Announcement: Regarding Recent Moderation Decisions

[Nentsia]

Blac implemented the ban; I don’t remember what Ikarius was doing, but I was headed to bed at the time, and regardless didn’t have admin permissions enabled on the Discord to ban anyone since June. When I went back on the 27th and did my inquiry on why the ban was 2 years, Blac admitted that his personal bias had prevented an impartial response...or any response at all, for that matter, prompting Ikarius to write the response. After the ban was moved down to a month, he stated multiple times that he was willing to accept losing his adminship for it, and falling on his sword.

Eventually, Lines came online to fulfill his request and remove him from the admin team.

A couple days later Nents decided smear his leaky asshole across the discord about this event again, playing like he’d cracked a great caper with his half-truths and incomplete facts. Blac, tired of it all, left the board after the two had a notably uncivil discussion.

You would think some people might be able to relate to having someone out to literally destroy you over a misunderstanding given some past circumstances, but I suppose some things get forgotten.

Of course, if he hadn't lied in the first place and then come up with his long silence followed by his smug answers when confronted about it, none of this so-called ''uncivil'' discussion would have happened.


But of course we are the problem here! We, the foolish dumb members who have gotten it all wrong and dare to ''paint'' you as the bad guys.


I didn't start this process of un-announced banning, then tell no one, not even the banned person, and keep mouths shut for almost a week.

You all had it coming.

[Seperallis]

Absolutely. I will defer to your expertise on lying about events and delivering smug responses, Mr. “I spoke with Sep.” Unless maybe that was just a m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g as well.

In any case, Blac is no longer here. He resigned and was kicked from the admin team for all reasons stated, and then driven out by your incessant need to show your ass for any perceived slights...or hell, even when there were no slights to be had, still just you lashing out. This has been an ongoing theme with you for the entire year, growing in anger and consistency for each passing month. I’ll reiterate, I’ve received nothing from anyone except Lom, so if you have a problem and need to get stuff of your chest, come to me about it.

Otherwise, I’ve heard recently that taking two weeks to a month off does wonders for your disposition.

[Rommy]

I clearly sent you a question which I appreciated you answering for the record. I namely also have spent most of my time asking stuff so it would be public record and public answers anyone could draw on. For the most part I'm satisfied it was no longer malicious I'm just trying to get the clearer picture of what happened so we can as a community avoid it in the future.

[Nentsia]

Absolutely. I will defer to your expertise on lying about events and delivering smug responses, Mr. “I spoke with Sep.” Unless maybe that was just a m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g as well.

In any case, Blac is no longer here. He resigned and was kicked from the admin team for all reasons stated, and then driven out by your incessant need to show your ass for any perceived slights...or hell, even when there were no slights to be had, still just you lashing out. This has been an ongoing theme with you for the entire year, growing in anger and consistency for each passing month. I’ll reiterate, I’ve received nothing from anyone except Lom, so if you have a problem and need to get stuff of your chest, come to me about it.

Otherwise, I’ve heard recently that taking two weeks to a month off does wonders for your disposition.

I never said I spoke to you. Read it back. I knew of your position through others. I contacted Blac, and Blac pretended to know nothing. Rom contacted you and got the same. So I assumed at least 2 admins knew of nothing, as Ikar posted the explanation claiming everyone had agreed on it.

But yes, we are the liars here.

As I said in the Discord, we have a two-faced mod team. But I get it, you guys fucked it up and are in need of a scapegoat. Im the bogey man now.

[Nentsia]

That said, being called a liar here for trying to connect the dots because the Admins here have the communication skills of a 5 year old, is for me personally the drop. Im outta here.

[Seperallis]

Ark suggested new admins, and I don't find that a bad idea, for a lot of reasons. Honestly, it probably should have happened at least a year ago. In the end, it's up to Lines, so we would have to pitch the idea with him and see where he wants to go with it.

However, let me just say this: over the course of at least the last two years, I have put forth numerous calls to action on various topics, and all of them have gone completely unanswered. Given this, given what we know about everyone's lives and activities, given the number of people who have scaled back their activity for a lack of time, I'm left wondering if fresh blood will be possible, but I am still in favor of the concept.

*snip*

I was thinking about this earlier this morning, and you're absolutely right! Our conversation was so short that I completely forgot about it; you asked me about it either just before or after the initial question from Lom (I think it was after, later that same evening), but I didn't have any answers at that time and was still getting them myself. I kept in touch with Lom about it, but you and I never continued.

When I mentioned the 2020 date, I was wrong. I thought I had read 2020 and assumed that meant Jan. 2020, or three months (which fits the guidelines); I didn't agree with it and said nothing of it but then when Lom gave me the drop that it was Sept, 2021 (two years) with that screenshot of the ban length, I practically did as close to a doubletake as you can on a phone and began asking about it.

I'll still try to finish my rundown of events tonight.

I know that at least 2 Mods were not aware of any bans being implemented, let alone discussions about it.

The Mods I referred to are Blac and Sep.

I never said I spoke to you. Read it back. I knew of your position through others.

But its good to know that private messages get leaked to the Mod team and then magically are being twisted and echoed here in public statements.

In fact, they assured me they tried but couldn't undo the ban.

But you're right, you absolutely never said you spoke with me, but the implications are there that you did when you "knew" my words or what they meant, building an argument on hearsay from people with apparently an incomplete assessment and presenting the falsehood that I didn't know anything about a ban. Like I told Lom, and Rommy, and said here already: I knew the ban happened and I was there for the discussion, but I did not know the reason until after people started asking me about it.

I am sorry for calling you a liar. It is clear you aren't one, and that the issue was a...hm. A misunderstanding.

I am, however, still concerned with the fact that that you have gotten more and more combative over at least the last year. You have always been outspoken, but there has been more and more outright vitriol to members of this board, especially lately. I wish you the best, and hope your time away will be as good for your disposition as it was for Flo's.

[Arkiania]

Since I made the suggestion, consider me the first candidate.

[Ceausescu]

If we are gonna dive into technicalities, may I then add that technically speaking, the N-word was never used in the first place. An alternative word was used by Lom and the bot did not recognize it as the N-word. So by our own moderators, which the bot is, it wasnt a violation.

And in any case, whatever word Lom did use that looked similar to the N-word, it was used in a hypothetical or experimental manner,  and certainly not aimed an anyone. I don't see any ''harassment'' in that.

Apparently, saying something that hurts the feelings of someone, constitutes harassment nowadays. I took a gander at those screenshots and all I'm going to say is that my worst fears have been confirmed. His so-called "bannable" hollywood comment? Perfectly legit and not offensive in the slightest, unless by "offensive" it means any criticism of our holy liberal overlords in hollywood, who are beyond reproach. The gun comment? Also didn't see anything whatsoever offensive, unless what is considered offensive is to criticize any statement that is anti-gun. The rest seem to me like the outbursts of a guy who's had enough of the clear liberal bias that the rules have taken.

Also, by the same standards of judgement and definition, Ikarius' derrogatory terms, the continued use of the word "fucking" and the extreme hostility of his entire "why we banned Lom" announcement, should constitute harassment as well. Remember, harassment is defined as "any language that offends and upsets". Pretty sure that Ikarius' rant about Lom constitutes that.

Looking at this whole thing and how Lom is effectively being smeared, all I can say is this is the final straw for me and this is where I am permanently taking my leave from this community. I have known Lom for years, we have had many conversations, including political ones and many debates regarding our diverging political views, with me being a communist and him being a republican. Yet, not once has he insulted me, or called me names, or behaved in any other way that would be disrespectful.

There is a double standard here, that I will not tolerate or abide by. Lom gets berated and banned for calling out legitimate BS in Hollywood, for saying that a certain idiot on twitter is an emotional woman, meanwhile Ikarius, who has a history of throwing absolutely horrid temper tantrums, gets to throw verbal abuse at Lom when he's not even here to defend himself. And in regard to any claims that the rules are unbiased? Lom got banned for an "emotional woman" comment. I highly, HIGHLY doubt that a feminist/liberal would have been banned if he/she threw around the "toxic male" line, even directed at another member of this community. And by the same standards, both comments should either be equally offensive and banable, or not at all.

I've said my two cents. Peace out.

[Seperallis]

Anyway, for people who have a vested interest in these events, there's this thing:


"So what happened??"

Back on August 26, Lom made a statement in the #politics chat that got eaten by the LinesBot for indecent language. This sparked a discussion in the area about the bots and the profanity filter, which quickly became a joking quest between Nentsia and Lom to try and "break" the bot with excessive profanity. Most attempts were eaten, prompting attempts to bypass the filter with creative solutions, alternate spellings and etc.

Staff got involved when the two attempted the big bad N-word. The log shows two attempts until they succeeded in breaking the bot; these were expunged. Other attempts of other words remain in the chat. Nentsia is on record as having apologized practically immediately in private to mods (I believe it was Flo), accepting that use of the N-word crossed a line. Lom did not, and decided to argue about the matter being just a joke when confronted; this got brought back to all the admins, and we discussed it.



According to the chat, three of the admins voted for a ban, though they express explicit bias due to constant aggravations with past and continuing behaviors. Hahk expressed an inability to continue defending Lom, both he and Lines coming out in favor. For my part, I never gave a response at this time; I had been in the same boat as Hahk, constantly defending Lom against the consequences of his own actions to the point that, on 11 Dec. 2017, I stated bluntly to him:

"I've spent too long defending your behavior behind your back and I'm kinda done now"

Even still, I've been fine with the guy since then, fine with our disagreements (of which there are many), and enjoy my time around him. I still have defended Lom in the interest of fairness in following the guidelines for warning and bans that I had written, and I was preparing to do so again. Regardless, as shown, all discussion on the topic ended a week after the incident with no declaration of a decision or any action taken.

Until 25 Sept:



In all honesty, I gave a bad reply, one I didn’t really believe in to a question I was tired of answering. I was headed to bed after a long day, and either should not have replied, or asked for clarification and to wait; I was under the impression that the call to ban was because of recent inflammations, and not because of something from a month ago. I’ve been wondering this past week whether all this could have been avoided if I had not been as flippant.

After that, we talked about other things, during which I realized I didn’t know the reason for the ban, asked the question, and went to sleep. I expected, in any case, for the ban to follow guidelines and everything would be sorted out as usual. Blac apparently implemented the ban and mentioned straight-up that the ban was until 2021, which I read as 2020: I understood that as the beginning of 2020, or three months, which was out of order from what should have come next in the Hierarchy (two weeks), but was nonetheless one of the steps and I thought little of it, assuming I’d be able to have it amended.

What happens the next couple days next is a bit murky on my end, as I don’t have time-stamps on my logs. Blac answered me, but I didn’t see his reply due to work and moving into the new house until Lom contacted me about why he was gone. I asked again and got the answer that we have echoed at least 5 times now. Sometime during the evening I was discussing this with both the admins and Lom, and Lom showed me that the ban was for two years; this threw me for a loop, but I didn’t ask about it until the next day.

Now to back up a minute. At the same time as my discussion with Lom, he was asking other people if they knew anything; I do not know the content of these conversations beyond what has been made public by others over the course of all this ruckus, and have not asked for them. Apparently, Blac was contacted and asked about the ban, where he mentioned he was “looking into it,” slipping up and saying he could remove the ban on the forum, when he could not (I can’t see the rest of the conversation, so don’t know if he corrected himself in this); if I remember correctly (I haven’t found the log yet), Blac did not have regular computer access at this time, and admins cannot access the control panel on mobile.

That is the end of what I know Blac mentioned to others. The reason given to us by Blac for these responses was because he was half asleep. Oookay then.

During this all, questions obviously arose about the ban: there was no reason or report given for it, the ban length was massive, and apparent answers from myself and Blac made it look like no one had any idea what was going on. To top it all off, Flo reappeared after having been notified by either Blac or Sal that Lom was gone, lending fuel to the idea that the entire reason for the ban was just to get Flo back.

Now having to provide damage control for the apparent mystery-ban, we discussed the ban, the response to it, and what statement should be made, during which Blac made known his explicit bias and annoyance at Lom being the reason the ban was put in so swiftly overnight without any preparation or explanation. The actual reason for the ban was, in spite of this, still as stated officially and repeatedly.

Hopefully this doesn’t get lost in the wall of text, but the explanation that admins were deliberating the ban wasn’t correct. It wasn’t a lie, either; normally admins do discuss whether the action hierarchy fits the infraction, and we never finished that discussion. We never had that discussion the second time, though, either; Blac states he had intended to reduce the ban duration, as I stated previously, but aside from him changing the ban duration again and letting others know, it never came up again. To my knowledge.

Back to the discussions of 27th. Flo came back on the 26th, and was immediately put back in as a mod, participating in the talk and quickly coming to the same conclusion that admin bias was the reason for the ban preceding any preparation for it. We talked about the reasons for the ban, and what explanation should be given, where Flo and I both said “the truth in its entirety.” (Okay, my words, but also his sentiment.)

What followed was an explanation from Ikarius, the only admin online at the time who 1) had the time or was around to write the explanation, and 2) was there and aware of everything since the initial question of banning Lom on the 25th. The explanation itself was the truth, unfortunately it was not “the truth in its entirety” due to...reasons? I don’t even know. This explanation was shown to admins to review before it was posted, but I was not able to review it until much later.

From there is pretty much common history. Because the initial explanation did not provide the entire truth as I said to do, there appeared holes in it that already suspicious members seized upon as evidence of dishonest admins making hasty excuses to cover for a “swap Lom for Flo” gambit; the apparent biases expressed in Ikarius’s subsequent impassioned responses only further cemented the idea of an admin team that simply wanted Lom gone, but was just too inept.

Which kind of hurts my feelings, you know? If I wanted you gone so badly as to abandon all ethics and just blast you out of here, I’m a bit more aware than to invent a reason that’s a month old and draw suspicion to myself by not having the explanation set and ready. It’d be planned and proofed; y’all got no frickin’ idea the scenarios I think up while watching dirt go in and out of holes.

And still no one could provide an adequate response, just the same answers repeated again, because no one had the answers.

From there misconceptions grew. Hahk popped in and tried to gather info to give a better response, but got dragged away, resulting in people sitting for weeks without any explanation, leading to ideas of the entire world admin team being a bunch of liars who were all in on the plot; his eventual response even then still didn’t have all the facts that we have now (and we are still likely missing several facts, given a lack of some testimony).

I became frustrated with people mouthing off and blowing up in chat about people being busy with life - true enough on my end with 50-60 hour work weeks and moving out of and into the house. Still annoyed at the swiftness with which people I’ve known for 7+ years coming to the idea of “you all are evil assholes,” and having words I never said shoved in my mouth, I pissed off Nents. I’d hoped to write the full explanation of events myself weeks ago; it never happened until now.

I’m sure I could go into more details about many other events surrounding everything, or double and triple check that I didn’t mix something up, but I have devoted enough hours of time I don’t have to researching the logs for this essay, and it is getting long enough.


"What don't/didn’t you agree with?"

First was the timing. I told Lom as such when we talked together and spoke to this effect on the 27th with the other admins, that waiting such a long time makes the ban seem arbitrary, and when events seem arbitrary, people get angry.

The second was the duration. Philosophical questions aside, 2 years is an overreach for a bad word not spoken about someone, not spoken to someone, but shouted into the aether to make a set of 1's and 0's fumble with the great crime of having been witnessed of it; if he had been openly hostile to anyone in that way, you know, sure, I could justify a "go directly to jail" card like that. He wasn't.

Even after the duration was reduced to one month, I still feel it too long for the reason given. It is, however, the length that was settled upon. I have spoken with Lom on this subject too, and he has done well to sit it out patiently.

Third, not coming out with the entire truth like I explicitly advised. Damn trying to save face; the worst possible thing to do after a silent ban is to lie, and withholding information that honestly was not sensitive to anything over than egos is a close second. And then to get defensive when people start noticing the holes where the rest of the truth should have been?

Four, executing a ban, and especially a semi-permanent one, without being fully ready to explain it; if we waited a month, then what would be one or two more days, when someone would be ready to do this properly? (I’m being rhetorical, I know the answer.) And then not even explaining it. “Oh no one has him on discord” isn’t an excuse to have absolutely no contact when we have goddamn forum PMs.

Fifth, the "Hollywood" comment and "the party that rapes women" comment are the same event, and were never deemed actionable and, with a mild bit of critical reading, never said or implied what it's said to have said or implied. In my opinion, I suppose. But that's a bit of a nit to pick compared to everything else.

Last is the implication of Lom as an unabashed, unredeemable, evilly evil bigot. I fully agree that when he gets abrasive and defensive, he most certainly lashes out with statements that can easily be taken as this or that kind of bigotry. It's indefensible, and I stopped defending it; I don't find him these things, but the fact that people do suggests a clear problem of perception, at the very least.

Who knows, if everyone would stop pretending like they're shouting at bots and considered that every username on here is a goddamn person that they've spent 7 years with, we might not have these kinds of problems from anyone. It's fun and cathartic to call bullshit at people in the moment, but it really just makes more messes than it's worth.

I would know. So yeah. That's about it.


The Aftermath

Flo is gone, but this was foreseeable.

Blac is no longer an admin; he resigned of his own accord, but I imagine that he would have been asked to do so or removed by now, regardless, for attempting a semi-permanent ban of one member he did not like to regain a member he did. Even if Lom was somehow literally Hitler in disguise, it is extremely poor judgment and a misuse of power to throw down bans in this way.

And then there’s the excuses given. I can’t be in Blac’s mind and really can only take him at his word that somehow being extremely tired played a role in him giving false statements when asked about the ban. None of it looked good and he accepted leaving the admin team, but then was further run out of town by Nents who was angry that it very much looks at the outset that he was blatantly lied to.

Poor Hahk. You did your best.

And now we have the silly situation where no one could come forth with the entire truth, and a mass of people threw out 7+ years of friendship with malicious assumptions and pissy retorts.

So there you go.

[Seperallis]

This thread is closed. If you have further questions, direct them at me via PM or on Discord.
If anyone actually has anything new to say, then I'll add both your question and my answer here.

See you soon, Lom.