<Snipped quote by Odin>
As I was present for the incident, I’d gladly do so. Though it may not be accurate due to the fact I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, if you recall. Your comments seemed to be, in my experience on other sites, what I would call the following offenses – baiting moderation staff, and phrasing a statement in a condescending and passive-aggressive manner to illicit issues. In my experience this wouldn’t be a ban normally but a warning, but you asked my perspective on that point. Perhaps your harsh decorum was seen as problematic and was worth a temporary punishment? I do not know. I am not in bed with the staff even if I am “on their side” on an amount of points.

Baiting? For what? A response? A response would've been nice but I knew that given the moderator that was online at that time, I was never going to get it, as she has told me never to speak to her or she'd get Hank to ban me.

I'm not sure I'd want to bait someone that has already made it clear she had no hesitation about banning me. :)

I don't feel like I was condescending. Slightly passive aggressive and/or sarcastic, but that was after my comments were deleted a few times. Not an excuse or justification because I don't think the person dealing with me then deserved anything more, lol.

Even so I disagree, I have no reason to be amicable with someone who has previously been a douche to me on no grounds other than 'oh I heard you were a cunt one time' and then proceeded to insult my writing even though she can barely string a sentence together without making a grammatical error at least twice in the same insult. Tell me what reason there would've been to be nice?

Even so I disagree, I have no reason to be amicable with someone who has previously been a douche to me on no grounds other than 'oh I heard you were a cunt one time' and then proceeded to insult my writing even though she can barely string a sentence together without making a grammatical error at least twice in the same insult. Tell me what reason there would've been to be nice?

Honestly, the only reason is the fact that you didn’t have to have that decorum. I know you and said moderator have your issues but all of those issues were prior to appointment were they not? The stand-up thing would be to put aside personal feelings and give the basic courtesy of civility and not try to provoke a reaction. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Honestly, the only reason is the fact that you didn’t have to have that decorum. I know you and said moderator have your issues but all of those issues were prior to appointment were they not? The stand-up thing would be to put aside personal feelings and give the basic courtesy of civility and not try to provoke a reaction. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Perhaps if you're a forgiving person, but I am not, especially if the only reply when I confronted them with it was 'lol i thought you were a troll xD'.

I'm not a standup guy nor do I aim to be. I don't know where you get that from - perhaps you're measuring me according to the same morals you measure yourself to but I don't really believe that I have to be the better person to begin with, since I have neither authority nor power.

And again, I wasn't trying to provoke a reaction.

I'm not a standup guy nor do I aim to be. I don't know where you get that from - perhaps you're measuring me according to the same morals you measure yourself to but I don't really believe that I have to be the better person to begin with, since I have neither authority nor power.

And again, I wasn't trying to provoke a reaction.

If that wasn’t your intent, then that wasn’t your intent. But you have the foresight to know when your decorum equates to stepping on toes that you don’t need to step on. You may not share my morals or ethics but you are a highly intelligent man and in my experience, generally civil even when critical. And I don’t know if I would call how you commented as exactly civil. But again, I was only half-there so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

The same can not be said, in my eyes, of all other mods. There are few, very few mods, that I think are worthy of approaching nowadays and that is pretty much just limited to Sherlock Holmes despite their seeming inactivity (but don't worry, I am certain that Sherlock is reading this; that is just their style).

Yo.

There was a very select moment all of this drama started, even before the Official discord was made. I'd like your opinion on when you think this all started. Anyone else is free to answer that too.

This. I am curious about answers to this and quite interested to listen to all sides because I honestly do not have an opinion on this matter.

As I'm sure it has been noted, I was not a part of the initial Discord and I really only pop onto the 'official' one to check the mod area and make sure no one is having a meltdown. I chat here and there, but not necessarily with any regularity. I have been a step behind in this matter (because of my fringe involvement) and I don't know that I've ever been quite able to put the fragments of pieces I have together to form a clear enough picture of when the dissent actually began.

I don't know the full extent of the drama between the two Discords, except what bits I hear from other moderators and see users post about in situations such as this. (I'm usually just minding my own shit, answering various PMs to move/delete threads and make other site adjustments...)

People don't come to me about drama. I tend to not get involved, unless it is necessary, because who the hell would choose to exist in this vicious cycle of stress on a regular basis? I don't do it in real life and I'm sure as hell not going to 'entertain' myself by doing it on the internet. (I know some people enjoy it, but I largely find it to be nothing but an exercise in frustration.) That said, I still welcome people to come to me on all matters -- I will always listen. And, if I need to, act to help resolve the situation.

If anyone has any direct questions for me, I will gladly answer. (Here or in a PM.) I'm mostly interested to see the above questions answered, though. I feel it's a crucial piece I've been missing to this entire puzzle and I think it would be beneficial to clarify my thoughts on the situation. (Otherwise, I feel as though I'm in grumpy old person mode and just want people to stop shitting on my lawn, so to speak.)

Personally, the "drama" really only started for me after my ban from discord.

The "drama" behind the two discords started a while back (At least to my knowledge) But the incident was mostly behind closed doors in a private conversation (So I'm told) And the outrage that happened afterwards really was just... awful at the time. If you think this thread is "toxic", you clearly weren't around at the time/forgot about it.

I think people were angry that official was basically there without any thanks for any of the people who actually organized the original discord.

Me, I didn't really care that much, GCS was a place to foster community on rpg, Official was really just, the "official" version. If people wanted to chat there it was fine. The endgoal was to have a good chatroom platform. The fact that Mahz decided to make the official one was a sign that in the end, GCS was a successful experiment for the most part.

Which why I had to basically make a server wide announcement warning against any further toxicity under threat of permaban.

Midnight Howl (the owner of GCS at the time) was actually a moderator on the official discord for a bit, to which I assume was to try and appease the angry users and whatnot.

I have my suspicions of what occurred for such a public outburst, and what caused the mods to promote Midnight Howl to what I assume was a chat moderator position, but seeing as I was not a part of these conversations in discord I can only really speculate.

@Sherlock Holmes I think Gowi mostly was spot on. It started with the suggestion thread and following that Ruby's re-appointment. From there it was downhill with new focussing events that re-ignited any outrage and adding more people to the 'vocal minority'.

For some reason I'm awake again at 1.30am and deciding responding here is a good idea, so excuse any glaring errors that may exist.

@didgeridont
The first point I'd like to address is the need for private moderator discussion on this topic; as I have previously said we are a collection of individuals that try to make mutual decisions. We have different thoughts, opinions and processes by which we would respond. Therefore a chat were we can openly have our differences and reconcile them before we talk to users. Having an argument between moderators in public would not be a good look. We discuss as a team so we can operate as a team, that is it. No maniacal plans or evil intent behind a private chat, just somewhere we can hash things out.

There was a couple of questions at me from @Odin

1) Regarding the function: I believe so yet in remains in the admin team's hands to change that role function. If they decide champions of virtue for the forum are required then that is what will happen. I left the team during that thread so I cannot comment on the discussions or events that occured after till my reappointment.

2) Bringing it to the mods. As I said before I left use my discord. I run up a fair bit of mobile data keeping push notifications on discord so if you have an urgent issue hit me up. Bear in mind my timezone is a little wonky so that can throw a spanner in the works.

3) Screenshots and trolling. I may be misreading this but I don't think I've done any of those things. My contributions to this thread ahve been to see what I can personally do and to try and keep it civil where needed.

@BingtheWing The major call for civility was after the invoking of Nazi/Facism comparisons. I felt at that stage it needed a course correction as that breaches the realms of civility. May just be my opinion on that though.

@RWBY Spectre See above for my personal reasons for wanting a private discussion on it beforehand. It was part of our founding mod principles 4 years ago when Sherlock, HeySeuss, Lillian and I got together to hash it out. I still stand by moderators only standing out by position rather than being the old school sherriffs of the west.

@pugbutter sorry mate the 10 hour shift at work got the better of me. I'm here for however long I'm awake again if needed.

As for the ignition point, I wasn't on the site at the time, so I have no contribution towards that.

I know I'm a bit late to this social experiment known as "how autistic can we get :thinking:" but why was Valhalla brought up in here at all, it's. Third party that has no shit to do with all of this, whatever happened to do with it has like 0 effect or meaning here.

I know I'm a bit late to this social experiment known as "how autistic can we get :thinking:" but why was Valhalla brought up in here at all, it's. Third party that has no shit to do with all of this, whatever happened to do with it has like 0 effect or meaning here.

It’s a third party chat that takes membership from this website, influences this community, and therefore doesn’t really exist in its own vacuum. It was brought up because it add context to certain events that transpired that led to the point of which we are now at. It's a complex situation. Relevance can be argued for or against, but just wanted to clear up where I fall on the question.

Where you fall on the question is bs lmao

At that point you might as well start stalking people to "help understand what happened." It has several (like two, but still) people not in the guild and even if all were in it so what?

Only what happens in guild chat, guild, and PMs is pertinent and worthy of being brought up. You did a load a do-do

I mean, that is your purview but I happen to think it is utterly and completely wrong with no foresight on the greater issue. But you’re welcome to believe that it’s irrelevant as I am to believe it is relevant – RPG does not exist in a vacuum and thus all the information needs to be accounted for. Yours or my opinion is objectively irrelevant though. It only matters what conclusion Sherlock comes to in the case of its validity.

I think I'm not autistic enough to understand the thought processes involved here yet, brb in a few hours going to watch some anime and play clash of clans to get in the right condition

@RWBY Spectre See above for my personal reasons for wanting a private discussion on it beforehand. It was part of our founding mod principles 4 years ago when Sherlock, HeySeuss, Lillian and I got together to hash it out. I still stand by moderators only standing out by position rather than being the old school sherriffs of the west.

To add to this point -- I'm the only moderator left who also (briefly) moderated on the original site. (Pre-Guildfall.) There was also discussion on these matters with the old moderating team, though the methods were slightly different concerning the means we used to communicate. (Largely the same end result, however.) Discussion has always been on the table for moderators and, I hope, will always be. It allows us to make the best possible decisions, I think, rather than acting unilaterally on complex matters where each of our unique experience/knowledge/perspectives can help shape the outcome wisely. I doubt that anyone would argue the validity of that statement and acknowledge that most matters are fine discussed behind 'closed doors'-- airing dirty laundry serves no one positively. (Not the moderator team making decisions, not the tenor of the forum, and certainly not the ones that decisions are being made about so that everyone knows their business.)

Now, that said...

I make the exception for the people directly involved -- they should understand everything about the situation in which they find themselves entangled. Occasionally, for stupid behavior, I think I (as well as other moderators) tend to assume the high road that we're dealing with 'adults' who know what they did wrong. I don't need to explain to someone that them posting a link to a porn site is going to get them in trouble -- they should have common sense and know that by looking at the simple rule list we have. (In some ways, however, this may be taking things for granted on my side in my dealing with the situation, which I perhaps should address.)

I would like to see some manor of mode enabled that allows the moderation teams to hold an account temporarily (freeze it, if you will) -- so that the user cannot continue the offending behavior -- and somehow limits their interaction to only the moderators. Then conversations can still be held, if they have questions or need clarification, before a final ban decision is enacted one way or another. This would leave lines of communication open, eliminate the situation where ignorance in a ban can be an issue, and suspend the need for alt accounts to be made for appeals. It would also allow the moderator team to deliberate, if necessary, and keep the involved people in the proverbial loop.

We need to eliminate the situations that allows problems to get as big as they've become, so that there aren't this many people involved in one gigantic tangle of situations. (It's all become rather like a gigantic spiderweb that branches out into ridiculous proportions for all the strands of people even remotely involved.)

I do understand much better now how this all evolved, however. (Thank you to those who responded both in the thread and in PM.)

I also understand that the vagueness of the rules is a source of contention. I think Mahz did that for the benefit of the moderator team so that we could tailor each situation depending on the surrounding circumstances. To some degree, we mods do need that flexibility because no situation is simply black and white. (As I'm sure everyone will agree.) This is why we choose moderators in whom we have confidence to be the judges and juries of problems, so that the site can generally be kept free of issues, outwardly pleasant, and a nice experience for the user base.

I also realize that there are presently those who are lacking confidence or taking issue with particular moderators and their actions. You are, of course, entitled to your opinions -- we all know that not everyone is going to get perfectly along and I think we all have to acknowledge that. (Otherwise, we're all in need of a collective slap upside the head.) In the end, however, we all have the same goal of making this site a place we're all happy to co-exist. I think that, if an issue is had with a moderator, then complaints need to be sent to the entire moderation team, as well as directly to Mahz and Hank. At the end of the day, administrators are the only ones with power to demote or promote people, but I think making the whole team aware of issues being had is necessary, so that we can all try to work to resolve them. And, if people don't feel comfortable bring it up to everyone on the team, then they should approach the moderator with whom they feel the most comfortable with and let that moderator try to address the issue.

No witch hunts forming, no angry parties. (Not saying that's happening in this thread, just talking hypothetically.) Just rational decision making by people who would like to resolve a problem being had and move forward.

Now, re-addressing the point of lacking confidence in some of the team, I will respectfully disagree. (As I have not had your negative experiences, naturally.) In my interactions, most everyone on the mod team is fairly level-headed and, when things are discussed, we do manage to balance each other's shortcomings all out. That is not to say a different team may work better; it might work worse. It could be a fantastic success, a raging disaster or, possibly, more of the same. I have no large issues with the way the moderator team currently works as a whole, but I also see the entire picture of that, which the community does not... Which brings us back to the first few paragraphs: the need to discuss things and then discerning that which should and should not be made public issues.

As has been said by some people in this thread, I agree that moderators should hold themselves to a slightly different standard than the regular users of the forum. We need to learn to check our behavior and remove ourselves from a situation emotionally before acting, so that we can make fair and just decisions. That said, we also need to accept that we are just human and will fuck up from time to time and may let a situation get the better of ourselves. For these occasional situations we do, of course, we ask for grace from the community and we need to be able to step back, confer with others, and try to rectify those situations as amicably as possible. Discussing with the moderator team, keeping those directly involved in the loop, and leaving the rest of the community to carry on in peace while we try to resolve the situation.

It is ridiculous that the situation has (apparently) festered this long and we need to somehow wipe the slate clean and start fresh. On both sides.

(Good lord that was a lot to type. Hopefully it all makes sense and has minimal errors. XD)

Also, @Andreyich No need for the negative autistic comment. Keep further remarks of that nature in your back pocket in future, please.

<Snipped quote by Andreyich>
It’s a third party chat that takes membership from this website, influences this community, and therefore doesn’t really exist in its own vacuum. It was brought up because it add context to certain events that transpired that led to the point of which we are now at. It's a complex situation. Relevance can be argued for or against, but just wanted to clear up where I fall on the question.

I am sorry but you believe that it influences the community? How? It is just a server where members of the guild gather to talk about staff. And it's also a place where we can talk about anything and everyone without any worries of getting banned. You made it a big deal when you leaked chatlogs to the staff because you were worried about Ruby. Hell, I haven't really seen everyone wanting Ruby to be banned for the site. Many of them just want Ruby (and Nutts) to be punished for their actions by staff members. Sadly, their actions have been defended by other staff members.

In short, I don't agree with you that Valhalla has enough power to influence the site. If you believe it does, then please explain to me why you think that.

If you thought my earlier post was vitriolic I implore you to reconsider your knowledge of the meaning of that word, but fear not -- I'll educate you on its meaning right now. Many of the points raised in this thread are valid. Yours are not. I don't appreciate your sensationalism and I'd prefer if you just keep out of the conversation entirely if you can't manage a reasonable level of discourse...

...What the fuck are you talking about? Do you have the slightest idea how the internet works? And are you seriously implying that he go read a book written about war to learn how to administrate a hobbyist internet forum?

Just because @RWBY Spectre presented his points in an untasteful manner doesn't mean that he can't be a part of the discussion. I understand that you would be upset if someone attacked your friend (Mahz) like that; but, we should look at it with a clear mind. RWBY Spectre was just saying that Mahz should be more active while all of this is going on. He clearly didn't know that Mahz was seriously sick and he was only suggesting you to read a book to have a "positive attitude" based on the comment that RWBY Spectre had quoted. I don't agree on how he presented it; however, it doesn't mean he should be shun.

He has every right to be apart of the discussion. You should already know that since you have earned Co-Admin by being respectful of other peoples' opinions. No matter how much you disagree with them.

I do have a question for you, @Sherlock Holmes. Why aren't you active enough with the community? Based on my time here, I have only seen you on to do your job as moderator. I can understand if you are too busy with work or school to be more active. It would be nice to see you spending more time with the community while you aren't doing your jobs. Then again, I am not here to demand you to be more active. It is just a suggestion/question after all.

And I also have some questions for @Kangaroo. Why did you come back from your retirement? I could understand if you came back to hang out with the other users; but, why did you accept your old moderator position? Aren't you worried that you will be inactive again like last time (before you announced your retirement)? I am not trying to sound like an ass. I am just worried. And one more thing, did Hank approached you and asked if you wanted to be a moderator again? Or did the opposite happen?

EDIT: Fixed up some minor errors.

Only what happens in guild chat, guild, and PMs is pertinent and worthy of being brought up.

I have to agree here, with the sole exception of a user potentially being stalked by users from/on the site. The mods/admins have no power in other chats and--even if they are discussed within them--it should remain as such. A lot of other RP sites I've participated in have rules mentioning this:

Off-site drama/discussion/arguments are not grounds for moderator action. We are not here to punish people you disagree with, even if they come from our site.

I am sorry but you believe that it influences the community? How? It is just a server where members of the guild gather to talk about staff. And it's also a place where we can talk about anything and everyone without any worries of getting banned. You made it a big deal when you leaked chatlogs to the staff because you were worried about Ruby. Hell, I haven't really seen everyone wanting Ruby to be banned for the site. Many of them just want Ruby (and Nutts) to be punished for their actions by staff members. Sadly, their actions have been defeated by other staff members.

In short, I don't agree with you that Valhalla has enough power to influence the site. If you believe it is, then please explain to me why you think otherwise.

That is a very large question, Spectre. But here is my brief observations based on my time there and what I’ve noticed, and I by no means am innocent as I was just as involved for a large amount of time.

• An emotional outrage due to Ruby’s pre-moderator behavior that led for members to call for Ruby’s demotion. Statements like “I have plans.”, “Ruby isn’t going to be punished?” among other things created the precedent to inform staff of what appeared to be the beginnings of a witch hunt.
• Normalizing combative and antagonistic behavior that has influenced the actions of several minors on the site.
• Gossiping about members in a rather deplorable manner, fixating on members rather than simple venting.
• Such behavior leaking onto the site in the cases of Grimhildr’s departure and those who involved with the community created accounts to circumnavigate the rules of the guild to re-post said thread which was locked and deleted for significant reasons.
• Hosting a 'blacklist' describing users on the site people were discouraged with due to various reasons; essentially normalizing ostracizing people of the community.
• Influencing community politics in a problematic manner.

Whilst this might not be a major influential factor (you could argue “vocal minority” perhaps), it does visibly have a significant role.

I do have a question for you, @Sherlock Holmes. Why aren't you active enough with the community? Based on my time here, I have only seen you on to do your job as moderator. I can understand if you are too busy with work or school to be more active. It would be nice to see you spending more time with the community while you aren't doing your jobs. Then again, I am not here to demand you to be more active. It is just a suggestion/question after all.

I used to be significantly more active -- I had several roleplays I was participating in, both on the forums and in PMs, and I was very active in the community socializing-wise. (Spam especially.) Then my life changed a bit -- I moved to Manhattan, I obtained a full-time job that kept me out of the house more (because I was working from home previously), and I had more things going on which stole my active time away from roleplaying. I still care about the community and have a lot of friends here with whom I keep in touch. I am still invested, even if I'm not down for roleplaying much anymore due to time constraints. I pop on here numerous times throughout the day, when I'm able to at work, and also when I get home. Of course, I can't sit on a discord while I'm at work (which seems to be when a lot of people are most active), however, for a length of time to get too involved in a conversation or a roleplay that may keep me from my paid duties. (As I'm sure is understandable.) I was promoted to moderator because I did and do care about the community and because I'm usually a solid voice of reason, none of which has changed. I'm just more active behind the scenes than in front these days.

I know that my ghost-level of obvious community involvement is just temporary, however, so I keep on keepin' on as best as I can in the meantime.

Right now I'm currently working on getting an agent here in the city, so that I can return to illustrating full time and start working from home again, which would allow me much more freedom to socialize. Meanwhile, I'm happy to keep up on the janitorial duties that moderatorship sometimes requires, as they are generally quick/easy to manage, if not glorious in nature. (Because, hey, shit needs to get done sometimes.) I contribute in the small ways that I can at the moment. It's not ideal, but it's what I can do for the time being, until my longterm plans play out.