Any staff member from any where should not call a member of any community ‘Gross’ in any sense of the word.
You shouldn’t attack and belittle. Say that they’ve ‘already turned multiple people against you’ or that ‘you will permanently ruin your chances with people’.
Despite the claims of being someone else.
Even if the ban is justified. That is unacceptable. At least to me. I don’t stand for everyone. But saying that using those words are not threating and that it’s earnest advice is awful.
That’s far from any sort of advice. You are staff members. Not higher beings set out to give advice to sinners. You should focus on doing your job. Providing a clear understanding of a situation to someone, and providing support for either side. Regardless of right or wrong.
You don’t want to sweep this under the rug anymore because you have gone too far. Too many people have seen this and now have their own opinions on this and as such you have two options: fold or do as you’re already doing, continue to double down and give vague words as to why you can’t tell me ways to prove my innocence. If my previous lack of understanding and still not fully understanding VPNs is any indication, I probably can’t fake whatever it is you’re insinuating. I can use photoshop, but not to an amazing degree to create deep fakes and such. I feel like whatever you could possibly tell me to further give me information for my innocence won’t be as easy as a simple photoshop to spoof. You can of course reject that and say it is that easy, but I would never know since you won’t tell me what it is. I can only guess and as I’ve exhausted the proof that y’all say isn’t good enough, past actually talking to the individuals that can prove I’m not Pheonix at the very least, I will simply wait for Accipiter’s word and continue to fight against y’alls incorrect claims.
“Any staff member from any where should not call a member of any community ‘Gross’ in any sense of the word.”
Raeth did not refer to a person, he referred to a behavior.
“You shouldn’t attack and belittle. Say that they’ve ‘already turned multiple people against you’ or that ‘you will permanently ruin your chances with people’.”
Raeth did not attack Shinyzorua07, he described, quite accurately, Pheonix’s behaviors, and the likely consequences thereof.
-“But saying that using those words are not threating and that it’s earnest advice is awful.”
We make every attempt to reach people. There are points where frank, direct discussion is critical, and places where formalism is critical. Ultimately, it is a matter of making your best attempt to get through to someone. If it comes across as crass, that is unfortunate in certain contexts, but Raeth did not insult a personage, he described behaviors.
“You are staff members. Not higher beings set out to give advice to sinners. You should focus on doing your job. Providing a clear understanding of a situation to someone, and providing support for either side. Regardless of right or wrong.”
Our job is to guide the community. On occasion, that means providing guidance and advice to people who are struggling to live up to the standards of our community. On occasion this means making a decision which is to the detriment of one user in support of others. Supporting both sides is not always possible, support for one can be detrimental to many.
Our job is not to tend to the needs of individuals, it is to tend to the needs of the community as a whole. That means investigating circumstances and determining what course of actions serves the community best. Which means making efforts to help people who are harming the community turn around.
“this reads as “I can ruin your reputation, and you will have to fight decades to make it right again. Your actions have consequences.””
The phrase ‘you will’ implies it is prospective. Again, interpret this in the light that Raeth is talking to Pheonix.
“the worst part is that with the context, it reads like a villain giving a monologue just before they’re about to pull the lever that slays the hero.”
Or the part in a story where a concerned authority figure has a frank conversation with a character about the consequences of their actions.
" The worst part is you claiming to have read this and saying that you don’t see it."
I have come to a different conclusion that you regarding available information.
“fold or do as you’re already doing, continue to double down and give vague words as to why you can’t tell me ways to prove my innocence”
Consider that if there were no way that I could give you these ways, I would be saying the same thing as I am now.
“If my previous lack of understanding and still not fully understanding VPNs is any indication, I probably can’t fake whatever it is you’re insinuating”
Either your lack of understanding put you in the way to be a victim of circumstance, or is an element of subterfuge and claiming to not understand them bolsters your point. It is impossible to determine which. You say you can’t use photoshop, but that’s what you’d say if you photoshopped the images. The crux of the issue is that what you would say in either case is identical.
“whatever you could possibly tell me to further give me information for my innocence won’t be as easy as a simple photoshop to spoof”
It would not be, because we have nothing to give you. Working on user verification for cases like this is an ongoing problem we are working on, but at current time, we lack the means to perform any such direct verification. In essence, we have nothing to tell you.
" I will simply wait for Accipiter’s word"
Accipiter may be able to provide us with additional information. As I have stated, if he does, we will revisit our conclusions.
Heya, I just want to add that in our initial interaction after I invited you aside, you proactively declared that you weren’t Pheonix. That you immediately called the situation to light before I could say anything was so incredibly suspicious that I honestly believed you were Pheonix as a result. The actions I took and followed up on did not rely on that belief, but made me confident to address Phoenix, and given the context, I felt it was clear that was what I was doing. I expected to have precious little time to reach Pheonix with that message, and wanted it to be as impactful as possible as a plea to reform. I worry that their behavior will follow them, and I don’t want to see them suffer what I’ve seen other people go through.
I understand how those few initial statements directed at Pheonix could be hurtful if it wasn’t clear that I was speaking to them alone. I deeply apologize for any negativity they may have brought anyone, especially since that would be the exact opposite of my intent. I hope the time, attention, and reassurances I offered in our lengthy discussion after made that clear.
Still, even if I was focused on examining the situation and interacting with you, I could have done better by speaking to it as a contingency. I could have also qualified those statements better initially. That’s on me alone.
There is a difference between criticizing the behavior that a person does, and the person themselves. Frequently, disentangling the conflation of the two is one of our key tasks when we are attempting to guide people.
Thank you for the apology. While it won’t mend the feelings I have about you right away it is a step in the right direction and I respect that a lot. I figured out what was going on because she had said she’d been taken and questioned by you before. Seeing the name of the room made it pretty obvious to me. I did my best to plead my case, but as I said before you simply didn’t listen, said the things you wanted to say than banned me without a second thought. I hope that if there’s a next time you may have to talk to pheonix you start with patience and respect towards her instead of the animosity I felt and I’m sure she feels towards you and the rest of the mods.
I’m glad to know you’ve got nothing else to give me since that makes me feel like I’ve truly exhausted every option I had and then some. I hope y’all actually do reach out to my other friends or since that’s too much to ask, them to you to provide what little they may have to prove that I’m at least not Pheonix.
It’s still unprofessional in my eyes. Even if it’s about a behaviour, it was still used against Dust/Pheonix in a way that felt degrading and harmful.
From what I can read, at no point had Pheonix’s previous actions been brought up. Instead, they stated some possible outcomes of the actions that ‘Pheonix’/Dust supposedly made, in a rather aggressive tone, to someone who, ‘Pheonix’ or not, was pleading that it was not the case.
There was no word on it. No ‘We have you for multiple accounts of ban evasion’ until after the ban was issued, and Dust had to resort to reaching out themself via the forums.
Believe it or not, but a community is made up of tons of tiny individuals who all work together and play together, and make the realm, together.
To tend to the needs of the community, is to tend to the needs of those who make up the community.
If I, an individual, have a problem, is it not up to you lot to then come and help.
Does that not make functions such as help in the realm pointless?
This shouldn’t be a thought. You lot have these forums for these sorts of long, drawn out discussions. Instead of assuming you had little time to talk via ooc messages in the realm, you could’ve provided them with that info. Pointed them in the literal right direction, not a moral right direction, and had a longer, and better discussion with them, no?
If Pheonix/Dust hadn’t reached out, then you would’ve gotten the answer of whether they wanted to discuss and get help/reform.
But the fact is that when Dust did reach out, there was little direction he was given on how to help you guys.
Dust had already said he wasn’t pheonix, had already given you a few routes to go through to look at. The fact he had been around for a while, at least since around February time at my Guild, longer so at the Foxhole as I believe he had the tag before I signed him up at my place, that he was willing to give names of friends to reach out too that wished to support him.
I’m probably back-seat moderating at this point, and I apologize for that.
But surely there should’ve been a moment of ‘Hold on, maybe we need to check this out some more.’
I have mostly skimmed, I will admit, but Dust has been present at the Pokemon Guild since I started Wolfery. They’ve been nothing but kind in and out of character. I have no idea who the Pheonix is or their situation here on Wolfery, but even if Dust is this person, would it really do harm to leave them alone if they’ve been well behaved and no further reports have been slung around?
Again, no idea what the Pheonix situation was like to warrant their ban, but I haven’t seen any behavior from Dust in my months of interacting with them account multiple characters of mine ( some of which they’re unaware are even me, so it ain’t like he’s just nice to me since we’re friendly ).
Given the evidence listed in this forum so far I’m inclined to align with Kelmi on this one. Just looks like bad form.
As my final note for the night.
I have no recollection of ‘Pheonix’ myself.
Whether or not they had a member at my guild, or any interaction with me at all, is lost to me, I have a bad memory and tend to scribble things down where I can.
That said, As the owner of the Pokemon Guild, Dust has been kind, in and out of character, and has never shown to do anything wrong at the guild bar one tiny incident with a couple of others, in which he and they apologised for to me afterwards.
I did refresh my listing of members back at the start of July from scratch with those I saw around.
Dust is featured on there, and on my previously more scruffy version of the list that I made back when my area was added.
I am writing this final note here, for the fact that, even if it comes to no help to the mods whatsoever, that I wanted to mention that the reason I have been fighting this tonight was in support of my friend Dust. Regardless of if he is ‘Pheonix’ or not, Dust has done nothing to me for me to believe that is the case.
He’s kind hearted, and supportive. And has been a INTEGERAL part of my Guild and it’s popularity over the year.
Aw jeez-
Yes! I did not mean anything bad by this! I’m bri’ish my english suffers enough as is- i’m surprised I made it this far.
I meant to mean that he was an integral part of the guild.
Thanks for reaching out as well Brie. I hoped Luna kinda spread the word around to most about this so sorry if I didn’t think to reach out to you. I mostly asked others to reach out to those that actually rp’d with me and Pheonix at the same time. I do miss hanging out in the lounge with y’all and with your statement that will hopefully happen soon.
I stumbled upon it by other means, but always happy to help! I’ve never seen you act any sorta way toward me or anybody else. I haven’t been around much lately on account of some new and more demanding work, but I hope to come be SOCIAL at least soon again.
While I understand the idea behind the ban of Dust, I do hope the moderators take this whole kerfuffle as a helpful prod to action. I understand the mods are both volunteers and amateurs, but I think some of the language used in confronting Dust probably only stoked argument and didn’t help to calm things down. Conflict resolution is difficult at the best of times, and if ya’ll want some links to helpful materials on that, and dealing well with difficult people, and not provoking bad reactions in stressful situations, I can provide.
Also, I also hope there is some process Dust has access to where he can attempt to prove he’s not this Phoenix guy. Privately. I don’t need details on that. I mean, seriously, okay, he may or may not have convincing evidence, but everybody should have a ‘last appeal’ :).
Thanks. A lot of this has been immensely frustrating to me and many of my replies today and probably going forward towards the mods will show a lot of that frustration. There is a group DM I have with all the mods where I gave them all the evidence I could to prove I’m not Pheonix and they have said it’s not substantial enough or could easily be faked. The other route I provided was reaching out to some people that rp’d with me and Pheonix at the same time, but after asking them to see if the mods reached out they all said no. Fox later said if those individuals wanted to they could reach out to the mods which to me confirmed that he lied about that point. Thanks again for offering resources and such and I’m sure some, myself included, would like that even if it wouldn’t be a complete shift in tone and all that right away.
