[reina]

I would appreciate a response to the other part.

I’m not comparing their reputations. One major concern being voiced by some in this thread is the lack of opportunity for community members to voice their opinions, and I don’t think that has anything to do with Laced, personally. Citing that as a reason to demote him is unreasonable, in my opinion. 

I think it is pretty disingenuous to misconstrue Avi's argument to suit your narrative since, as I would hope you know, you are not talking about the same group she is. 

True, I shouldn’t have used Avi’s words facetiously to begin that post. Apologies, Avi. 

In fact, in this whole response you make a lot of big assumptions that do not really hold water

They’re not assumptions, they’re observations. We may perceive these observations differently, but that does not make either one of our opinions any less genuine. 

If consistently disagreeing with the promotion of someone that I think should not have even a modicum of power over the community is deemed harassment and targeting by you, then so be it.

A group posting the same responses on every post involving members of another group becoming staff, with a few of them mass -1ing people supporting the subject of the post, does come across as more than a person simply voicing their disagreement with a decision tin my opinion, yes. Especially when one of the people being targeted has been the subject of multiple posts made to stretch disagreements outside of their original threads in an unconstructive manner.

You are free to try and discredit opinions by slapping the label of toxicity on whoever opposes your point of view.  Just as I am free to disagree with Laced being in a position of power, you are free to take the easy way out by deeming disagreement as toxicity and harassment. 

I was not attempting to discredit anyone, nor am I slapping a label on a situation to take the easy way out. 

However, this labeling is extremely concerningly, especially from an admin, because seems like you are dog-whistling for a community ban

I wasn’t. Hoping that it’s resolved genuinely just means I hope that it will no longer be a source of stress for some people without any reference or thought as to how that will come to be. 

We have seen harassment in this community before and for you to lower the standard this far due to a differing point of view is, at best, worrying and calls into question your judgement and interpretation of the rules

It’s important to keep in mind that you and I have different perspectives. From my perspective, this has been harassment. Based on what I can tell, from your perspective, it hasn’t. That’s why I mentioned condemning behavior while also behaving in the way that they are condemning. Someone can behave in a certain way without realizing how their behavior is affecting others. 

and, at worst, a thinly-veiled threat to stop opposing the forward progress of someone or face the consequences from those, who hold a position of power, who support said person. 

It wasn’t. 

Even giving you the benefit of the doubt, those accusations carry a serious weight, especially now that you have the power of an admin, and it was you, and only you, who picked those words knowing the context that they carry.

I don’t have the power to do anything that you’re worried I may be threatening to do, and I would never act as though that weren’t the case. 

So my question is, do you think that those who have consistently opposed Laced are now delving into the depths of harassment because they refuse to give in and support his march upward?

No.

Or was your claim of harassment and targeting a hyperbole/oversimplification?

Also no, but I agree it may have been inappropriate as an admin to voice those concerns in the way that I did and at the time that I did. My opinion is still the same, but I’ll be sure to be more mindful of my position when voicing my opinions in the future. 

[Battons]

It really is something that is hard to put into a singular post but I will try my best to summarize my discontent with why he is suddenly promoted.



1. Laced has a history here, both good and bad. He was an excellent staff member his first and honestly even his second go, however, after addressing toxicity occured he grew a lack of empathy and compassion towards staff.

2. He belittles other people.

   - He bullied and harassed Foxka and TO THIS DAY has not apologized for it. In-fact he would rather have an admin relay to Foxka that he (Laced) has blocked him and wants nothing to do with him anymore, thus showing he feels no remorse for the pain he put Foxka in. For this point I cannot provide evidence out of respect of Foxka and the Admins but I do know of its existence.

   - He contributed to the harassment of Travis to the point he ended up just leaving the community. He helped foster the spread of a picture comparing him to a known groomer. Was that his intention? Probably not, but it didn't matter to Travis because the damage was done. Rand apologized for his involvement, Laced did not. For those newer you may ask "Who is Travis?" He was our first Web Mod. Evidence. The picture. It has been edited to remove their faces.

   - He does not respond well to criticisms. My evidence is the first comment on this thread.

   - He told a community member to kill themselves in the CSGO game night. We don't accept those jokes in discord forums or server so why is it suddenly ok?

3. He has been banned a cumulative TWENTY EIGHT times according to Gbans. Now I promise not all of these were "fair" or serious BUT its still an ungodly amount and it isn't even including his alt. The latest was THIS YEAR(2022) being for Slurs.

4. Slurring. He has kept up the pattern of slurring BUT it is outside of Dink's. Why is this acceptable? It occurs in servers which contain people from here and makes them incredibly uncomfortable. You say he has changed and sure, maybe in a front facing sense, but the pattern is there and to ignore it and say "He's changed" or "BUT ITS NOT IN DINKS!" is just blind ignorance to this behavior. I will show you the pattern of him slurring in evidence below. It will be linked to a different website for those who do not wish to see it.





https://ibb.co/xJTHm3z

https://ibb.co/5hpbN3g

https://ibb.co/j3gq1Y3

https://ibb.co/SvZDCjs

https://ibb.co/s348rcQ



Avi has asked me to post a screenshot further proving this is a recurring behavior
https://ibb.co/wBTMB2J
https://ibb.co/DGqX9tT



These are so incredibly recent that it is disgusting the blind eye that's been turned toward this and my faith in the admins ability to make decisions has been demolished from it. It is clear you have only promoted him as a friend. By deconstructing and villainizing all those who oppose this decision it is clear you have made up your mind and are shoving fingers in your ears going LALALALALA. You have willingly promoted someone to the position which allows him to close discussions and remove what he deems unacceptable when in reality he can't even behave himself when nobody is looking. Disgusting.



To the admins, I have a list of staff members that are now scared of not only you but even talking in the staff discord and have instead confided in me. This is a big problem and you should actually try communicating with them.

[bunniey]

snerp

Regarding his amount of bans, I did go through them. 20 were joke bans, one or two were reductions. Just throwing that out there.

[moocow]

   - He contributed to the harassment of Travis to the point he ended up just leaving the community. Evidence. The picture

hi i have a question about this piece of evidence 

you say that laced contributed to the harassment of travis, yet in the screenshot you provided travis himself states that he is not aware of any of laced's involvement.  also the pic provided is a picture of a cutout of laced himself, not travis. is there any solid evidence aside from this that proves that laced was involved in harassing travis out of the community? because as far as i know and remember it was mostly rand (sorry rand)

[Nicol Bolas]

 It occurs in servers which contain people from here and makes them incredibly uncomfortable. You say he has changed and sure, maybe in a front facing sense, but the pattern is there and to ignore it and say "He's changed" or "BUT ITS NOT IN DINKS!" is just blind ignorance to this behavior. I will show you the pattern of him slurring in evidence below. It will be linked to a different website for those who do not wish to see it.

Hmmm ok, I'll bite on this small piece I suppose. Granted I won't actually go into the main discussion this thread is about so I'll try and keep it brief since it's off topic.

On the specific topic of evidence gathered from private/Non-Dink associated discord servers:
It has been my personal staffing policy to not use screenshots/recordings/ etc obtained from private/Non-Dink discord servers as evidence for bans/corrective action whenever possible. 
Why? Well the answer is largely obvious (you should be intimately  familiar with this infamous thread.)

It's not my concern. Unless the issue is legitimately illegal I don't really feel a need to concern myself with outside servers. If people are uncomfortable with words that are being said in a private discord server then they have every right to leave it, I'm not their mom. I have not seen evidence of this behavior occuring any time recently within the community so I'm not inclined to take it seriously. 

That's all from me regarding this, peace.

[Battons]

   - He contributed to the harassment of Travis to the point he ended up just leaving the community. Evidence. The picture

hi i have a question about this piece of evidence 

you say that laced contributed to the harassment of travis, yet in the screenshot you provided travis himself states that he is not aware of any of laced's involvement.  also the pic provided is a picture of a cutout of laced himself, not travis. is there any solid evidence aside from this that proves that laced was involved in harassing travis out of the community? because as far as i know and remember it was mostly rand (sorry rand)

In my haste to finish the replay before I got busy I posted the wrong picture but I can assure you I do in fact have the Travis one. The proof of Laced’s involvement is buried in admin chat that not even regular staff can see so I apologize that I cannot elaborate further.

---

 It occurs in servers which contain people from here and makes them incredibly uncomfortable. You say he has changed and sure, maybe in a front facing sense, but the pattern is there and to ignore it and say "He's changed" or "BUT ITS NOT IN DINKS!" is just blind ignorance to this behavior. I will show you the pattern of him slurring in evidence below. It will be linked to a different website for those who do not wish to see it.

Hmmm ok, I'll bite on this small piece I suppose. Granted I won't actually go into the main discussion this thread is about so I'll try and keep it brief since it's off topic.

On the specific topic of evidence gathered from private/Non-Dink associated discord servers:
It has been my personal staffing policy to not use screenshots/recordings/ etc obtained from private/Non-Dink discord servers as evidence for bans/corrective action whenever possible. 
Why? Well the answer is largely obvious (you should be intimately  familiar with this infamous thread.)

It's not my concern. Unless the issue is legitimately illegal I don't really feel a need to concern myself with outside servers. If people are uncomfortable with words that are being said in a private discord server then they have every right to leave it, I'm not their mom. I have not seen evidence of this behavior occuring any time recently within the community so I'm not inclined to take it seriously. 

That's all from me regarding this, peace.

My reply to this is the same which I provided norm when questioned privately.

Norm Minder — Today at 8:42 PM
Hi Battons, I have a question. Why is using slurs on other servers such an issue? Every different server has its own rules. I don't get point of punishing people for what they did on other servers tbh
[8:42 PM]
You may think different which I respect

Battons — Today at 8:42 PM
It shows a pattern of behavior and character of the individual
[8:43 PM]
If someone slurs like a pig when im not looking how can I trust they won't let someone else slur on server or fairly enforce the rules when they can't adhere to it themselves when other dinks members are around, regardless of server.

Norm Minder — Today at 8:43 PM
I get ur point tho
[8:45 PM]
That's why I have been saying all apps should be public tho . Anyways thanks for response

[Ckg]

*snip*

First off, thanks for responding.  I will agree with Gabe's comment that me calling into question your judgement was unwarranted and rude.  It came from a place of emotion and anger and I apologize for that.

To explain my reasoning for the assumption of a community ban:
Based off the precedent that has been set in the community, the punishment for months of harassment/targeting has fairly consistently been a community ban (i.e. Lily, ThePheonix), so that is why I jumped to that conclusion.  In my mind an accusation of a months-long campaign of harassment and targeting is a comparison to these previous cases and since a community ban as a punishment was the result for these previous cases. That is why I decided to call it a "dog-whistle" to those previous cases.  I definitely could have worded it better/more clearly, but, unfortunately, my emotions got the better of me.  That was my reasoning behind the logical leap to suggesting you were leaning towards the end result of a community ban.

Addressing the harassment claims:
Everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion and if there is overlap so be it.  While I agree mass -1'ing is bad, I do not think that people posting the same responses is the same.  (This is a big part of why I advocate for a removal of rep, since it would force people to actually put words to their opinion rather than being able to hit a button without contributing any input.)  I do not believe that simply because people have the same issues or reservations to someone that it should be disregarded as toxicity, rather than a similarity of opinion formed by a similarity of experience. 

Also to the subject of the multiple threads: While unfortunate, it is the logical result of closing the discussion on the post where the issue stemmed from.  If people still have things to say, closing it is just going to cause a bigger storm and either force the discussion into another thread, or spawn multiple related threads where it will continue to be discussed.  With something controversial, closing the thread to calm down the discussion will just have the opposite effect, as has been demonstrated a multitude of times.

Overall:
I would like to clarify that I am not advocating for a demotion, but I am of the belief that there should be community input for decisions like this.  I am advocating for a revisiting of the issue so that everyone's input is taken into account, as opposed to making a decision then dropping it on the community with the expectation for us to just accept it as a settled matter.  To liken it to a court (since this is, essentially, a court of public opinion), this is not a case of double-jeopardy where someone has already been approved by the community and has been forced to a "retrial", but rather a case where there was no opportunity for community input in general.  If the decision of the community is that Laced should keep his position, so be it, but we should not be expected to just accept it when there was no discussion in the first place.

It is hard not to draw a comparison to the original Addressing Toxicity post from back when a lot of the people complaining about the decision now were playing.  While much more severe and impactful than this decision, it is another example of where the admins made a unilateral judgement without community input and had it blow up in their faces (i.e. over half the staff team leaving).  For me, it is hard to remove the association to that decision when an issue like this comes up.  That is why my response may seem disproportional to the actual event, because this decision did not happen in a vacuum.  It follows a pattern of admins making a decision they knew would be controversial and then doubling-down and refusing to admit fault when pressed it.  It seems now that it the rule and not the exception that when a controversial decision is made unilaterally that the response will be to "suck it up because nothing will change" and that the current admins either learned nothing from the mistakes of the past or seemingly don't care since they know that they have the final say.

[bunniey]

hi, executive decision here from forum staff here
reina, ckg, for the love of god please take it to dms and then post screenies or a link to screenies with the results thank you

[Wrong]

I wonder if it makes more sense to not have a broad web moderator rank and simply have the admins of each game community either do it or delegate that authority on their own. similar to how each game server has different standards of conduct, maybe the same thing should apply to the forums, since it's not like discord where there's an overarching tos that needs to homogenize content

only bringing this up because i don't think anyone is gonna be happy with any other outcome

[dong]

 It occurs in servers which contain people from here and makes them incredibly uncomfortable. You say he has changed and sure, maybe in a front facing sense, but the pattern is there and to ignore it and say "He's changed" or "BUT ITS NOT IN DINKS!" is just blind ignorance to this behavior. I will show you the pattern of him slurring in evidence below. It will be linked to a different website for those who do not wish to see it.

It's not my concern. Unless the issue is legitimately illegal I don't really feel a need to concern myself with outside servers.

what about noire and jack being punished for staple staple?