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Community Toxicity Bans. The Follow Up.
#1
Report on Community Toxicity

I will start by giving a fair warning that this is going to be long. I ask that you read the whole thing to fully understand everything. Just reading bits and pieces won't tell you anything and will lead to misconceptions. I will provide a brief outline summary for those that don't want to read... or "principle conclusions," if you will. Again, you must read the entire thing to fully understand something not just based on a summary. If you're just reading the summary I hope you realize that we have learned in the past through many reports and commissions established by government entities that summaries don't reveal the whole scope of things and don't matter that much. The report itself is the thing that matters.

Outline

  • Was unanimous Admin decision, not one single Admin was the mastermind behind it. Yes, this did have Dinkleberg's approval and he has been watching the whole thing behind the scenes and agreed it has started to become an issue and raised his own concerns on occasion.
  • Bans were never intended to be permanent. This was a placeholder until users appealed and admitted their wrong doings/acknowledged they had some things to work on and then would be reduced on a case by case basis. This was done with the aim to send the message that after many failed attempts to curve toxicity/harassment post after post and announcement after announcement that something actually needed to be done and we aren’t going to tolerate it anymore from here on out. There are more threads, internal discussions, and announcements out there regarding this but you should get the point. Toxicity/Harassment has been an issue for a very long time and a lot of think that there has been very little done about it in the past
  • So essentially, these posts and announcements just weren’t working and a yet another simple post addressing that matter wouldn’t of changed anything nor would a simple warning have benefited us, as a community, in the long run if we truly aimed to reduce the amount of community-wide toxicity/harassment present. This was supposed to be an eye opener. To send a message. Yes, it did come out the wrong way.
  • Some of you were staff as well and should’ve known better. We know a lot of these people were well-liked, they were our friends too, and it was hard for some of us. However, we cannot give special or preferential treatment to these people just because they are well-liked, everyone must be treated equally. 
  • To put this in better perspective, if any random guest/group of guests were doing this kind of unfitting behavior and multiple people were afraid to post and interact because they are not a part of this group, wouldn’t we instantly punish them?
  • We also felt since you guys have had warnings in general before(some individually, some as whole, and some as a community). Just before the ban, behaviors and conduct was brought up yet again. It felt unneeded to keep repeating ourselves time after time again. But I can honestly see where talking about it individually would have benefited everyone more but would not have solved the problem in the long run and would’ve been another temporary band-aid fix.
  • Majority of evidence is NOT from a private discord, it is actually the minority of evidence, think of it more as secondary/supplemental evidence. 
  • As said before, we CANNOT post every piece of evidence due to some of these users requesting that we do not go public with their evidence. Some of them we can explain in words without showing the pictures, but others we cannot even explain due to the sensitivity of the matter. It was a very large diverse group of people that have submitted evidence to us and have requested not to go public with it and keep it sealed, it was not the same two-three people over and over again with some sort of crusade to get rid of you guys, it was a very diverse group of people.
  • If I had to describe this whole situation I would describe it through the words of the great Sun Tzu, "Disorder came from orderfear came from courageweakness came from strength." What this means in my perspective is that Chaos and backlash came from the decision made by the upper staff. There was a bit of disorder in terms of communication between and from the upper staff, the order figure. There was order inside of disorder, most of the community initially coming to oppose this decision and express their opinions. Fear came out of the courage of the Upper Staff to act on this issue and what it would mean for the future. Weakness came from the strength of the community to speak out, as expected when making this hard decision. But in the end, all will hopefully understand why this event took place and we will turn that weakness into strength, in the long run, accepting the short term backlash and perceived weakness in the Upper Staff. I do expect people not to get it still.
Why It Happened

Let’s just reiterate one thing here. This decision was made unanimously by the Upper Staff in principle and was not one Admin was the mastermind behind it all, which seems to be popular opinion. Did we rush it? A little. Could’ve we planned it out better? Yes. Did this need to happen eventually? Yes, it was inevitable. Let’s dive in here and explain in the most rational way I can. Again, this was a decision made jointly between Queef, Gabe, Nuru, Fish, and in consultation with Dinkleberg, who was also growing concerned with these several issues for some time.

As far as previous warnings and punishments, there have been general warnings given out regarding toxicity as a whole. Those that were staff should also know better than to act that way as well. The truth is a simple warning could not have avoided this, absolutely not, it was time we put our foot down to fix this plague of toxicity and harassment that has run rampant for far too long without serious consequence or serious punishment. Again, a simple warning or another pointless thread talking about toxicity and harassment would have solved nothing in the long run and would've been another "bandaid fix." Contrary to popular belief, not everyone was banned for the same reason and we will go through every case individually down below here in a bit. This may have not been communicated that well, and we apologize for that.

One of the many concerns regarding this crackdown was that these punishments were too harsh, but taking a look beneath the surface actually shows that this is not as harsh as you think. As said in the original post, “These members may appeal this decision and each will be decided on a case by case basis.” Decided, meaning a chance to reduce. As many have seen, Tdawg has appealed, and his ban has been amended. Everyone else this far has not exerted their right to appeal for reduce but instead decide not to admit any fault at all and have essentially claimed that they have done nothing wrong. We get this came out the wrong way, but continuing some of the same behavior for certain individuals and proving the overall point of the ban in part is not the way to go either.

Many people have suggested that these users were banned for “giving their opinion,” that is categorically false. The reason on that front was how they CONVEYED their opinion and attacking other people’s opinions when they did not agree with it, most of the time in unison whether it be via reputation or replies. 

Some may argue “people have a right to express an opinion” and “freedom in speech” but speech is not necessarily free and has its limits. We do agree free speech is fundamental to us and allows us to discover the truth, to benefit from a diverse group of opinions to make rational decisions, and to enjoy having a good community. However, free speech has to be fair and not be used in a way that is detrimental to our community. In the 1969 Supreme Court case, Brandenburg vs Ohio, dealt with our first amendment right and dealt with a response to the advocacy of illegal conduct. For context, the defendant had given racist remarks and anti-semitic speech at a KKK rally. The Court ruled that a state could not criminalize “advocacy of the use of force or law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such an action.” In basic terms, you do have a right to freedom of speech but you are also going to be held to what you say to others and face the consequences when neccessary.

Now you may be asking how the heck this relates to this ban? The answer is simple, the majority of these people were banding together making comments that were likely to advocate and incite (or) produce a lawless action against our MOTD, specifically rule 6. Mob mentality. Going against people that didn't agree in an uncivil way, attacking others for their dissenting opinions, and making others across the community fear giving their opinion on certain important threads because they feare receiving intense and unneccesary backlash from these individuals or they just not want to have to deal with the likely consequences of giving a dissenting opinion. Both of which are ridiculous and should not happen. We are supposed to be problem solvers, not creators, and figure things out in a civil way, not turning it into an all out war. Wars like this have its consequences and create a domino effect. Once a few people fall victim to fearing to comment on important threads due to this group of people specifically, others will eventually fall and continue to do so. Again, a simple warning wouldn't of fixed this issue in the long run, not at all. 

Every "War" has its consequences and you will lose some battles, but that does not mean you will lose the "war." We always knew there would be backlash. We thought it was better to deal with the short term consequences of an unpopular decision that will be beneficial in the long run. To put this whole thing in a better perspective and I truly hate to use an example like this.: On August 6, 1945, then President Harry S. Truman had the strength to make the the heavily divided decision to drop the first Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima knowing there would be backlash but be successful in the long run in a sense. He said, "It is an awful responsibility that has come to us." The other alternatives Truman practically had was launch a bloody invasion on Japan that a study concluded would've cost around 1.7 million american fatalities and about five to seven million Japanese casualties or drop the bombs in a different place. Truman's overall goal was not to destroy Japanese culture or people, but had a goal was to destroy Japan's ability to make war. So why am I bringing this up? Because much had Truman, we had an awful responsibility that came to us with this situation, but we had to make the choice to save the community from much further harm knowing it would have severe consequences but would benefit us in the long run and would've been a much better alternative to make the courageous decision to make a decision like we did here. 

I guess where I was trying to go with this, in short, is that we had an awful responsibility brought before us and had to make the hard decision knowing it would also cost us a lot of casualties with people not involved and have a lasting impact on the community both ways, but strength would ultimately prevail. The other thing I'm trying to connect here is the debate over dropping the atomic bomb in ethical and legal justification terms will never be resolved in a sense of who was right and who was wrong, much like I anticipate this debate to never end. Some people will always say it was "unethical" to ban these people without "warning" and if it was even justified. I do still stand by the decision made here and it was inevitable, and so do the rest of the Admins.

That’s what this part of the bans was essentially... minus the history lesson, I get a bit carried away. Again, each individual’s case will be explained below.


Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Why the Bans had to be Issued.


Laced Xanax: Where to begin here… Essentially, your ban was a part of this “hivemind” that we did not want to continue existing in our community that was detering players from wanting to participate in community activities outside of the server itself, such as commenting on apps, voicing opinions, etc. Instead, these people were afraid to speak their mind out of fear of receiving heavy backlash from a certain group or not wanting to deal with the backlash. Essentially, going out of your way to put people down for their opinion, even if you might think you aren’t. Apps are mainly supposed to be to give input and for maybe small debate at most, not an all out war. Admins are the ones who debate the apps mostly while heavily factoring in community input a lot. Once again, no one was banned for expressing their opinion, it was how it was conveyed and uncivil in most cases as well as “attacking” others for their opinions. The way you have responded to certain people that have been pushed out of this “group” shows as well. There was also your ban for using a certain bind and one or two other minor things. We know you were a big proponent of combating toxicity in our community, and we appreciate that. But the issue is that in your fight against toxicity, you yourself were becoming toxic and you started realizing that too and should be noted. One of the many fascinating things Confucius has said is, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.” Again, these bans are not intended to be permanent. They are placeholders until the user appeals, can acknowledge some of their wrongs, and try to right those wrongs.The other thing worth mentioning is that after this ban took place, some of the behavior you have exhibited has proven the overall point of this ban and reaffirmed the need for it. You obviously had a reasonable right to be upset over it, but some of the things were just too far and has shown that you and a few others were handling the whole thing poorly. Obviously there are still going to be some things for some people that they have requested it not to be shown for privacy.


Lily: The most blatant way to put this is that you were the epicenter of this “hivemind” and it all revolved around you somehow, either directly or indirectly. Some of it was direct and some of it was equally indirect. Again, there are some things we cannot show publicly still but directly relate you to most of the ongoings that were happening. Further evidence that we do have the shows you being the epicenter of these things sadly is what we cannot show, and we apologize for this. However it’s enough to warrant your ban. I do get that people will say "you guys are lying, you don't have any evidence and are trying to spin it." I get your point, I do, but there will just have to be a level of trust here. Given by the three separate responses at the top regarding the privacy of evidence, I think it should be reasonable to believe that we can't show some.


WILD: Wild, your punishment was more revolved about your mentality and us feeling it was just not fitting to be staff on our server any longer. As a Moderator, you’d always act like you were the one in charge and still the Co-Owner. Similarly, on occasion, you would throw around that you used to be Co-Owner when someone did not agree with you. At one point you had also approached a ph staff via dms trying to tell them off for what they were saying in general chat during the whole thing between dong/link/etc was happening. You also tried to act intimidating here towards this staff member. This is one example of trying to make people feel inferior to you. So this, in short, explains the demotion aspect. Also yes, this was one piece of evidence that we could not show nor are we going to show at the moment. This person knows who they are and if they would like to speak out on it, it is up to them. As far as the ban goes, what wild said has said in other discord shown in the original posts has always been very concerning to us. The things wild said were really concerning, to the point where  we couldn’t trust him or his motives We felt that he was trying to grow his influence which played a big factor in the mob mentality incidents. The way he put others down while trying to put his supporters and friends on a lime light in a sly manner was something we did not want happening here. As stated in the Brandenburg case, advocacy directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such an action, we felt this was going to lead to a scenario like that, started seeing signs and trends, and had to act upon it. 

I’m just going to copy and paste this line from the original post as well I guess since it was there. “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.” Again, bans were NEVER meant to be permanent, was merely a placeholder. It was meant to get the message across and for these individuals to acknowledge their mistakes, show us how they will improve upon it, then either be reduced or unbanned. After the Ban: not to mention that some of the behaviors you have chose to exert after the ban, which again we know was poorly planned and executed, that sort of proved the whole point of our crackdown, it should not be hard to figure out.


Tdawg: In all honesty, your ban was the least justified and has been amended accordingly via the appeal. The demote should've been enough to warrant the punishment. I genuinely do not know how to begin here. Just a message in general to people is to not begin a match of your personal opinion is right, there is wrong and not acknowledge it. You don't have to like everyone's opinion, but you have to respect people and respect their reasons for holding that opinion. People should be treated the way you would like to be treated. The only thing that was considered "wrongdoing" would've been those messages in part, and we've been over that. 


Rits: Your ban took place for multiple infractions, after returning from a previous community ban. You have been banned for harassment, kicked for racism, warned multiple times for racism, and still continued to break rules. Just because the person you are talking to in this way is okay with it, doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to break the rules. Upon warnings, you still went out of your way in the public main discord to ping and target Proper as well, after being told to ignore it. She was punished. You were also kicked for keeping it going, and doing it back. At this point it was suggested that your community ban come back. Too many incidents have occurred where you were punished or heavily warned. This warranted your ban. This is a compiled a list of all evidence we can show.


Link: Your ban took place due to your inability to make your own decisions and follow someone who was becoming highly toxic, and copying them. When Rits would be punished, or someone else that you were close with, you would in turn mock the person that punished said friend publicly, or would pm the person responsible and try to correct them or make them believe they were wrong. (Example of this is chats with Nuru, when you would run to her and tell her she was wrong for kicking/banning rits, and then when explained why, you would form your own opinion finally instead of trying to take hers) This happened several times. Among this, other things you have done have added onto why you were banned. You repeatedly crossed lines with jokes. What would be simple jokes to others, you would cross lines and take it too far. An example of this is the warning you received over Kuono. It was merely a slap on the wrist, and instead of expressing you were upset and leaving it at that, you took it to public discord and mocked for receiving said warning, and then refused to drop the topic until it was made clear that you were going to far and upsetting people, when it was visible before this fact. This was after Kuono and you both had been told to avoid one another, and she did so, and blocked you, and left all discords you were in. So you went out of your way to take jabs at someone. For all these reasons above, and repeatedly doing so when told it was wrong, you were added into these bans. 

Battons: Your ban was apart of what we called a “mob mentality” and attacking people publicly and privately for disagreeing with you/others that are a part of this. Again, this has nothing to do with expressing an opinion, it was how it was conveyed and executed to attack another person. This is something that cannot happen. Like I said before, this makes people afraid to comment on applications and that is something that is absolutely not okay. It will also deter others from wanting to comment on an application out of fear of backlash and not wanting to be a part of the community for that reason, and that’s now okay again. As said before, a simple warning wouldn’t have any benefit, in the long run, to fix this issue once and for all. We needed to set an example and show that we are not going to tolerate this anymore. Also to reiterate: bans were never meant to be permanent. They were intended to be permanent as a placeholder, users would appeal, and would be reduced on a case by case basis.


Not Done Yet. More Explanation Based on Your Comments! 
(may be some repeats in here in case people are skipping over sections.)
We’re reading what you’re all saying. We are not ignoring the community but the community doesn’t have full context of the things that have been pointed out to and shown to us for the past two months. For some time now we’ve been having this ongoing problem of toxicity of a majority (above and below the surface) crushing those of the minority that are too scared to speak up.

For this, we don’t think that the punishments were too harsh and never had the intention of remaining permanent indefinitely. We in the upper staff team have not forum banned anyone so that those banned can make their case whether they feel they have done any wrong or not and could be reduced on a case by case basis.

Onto the next topic of people claiming that they’re being banned for their opinions- this isn’t true. That’s just another perspective to take a narrative on. We don’t believe we’re strictly restricted to Dinkleberg’s Discord if it is harming another player in the form of one negative standpoint to one hiveminding biased viewpoint. It’s very damaging and unwelcome to single anyone out like this when it comes into the forums, server, or discord. Some examples are hiveminding on recent staff applications to attack people that don’t agree with their viewpoint via replies or by a show of forum reputation.

For example, something we all know of is freedom of speech. Not everyone knows though that that right has limitations. We’re trying to reduce the amount of toxicity happening working off such a model. That kind of expression is what’s causing this mob mentality.

A prime example is the original thread Addressing Toxicity. This is on a mass scale of mob mentality; we’re mostly seeing people trying to state that this wasn’t a unanimous vote and that it was rigged and pushed by Queef. I’d like everyone to know that every upper staff, both active and inactive voted and came to this mutual understanding. This isn’t just a community backlash on a whole because there are two sides to this situation. Really inactive staff like Drew and EveryJuan were not around when this took place.



Upper staff had either noticed or were made aware of a couple different groups forming. Nothing necessarily wrong with that as groups of friends grow and change constantly especially in such a large community as this one with many sub-communities as well. However, no matter how two of these particular mini groups started, if not more, they became toxic and harassing in nature. Common things that they would do is go after other groups or individuals that did not agree with their mentality. These groups would go into such things such various threads on the forums, on server, individual’s dms, and follow them through Discords depending on what thing was done that they disagreed with. I can understand and respect standing up for your friend but going farther than that to the point of harassment should not be tolerated here or in any community. Multiple individuals who fell victim of just having different ideals and perspectives from these individuals went silent and would not comment on things either in fear of being targeted once or again. Several of these individuals would contact trusted upper staff to relay their concerns either to be known in the threads of concern, quite a few, not even that. Some even left the community to either find or build new communities away from these issues constantly occurring.



A constant notice of the announcement was lack of evidence that subjected to some of the individuals to said crime that they committed. They were not all banned for the same thing or that is what the discussion before the bans took place were believed to have meant. We are here to make it CLEAR that not everyone is banned for the same thing. We have explained why each person is banned which is what we should have done to begin with. We cannot and will not make some of the evidence that we have made public due to the sensitive nature that said evidence contains. This is not to say that the bulk of the community would not be able to handle or understand the situation that becomes clear with the evidence but that with every community, there are people who will go after those that they harassed or that reported them. That could happen from the harasser specifically or members of the groups that were previously mentioned could go after them. In a perfect world, we would release said information, but in said world, this would have never happened in the first place.



We wanted to be clear that no one is above the rules when it comes to such rules as harassment, being extremely toxic and/or going out of their way not to just disagree with but attack individuals with a differing opinion. We also saw that it was clear that we need to make things more clear by the community seeing the aftermath that has been caused because of it. We are only human and many times we are looking from the outside in. This is not to dismiss everything that each individual was a part of either together or separately, but clarification is key. Completely inactive upper staff did not vote on this particular issue. Again, most people are blaming Queef solely for this, and it was not him alone. It was all of our decisions. We knew that when posting the thread and doing the bans that there would be backlash. We accepted that as friends of the community members being banned would obviously object to said bans. We understood that not all the evidence would be made available due to their sensitive nature.


We understand some of this evidence is months old, but when it comes to many of these things like “hive minding” or “toxicity” or “harassment” sometimes those are things that happen slowly over time and then build. This is the case with several of these people, they were guilty of repeatedly doing one of the above. It took a few months for each of us to gather evidence. While we received many complaints, nothing could be done at the time, and alone, each of us had evidence, but not enough to place a ban or punishment. When we as admins got together and began to share our evidence, we realized just how much we had, and how bad the issues with each were. That is what ultimately led to the final decision of the community bans. Again these weren’t meant to be forever bans, just place holders for each person, for them to realize their actions, and make up for them. This was also to be a message to the community in general that we were no longer going to tolerate this, and that people should not be afraid to talk. We want everyone to feel welcome here, and feel like they have a voice. Several of these people have prevented that for many users, new and old. We never meant for the harm to come that did, but this is what we can do to explain our thought processes, and show you, the community, what brought us to these decisions and bans.



Some Direct Comments Responded to by Admins

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You are absolutely able to report admins. The staff abuse section is for this. Nobody is above anyone here. Not even admins. If you feel that they are deserving of punishment, post here. If you’re not comfortable doing so, message dink, or an admin you trust. It will be handled. Keep in mind this doesn’t guarantee it’ll go your way, just it will be handled properly.

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Our intention wasn’t ever to keep anyone permanently banned, but for them to see their wrong doings, admit to it, and then when we see sincerity and the want to change, unban fully, or reduce, based on the severity of each case. As for evidence, some of it is weeks or months old, because things like this take a while to gather enough on to be able to do anything about. This is due to the acts themselves being sneaky. Yes, several of you were previously punished/talked to for some things either community wide, individually, or as a group. But a community ban comes when you’ve either reached enough punishments, or the acts are severe enough to warrant one. In this case, some were the first, some were the second, some where more than seconds.

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Many of the people that were banned, have received multiple warnings over time for multiple things and for toxicity previously. Some should've known better too. It shouldn't have to be restated every time it happens. Do you warn people in the server 12 times before a ban? No of course not. It’s the same principle here. They had a few warnings, got punished a few times, now it’s up to the big punishment and stepping up efforts besides just ineffective warnings and ineffective posts/announcements regarding this topic. Again, please read the entire thread before commenting on something like this to understand it fully.

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When we originally posted the thread, we grouped it all together as mob mentality and toxicity, and that is our fault for not being more thorough. By this we in no way meant that everyone was doing it together, but that they were almost all guilty of one, the other, or both. As for the evidence, we are going to show as much as possible. But there is a lot. It’s why it has taken us so long to do this.


If there are more questions you as a community have, after this, please ask them and we will do our best to address them in a timely manner. We only ask that instead of witch-hunting like before, you talk to us calmly and maturely. 

Conclusions

  • Just going to say this again in case people just skip down to the bottom. Read. The. Entire. Thing. First. To. Fully. Understand.
  •  I think it is time we all lay down our arms and become whole again... or partly. To the people Banned: Appeal if you desire to come back. They were never meant to be permanent.  
  • This is supposed to be a community, not a High School. Some of our players may be in high school, but this is a Garry's Mod Community, not a place for toxicity, harassment, or petty drama. We need people to stop screwing around on the forums when it comes to brigading and derailing important threads, mass-downvoting, and excessive necroing/shitposting. It needs to stop. These are just some of the things.
  • No one is better than anyone else. You certainly don't have to like everyone. You don't have to like everyone's opinion, but you have to respect people and respect their reasons for holding that opinion. People should be treated the way you would like to be treated. 
  • I might have more stuff to add to this after initial post. Also btw ik there are probably some obvious typos in here, will slowly get them out

#2
I thank you for this Gabe.
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#3
I'm still not appealing, but I find it unfair that half of the evidence shown is from after my original ban.

I don't care either way though, I had my fun in this community, but it is clear that certain people (including staff, who are exhibiting the same exact "hivemind" behaviors that you accuse me of having) don't want me here, and so I will take my leave. I love most of you, and it is hard for me to make this decision, but I must go. I will make one last post on my goodbye thread, and disappear.

Thank you all (well, not all of you) for the good times and laughs that we shared together. I hope some of us may meet again under different circumstances.
#4
I’m assuming Gabe is a History Buff






Thank you for this, definitely needed for this community.
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#5
Too... many.... historic references. But thank you Gabe for posting this and making everything clear cut.
#6
Not enough historical references
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#7
A few things that I'm going to mention:

You keep emphazing that "This decision was made unanimously by the Upper Staff," but you left out the fact that the PH admins said that they didn't vote on some of the TTT bans due to not knowing them too well.
"For people I did not know really at all, like Tdawg, I let TTT decide what to do with him" - A quote from TheUltraFish in response to my question about involvement of ph admins in ttt bans.

This is more minor, but I still heavily disagree with using mostly evidence from a private discord as evidence to get someone banned. (I'm referring to the Wild ban btw)

We all know that these "hiveminds" that are mentioned are considered a big problem. We all know that they had more people than just the ones banned. Why did you only chose to ban the people you did?

Ill add more questions as needed. I do think its a good thing that this thread was made. Thanks for doing it.
#8
(09-06-2019, 06:24 PM)killerZoreo Wrote: A few things that I'm going to mention:

1. You keep emphazing that "This decision was made unanimously by the Upper Staff," but you left out the fact that the PH admins said that they didn't vote on some of the TTT bans due to not knowing them too well.
"For people I did not know really at all, like Tdawg, I let TTT decide what to do with him" - A quote from TheUltraFish in response to my question about involvement of ph admins in ttt bans.

This is more minor, but I still heavily disagree with using mostly evidence from a private discord as evidence to get someone banned. (I'm referring to the Wild ban btw)

2. We all know that these "hiveminds" that are mentioned are considered a big problem. We all know that they had more people than just the ones banned. Why did you only chose to ban the people you did?

Ill add more questions as needed. I do think its a good thing that this thread was made. Thanks for doing it.

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1. This is why I said "decision was made unanimously by Upper Staff in principle" meaning we all agreed on the fundamental idea(yes it originally said principal if anyone caught that I'm stupid ok). I never said they voted on exact people. Another reason why I also emphasized reading the full thing to understand it entirely.

2. Evidence is the short answer.
#9
I think all people could stand to identify where they made mistakes, both here and in general.

Even if you think the person who is accusing you of wrongdoing is entirely mistaken (and that person may or may not be entirely mistaken, I am not referencing any specific situations) it doesn't hurt to take a step back and reevaluate your behavior and how your view of your own actions and self may be skewed so that you are unaware of the mistakes you make.
As someone who has made countless mistakes in my life and will continue to make countless more, it helps. Sometimes you have to get over your pride and you may have a bruised ego and it sucks, but improving yourself feels good. It's important to know how to do it, and when I see someone routinely avoiding the possibility that maybe this once they did something wrong, it makes me sad.
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#10
As one of the people involved in this whole shebang I still do not approve of you guys opting for full community bans, without warning to some, and pretending as if it's some sort of public display of shame towards these individuals to be forced to essentially beg for forgiveness in order to be unbanned. None of us wanted this. And before being accused of being a part of this so called "hivemind" I think it's extremely important to let people know that theres maybe 1 or 2 people that were banned that I can even stand talking to sometimes. No one was pushing me to have different opinions that what I truly felt. 

My biggest concern here is that you (the admins) are comparing community bans to that of dropping the fucking nukes on japan. That is incredibly disrespectful and uncalled for, this is not that extreme. You guys are in charge of running a community, not executing millions of people.

While gabe touched on the multiple groups formed, or as I call them, cliques,  how are you going to assess and determine which ones are toxic and which ones are just people being close? Since I'm one of the people you could consider too afraid to speak up for myself due to backlash, I'm gonna lay it down here now and point out that even while I was staff myself, the mods and admins will treat you like crap if you are not upper staff. I have barely acted differently since resigning yet now I am being dumpstered by people o thought were friendly. There is too much of a mob mentality still after this ban wave. Too many things are being turned away from with blind eyes that others would be decimated for. 


Anyways this is the worst thing I've ever written and sorry for that. I am still a salty boy.
We're just a giant ass
Cheeks are made of children
Old was just a fad
Shit on all the billions


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