Bannings

[Jennkryst]

@Tat said in Bannings:

@Roadspike said in Bannings:

@farfalla Ares logs are system-created and (to my knowledge) can’t be edited. I would probably take a regular log too, but that would mean I was playing on a non-Ares game, and ain’t nobody got time to go technologically backwards.

Yeah, they can’t be edited unless you’re a coder, because they come straight from the database and not a player’s computer.

THAT JUST PROVES THE CODER IS IN ON THE CHEMTRAIL FLOURIDE CONSPIRACY TO MAKE PEOPLE LOOK BAD BECAUSE THEY ARE AN ENEMY OF THE CLIQUE!!!111!!1!ONE!!!111ELEVEN!

[Aria]

@Jennkryst said in Bannings:

@Tat said in Bannings:

@Roadspike said in Bannings:

@farfalla Ares logs are system-created and (to my knowledge) can’t be edited. I would probably take a regular log too, but that would mean I was playing on a non-Ares game, and ain’t nobody got time to go technologically backwards.

Yeah, they can’t be edited unless you’re a coder, because they come straight from the database and not a player’s computer.

THAT JUST PROVES THE CODER IS IN ON THE CHEMTRAIL FLOURIDE CONSPIRACY TO MAKE PEOPLE LOOK BAD BECAUSE THEY ARE AN ENEMY OF THE CLIQUE!!!111!!1!ONE!!!111ELEVEN!

…I may have alarmed a fellow coworker by actually laughing out loud at this post while I was hiding in the office locker room.

It’s fine. Everything is fine. Pay no attention to the sounds of random laughter filtering through the doors to the ladies’ room.

[kalakh]

The thing about microaggressions like that example is that they are rarely, if ever, isolated. People who do that tend to either target more than one person, or escalate their behavior toward the person they’re already targeting (if they haven’t already). It’s good to know as staff because there are players that are extraordinarily good about not quite doing any one thing enough to get banned, but that, when you can have a look at their range of behaviors, it becomes clear they really should be.

@Herja said in Bannings:

And lest people think I am a hypocrite that is upset because I got banned yet as staff of a game, I am not shy about using my own banhammer:

I’m not here because I am horrified about Ganymede having gone on a banning rampage (except when she banned @farfalla because Macha was being manipulative, that was super fucked up). I am not upset over being banned and I completely deserved mine. You do not call people clowns living in clown town and not expect to very soon lose access.

I am here because I think Derp and his current team are bad for the hobby. Victim shaming and whatever authoritarian power grab happened over there are some of the WORST aspects of this hobby and watching this happen in real time after hearing about it happening on various games is wild. I’m not mad over the bans. I’m mad that the worst the hobby has to offer has been given a safe space to continue to spread toxicity and ‘hide’ from the well-deserved consequences of their fucked up actions. (Looking right at you, Hella)

I, on the other hand, am mad about the bans. Less that they happened, as that was shitty and enough reason that Gany should not be admin anymore, but I recognize it was heat of the moment panic and anger, and more because they were upheld. There was a lot of noise about mistakes being made, accepting responsibility, etc, etc, but barely even a token effort, if that, to do anything to rectify the situation.

Hot take, every single ban should have been reversed. Yes, every single damn one, even the ones that probably deserved it, even the ones that asked for it. Even Tempest, who should have caught a ban fucking years ago. That situation was sparked by two abysmally bad decisions, and spiraled out of control entirely because Gany refused to listen to anyone and then panicked. Did some people deserve to get banned from how they responded to that? Probably. Don’t care. If you say it’s on your head, then it’s on your head, and taking responsibility means accepting that you actually did do something wrong, which means you should make an effort to right said wrong, or at the very least mitigate the fallout from your actions.

It’s actually worse that a handful of bans were reversed instead of all of them, because they were so few, and so unevenly decided, that it’s blatantly obvious this was used, after the fact, to scoot a bunch of people off the site they (particularly derp) didn’t like. Going on and on and on about The Clique only proves this is the case, because none of the bans handed down were because of that. There wasn’t some weird sweep of the userbase that determined whether or not someone was too mean girl for a non-Hogpit MSB, that wasn’t why the bans happened. It was pure opportunism. It annoys me that they’re constantly misrepresenting it, but I guess it’s a bit awkward to claim you’re the voice of the community and against people being mean and exclusive when you’ve just conducted an after-the-fact purge of people you don’t like.

In any case, I figured I was probably leaving once I woke up and saw all of that (I said as much over there), but my final decision came when I realized just how fucking unpleasant and unwelcoming it was going to be - and was already becoming - for anyone remotely friendly with anyone who was gone, for (ironically) anyone not in their new in-group, and for anyone who was going to be critical of decisions made in the past or going forward. People were already violating the new rules in order to tell people they weren’t wanted, and to shut up and gtfo, so I did indeed shut up and gtfo. No regrets on that. It’s so fucking joyless over there now.

[kalakh]

Okay, I just gotta. Gotta indulge myself. I know it’s wrong and it’s whiplash from the post I just wrote, but I must. The delight is too tempting and I must feed my inner terrorist.

I know you’re reading this, Ghost, you ultimate dipshit, because lol at the idea you’re actually waiting for anyone to clue you into a mention:

Last night I was alerted to that one of my fans took a reference I made to the literary use of Comedian’s smiley face button^ in Watchmen as support for a rapist. Yikes. That’s how hard some people try to stretch things.

I don’t really know what else to say anymore other than that there are people engaging in ACTIVE attempts to belittle, smear, and slander others, and a number of them apparently (mind-bogglingly) do so with the entitlement of being the moral authority. Maybe people should start to pay attention to those who are unwilling to stop this unethical shit.

^ Alan Moore is a fucking genius.

lmao, dude, this is why people think you’re a disingenuous concern-trolling piece of shit. That or you have the reading comprehension of a particularly dense gnat. Two ass-cheeks gently slapping together in hopes that their wet farts will be taken seriously.

I didn’t say you supported a (fictional) (attempted) rapist. I pointed out how lol-worthy it was that you used that as an example in the conversation you were having, in reference to your very clever and unique handle in which you laugh at the world, ha ha, forever reminding everyone that you definitely don’t MU* anymore and haven’t for years and I know none of you asked but just so you know so everyone is clear.

See, if I wanted to be an asshole, if I wanted to read predatory sympathies into things you’ve written where you didn’t necessarily mean to come off that way, then I’d go back to that bit in the OP of your crooked little thread:

This won’t be popular, but it’s a respectful opinion. YES there are bad/problematic/abusive/stalker roleplayers who have rapey/disturbing/“in some cases illegal” behavior that need to be watched for. HOWEVER, there are also players who (while not as extreme) display very abusive behaviors that need to be culled. A swath of players have gotten on for years by abusing/excluding players for failing to do what they want, toxicly display faux-elitist behaviors to act like being a part of their “clique” is in your best interests, get off on using public forums to belittle other players, their roleplay ability, and their personas, and use staff inclusion and “OOC power in game” to exclude other players who they don’t like.

How is this stuff not as bad? I think it’s easy to spend years arguing about how bad the super-bad people are (like Cullen or Spider), but while some of those mentioned behaviors are arguable, the end result is that it’s negative and breeds an environment of “who’s camp you’re in” and old school high school “clique” and “mean girls” behavior that doesn’t do anyone any good. Whether or not you’re popular enough to “sway the mob” should never excuse you from your own bullying, and should never sway the sense of what the true justice is.

See, I skipped over this before, I didn’t feel like unpacking this brainless, tone-deaf take, because it’s not malevolent, it’s just endlessly stupid and gross.

Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Stalking/rapey/“in some cases illegal” behavior is not the same as being mean and saying the bad things, you impossible paramecium. You absolute garbage man. You don’t believe this. None of you do. It’s minimizing the worst of the worst in our hobby so that you can whine some more about how the Bad People Were Very Mean and Didn’t Like Your Endless Drivel and/or Exactly This Outlined Behavior, and it’s needless. Bullies bad. Aggressively going after the undeserving bad. Abusive behavior bad. All of these can cause lasting trauma, but my dude. My brainless, mealy-mouthed, piss-licking pal. This is you in two paragraphs. The most ridiculous of takes, utterly bad faith, presented in the dullest warbles of thoughts that refuse to connect to one another in any reasonable sort of way, expectant of polite discourse despite how trash your interactions will always be.

See, if I wanted to be an asshole, I’d say you’re, to my knowledge, not a rapist or rape-sympathizer, not a stalker, and I presume you do not actually deserve to be in jail, but you’re definitely happy to minimize those things to make your own argument stronger, that while you certainly don’t believe they’re equivalent, you have no understanding whatsoever as to their impact, or, if you do, you seem to have buried them under a pile of thick soft blankets, and that you’re perfectly okay with hanging out on a board in which people who have done that are present, so long as those people pass you upvotes for your dumbass prognoses.

I’d say that. You know. If I wanted to be an asshole.

Instead, I wish you well, and respectfully request that if you’re going to misrepresent the things I say in order to further your victim complex, you pick something more interesting than “lol, what a bad comparison”. I mean really. I’m starting to think the real reason you “left” the hobby is that you have the creativity of a dry sponge that’s never once been used.

[Pavel]

@kalakh said in Bannings:

The most ridiculous of takes, utterly bad faith, presented in the dullest warbles of thoughts that refuse to connect to one another in any reasonable sort of way, expectant of polite discourse despite how trash your interactions will always be.

That’s just middle-class white cis men.

[Meg]

@kalakh said in Bannings:

I didn’t say you supported a (fictional) (attempted) rapist.

i love this whole post, kalakh, and i wish i could write as well as you. but, i also really appreciate that you listened to my brief mention that the Comedian is only an attempted rapist.

(that we know of!! it was implied he did Not Good Things in Vietnam, which is its own can of worms.)

[Kestrel]

idk who @kalakh is but I would invite them to give a speech at my wedding

[Herja]

@Kestrel Especially if she is calling my more annoying family members ‘brainless, mealy-mouthed, piss-licking pals’. Here. For. It.

[Kestrel]

@Testament said in Bannings:

@Herja While I realistically wouldn’t expect it, I however would not be surprised if they somehow did the mental gymnastics to allow either Cullen or Dropkick to start posting there(I’m pointedly not including DWOPP in that because I can’t imagine any MSB staff being so oblivious to be okay with that). I would rate the things that Cullen did and what Hella/VK did to pretty near each other. So if they let one of them there…

Like I said, I’m not expecting but, also my expectations are exceedingly low at this point.

I would just like to say, loud and clear, in case anyone missed or somehow doubts this memo, that Cullen’s player is an actual, literal, real-life rapist.

I would love to post receipts. Dearly I would. Unfortunately that would be A) doxxing him & B) not my story to tell, not my receipts to share, and not one of his victims’ duty to publicly bare their trauma for the satisfaction of sealioning, misogynistic chodes.

I cannot adequately express the degree of livid I feel at some of the insinuations made on MSB these past few weeks; or how much it sickens my stomach to imagine that anyone would argue he deserves to be allowed back into community he’s abused for years to do it all. Over. Again.

I do not believe in second chances, not for him. He’s had a hundred already and abused them all. No.

But I hope making that case, or at the very least making light of the notion, is worth the internet points that MSB’s new boys’ club gets to reap at the expense of other people’s trauma. A categorical fuck you. Check your privilege, “simplications”.

[Herja]

@Kestrel

[Testament]

@Kestrel said in Bannings:

@Testament said in Bannings:

@Herja While I realistically wouldn’t expect it, I however would not be surprised if they somehow did the mental gymnastics to allow either Cullen or Dropkick to start posting there(I’m pointedly not including DWOPP in that because I can’t imagine any MSB staff being so oblivious to be okay with that). I would rate the things that Cullen did and what Hella/VK did to pretty near each other. So if they let one of them there…

Like I said, I’m not expecting but, also my expectations are exceedingly low at this point.

I would just like to say, loud and clear, in case anyone missed or somehow doubts this memo, that Cullen’s player is an actual, literal, real-life rapist.

I would love to post receipts. Dearly I would. Unfortunately that would be A) doxxing him & B) not my story to tell, not my receipts to share, and not one of his victims’ duty to publicly bare their trauma for the satisfaction of sealioning, misogynistic chodes.

Ah.

Then I retract my previous statement as I was not aware of that aspect of Cullen. I did not mean to make light of his actions had I known. Then I’d say he can share a spot with DWOPP as actual vile human beings.

[GF]

I am deeply disappointed, yet not at all surprised, that MSB has declared, “If anyone comes to us to complain about someone abusing them, we will default to assuming the abuser is the victim.” Thank god abusers now have an abuser-positive space, because there aren’t enough of those already, right?

[Kestrel]

@GF said in Bannings:

I am deeply disappointed, yet not at all surprised, that MSB has declared, “If anyone comes to us to complain about someone abusing them, we will default to assuming the abuser is the victim.” Thank god abusers now have an abuser-positive space, because there aren’t enough of those already, right?

Check your privilege.

(Deeply sarcastic. I am just completely astounded at the ever-living audacity of that gotcha.)

[tsar]

Lol I never want @kalakh to come for me

Edit: Actually, I’m going to add a little more. Kalakh is one of the most evocative writers I’ve had the pleasure of encountering in this hobby. They also have a deep well of compassion for other players, empathy, and a passion for doing the right thing. Also, patient as hell with some stuff I wouldn’t be.

Also exceptionally talented at detailed verbal take downs that bad actors should be nervous about.

[Testament]

@GF said in Bannings:

I am deeply disappointed, yet not at all surprised, that MSB has declared, “If anyone comes to us to complain about someone abusing them, we will default to assuming the abuser is the victim.” Thank god abusers now have an abuser-positive space, because there aren’t enough of those already, right?

I make it a point to not actually look at that website as I’m doing my very best to keep my annoyance(read: anger) in check. It is difficult to wish no malice towards those there when I see statements like that.

But then I read things like this. I’m sure you were paraphrasing and this wasn’t actually said, right? Because that would just be one of the larger of y i k e s I’ll of seen lately.

Right?

[GF]

@Testament said in Bannings:

I’m sure you were paraphrasing and this wasn’t actually said, right?

Yes. I am paraphrasing in a way that attributes the outcome of their policy to deliberate choice. Given the most vocal cheerleaders for this policy and their histories, I do not think I am being unfair to treat the staff as knowing what they’re doing.

[Solstice]

@tsar said in Bannings:

[ @kalakh is ]
Also exceptionally talented at detailed verbal take downs that bad actors should be nervous about.

[Aria]

I tried to read some of the thread that y’all are referring to and… it’s enough of a slog that my brain has just started to tap out in the middle of some of these really, really long abuse apologia posts.

Halfway through a multi-paragraph diatribe against people they don’t like (some of whom, admittedly, I also don’t necessarily like very much) but which seems to consist primarily of trying to turn the “Spiderman pointing at Spiderman” meme into philosophical treatise on how decades of online and offline predation is the same thing, the same level of bad, as being excluded from a space…

I just stop processing words. My brain converts the rest of the argument into a dismissive jerking off gesture, refuses to absorb anything else I try to force it to read, and honestly? I don’t feel like I’m missing much.

[GF]

@Kestrel said in Bannings:

Check your privilege.

(Deeply sarcastic. I am just completely astounded at the ever-living audacity of that gotcha.)

I don’t think it’s something to be sarcastic about. I mean, when you consider the immense power I wield as one of the core members of the Clique which, Illuminati-like, governs the destinies of all people in this hobby, what possible advantage could an abuser have apart from millennia of implicit bias and patriarchy, the support of gamerunners who either deliberately share those views or are too conflict-averse to want to stand up for victims, and a lovely little echo chamber from which to spread their disinformation? Truly my privilege is too overwhelming for anyone to stand against.

[Jennkryst]

Circling back a bit, I am also going to toss out how great the ‘why do you say it is easy to change your ID and then call people out for changing their ID?’ mentality is.

Simplications could be someone who previously had issues, and as they do or do not act in ways that might let people figure out who they are… things will go from there. If this is a former problem player who HAS changed, figuring out who won’t matter, because they are no longer a problem. If they haven’t changed… might take some work, who knows. But clean login, clean slate.

Mostly.

I think the real issue people have is how we keep calling out Hella/VK. Who did the bare minimum - the MU equivalent of an @name change, when everyone already has her on +watch or knows her DBREF or whatever. So of COURSE everyone knows who she is.

And since she has a history of… creating a new name and pretending to be someone else to more easily do sketchy shit, it’s easy mode to call her out on it. See above, about ‘making a fresh login to at least have a tiny bit of corroborating evidence that you aren’t the same person’.

OR I’M WRONG, but the only way that can convince me is to unban everyone.