accusations of this gravity are taken EXTREMELY seriously.
Frankly, to flash-ban Chief at this stage, without getting his side and without investigating the matter further, would have been incredibly negligent of me as a member of the admin team, who has a duty to investigate such allegations. To immediately ban all those accused of predatory behavior is, well, grossly  negligent in my opinion.
Outside of this one ban, I supported multiple other bans of predators over the years. Frankly, my ownership of the Gmod Servers United (GSU) group, a collaborative effort between GMod servers to oust predators from our community, really seems to refute much of what I’ve been alleged.
What is GSU? Well, it’s a collaborative effort among many popular GMod servers, started by SGM (now AHG members) to ban pedophiles from the Garry’s mod server community and report criminal behavior arising from this behavior to the proper criminal and civil authorities, both US-Based and international.
If you would like more information about GSU, you may find it here.

V: So why is Jammin being accused of such things?
Now to talk about Reina.
Reina DM’d me to open the conversation after her resignation, so we did discuss the issue a bit.
I am going to share the text of these DM’s here, as I feel any good-will towards keeping those private were eroded when such allegations were lodged publicly:

I have several concerns coming from this:
1.      Why did Reina not address this earlier, considering how significantly different Reina’s interpretation of the comment was from how Jammin’s actions have shown
2.      Why did Reina decide it was appropriate, thinking that there was a grossly negligent discord admin, that it was OK to NOT address the issue with the rest of the admin team, either privately or publicly, during the full year that we were both admins together – or address the situation privately or publicly during the year after I had resigned?
3.      Why did Reina decide to ignore the context around the screenshotted message?
4.      Why did Reina decide to ignore the many actions I’ve taken to PROTECT this community over the years?
5.      Why did Reina decide to drag my name thru the mud after I had long since left the staffing community? What good does this accomplish?
I have theories, but I don’t know if I want to investigate them. I brought Reina on board as discord staff because she wanted to join – She applied for staff without my recommendation and without my urging – she applied because of her own desire to make a difference. While Reina had a bit of a checkered past with some minor issues of toxicity early on, she really proved herself as wanting to make a difference. She worked her way up to admin, proved me wrong initially by proving herself to be a damn good staff member, and a damn good admin – just to toss everything out the window on the way out.
Frankly, this just hurts.

VI: Conclusions, moving forward
Reina resigned, and is moving on from staffing. IDK if she’ll be active or not, but that’s up to her. At this point, the bridge is burned.
As for me, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll continue to jump on for various events, join TTT every once in a blue moon, and will continue to be engaged in the community. Despite the attempts of some to harass, threaten, and otherwise push me out of the community, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve served my time as staff, and I’m proud of the legacy I leave behind from my staffing on TTT and discord. I’ve proven my loyalty to this community, and worked as hard as I could to make the discord a better place. I got a metric shit ton of pushback for being too strict, for punishing too harshly, and for being too expansive with the rules. Frankly, I think the fact that my biggest criticism is in opposition to this is quite ironic. But, it is what it is.
I plan to move forward. While I have called upon the admin team to make a full investigation, as the accusations levied against me are severe, I’m not going to be bullied out of this community. Moving forward, I expect those who don’t like me, to block me – I won’t interact with you, you leave me be. I’m not going to be any more or less active than I have been over these past few months, and I’ll probably continue to be completely dead and inactive. But, I’m still hanging around, ready to sling around my useless opinions on random staff apps.

VII: Now what?
Lets talk, if there’s something to talk about. This is a forum thread after all, and I’m here to address people’s concerns. To prevent things turning into a dogpile, I will do my best to respond to all inquiries, as EDITS to this post. I will not start a back-and-forth. I will respond to genuine questions, requests for clarifications, and logical arguments. I will not respond to shitposting, useless mudslinging, and unrelated topics.
I do want to lay out some ground rules for responding:
1.      This is posted with advanced notice given to the web admin, @”Gabe”
2.      Gabe has my full consent for him to moderate this forum thread as he/his team see fit. I will NOT support any harassment of his team for moderating your stupid shitpost.
3.      I am asking that any argumentation addressed specifically to me, even if it seems harassing, to be left intact. I’m not worried about being harassed specifically on this forum thread.
4.      I am asking all those commenting to NOT harass those involved in the past few days. If you have issues with me, talk to me. Don’t harass Reina, don’t harass Battons, don’t harass Bryanbrr, don’t harass Dong, Jack, Icey, or anyone else mentioned or not mentioned in Reina’s resignation.
5.      If this gets out of hand, I trust that a member of the web staff team will lock this if they see fit.  However, I do request this stay open as long as practical.
6.      The web staff doesn’t need your bullshit. Direct it towards me.

With that being said, can I answer any of your questions?
Thank you for your time,
Jammin[/quote]

[bunniey]

[Jammin]

Response Post:
As of 11:45 pm, seeing little activity, im going to bed. I will update/answer questions as they come in tomorrow. Good night.
As questions are asked, I'll quote then respond to them here.
Update 1: Forgot screenshot in part 5 because i'm not very smart
Update 2: Fixed broken quote box

So wolf’s still kind of harassing Milly sexually but that’s between those two.

During this time, as I said, this was being discussed as a possible case of sexual harassment. I was asserting that it appeared that Chief’s conduct was indeed sexual harassment, not consensual sexual engagement.

what did you mean by "but that's between those two"?

It appeared at that early state of the investigation that there was no jurisdiction for Dink admins to get involved, as it involved two private people - an inactive staff member, and Ashly's friend who isn't in the community - and nothing was taking place on Dinkleberg servers (forums, discord, steam, game servers). Also bear in mind, there was a strong possibility at this point that the two persons were adults, as nothing about age had come out yet to my knowledge.
This was a bad opinion to hold, as Chief's conduct in general falls under the admin team's jurisdiction. This is why I'm glad this opinion was corrected very shortly after being made.

The order of GSU owners was Jabba - ultra fish - myself - jammin - Gabe, to my knowledge it was Gabe however I don’t know who ran it after Jammin. During the time this situation happened Mr Ultrafish was running GSU with me being his assistant.

I handed GSU off to Ryzif after I resigned.

Imagine having a mini meltdown and now everyone has to be implicated in member'berries. 
We are supposed to be a community who builds each other, not finger pointers who need to totem pole their actions to get attention
jammin you a good man and i dont believe you have to make an essay over a sentence you said out of context.

I appreciate all of the kind words. I really do.
But, I feel it is important to clear up any misunderstandings. I think it is important for this community to have restored trust in their admin team, knowing how seriously they take any such report.
I take this seriously, as there's an implication that "we ban victims for coming forward" with regards to the Ashly situation. I hope that rumor can be dispelled, as that is simply not what happened - and I kinda feel I may be the spokesperson of the Ashly ban simply because I was the last person to officially talk to Ashly.

"For the record, I have requested a transparent investigation by the admin team be conducted into my past conduct" - Jammin 2024
cops looking into themselves is biased. Admins looking into pedophila is biased too apparently.

To be clear, none of the admins currently were admins at the time of this incident, if my math is correct.
Also, I haven't been an admin for well over a year, and will never staff here again.
My reputation is under attack and I'm seeking the only remedy I have to clear it.

I want to immedieatly adress that I was 14 exactly when chief started sending sexual messages to me. I honestly think this should have been easilt deducted when i told jammin the "victim" was 14. But I digress because clearly wording needs to be more specific than a thesuarus.

Just addressing this point, there were lies from the start about this being your "friend." You didn't in any way suggest this was you, and we had to find that out through other means. You didn't say that YOU were 14, you said your "friend" was 14.
At this stage, we had no way to know what your age was, and your credibility was frankly, tarnished at that stage.

"It appeared at that early state of the investigation that there was no jurisdiction for Dink admins to get involved, as it involved two private people - an inactive staff member, and Ashly's friend who isn't in the community - and nothing was taking place on Dinkleberg servers"
Aswell as this, does this really mean that since chief only played 3 times a year instead of four that doesn't count? If he had messaged a 14 year old boy who never played on gmod it wouldn't count even with proof because said boy never played a game? Isn't that then allowing a pedophile the ability to continue the outreach of what you don't know?

To be clear - at this stage there was an assumption that the 14 year old boy part was a lie, just as the victim part was. When we got further clarification on that, we acted appropriately. Had I known at the time that Chief was an adult and the victim was definitely 14, I certainly would have said something different. But, we had no evidence - hence me practically begging for you to confirm an age. Your refusal to do so was a major factor into the ban you received.

Maybe it was because apparently you gave chief a whole ass "Hearing" about his side of the story where I was presented with 4 unseeming questions from jammin. Had I genuienly known that was my final chance to tell the admins "Hey idiots! Where the hell didd you get this story?" I would have.

I never one spoke to Chief, have never spoken to Chief, and never will. Chief can go find himself a dark hole to bury himself in for all I care.

To be clear, my message to Melodine was: "Hi,
We've received Chief's side of the story now. He revealed that you are the "victim" provided in the screenshots (to clarify we did not share the screenshots)
We have SS's from his perspective and from yours now.
Did you have any comment or statement you wish to make regarding this situation? "
I feel that is fairly clear as to us wanting any information you wish to make. But, given that you were facing a community ban, probably more should have been done.
But, the admin team seemed full ready to ban without any sort of comment from you. I wasn't going to stand for that, and gave you an opportunity to comment.

(from the dropbox):
// what jammin never understood and garunteed never will is that I removed my name from the screenshots because i was disgusted by myself
// I hated everything I had done with chief and my life up until this point, but clearly thats a sob story that doesn't matter.
// I was dating adults as a minor my whole life until this point and I was going to make sure it ended with chief.
// Contacting jammin was supposed to be freeing and uplifting. Instead I got a community ban, called a pedophila by the wider community, and apparently called a blackmailer to someone sexually talking to who they knew was a minor.
// My first instance with a pedophile was when i was 12 and I had been attempting to chase that same high/love and affection ever since to escape my abusive mother.
// What I faced in this community is the worst thing any child could have faced. Being told to my face that its too bad you got groomed by adults.
// while there are decreptincies such as "I never cared about age" That was because I was weak to litterally anyone that made me feel like i belonged.
// Obviosuly you all will never change your minds but the true wool over your eyes (hi pauling!!!) was beliving in the admins.
// and to reina, you are a bitch lmao do not EVER try turning your back on me like that, and say i was proud to be a reverse pedophile. Then expect calling out jammin to be like a thank you from beyond.
// I hope karma hits you harder than a brick covered in lemon juice.

"Contacting jammin was supposed to be freeing and uplifting. Instead I got a community ban, called a pedophila by the wider community, and apparently called a blackailer to someone sexually talking to who they knew was a minor."

I can understand where you come from with regards to reaching out to the admins and getting the community ban.
Quite frankly, the issuance of a community ban didn't sit right with me. I see where you come from.
I was the last admin to get convinced over, and I did what I could to be your advocate, by insisting that you have the right to give a defense.

That being said, I don't understand the second part. I don't believe you were ever called a pedo by the wider community, and even if that did happen, that has nothing to do with me. Even 2 years ago, we took great care to clearly establish that your issues were separate.

Additional commentary given Melodine's response:
It seems that I was made the scapegoat here, quite frankly. I probably defended Melodine harder than anyone else here realizes. I really hope that someone, either who was there at the time, or someone on the admin team today, is willing to independently confirm that.

Which I did get better even after being banned. I recived a job and now make my own money, I have suceeded in art somewhat, and am now living a some what happy life.

Melodine, what you went thru is horrific, and I'm glad that you have moved on with your life. I do think some of your behavior was reprehensible, as you openly admit in your commentary, but as I indicated in my slideshow - I was not comfortable with the community ban. Your conduct was definitely worthy of staff demotion, but not necessarily of any type of ban - let alone a community ban. But, I did vote for it, and I am complicit in that ban just as the other admins at the time were. I have no intention to throw them under the bus, and subject them to the toxicity i've been subjected to over these past few days.
I am happy to hear that you have moved on with your life, and are living your happy life. I wish you well in your future.

4/14 Update after Voss's post and Melodine's appeal:
The wrongs of the past need to be rectified. Any issues with Melodine of the past were not worthy of a ban, let alone a community ban.
I apologize for my complicity in the ban, as my vote was required along with the other admins. Given the context today, this was a horrific situation that Melodine went thru, and we as an admin team helped her by banishment.
That is shameful and I hope this will be rectified.

@Deer-ly as I offered on your appeal, if you want to discuss further my actions in your defense my DMs are now open. So far you have chosen not to reach out, which is fine also.

[Deadpoolz]

love you jammin. You suck at fantasy tho

[reina]

So wolf’s still kind of harassing Milly sexually but that’s between those two.

During this time, as I said, this was being discussed as a possible case of sexual harassment. I was asserting that it appeared that Chief’s conduct was indeed sexual harassment, not consensual sexual engagement.

what did you mean by "but that's between those two"?

[Battons]

The order of GSU owners was Jabba - ultra fish - myself - jammin - Gabe, to my knowledge it was Gabe however I don’t know who ran it after Jammin. During the time this situation happened Mr Ultrafish was running GSU with me being his assistant.

[Gabe]

The order of GSU owners was Jabba - ultra fish - myself - jammin - Gabe, to my knowledge it was Gabe however I don’t know who ran it after Jammin. During the time this situation happened Mr Ultrafish was running GSU with me being his assistant.

It went Jammin > Ryzif > me

[BillyBob]

this happened two and a half years ago and all parties involved were properly dealt with i literally cannot follow this argument against jammin or even why he had to defend himself. this is so stupid lol

[bunniey]

I'm sorry, Jammin, for making those allegations against you. I am apologizing on behalf of everyone involved, don't worry if you don't hear from them, this is from them as well.

[A silly goose]

Imagine having a mini meltdown and now everyone has to be implicated in member'berries. 
We are supposed to be a community who builds each other, not finger pointers who need to totem pole their actions to get attention
jammin you a good man and i dont believe you have to make an essay over a sentence you said out of context.