Belschaft wrote:I think I've got a longer history of butting heads with Glen than anyone else in TSP, and would generally speaking be the
last person to defend him.
That said, in regards to recent events it hasn't been a case of "six of one and half a dozen of the other". I can't speak of what may have occurred privately (and had no part in this admin decision) but in our public areas Tim and Escade have been primarily responsible for the unpleasantness. Roavin and Glen both crossed the line on occasion, which is why they were among the players subject to a 48 hour timeout on our Discord.
Kris has had no involvement in any of the public incidents I've seen, and I have no idea how he has supposedly become involved in this aside from being an Admin.
Regardless of all that, if Tim or Escade feel this moderation action was unfounded and represents criminal abuse of administration for political reasons - as suggested - they should feel free to bring the matter to the Court. I can certainly guarantee them a fair hearing.
>>Tim and Escade have made clear the reasons why they think Kris and Glen are biased in this case
>>Third, non-admin member of the court gives opinion that Tim and Escade were absolutely in the wrong and deserved their ban
>>"I can certainly guarantee them a fair hearing."
So who's going to give the fair hearing once all three justices recuse themselves?
Meanwhile, with a bit more time, let me go back and actually point out some of the worst bits of GR's update to the bans.
We received complaints and testimonies from a diverse group of TSPers. In general, individual complaints and testimonies won't be shared publicly, because those people deserve and reasonably expect a level of anonymity. The admins aren't going to do anything that will just give Tim and Escade ammo from wherever they plant their feet after TSP. Despite addressing the horrible behavior in TSP, NationStates is a very... porous and networked game, and it's the unfortunate case that they can continue attacking from afar, with plenty of regions that will gleefully offer them the platform to do so.
So we've got basically "people said they were mean," with no wording mentioning evidence, rather testimony, a a vague "diverse group of sources." I particularly like the concept that somehow giving them access to what they're being accused of would give *them* "ammunition" to use *against the admin team.* If the admin team has done this all right, what "ammunition" would there be?
There isn't one single event that led to these bans, though there were some significant incidents over the past several months. It's a behavioral problem overall, not a flame that happened on this day or a troll that happened on that day. Trying to provide a litany of quotes would likely lack the context that many in TSP already know. "Death by a thousand cuts" is the apt metaphor-- each individual cut doesn't seem that serious, but combined together it's deadly. As Tsu's OP says, the bans are in response to several months' worth of behavior problems, fighting, personal attacks, targeted bullying, a general (OOC/person-behind-the-nation) hostility that goes well beyond what the community is willing to put up with. People can fight and dislike each other in our open community, but there's a line. Is it clearly defined? I'm not sure that's possible, and part of our job as a community is to really talk about that moving forward, but the number of people who filed complaints speaks to the line.
This is all silly. If there were plenty of events, then there's a shitload of evidence out there! Sum up the context! Is TSP knows, why are half the posts in the thread asking about it? By all accounts, warning were given to both sides for behavior - explain why one side is now banned and the other is doing the banning, and how objectivity has been retained!
Warnings were indeed given many times, both formally and informally. First, though it wasn't given by any admins, the motion of no confidence was the original "warning," but being an inherently political IC act, it wasn't treated with the level of seriousness it deserved. That was a pretty in-depth look at the start of the behavioral issues. There were many private conversations between forum/Discord admins and private players, all that failed to result in any change. On the Discord side, there was a 48-hour posting ban (called a "timeout") that was applied to everybody involved in the specific argument that occurred at the time, but was issued broadly addressing the long-term problems. That didn't work very long, clearly.
"Warnings were given. But not by the people who give warnings. By some political stuff against them. Because for some reason that's the same thing as a moderation warning. Also both sides got a time out as the most recent escalation. After that was applied to both them and myself, next time there was an issue, I banned them."
Both Tim and Escade were given the opportunity to apologize for their behavior and alter their courses, and in return avoid hard consequences, but they both declined. Escade sent back a long response essentially saying she was justified. Tim feigned ignorance, saying he didn't know what problems we were even talking about. They were originally given 3 days to respond, but ended up getting 5. The ban was issued on the 5th day.
They both adamantly state they did apologize, and I love that "they're faking ignorance" is an excuse for not giving them reasons for their ban.
But wait, there's Tsu too -
I both want to support and contest what Glen said here. Regardless of "giving anyone ammo," it's simply impossible to lay this out in any way that's going to be effective. It was a continually build up of things and hostility. For two of the more recent examples, we have the continued smearing of Glen through his friend with Unibot and the assertion that Roavin was purposefully delaying votes.
While both questioning the admin relationship with Unibot and questioning Roavin's job as fine, in of itself, it just so happened to grave dig the Glen-Unibot thread after admins reached out and asked the users to apologize/clam down, which clearly speaks to the bad faith that thread was created in.
If it's impossible to make an effective case, maybe you should think about if you have an actually good case?
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And then two examples. Saying "hanging out with Unibot and giving him acceptance is bad" is
smearing now? I thought that was pretty widely accepted as
the right thing to say.. Also, accusing someone of delaying votes for political reasons is ban-worthy? Or wait, it isn't, it's "fine," but, to paraphrase, because "admin asked them to calm down" it's "in bad faith." (?????) Color me confused about what is even being *said.*
Regarding sharing the evidence with the region at large, while I would love to, I do think it's best we don't air the complaints in the open with permission. However, I will say various high ranking and highly respected players made complaints and, I think the responses of to this thread support the decision.
The responses, of which about half ask for proof? Those responses? Could you at least air them to the accused?
Finally, the parties were warned and invited to essentially apologize and just come to some semblance of civility. I'm not going to claim to know anyone's motives, but the response the admins were given from Escade included a defense of Discord posts from more than a year ago and Tim said he would be busy all week with IRL (which, certainly is understandable), only to post frequently in the FA forum.
So an apology with a bit of defensiveness and someone being busy are also ban worthy? Or is this more "fine" stuff, that's being described...to....can someone help me here?
Regardingless of the warnings, I think its important to note that this is a historical anomaly. The only other thing I can think of is when Fudge banned LR ... 12 ... 13 ... 14 years ago?
The bans? Or people who oppose GR and call him on his shit being driven out? Because idk about the former, but the latter happens a lot more often than a dozen years ago.
I also want to reiterate this is a gut-wrenching decision. Admins discussed it, decided on a course of action ... and, to be honest, I was still quite hesitant to do it. However, after us trying to reach out and smooth things over, we received another, unsolicited complaint from an long-time, well-respected and thoroughly unbiased member of the region. And that point, it was clear to me that something had to be done.
If it was so thought about, discussed, and and decided, why is it so hard to provide clear claims and proof of specific issues that are "not fine?" Is part of said discussion not clearly listing what claims are being made, with proof? That's kinda something that should definitely be a part of an admin investigation...