Eternity RPC Board
I'm not going to claim to be the most active person around here, nor the smartest, or a lot of other things. If what you said is true about this all being a miscommunication error then I'm sorry but we need to probably do a major overhaul as community as to how these bans are decided on by the moderation team, and then acted upon. I'm going to try my best to be coherent here but I spent the better part of my day in an engine exhaust rebuilding it so bear with me please.
To start with, when Lom first told me that he was banned and that there was no reason given on his message. Even if the length of the ban was yet to be determined that could have been posted there in lieu of the reason (with knowing the reason should have been included in the first place anyways). If Blac was exhausted thats fair, it could have waited like a day or so, like the weeks that the moderation team waited on it already.
![[Image: image0.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/356218000539385858/626498709546598403/image0.png)
Even saying that the rest of this was poor miscommunication among other things, that right there I think was a major misstep. I hope you (as in the moderation team) all do not look at me like I am trying to point fingers or anything here, I am simply trying to see where we can all get improvements in all directions. The moderation team as a whole has dealt with bans before, quickly, professionally, concisely. This unfortunately was not one of those times and so it needs further examination so we can improve as a community.
The fact that the very first step taken here had no communication even to Lom, with a clear avenue in the ban notification, and then further steps after that still had no information to either Lom, people who specifically inquired such as me and Nents, and even the community as a whole shows that we need to include a detailed public process for this. Among that I think is the discussions that the moderation team takes to come to these decisions to be made public in some form other than a simple announcement.
Moving on from miscommunication I think I made my point clear as I could without getting stuck into thought loops; I attempted to speak to Blac, no response was given. When I messaged Sep about all this he provided that he was there for the discussions, he stated Lom was banned till 2020, did not know of the reason behind the ban, and stated he was in some sort of minority opinion (My apologies to Sep for detailing our messages but I believe it was prudent to the conversations here). Miscommunication to the community is one thing, but seemingly differing information among the people who decided to enforce a ban for a infraction months old now and to most thought to be dealt with is frankly appalling. This isn't a democracy, we don't elect you guys, however some degree of transparency both to the community and between yourselves should be automatic almost instinctual I would think. You mentioned the ban was unanimous, even if it was, it does not feel that way right now at least to me.
Ikar you mentioned in a previous post how no matter if an infraction was dealt with, and therefore the person honored their punishment as detailed by the Community Etiquette that it could still be used towards deciding on future punishments. I could not find anything in the Community Etiquette, including in its section on Admin Enforcement & Complaints, that allows this kind of Double Jeopardy. We have a tiered punishment system, but it does not seem like it was followed in this case, and I think that should be explained. If it is commonly accepted by the Admins/Mods that they can consider previous infractions and punishments towards the new ones then it should be outlined in the rules.
Finally I just want to talk about looks, this looks bad. Even if it was just miscommunication and etc. the fact it looks like you just decided to get off your butts about some long ago ban for Lom, and then no word about it not even a simple announcement message in discord saying "Hey we had to ban Lom, pending some final admin paperwork a final announcement is pending" probably would have helped. But no, just as Lom is banned, Flo who left from seemingly partly because of Lom returns? How this looks is something that I thought we all had the morals and ethics to avoid. Ikar you mentioned that in your own words Lom is " obnoxious, racist, sexist, and just plain fucking terrible", then why is he still here if the Moderation team has all these comments and incidents, and a developed personality document on him? Perma ban him then, its quite obvious that is what some members of the moderation team want.
I'll be frank, I think some members of the moderation team are using his old ban that was waiting on the shelves to ban him for a period of a time so that he wouldn't come back. I also think that Flo's return to the discord and Lom's ban are connected, maybe not maliciously but I think Flo did return because Lom was banned and to some members of the community thats a win, Flo > Lom is what some would say. We aren't a really active community, it's cause we are small and all of us have varying life commitments (I sold my soul to the US Gov for example). Not being active is not a crime, among other things, but looking like you were basically the Watchman and coming down from the high heavens to enforce some months old ban is not the right look for this community. I think the ban only came down from the original 2 years because it snowballed out of nowhere.
I think we need to have a publicly detailed process that the moderation team goes through when banning someone, a kind of statues of limitation for these bans because honestly someone should not be banned after waiting for months about it and even forgetting about it. It removes a kind of due process I think. We should also probably outlined the enforcement part of the guidelines more.
Call me some rude conspiracist or whatever, but the fact I of all people think this is a bunch of horse sh*t should be cause for concern. Lom says shitty things, we all do, he more than others. That does not excuse this terrible application of the rules of our community. Even if everyone was attempting to act morally right, it does not excuse the crapfest that it has become and I expect the Admin/Mod team to come up with remedies for the future. I also think that the ban for Lom should follow the listed hierarchy of infractions which I am pretty sure is two weeks (if we should even continue to apply a ban that was honestly mishandled to start with).
Stop beating around the bush. Be straight with us or don't even try.
That's the end of my ted talk. Thanks for reading.
To start with, when Lom first told me that he was banned and that there was no reason given on his message. Even if the length of the ban was yet to be determined that could have been posted there in lieu of the reason (with knowing the reason should have been included in the first place anyways). If Blac was exhausted thats fair, it could have waited like a day or so, like the weeks that the moderation team waited on it already.
Even saying that the rest of this was poor miscommunication among other things, that right there I think was a major misstep. I hope you (as in the moderation team) all do not look at me like I am trying to point fingers or anything here, I am simply trying to see where we can all get improvements in all directions. The moderation team as a whole has dealt with bans before, quickly, professionally, concisely. This unfortunately was not one of those times and so it needs further examination so we can improve as a community.
The fact that the very first step taken here had no communication even to Lom, with a clear avenue in the ban notification, and then further steps after that still had no information to either Lom, people who specifically inquired such as me and Nents, and even the community as a whole shows that we need to include a detailed public process for this. Among that I think is the discussions that the moderation team takes to come to these decisions to be made public in some form other than a simple announcement.
Moving on from miscommunication I think I made my point clear as I could without getting stuck into thought loops; I attempted to speak to Blac, no response was given. When I messaged Sep about all this he provided that he was there for the discussions, he stated Lom was banned till 2020, did not know of the reason behind the ban, and stated he was in some sort of minority opinion (My apologies to Sep for detailing our messages but I believe it was prudent to the conversations here). Miscommunication to the community is one thing, but seemingly differing information among the people who decided to enforce a ban for a infraction months old now and to most thought to be dealt with is frankly appalling. This isn't a democracy, we don't elect you guys, however some degree of transparency both to the community and between yourselves should be automatic almost instinctual I would think. You mentioned the ban was unanimous, even if it was, it does not feel that way right now at least to me.
Ikar you mentioned in a previous post how no matter if an infraction was dealt with, and therefore the person honored their punishment as detailed by the Community Etiquette that it could still be used towards deciding on future punishments. I could not find anything in the Community Etiquette, including in its section on Admin Enforcement & Complaints, that allows this kind of Double Jeopardy. We have a tiered punishment system, but it does not seem like it was followed in this case, and I think that should be explained. If it is commonly accepted by the Admins/Mods that they can consider previous infractions and punishments towards the new ones then it should be outlined in the rules.
Finally I just want to talk about looks, this looks bad. Even if it was just miscommunication and etc. the fact it looks like you just decided to get off your butts about some long ago ban for Lom, and then no word about it not even a simple announcement message in discord saying "Hey we had to ban Lom, pending some final admin paperwork a final announcement is pending" probably would have helped. But no, just as Lom is banned, Flo who left from seemingly partly because of Lom returns? How this looks is something that I thought we all had the morals and ethics to avoid. Ikar you mentioned that in your own words Lom is " obnoxious, racist, sexist, and just plain fucking terrible", then why is he still here if the Moderation team has all these comments and incidents, and a developed personality document on him? Perma ban him then, its quite obvious that is what some members of the moderation team want.
I'll be frank, I think some members of the moderation team are using his old ban that was waiting on the shelves to ban him for a period of a time so that he wouldn't come back. I also think that Flo's return to the discord and Lom's ban are connected, maybe not maliciously but I think Flo did return because Lom was banned and to some members of the community thats a win, Flo > Lom is what some would say. We aren't a really active community, it's cause we are small and all of us have varying life commitments (I sold my soul to the US Gov for example). Not being active is not a crime, among other things, but looking like you were basically the Watchman and coming down from the high heavens to enforce some months old ban is not the right look for this community. I think the ban only came down from the original 2 years because it snowballed out of nowhere.
I think we need to have a publicly detailed process that the moderation team goes through when banning someone, a kind of statues of limitation for these bans because honestly someone should not be banned after waiting for months about it and even forgetting about it. It removes a kind of due process I think. We should also probably outlined the enforcement part of the guidelines more.
Call me some rude conspiracist or whatever, but the fact I of all people think this is a bunch of horse sh*t should be cause for concern. Lom says shitty things, we all do, he more than others. That does not excuse this terrible application of the rules of our community. Even if everyone was attempting to act morally right, it does not excuse the crapfest that it has become and I expect the Admin/Mod team to come up with remedies for the future. I also think that the ban for Lom should follow the listed hierarchy of infractions which I am pretty sure is two weeks (if we should even continue to apply a ban that was honestly mishandled to start with).
Stop beating around the bush. Be straight with us or don't even try.
That's the end of my ted talk. Thanks for reading.