@rightmeow said in Review of Recent Bans:
In closing, I think this just needs to be done better.
I want to start here with a question: what needs to be done better?
Look at who you have posting. You now have the minority and you don't see this and worse, you don't see the problem with it; you see it as a win.
I don't know why you think that a "majority" of people have moved or why you think giving a "minority" of people the opportunity to post is a problem; rather, I think you need to examine this observation closely. I don't see what's wrong with having one board where a "majority" of people post and another where a "minority" of people post. Said another way, I see nothing wrong with having one board where people continue the practices that made WORA/SWOFA/MSB popular and another where people decline to follow the same.
Over the years? Most of these that have been banned have been overly supportive to those in the admin role. Did they react when they were already angry and told to stop? Yep. Same way as if I'm in a RL argument with you and you tell me I need to calm down, I'm probably not going to calm down.
I will admit that a number of people who remain banned assisted in a few ways. Because some are staff at or run other games, I have received notifications of players who have been banned for creepy / stalker behavior, so that I can keep an eye out for them. This is a good practice, and one I hope continues going forward. Roz helped coordinate the move here too.
But I will also say that none of them offered to help until this place was literally crashing down around us. Testament assisted Ark, mietze, and I with one potential plan that did not work out; then faraday, Derp, and Roz assisted in an actual move. In the wake of our successful move, I alone asked Derp and Roz to join us as admins. And that lasted for a week.
As for calming down, I think that's a personal matter, but when my partner or friends ask me to calm down, I do so. As you might imagine, I don't get upset very often.
Also, as a member of the community, I want to see the reasoning. I do not.. DO NOT.. like the cloak and dagger decisions that are going on. Even on games there is a level of transparency given to decisions.
To provide more transparency, here's what happened. Derp looked at the list of folks banned as a result of the events and posted his opinion on each as to whether the ban should remain or be lifted. I then examined the list and went through the evaluation I used here. Those who remain banned are those who I believed: (1) were intentionally trying to get banned; (2) asked to be banned; or (3) spouted profanity in response to what was going on after I asked them to cease discussing the same. So, the people who were unbanned were those that Derp and I agreed did not fall into these categories.
You mention elsewhere that this decision should have been made by the uninvolved. Unfortunately, we did not have any uninvolved moderators at the time we decided on who would be unbanned. I hope to change this; I asked for volunteers a week or so ago, and I have a couple right now. If they want to have their say after reviewing the situation, they will have their input, and that may result in other bans being lifted. And this is why I said that other bans may be lifted in the future.
Why were they not banned before that in the many, many years that some of them have been in the community?
Because they did not violate the rules or any moderator warnings prior -- at least, not clearly, directly, or blatantly.
I just know that I'm very very sad about how this has gone down in a community I cared about and with people I enjoy interacting with (Banned and Unbanned).
I don't mean to put thoughts in your head or words in your mouth, but perhaps you are very sad because you're seeing people on both sides who are worthy, valid, and smart at loggerheads. This puts you in a difficult position because you want to enjoy the company of all, but feel you can no longer do so because that might be seen as "taking sides." I'm not sure what makes you sad. I can only tell you what makes me sad.
I am sad because everyone immediately presumed the worst. I have read repeatedly about how I have tossed away nearly two decades of reputation to "defend a misogynist." The way I see it, if my reputation ever meant anything to anyone, then maybe they would have reached out via PM to discuss the matter. And while I recognize that people, as you put it, do not approve of "cloak and dagger" discussions, I really saw no other way to explain to anyone why I was asking for peace: because mietze needed time to read through everything, process, and discuss our path forward, and that continually adding fuel to the fire would not help the situation. What was going on in her life was not for me to explain or describe -- so I was silent.
I also am sad because it was clear to me that the goal of the protest was to compel me to fire Derp. This was one of the repeated demands, even after I explained that I would not be doing that and why. They demanded that farfalla be "freed"; farfalla is now "freed". I think they also asked me to step down -- I don't recall -- but if that's the case, I hope they can see that this would result in Derp having sole authority here. How that would "rebuild trust" is beyond me, and even if I had followed their will, nothing proposed would have ameliorated what was going on in mietze's life, which led to her resignation. Not to mention that such a "compromise" would have compromised my own sense of fair play with people who are willing to serve voluntarily.
Finally, I am sad that others seem to think that I have no sense of self-awareness. I understand that many people think that I am but a custodian of a public square, and like most custodians I get over-looked or thought of as a servant of some kind. The thing is that if my job is merely to be a caretaker, then I am an utter failure because I have to rely on others to do this; see, e.g., how long it took for us to get to a stable place. Despite this belief, I am called upon more often than not to be an enforcer of the forum's rules, which puts me in a "law enforcement" role more than anything else and therefore a servant to those who make the rules -- the community. Either way, people seem to think that I'm not entitled to agency and to be judged on the choices I've made, and that is disappointing.
I can deal with making the choices and being judged for it. If what follows is being criticized somewhere in the Internet, so be it, but I do not know why I should tolerate being pilloried on a place that I spent time, effort, and money to keep up and running. If people believe otherwise, then we have a difference of opinion.
Just be kind.
I will, RightMeow, and I am, I think.
Kindness isn't always forgiveness or the lowering of boundaries, and right now I think there needs to be boundaries. I don't plan to set foot on Brand MU Day, and I hope their endeavor goes well. If their admins want to talk about some of the creepy stalkers that have been banned here, and share info so that their forum doesn't have to deal with them, I'm happy to do that too. If they even want to "bear the mantle" of being "the successor" in the WORA/SWOFA/MSB tradition, then I would be the first to say that they can have it. But that does not mean I will reconsider the bans I put on prior accounts, or that I think they are unjustified, or that I think they have no purpose.
To bring this back to the question, I think we are doing things better. We have settled on our "identity" as being one that no longer permits the sort of toxic shit-flinging that once existed in the Hog Pit, which makes it easier to moderate. We have decided to follow this vision because we think something different needs to be offered. For the "minority" of people returning, knowing that we will be more vigilant and direct under this forum-wide policy is, I think, reassuring. And even if we are not doing things better now, we want to do better and to be kinder, and this is reflected in our new vision of what the hobby's community needs.
If we fade away like IGU, so be it. But I do not consider a lesson from almost 20 years ago to be instructive now. I think a substantial part of the community does not care for, and never cared for, the sort of public-shaming of the Hog Pit. And I now believe, after 20 years, that the idea that public shaming will cause a change in behavior is pretty vain, if not a pretext to simply being a shitty person.
So, we are going to be better and kinder, and have knitted this idea into the fabric of the forum.
I hope you can appreciate what we are trying here and how it falls in line with what you want to see, but right now I do not think lifting the bans will help anything.
