Bannings

[Jennkryst]

@hobos If the issue was MSB’s reputation, and people had concern over their identity being linked to past behavior, and if everyone was welcome to create a ‘new board’ and ‘new communities breed competition and ideas’ and ‘everyone is welcome to present their ideas to MSB’…

… then why didn’t the people there who wanted the community to go in a new direction simply not make their own new one? Why did the people who wanted a ‘fresh start/clean slate’ not join this new community? Why is ‘everyone welcome’ except for the people they banned?

Why do the rules they are so quick to proclaim and insist are great and just not equally applied? And why are they so quick and insistent on rewriting what happened without allowing people to correct them?

[Meg]

@hobos but even setting Corban-player aside, he wasn’t the only one she lied to, gaslit, or broke NCOs against.

I don’t even disagree that Corban-player or even Apostate have their own sets of problematic behaviors. We all do, to some extent, some a lot more than others. But there is a line between that and ‘bad actor’…

Anyways, on the topic of Macha, I would agree her response went into a bit of argument, but so did /Macha’s/ when she said not to continue it.

That’s like saying ‘hey, I hate you and think you’re stupid. Please don’t continue this.’ And then being upset that someone says, ‘hey I think you’re stupid. But ok.’

If Macha had just said. ‘I don’t want to talk to you in DMs anymore, please don’t continue this.’ And farfalla had said more than ‘message received’, then I actually would have had a different opinion on this subject, believe it or not.

But as it is, it was more complicated.

[Roz]

@hobos said in Bannings:

I know you think VulgarKitten is lying to me about how she was actually the one pursued initially in that manner and simply did not wish to reveal who she was. We don’t really need to rehash this, but I believe her, having seen enough of Corban-player’s behavior back when I played, and –

I don’t necessarily believe that’s a lie? It’s just irrelevant. If you have an NCO and the other party doesn’t know who you are, you are the one responsible for not engaging if someone else reaches out. The game has plenty of options for this. You absolutely cannot say “Well I know this person has an NCO with me as a player, but they paged me, so I can now do whatever I want, including hopping back into an IC romantic relationship.”

But as Meg pointed out, there were numerous people that she aggressively lied to that were not Corban. Why don’t you care about any of that?

I saw the logs on reddit and that last comment from farfalla was a bit argumentative, kind of ‘okay Macha doesn’t want to talk to me, I’ll get the last word in and then block her’ so I can see how anyone would be annoyed by it and want the offender to receive a warning at least.

You think someone should receive a warning for being a “bit argumentative”? Or for blocking someone who no longer wants contact with them? This all happened because Macha went into someone’s DMs to drag their friend. The conversation lulled multiple times and could have been dropped at any point. Macha is the one who felt the need to pick it back up and yell on her way out. Farfalla just yelled back to close the conversation, and then it was closed. It was a tiff at best. It was not, as Ganymede tried to frame it, some form of harassment. Because that is what the rule against contacting someone who doesn’t want contact with you is meant to combat: actual harassment. Not protect you after you started a fight with someone and didn’t like their response at the end.

And alright, Macha was a problem player 10 years ago and you thought maybe she was just young and stupid but now she’s a crybaby pulling a manipulative routine? The logic doesn’t make sense. Maybe she was young and stupid and now she’s just being a normal person who doesn’t like being annoyed and will stand up for herself?

The person who called her a crybaby is not one of the people who was on a game with her 10 years ago. Different posters on the board have different experiences with her.

I’m not mad at what Macha did ten years ago. I’m not the person I was ten years ago and I assumed she wasn’t, either. I’m annoyed because I was clearly wrong based on her current behavior.

How was she standing up for herself? I wasn’t bothering her. I wasn’t speaking to her or engaging with her or talking about her when she DMed Farfalla to tell her how terrible I am and how Farfalla shouldn’t like or trust me. What fight or conflict was happening that she needed to stand up for herself for? She was under no scrutiny until she took actions that people objected to.

And I wouldn’t have even cared or dragged it up publicly if it had just remained a private conversation between two people. Like, yeah, I would have been like “Wow, okay, Macha hasn’t actually grown up in the intervening 10 years,” but I would have continued doing the exact same thing I was doing: just leaving her alone and not engaging with her. It was because she then went and got someone banned for it. She baited someone into continuing a conversation with her repeatedly and then went and claimed that the person was refusing to stop talking to her.

[Narson]

@Jennkryst Eh. I’m fine with not being welcome. If asking why people got banned haphazardly, while people like Arkandel posted after the ‘don’t post’ thing did so with impunity is deemed sufficient for a permaban, then that’s good. By Gany’s explanation, I was seeking for a ban - as I wasn’t profane nor did I literally ask for a block. Now, I wasn’t. Though I did at that point likely expect one - but if you bend in the face of unreasonable force, then you enable it. Better to highlight its absurdity. And looking at how many others posted in that thread and got banned or not banned, warned or not warned, and later unbanned it largely seem to be based on whether Gany liked them. And I’m good with this. It explained her logic, proved it is all about her rather than me, and I’m content.

Hobos, I think you are just being a professional contrarian at this point. I wish you well on it, but I’ll not be subscribing to your patreon today, thank you.

ETA: If the last part seems dismissive, well on this subject it is. But for what it is worth, I do hope you stay and engage in the constructive areas. You have a very different outlook on games, and while I might not agree with views, debates are often better for hearing them.

[sao]

Yes. VK lied to me. Repeatedly. She personally preyed on my willingness to set aside what she had done to my character and my org for a new player. She told me personal information I did not ask for in order to cement her status as a stranger and manipulated my willingness to help a new player get settled in efforts to keep her slate clean so that she could continue to lie, cheat, and manipulate others in order to get what she wanted. She lied about her personal health status. She lied about her time zone. She lied, and lied, and lied, and lied.

In the olden days, VK and I mutually avoided each other. This is what I usually do with people whose players I dislike. I don’t seek them out. Arx is a big game, it is very easy to simply not rp with people in spaces you don’t want to. I never sought a formal no contact because I didn’t think I needed one; if one of our characters entered a room or an event the other one of us quietly left. I don’t need staff intervention to simply be elsewhere, especially when the other player quite sensibly also is willing to be elsewhere.

When she came back, she actively sought me out and took advantage of my good nature. Because she knew it would work. I had nothing to do with whatever relationship she had or claimed to have with Apostate. I wasn’t party to whatever she was doing with Corban. I was just a player whose character was in a position that she wanted to have in her good graces.

If you have never experienced this, I am glad for you. It’s extremely unpleasant to discover.

[hobos]

@Meg

Yeah, that is a fair enough point, and it makes sense why farfalla was unbanned in the end. Honestly I think it’d be great if everyone was unbanned and the whole community decided together to move towards a more positive attitude, getting rid of the Hog Pit and “Rough and Rowdy” sections altogether, and forgiving and forgetting when things weren’t extremely clear-cut abuse (Azazel or whatever his name is, or other serial abusers).

Edit: I can totally understand why MSB doesn’t unban everyone straight off though especially considering the behavior of one person who was unbanned and starting spewing a lot of ridiculous vitriol real fast in order to force being banned again.

@Roz

I do care that VulgarKitten lied to those people, and I feel for them, particularly one who I personally admire who was really hurt by the lies. More importantly, she is sorry about it. But I understand why she felt the need. And why she felt the need, to me, is a far more egregious breach of decency as it comes with a particular power dynamic and a particular sort of exploitative abuse.

Also, I did not read Macha’s whole conversation with farfalla, just the end. It went on too long. I think she was complaining about you being cliquish or something? They are complaints I have seen/heard before and it was really dragging so I skipped to the end. For what it’s worth, I don’t think your intentions are bad or evil or that you are purposefully being some kind of exclusive internet club.

I think that when you have a place like the Hog Pit on a community forum, this is the natural evolution of human behavior over time.

[Selira]

@hobos said in Bannings:

But I understand why she felt the need. And why she felt the need, to me, is a far more egregious breach of decency as it comes with a particular power dynamic and a particular sort of exploitative abuse.

There really was no need and that’s sort of the issue here. She could have chosen not to violate the NCO, she could have chosen to not manipulate people to the degree she did, she could have chosen to just… not do any of this. She chose to. She chose to do things which actively harm people. No one forced her to, it was her choice, and many of those people whom she has directly harmed or indirectly harmed don’t forgive her for it, particularly as this is representative of a long pattern of toxic behavior from this player.

If that made her feel unwelcome, then may I introduce you to the phrase, “Oh no, not the consequences of my own actions!”

[Roz]

@hobos said in Bannings:

@Roz

I do care that VulgarKitten lied to those people, and I feel for them, particularly one who I personally admire who was really hurt by the lies. More importantly, she is sorry about it. But I understand why she felt the need. And why she felt the need, to me, is a far more egregious breach of decency as it comes with a particular power dynamic and a particular sort of exploitative abuse.

Then there’s not really anything for us to talk about. Your logic is that, because you believe someone did wrongly by VK, that it’s okay for VK to lie to and manipulate others. Or justifiable in some fashion.

She had a choice to not return to Arx. She had a choice to not engage with people who she knew didn’t want to engage with her, even if they reached out first. She had so many choices.

I don’t know what else to tell you. Eventually, if you continue to play on games with her, you will end up between her and something she wants in the game, and eventually you’ll see what happens in those instances.

She’s not sorry. If she were sorry for being manipulative, she would have stopped being manipulative years ago.

Also, I did not read Macha’s whole conversation with farfalla, just the end. It went on too long. I think she was complaining about you being cliquish or something? They are complaints I have seen/heard before and it was really dragging so I skipped to the end. For what it’s worth, I don’t think your intentions are bad or evil or that you are purposefully being some kind of exclusive internet club.

I think that when you have a place like the Hog Pit on a community forum, this is the natural evolution of human behavior over time.

Again, I don’t really care that Macha felt the need to DM my friend to talk shit about me. Not in the sense that I’d make a public fuss about it if it had just remained that. I don’t care that she didn’t like me on a game ten years ago; I also didn’t like her on that game.

I care that she started shit and then used it as a weapon to get someone banned.

[hellfrog]

@hobos said in Bannings:

And why she felt the need, to me, is a far more egregious breach of decency as it comes with a particular power dynamic and a particular sort of exploitative abuse.

Fuck off with this.
If she was exploited and abused to the point she had to hide who she was, riddle me this:
Why come back to the game where the HORRIBLE ABUSE happened? And more than that, why try very hard to put herself right back in that position that was so exploitative?

Why SPECIFICALLY cook up a whole pitch to seduce the NPC of the GM who so horribly exploited you via NPCs? Wild.

PS you don’t have to answer, I know why she did it. I also know why you are acting as her champion.

[Jennkryst]

@hobos said in Bannings:

I do care that VulgarKitten lied to those people, and I feel for them, particularly one who I personally admire who was really hurt by the lies. More importantly, she is sorry about it.

If she is actually sorry about it, perhaps she should admit that and apologize, and not pretend to be a totally different, literally new person, which fits the profile of the issues in the first place?

[Rucket]

@hobos said in Bannings:

Also, I did not read Macha’s whole conversation with farfalla, just the end. It went on too long. I think she was complaining about you being cliquish or something? They are complaints I have seen/heard before and it was really dragging so I skipped to the end. For what it’s worth, I don’t think your intentions are bad or evil or that you are purposefully being some kind of exclusive internet club.

Going to chime in but a few people here talking about Macha’s bad behavior in the past is not the first time I’ve seen or experienced Macha’s bad behavior. In fact the experiences shared are similar to the ones I did, and others I know did.

Roz said their experience was years ago, mine was in 2020, a friend was hit in 2021/2022 with it.

I mean, clearly there’s been no effort to change or improve so pardon me for not believing what she has to say about the Farfalla Incident.

As for Cliques or Internet Friend Groups or Dogpiling Squads or whatever people want to call them, I am by no means part of any such group. And you know what, I’ve kinda been where you are. Sometimes it’s hard to see things being said against people you believe are friends or people you like. That’s just part of being human, but sometimes the things being said are true and you learn too late that someone you thought was a friend is really not. That’s another part of being human. I’m glad you are here listening to what people are saying though, and I do hope you take it to heart. I don’t think anyone is acting in a particularly malicious way towards VulgarKitten or Macha. I just think people are over giving people who clearly don’t learn chance after chance to improve. At some point you have to realize that they just aren’t going to change.

[Third Eye]

@hobos said in Bannings:

Edit: I can totally understand why MSB doesn’t unban everyone straight off though especially considering the behavior of one person who was unbanned and starting spewing a lot of ridiculous vitriol real fast in order to force being banned again.

Who was this?

I’m legit confused and feel like I missed an unban (it sure wasn’t me, lol!).

[hobos]

To @Roz:
Something that is understandable and forgiveable in my book does not mean that it is ‘okay’ or ‘justified’. Anyway, if you say there’s nothing to talk about, there’s nothing to talk about. I’ve said what I need to and will not force anyone to rehash it. Regarding Macha, she says she did not mean to get farfalla banned, just warned. And farfalla was unbanned.

To others talking about VulgarKitten:
In a very public post, she did admit her fault in lying and apologize to those she hurt, and everyone jumped down her craw about it anyway.

@Third-Eye : someone with a cat icon?

[Rucket]

@Jennkryst said in Bannings:

@hobos said in Bannings:

I do care that VulgarKitten lied to those people, and I feel for them, particularly one who I personally admire who was really hurt by the lies. More importantly, she is sorry about it.

If she is actually sorry about it, perhaps she should admit that and apologize, and not pretend to be a totally different, literally new person, which fits the profile of the issues in the first place?

100% this. If she was truly sorry about it, she would make an actual apology post without changing her account name. Hiding who you are and making apologies through a 3rd party means that she is sorry. Sorry for being caught.

[BloodAngel]

@Rucket But just like in sales third-party stories truly close the deal.

[Third Eye]

@hobos said in Bannings:

@Third-Eye : someone with a cat icon?

That was maybe a person who wasn’t banned in the initial purge but banned later? But admittedly it also doesn’t immediately come to mind who this was.

I just don’t think anyone’s been re-banned, just banned the once. Or if they have I’ve missed a big thing and, drama.

[Selira]

@hobos Nobody who is hurt by someone has to accept their apology, especially when it’s a repeat of years of the same behavior. Especially when it only looks like they apologized because they got caught.

It can take years of work and positive action and rebuilding trust in order to accept someone back in, and frankly, even then it’s always going to be on tenuous ground because a repeat, even a minor one, can collapse the whole thing. (See, in fact, the discussions around Macha here.)

That simply hasn’t happened.

[GF]

@hobos said in Bannings:

Also, I did not read Macha’s whole conversation with farfalla, just the end. It went on too long.

I gotta say, that does not inspire confidence that you are willing to read answers directed at you.

[sao]

@hobos I don’t accept apologies for lying that include continuing to lie. A foible, perhaps.

[Roz]

@hobos said in Bannings:

To @Roz:
Regarding Macha, she says she did not mean to get farfalla banned, just warned. And farfalla was unbanned.

I actually don’t believe that Macha didn’t mean to get Farfalla banned. Ganymede specifically mentioned to someone in DMs that Macha “warned her” that people would be white knighting on Farfalla’s behalf.